83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 399: WCW Let Fans Book Nitro!

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad revisit the unforgettable episode of Monday Nitro where the fans booked the main event! Eric shares his thoughts on this bold experiment and how it helped shape fan interaction in professional wrestling for years to come. Plus, the guys welcome special guest — former WWE and WCW superstar Barry Darsow — to talk about his brand-new book, Sickles, Studs, and Stolen Cars. Barry and Eric also reflect on the infamous Blacktop Bully vs. Dustin Rhodes match that ended up costing Barry his job. And if that's not enough, Massive Heat's Raj Giri joins the show with the latest news and notes from around the wrestling world. It's a can't-miss edition of 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff! Order "Sickles, Studs and Stolen Cars" today! https://a.co/d/8KaQCxJ  BUTCHER BOX - Get free turkey or ham in their first box, or choose ground beef for life - PLUS $20 off your first order. Go to http://ButcherBox.com/83WEEKS  to choose your offer and get this limited-time deal, with free shipping always. MANDO - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code 83WEEKS at http://shopmando.com ! #mandopod 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! TUSHY - Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off Tushy with code 83WEEKS at http://hellotushy.com/83WEEKS  #tushypod STOPBOX - Get firearm security redesigned and save 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code 83WEEKS at https://stopboxusa.com/83WEEKS  #stopboxpod STEVEN SINGER JEWELERS - NO ONE DOES REAL DIAMOND JEWELRY BETTER. EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE AT STEVEN SINGER JEWELERS. ONLINE AT HTTP://IHATESTEVENSINGER.COM . ALWAYS WITH FAST AND FREE SHIPPING. THAT'S IHATESTEVENSINGER.COM  RAYCON - Raycon's going big for Black Friday and Cyber Monday — everything's up to 30% off! Just click the link in the description or go to http://buyraycon.com/83weeks  to save on Raycon audio products sitewide HARRY'S - Get the Harry's Plus Trial Set for only $10 at https://harrys.com/83WEEKS #Harryspod SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewithconrad.com to learn more.

Hey, just in time for the holidays, what if you didn't have to worry about any of that credit card debt? If you're feeling stuck making the minimum payments and you don't want to have to put Christmas on a credit card, we can help at save withconrad.com. We routinely help our listeners save hundreds of dollars a month. Find out how much money you can save right now for free at save with Conrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad the mortgage guy and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric miss y'all, Eric, what's going on, man? How are you?

I'm good, man. How can I be bad? Every time I hear that music, it just puts a goofy smile on my face. I love it. It does for all of us, man. We love the old NWO theme, and we love talking wrestling with you. And I'm excited because today we're going to be talking about Nitro from 30 years ago. I absolutely love this. I can't believe that we're able to do this. I want to give a quick shout out to Jason Taylor, who's one of our top guys over at ad-freeshows.com. He's been with us for a time want to show him a little love and then let's jump right into i can't believe this is real nitro 30 years ago november 6th 1995 this was of course at the coliseum in jacksonville florida you've got 9500 in attendance about 3,500 of those are paying a gate of roughly

$30,000 um so i guess we've gotten rid of all of the available tickets but it's not technically sold out. But that was just the process, the growing pains of WCW and Monday Nitro, right? You're still trying to find your voice and establish this new brand? Yeah, I mean, we established ourselves very competitively in terms of television ratings right off the bat. But it takes a while to activate the audience, right? It took us, I don't know, I don't remember off the top of my had, but I think it was a good year before all of the success that we had been having on television a night show actually manifested in terms of ticket sales. So it doesn't, unfortunately, people, fans like to think it all happens overnight.

You book a good card and all of a sudden everybody's going to show up. It's not the case, man. The professional wrestling audience in particular is very much hooked on the story. The story is very much dependent upon the success of television. and the successive television takes a good six months or a year to really gain momentum in a way that you can measure substantively. So that's kind of where we were at. We're in the probably the third inning of a nine-any game in terms of really been able to put asses and seats. Listen, I know whenever we say Jacksonville, all the AEW faithful, myself among them, our ears perk up.

But you and I've never really talked about Jacksonville as like a WCW town. But it does feel like WCW ran Jacksonville more than the WWE. I mean, I know it like everybody ran Chicago and that sort of thing. And I'm not going to go and say, hey, it's like Atlanta. But what was it about Jacksonville that you think made it more of a WCW town than maybe a WV? The distance between the town building and the CNN Center in Atlanta and 80% of our, 70% of our talent base, 100% of our production base. it was just close and easy and inexpensive. And because, again, you know, WCW didn't have the luxury of being able to pick markets

where we could sell out houses. WCW had never sold out shit up until Nitro came along. They always struggled, particularly for television tapings. They were brutal. I've talked about it many times. It was really, really difficult for television. And since there was nowhere we could go where we could say, yeah, we could either go to Jacksonville and maybe do 3,500 people, or we can go to, oh, I don't know, somewhere outside of Detroit to draw 10,000. Well, that wasn't an option.

So the only thing that was really important was, can we shoot television there structurally? Is the venue sound enough for us to be able to hang lights and bring in sets and all that stuff? Is it available? and how far is it from Atlanta? Those were our requisites at that time. So it was close like a lot of cities, you know, Anderson, South Carolina, is it south or north? They get them confused. Anderson's, I think, is South Carolina, obviously Charlotte, you know, Rome, Georgia, Athens, Huntsville, you know, Birmingham.

Those were all big enough markets that had enough of a population, had enough of, had a sufficient, venue, that's a great thing about the southeastern markets. That's why wrestling prospered there for so long is because each one of these communities had a really nice arena. Not a massive arena, but a great, you know, 5,000 seat, 7,000 seat venue, which wasn't too big for WCW, but big enough to give it kind of an arena feel. So there was a lot of those in the southeast, and Jacksonville was just one of them. So this Monday Nitro that went down on November 6th,

actually does a 2.3 rating that got a 3.2 share. That was enough to beat Monday Night Raw with a 2.1 and a 3.0 share. What's interesting here, though, is we've got an interactive main event of Rick Flair versus Sting and I guess the WCW champion, the giant defending the title against Cobra. Meanwhile, what was happening on the other show? Well, it was Jerry the King Lawler. teaming up with the evil dentist Isaac Yankum to take on Brett Hart and Hakushi.

The replay for Nitro does a 0.8 rating and a 2.4 share, but the raw rating is the lowest rating in more than a year. And of course, the, uh, the flare sting headliner has always been a positive and a go to and a, I don't know, maybe we put it behind glass and break it in case of emergency for WCW. but when you hear, hey, not only did we win, but Raw scored its lowest audience in over a year, you had to think, it's working, right?

I mean, you're the two women. No, we knew before November that it was beginning to work, because we, as we've talked about, we've been going back and forth in the ratings, but we'd been winning consistently enough that we kind of proved to all the naysayers out there, Gabe Meltzer and company that this really would work and we really were capable of competing with WWE because so many people dismissed us.

It was the, we were the laughing stock of what was then the internet wrestling community or that version of it back at the time for even daring to go head to head with WWE, Monday night raw. What the hell is Bischoff smoking? Ted Turner's crazy, whatever. But yeah, we did it. And at this point, we weren't cocky, but we were getting more and more confidence every day, every week. I do want to ask you about some of the other ratings.

I know we spent a lot of time talking about Nitro, but Meltzer would point out here that this is the lowest total wrestling audience on a Monday since this thing began, talking about the Monday night wars. And the weekend ratings saw WCW pull in a 2.3 for Saturday night, a 1.6 for main event, and a 1.5. for pro meanwhile action zone did a 1.7 which was its best since they've started climbing in their new time slot but overall wcw was seen in a 5.1 million different homes and the wwf at like 4.4 now i'm bringing this up because i know that for a long time wcw saturday night was sort of the a show for wcw but now with the introduction of nitro understandingably Saturday night is now the B show, which means main event and pro are still technically there,

but maybe not nearly as important as they once were. Where did that fall and what was the strategy for those syndicated shows? Was it more about just being a part of a network and servicing potential sponsors that way? Was it a real priority or were you just hanging on to those deals because they already existed when Nitro launched? Let's back up a little bit before I get into that. And that's a really good question. but we led off with, according to Dave Meltzer, this was the lowest rated of both shows

since the launch Monday Night's show. Well, you stupid person, I almost said something else. It was the first time, you know, we started going head-to-head in what, September? We are now in peak NFL. There's this thing called Monday Night Football. Did you not anticipate, you stupid clown that the ratings for both of those shows? Is that newsworthy?

Or did anybody have reasonable experience and intelligence and just a moderate amount of information to how shit works? Anticipate that. He made it sound like it was some big news story. And it's really not. It was to be anticipated. That's number one.

Number two, yes, obviously, when you have a primetime show that's live, that's going head to head with the competition, but even from a financial performance, perspective, if you look at the relative investment for the two projects to help determine which one is a priority. The WCW Saturday Night Show, I'm guessing probably we were able to produce two weeks of television for probably all in under $275,000, which is really, really cheap. Nitro, one episode, was over 500,000.

So just in terms of where are you investing your money, that dictates what's the priority. Nitro was clearly the priority in every way. But it doesn't mean that Saturday night and Sunday night's main event weren't important because from an advertising perspective at that time, Turner ad sales, cued, aggregated, added together the total of all of those programs and offered WCW

represented by the total number, the aggregate number of the content that we were delivering. That was one way they sold it. Syndication of the three, meaning nitro is number one, a priority. We'll call WCW Saturday night and Sunday night's main event a B and C priority.

The lowest priority, priority was the syndicated program. Syndication, particularly when we started shooting it at Disney because of the economies of scale, was relatively inexpensive to shoot. But we were selling that as part of a network, and the syndicated numbers really just weren't that strong. Syndication had been getting weaker and weaker and weaker across all forms of broadcasts and all forms of television, not just for WCW. you. Syndication used to drive professional wrestling along with cable because there was so much,

so many ad dollars spent in syndication. What is syndication for those people they don't know? Syndication are independent television stations and some of them are part of the, you know, big three networks, but a lot of them, you know, local television stations that carry programming. So you take your footprint, your total reach as a producer, and the aggregate of all of those syndicated markets, and that total number gets added to the QM or added to the big number. Well, the syndication number had been getting smaller and smaller and smaller, again, because syndication in general became less and less and less important

as cable became more and more and more important. Interesting. Fast forward to today. Cable is becoming less and less and less important, and streaming is becoming more and more and more important. So much like we're experiencing today with the financial stress that's on cable television, both the networks who are struggling to find ad dollars, obviously the producers because they get paid by ad dollars,

it's a real struggle right now. Linear television, as we all know, if you read any of the trades for more than five minutes, it's pretty easy to figure it out. But it's interesting. We're kind of going through the same thing, relatively speaking. So sorry for the in the weeds discussion, but I find it interesting that we're going through the same thing today that we did back then just in different formats. History is doomed to repeat itself as a thing people like to say.

And yeah, I think there's a lot of parallels between what you were doing in 95 and what's happening now. I know that one of the paramount things with Nitro that you felt would be a real differentiator between yourself and Monday Night Raw is you wanted to be live every week. Now, as a reminder, this started in early September. So here we are about two months in. And all of a sudden, you have to tape a Nitro. And we did a different van, which I thought was interesting.

You guys are going to be in Japan on November 13th. I'm sure this was planned far in advance with New Japan. There's a joint show that's going to happen on the 13th and 14th. So before we do the live show here on the 6th, we're going to record the show for the 13th. Now, that's interesting because these days, like in AEW's perspective, they'll do a live dynamite and then they'll record collision and the viewing audience, they're going to see things in order. We're going to put on our retro hat.

This is not necessarily new for WCW. They've been doing filming it worldwide for months in advance. And even back before you guys were taping at Disney, oftentimes the syndicated shows would be recorded out of order that wasn't unique to WCW held the WWF was doing that too. But tell me why the strategy made sense here in early November. Is it because you knew you had the sting Rick Claire main event and that's going to keep the live audience in the house?

So let's run it last. Or what is the thinking to let's record next week's show? first and then we'll go live with this week's show i honestly don't remember what what you know the the domino that fell first and required us to do that or make those decisions i really would have to go back and think through the circumstances in more detail but i i honestly couldn't tell you as i sit here right now what that strategy was there had to be what there was a specific reason for it i just i can't recall it off the top of my head well i tell you what you and i have a specific reason that we love Butcher Box, and it's plain to see, especially this time of year. You and I are

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Or you can choose ground beef for life. Plus you get $20 off your first order. Go right now to butcherbox.com slash your weeks. Choose your offer and get this limited time deal with free shipping as always. That's butcherbox.com forward slash weeks. And don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. Hey, let's talk about the dark matches that night here in Jackson. We got Johnny B. Bad beating Diamond Dallas Page for the TV to retain the TV title in about 14 minutes.

A quick one between the former Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Big Bubba Rogers. And then they're going to go ahead and start taping the November 13th Nitro. Now, as a reminder, the main event is going to be talked about by staying in front of the fans before the November 6th, Nitro went live on the air. And that way, the voting could get started. I guess, um, there's the answer. there's the answer. Sorry. We got to talk about this interactive idea.

I know we touched on it a little bit last week, but can you expand on that? Yeah, I mean, it was simply an idea. Look, when you produce television or even on the ad sales side of it, the common thread you'll hear in most conversations when it comes to the business of the television business is audience and games.

That's like the Holy Grail, the more audience engagement you can get. However you can get them to engage is what every producer strives for. Now, wrestling provides a lot more opportunities to engage the audience, creatively speaking, than scripted programming does. You watch your favorite scripted show on streaming. that show was probably conceived, written, produced, edited, and delivered over the course of 12 to 18 months. So there's so much time that goes into scripted programming on a large scale. Now, there's examples of it happening faster, but it's a very long-term process, scripted program.

Wrestling because it's live action, particularly when you're doing it live like we are or almost live. that's called Live to Tape, in case anybody's interested, it provides way more opportunities to engage the audience. And the voting aspect is just one way. It's a powerful way. If you can convince the audience that they actually have control, in a way, of what they're about to see on television, that's a powerful, powerful tool.

And this was our attempt to try to reflect that mission, try to achieve success with it, hopefully so that we can do it consistently. Were you ever concerned that hotline callers may go so strong in one direction that it wouldn't really fit what you want and you don't want to do that? I only asked because I know, gosh, it was at least a generation after this. There was a contingent of people who were watching American Idol when they're encouraging people to call in and vote kind of the same way. and they were pushing comedy acts, not people who they thought could legitimately win the thing.

And on some level, hey, fandom is fandom. But we've heard about this, even with like, you know, time man of the year and people making silly suggestions. Like I know one year,

O.J. Simpson, I'll only one or something crazy like that. Was there a concern for something like that here? Or you're just looking for engagement, good, bad, or indifferent?

No, it was definitely a concern. And we did things. It'll be hard for me to give you a real detail on the specifics of this. But, for example, on our first attempt, that one I seem to remember more than any others, I guess because you always remember your first one, right? That's what they tell me.

The way we teased it, the way we positioned talent. So, for example, if you had the heels in locker room A and the baby faces in locker room B, well, if you have a heel that you really didn't want to see on television, right? you didn't really want that particular heel to be a good choice. You kind of position that heel in the background. You hit him a little bit or her so that people weren't inclined to go rogue, so to speak. You tried to engage them with story to make the selection that you wanted and position the options, you know, from a camera work perspective,

to kind of help encourage things that way. But we also were prepared. if we had to because it was important, believe it or not, I know people who won't buy this, but it was important to me only because I wanted the integrity of this gimmick, or they say in television business device, I wanted the gimmick to work. And I wanted it to be something that we could go to on a regular basis, not every week, obviously, but maybe once a quarter going into a big pay-per-view or if we're trying to create certain stakes, utilize the audience's engagement to help us achieve the stake, which only makes the audience more invested in the

stakes at that point. So it's more psychology than anything, but I knew that if we didn't pretty much adhere without the manipulation I'd previously described, if we didn't pretty much deliver what the audience voted for, the word would get out. People would speculate that anyway. But if we knew, they knew that it was just a gimmick and it was a work, complete work, and the audience engagement was phony, then it would die a miserable death. So in order to avoid that, we were prepared to deliver, you know, on a contingency basis, if we got surprised. We would have done it. Let's talk about some of the things you did do.

You're going to have the giant here defeat Cobra. Giant, of course, is going to claim this was a title match, but you're on commentary and you're going to repeatedly say it's not a title match because the giant isn't champion. As a reminder, he's just in possession of the title. But I really wanted to use this chance to talk about Jeff Farmer, Eric. We've not spent a lot of time talking about him. I don't know that he really ever found himself in WCW until he got the NWO Sting gimmick.

And then, of course, we know he brought that to New Japan and experienced a lot of success. I mean, he carved out a nice career for himself over there. But what can you tell us? What do you remember, if anything, about Jeff Farmer before he found the NWO Sting gimmick? I really liked Jeff Farmer. I ran into him in Tokyo a few years ago when I was there for Masa Saido's service. I was asked to speak at that service. And Sonny and I went to Japan for an end.

Jeff Farmer was there. Not surprisingly. Jeff, great athlete, solid pro, committed, disciplined, gifted athletically, lacked a lot of charisma. Now, he lacked any charisma. Jeff, I say this with love. I'm just being honest. Because Jeff found a way to overcome that. Jeff found a way to become hugely successful by anybody standard in the business of professional wrestling by being different than everybody else in a certain respect. Because Jeff was so, I don't know to say it without sounding so negative, but milk toast. There was nothing we could do that would. Why baby face? Yeah, but not in a way that makes the audience connect to him.

More gray meat, more gray meat baby face. It's kind of there, right? Even though we had all the tools. So when we started looking, when we had the fake sting idea, it was like, okay, who do we find to do that? Because, I mean, physically, he's just starting height, weight, you know, body shape, proportion, all that. It had to be pretty close. Now, we had Andre Prientes, I think was his name, last name. He misprudenced that.

Yeah, he was our makeup, you know, makeup guy. So we had a lot of confidence that if we could find somebody really close to the body size of Sting, we could handle the rest. Or Andre could handle the rest. And Jeff was like perfect. It was like nobody better. And he was so good in the ring, technically. So there was no concerns there. Not that, you know, fake Singh was out there having 20-minute matches every other week,

but there still had to be, you know, physicality in the ring, and it had to look like sting. It was important. Because otherwise you can see through that pretty easily or at least hardcore fans could. So, you know, we tried Jeff out in that role, and he did exceptionally well, as we all know, that story played itself out for well over a year. and in the meantime, this is where Jeff got smart. Jeff's a very smart businessman, by the way. Very freaking smart.

Jeff was smart enough to carve out a relationship with New Japan. Now, everybody knows in the United States, the NWO was hugely successful in just about every way you can measure. Massively successful. And it was for a long period of time, relatively speaking. it was bigger in Japan. Now, the relationship with New Japan and WCW wasn't as in depth as people might think. It was really a talent exchange program based on monetary values.

And sometimes we'd make a lot of money off talent. Sometimes they'd make a lot of money off talent. I didn't try to take a percentage of their revenues when they used my talent. consequently they didn't try to negotiate for a percentage of WCW's revenues when it was a Japanese-based promotion, for example, if they had talent on pay-per-views and things like that. There was no monetary exchange. The only consideration was for the talent's time based on their overall contract amount divided by 12 months.

It was a formula. It worked. It was fair across the board. It was the only reasonable way we could figure out the deal. but licensing and merchandising was not a part of that. So we created the NWO Japan, obviously Muta, Chono, and it got over huge, huge, did a massive amount of money in Merit. More money than Japan has ever done in its history was done with result or because of NWO Japan. So Jeff Farmer, while we used him occasionally when we needed the fake sting, he was available a lot.

And because NWO Japan was so hugely successful, he got more work in Japan that he ever would have got in WWE or WCW probably combined in terms of the amount of money he was able to make. So it was a really good move for Jeff Farmer. It worked out everybody won because he did a great job as the fake sting. you know, it for a long time, or initially I should say, it really worked. I mean, people were like shocked that sting would do such a heelish thing. And even after it was revealed and, you know, acknowledged that it wasn't really sting, the fake sting did it so well and it had heat. I mean, we could go back to it from time to time.

Everybody knew, but it still worked. So it was a fun experience. And it was really just an experiment turned out really well. Another experiment you're running at the same time. And I don't know why we haven't talked about this more. But Paul White, who we're calling the giant here, these days we know him as the big show, had literally just started wrestling. Yeah.

And I believe he only worked one independent match before he main events Halloween Havocke for the big gold belt against Hulk Hogan. So obviously he has a lot to learn. But I do think it's more than fair. to say relative to his inexperience, he's got to be exceeding all realistic expectations, don't you think? Dude. He's, whatever he was, I don't even know how tall he really is.

I'm going to say six, seven, six eight. Oh, he's taller now for sure. Is he six, ten? If he's either seven foot or just under seven foot, whatever he is. I think he was about four 50 at this time. He could do a kipp. up like a gymnast, like a 92-pound high school gymnast can do. He could do a kip-up or 135-pound amateur wrestler can do.

When you see a guy who's almost seven-foot tall, somewhere in a neighborhood, the zip code at that point, of 400 pounds lay flat on his back and do a kip-up, it's kind of impressive. So I think there was a lot of confidence in Paul because of his unbelievable athletic ability and agility for someone so big. But also, this was a Hulk Kogan project, right? Hulk pretty much managed this from beginning,

you know, for the first year, almost 100%. But Hulk knew, and this is, you know, he was right about this, when you're a giant, you should work like a giant. I think Kevin Nash gave that advice to one of the ladies over at WWE recently. And she took that advice and, lo and behold, it began to work for. Right. And Paul White, because he was a giant, because Hulk Hogan had a very specific idea of how Paul should work, what he should do, based on what he could do, and what he should not do.

Well, the list of things he shouldn't do because he was a giant was relatively. relatively large, extensive. The list of things that he could do and Hulk wanted him to do, they were just a handful of things, three, four, five things. So from an in-ring execution point, it was a low-risk opportunity to put a guy like Paul in because of the limitations that being a giant who's being directed by Hulk Hogan, who had a fair amount of experience working with giants,

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sweat control, say goodbye to sweat stains, and say hello to long-lasting freshness. Don't let the meat sweats get you this holiday season. Your friends and family will thank you. Hey, I want to ask you about some of the interviews that are happening here. Mean Gene O'Kerlin is going to interview wrestlers in the, I guess we'll call it the heel locker room. Rick Flair, Big Bubba, Diamond Dallas Page, Robert Eaton, Stephen Regal, Scott Norton, and the Shark. Meanwhile, Tony Chivani is in the baby face locker room with Sting, Johnny Be Bad, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Alex Wright, Dave Sullivan, the nasty boys, and Mr. J.L. All of the wrestlers are acting kind of silly. Vote for me! I mean, that's kind of the the segment here, but I get what we're doing.

We're trying to get people to dial into the hotline. And I wanted to ask, I know this is silly, but it's Turner Legal, it's a big company. As a poll where you're requiring payment to vote, are you perhaps legally bound to go with the vote? Is that an urban legend? Like, how involved was Turner legal with this component of we're going to take votes, but they're not free votes? You have to pay to vote because it's through the hotline.

is that something you have to vet through Turner legal or are you just flying by the city of your pants at this point? No, we vetted it. We, we've vetted this one because what do they call these laws? There's maybe sweepstakes is the over. That sounds right. Or lottery. Yeah. Yeah, lottery laws.

That was it. It was lottery law, but it's basically a sweepstakes idea. That was an issue. So we did have to run this by Turner legal. and they came back to us with kind of the parameters, the guidelines that we had to work within and stay within, and that's what we ended up seeing on television. I do want to mention that there's going to be a segment here that's,

quote unquote, from Venice Beach with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage going back to their roots. And Hogan is asking Savage to stick with him on this walk through the dark side. And then there's this crazy old guy between them, sort of imitating Mongo McMichael. The segment is probably maybe best remembered for the inclusion, not of the crazy guy sitting between them, but Harry Perry, a Venice Beach boardwalk legend known for playing electric guitar on roller skates who improvises a little short song about the dark side of Hulkomania. Is this just another instance of Hulk experimenting and seeing, you know, hey, how can we tie back the roots of hanging and banging on Venice Beach brother? or what's going on with this segment here, Eric?

First of all, I know that guy. Do you really? Yes. I don't know if you know this or not, but I used to keep an apartment right down on the beach in Santa Monica, just off right near Wilshire and Santa Monica. So Lori and I, I pretty much lived there from about whatever the years where it doesn't matter. I lived there for about five years.

While we had our home, obviously, in Scottsdale, Arizona, Lori, Lori and I both lived there, but during the week, because it was like a $90 plane ticket, it was cheap, right? I would fly to L.A. on usually Monday mornings,

and I'd work all week, and either I would fly home back to Scottsdale or Lori would fly to L.A. to spend the weekend together, right? And that went on for a good four or five years. So I was down in that area a long time, and whenever Lori would come to town, we used to love going down to Venice,

We could walk there from where my apartment was in Santa Monica, and you'd walk down, you get down to the beach area, and it was about a three-mile walk or two-mile walk to Venice. And this cat is all where he will. I hope he's still there. And now it's been a couple of years since I've been doing this. But, man, on a Saturday afternoon, you would go down there and this cat would be going up and down, you know, the sidewalk in Venice, Venice Beach playing that guitar. And he did, he killed Jimmy Hendricks.

He was great at Jimmy Hendricks. So every time Lori and I would go down there, we'd hang with him for a little bit and, you know, made sure he had some money in the tip jar and had some fun. But yeah, I think this was just a, this is almost more like a profile piece. It wasn't just, it wasn't an afterthought. It wasn't really trying to accomplish anything other than establishing that, yeah, you know, Hulk Hogan, Venice Beach, you know, out in the sun, the big Golds Gym, you know, body millingaires right down to us.

street. So we probably just took advantage of it to, to shoot some great footage and create more of a vibe piece or a profile piece and anything else. All right, Eric, the next thing on the show that I kind of got to tell you, I'm not really looking forward to talking about because it's regrettable with the benefit of hindsight. We see the taskmaster Kevin Sullivan, who's managed by Jimmy Hart at this point, beat the renegade. Now, the announcers don't really acknowledge much of the history between Jimmy Hart and the renegade, but you may recall that once the renegade came in as an ally of Hulk Hogan, and that's back when Hulk Hogan was managed by Jimmy Hart.

Well, Sullivan's going to execute a flip splash over the top rope and then a double foot stop off the second rope, and that's all she wrote. Kevin Sullivan gets the win. But what happens next, knowing what's going to happen in the future, man, he kind of feel bad about. Jimmy Hart is going to wipe renegade's face paint off of the renegade after the match. And he says, you're nothing, you're not the renegade, you're just plain old

Rick. And this is the last time we see Renegade for a few months. It's essentially the end of the ultimate warrior knockoff gimmick and pretty much the end of him getting a push. I know this was, you know, regrettable and I wish we had to do over here, but man,

just reading that back, knowing that ultimately the real life Rick Wilson is going to take his life. Damn nation, you wish you had this one to do over again, don't you? Boy. It's an understatement. You know, you don't realize, and I, again, you know, now that I can look back 30 years later

with the benefit of a lot of experience and having been through so many more different, complex situations, all of which I wish I would have had the knowledge then that I do now, or at least the perspective, because it's easy to underestimate. just how affected people are. I mean, you heard, you know, here Barry Darso talking about his son and how difficult it was for Dakota to face the reality that he just really wasn't going to make it,

no matter how hard he tried after two years of training in WWE, getting an opportunity in TNA, there comes a point where you have to, as an adult, as a responsible parent in Dakota's case, or in my son's case, you have to make a decision and walk away from something. And it really, really is difficult to walk away from professional wrestling. Very talked about the television, the crowd, and the camaraderie. That's all very important part of it.

But there's also an individual self-worth and how they see themselves and what their goals are. And to have something like that take it away from me. you. It's really hard on people because it becomes part of your identity. You're not just losing a job. You're not just losing an opportunity. You're losing part of your character. And that affects people different ways and into different degrees. And, you know, I hope to God that what happened in WCW didn't contribute ultimately to Rick's decision. But I'm also, adult enough to realize it may have. And that's kind of a shitty feeling.

Yeah. It's putting it mildly. I hope that that's not the case. Were you talking to the real ultimate warrior? Were you talking to Jim Hellwig at this point? Call it November 95. Not, no. No.

No, I didn't have a conversation with Jim Helwig, aka Warrior, till whenever it was that I brought him in, 98, I think. It was the first time I'd ever spoken to him. This was a Hulk Hogan Jimmy Hart project. Jimmy, I think, is the one that brought Rick in. Jimmy's the one that advocated for this. I think Hulk had a lot to do with it, not directly to me, but through Jimmy.

This was Jimmy Hart's project. So I don't recall much of the development discussions again, because it was really Hulk and Rick and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, Jimmy, but I think it was a valiant effort, a misguided one at the time. The knockoff thing just was a bad idea, particularly when we've got a knockoff Andre, which, you know, again, that was an idea of, you know, the idea was to try to recreate something that really, really worked. And that's really difficult to do.

It's really best not to try to recreate successful gimmicks, and especially one like ultimately, It is such an obvious, you know, isn't it not a derivative, not inspired by, that was a direct rip off with no attempt to at least make it look a little bit original. And the odds of things like that being successful are so slim, it's not worth really trying. I want to ask, you know, I know you said you weren't talking to the real life Jim Hellwig at this point, but I can't help but notice that a couple of months after this is when, Jim Hellwig does sign with the WWF and he's going to come back at

WrestleMania 12 against Triple H and he's off to the races at least for a little while in 1996 before he lands here in WCW and 98 but whose decision do you think it is to move on here had Jimmy and Hogan moved on from it do you think Kevin Sullivan thought it had moved on or was this supposed to be the beginning of a different story for the real life Rick Wilson and for whatever reason it just never came to fruition. I would imagine because, you know, Kevin Sullivan, he was head of creator at the time. Obviously, he worked with me and ultimately I had approval over stuff.

But I gave Kevin a lot of rope. I didn't micromanage Kevin at all. The only thing I tended to micromanage was, you know, the Hulk stuff, the NWO stuff. But the rest of it was Kevin. And I think it was a decision that was probably made between Kevin, primarily driving it, pushing for a decision.

But I'm sure by that time, Hall of Cajumby both realized it wasn't going to work. And they were really by trying to force that issue. They were not doing Rick any favors either because the crowd wasn't buying it, not even a little bit. Let's talk about what else is next here on Monday Nitro. We know Maine Gene Oakland is going to interview a very hyper Rick player who's asking for sting.

and then we see Eddie Guerrero pin Chris Benoit, even though Benoit's feats are under the rope. His feats, listen to me. During the match, you're going to talk about the upcoming cruiserweight tournament, and they're going to cut away from the action so we could show Masahiro Chono, Sasaki,

Saido, and Jushin Liger, all sitting at ringside. Meanwhile, you're plugging the 900 pole, and you too are saying you want to see Flair versus Sting. Is Benwai at this point in kind of a holding pattern until he joins the horseman. Is that the thinking?

I mean, obviously you're showcasing two incredible great wrestlers, but we know that, you know, Chris Benoit is going to become a horseman at some point, and it feels like creatively and storyline wise, things are going to change for him when that happens, right? Well, of course they did. But there was no, you know, there was no plans for Chris outside of the Cruzeweight Division

until it became clear that, you know, he was a candidate for the four horsemen. I wanted to ask you about some of the new Japan talent. Why do you think it feels like there's a decision we're going to treat all of the new Japan talent as heels? Previously, we haven't always done that, but we are here. Is it simply because we're trying to lean into some brand loyalty of WCW versus New Japan with with the Starcade on the horizon?

Or is it just par for course that for as long as we can remember in wrestling, if you have a Japanese performer more often than not in the good old days of wrestling, they were a heel. They were the foreign heel. Is it just paint by numbers at that point? Or what do you think? No, I think it was, first of all,

the wrestler, the talent that New Japan had Chono, Mutha, Liger, I've been in WCW many times before this. And I don't know that he was brought in as a heel. He may have been. I don't recall. I don't think so,

but it's a possibility. But with the Japanese representation of NWO here, the eye was on let's create NWO Japan. Not going to do that with baby faces necessarily. So that was probably the driver behind the heel, the heel kind of character framework of New Japan at that time. We see Tony Shivani do an interview with Stinger, backstage and then you announced that the fans have picked sting versus flare so we're going to get

jimmy heart doing an interview and then we get sting and flare with the scorpion they got 12 minutes and 21 seconds and melzer says the same spots you've seen a million times between the two but still a good match and tremendous heat live flare got as many cheers as sting coming out but the crowd grew more behind sting as the match kept going even when sting left with luger flare was being being heavily booed. Luger missed his cue to come out and Bischoff said on television that Lugar was on his way to the ring a long time before Lugar came in. Bischoff was said to be really mad after the show and Hennon tried to cover three and a quarter stars. Is this just simply the perils of doing live TV where you frustrated that you didn't have the backstage organized? I mean,

you can't run guerrilla and do commentary to get over everything. Like, what, What do you remember, if anything, about this moment? First of all, I don't know that it's true. That's Dave Meltzer saying that reportedly Eric Bischoff was mad after the show. I ain't buying it. Could be true, but I'm certainly not going to take it at face value. That's typical Dave Meltzer nonsense. And if it was true, if I was pissed off, there's multiple times throughout the evening.

when you're doing live TV and shit goes wrong that one gets pissed off. It's called live television. It's part of doing live television. There are so many variables that can go wrong that you tend to get a little hot when they're self-inflicted. And usually that's just communication. So it's possible, but certainly not unique at all. Not noteworthy either. I want to talk about World War

3. In storyline here, it's that Jimmy Hart has gotten a signed contract from Hulk Cogan saying that if he loses by DQ, he would lose the title in his match against the giant. But then we would see Nick Lambros, who is the real life WCW attorney

come out on the program here and say that the contract did say that, but WCW is not recognizing the giant as champion. And instead, they're going to put the belt up for the winner of World War 3. So Meltzer would say, without that step, the Battle Royal concept would have certainly died on

pay-per-view. And he feels like the most surefire people to win this title at the Battle Royal, known as World War III, would be Luger or the Giant. So let's just break that down piece by piece. I like the idea, and I think most fans listening to this would probably recognize that I think a lot of us consider Royal Rumble 92 the very best one. It's a loaded roster, Hall of Fame there, but the title was on the line.

And when Rick Blair won, he became the WWF champion. Are you leaning into some of that or did you realize, hey, if we don't have stakes and we don't have a headline main event where we know there's two marquee talent, we've got to add some more oomph on this thing. Let's put the belt up or what is the thinking for that. That's exactly. There had to be stakes. There had to be jeopardy.

There had to be something to. to fight for. And that's exactly what it was. And I think, you know, using Nick Lambros, who came from Turner Legal, he was originally assigned, was assigned to us from Turner Legal as the liaison between WCW and Turner legal, because the way Turner was structured, neither finance nor legal reported directly to the president of WCW or the division. And that was true, not just for WCW.

That was the way Turner corporate was structured across the board. So any subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting, if you looked at the organizational structure, legal and accounting was a dotted line to the president of the division. Direct report was to either Turner Finance, Vicki Miller's group, or legal. So Nick was originally assigned as the liaison, but we worked together really well. Nick was one of those attorneys.

In my experience, there's two different types of attorneys. There are attorneys that know how to make deals happen, and there's attorneys that know how to make deals die. And there's very little in between. You either know how to, as an attorney, contribute to the end result being a positive one, or you contribute in the other direction. Nick was a dealmaker. He was an attorney that was an entrepreneur. That's usually the difference.

And eventually we worked together so well, and he began to understand the unique nature of WCW and the legal requirements that came with it and ended up bringing him in as VP, and then he reported directly to me. So he was a huge asset. And because of the way Turner was structured, Nick then had to report, so to speak, dotted line with who is the attorney.

I can't remember her name now. It'll come to me. But we had another Turner legal representative. Diane was her first name. I'll think of her last name. But, you know, Nick liked being on TV. Nick liked some visibility. I wanted Nick to have some visibility so that we could use him in that role.

It was pretty good on camera for an attorney. Usually they're real stiff. He was a little stiff, but he got better with time. I was going to ask you why WCW use so many real people behind the scenes, like the office people. Like I think Gary Jester was on TV and Nick Lambros was on TV and Harvey Schiller was on TV. Is this just an opportunity for Turner folks to, I don't know, have a little fun, do something

a little different? Maybe in some cases, I think Nick wanted, Nick enjoyed it. It's not like, you're like, I get on TV. it wasn't his ego, he wasn't trying to, you know, become a TV star. He just wanted to be a part of it. It was fun. How would you not want to be a part of that, right? If you had the confidence in yourself to get up and give it a try.

It was good for me because when you bring in somebody like an attorney, I don't necessarily want them to come off like an attorney that you would see on television. There's a certain advantage to the rawness and the uneasiness and, almost, I don't want to say unprofessionalness, but you just, you bring in a real attorney and you ask them real legal questions and they give you real answers. It helps create that illusion of, is it real or is it memorized versus coming, some bringing in an actor who's playing an attorney. The audience can see through that. Sometimes a rough, awkward, somewhat nervous executive actually looks like an executive and comes off. and makes the whole story a little bit more,

or seen at least, a little bit more believable. This appearance from Nick Lambrose is also going to mark, I guess, the end of Nick Bockwinkle as the on-screen figurehead slash WCW commissioner. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about his WCW stint on the show. Why did Mr. Bachwinkle finish up here in late 95? It doesn't feel like there was ever an on-screen explanation. There wasn't. It was unfortunate because I think.

think had so much respect still to for Nick, really put Nick up on a pedestal in terms of one of the very, and I still believe this to the state, one of the very best performers of his or our generation across the board. His promo skill, his ability on the microphone is second to no one. No one, even today, can look at themselves in the mirror and believe that they were,

that they're better than Nick Mockwickle was on the mic. He was so, so good. And his work in the ring, almost the same thing. But by the time, and I understand it better now than I did then, but by the time Nick got involved with WCW, things, the industry had changed so much, and the people in it had changed so much, that Nick was one of those veterans who just felt so out of place because he didn't relate to.

He didn't relate to a new way of telling stories. Nick came from the monthly territory world, right? That was predominantly where Nick built his career in the AWA in a monthly territory. But he worked the weekly territories. He worked Florida. He worked Memphis. He worked Los Angeles. He worked Southern California.

He worked all over the world. but predominantly he was a Virgaunya monthly territory kind of mentality. So by the time, and by the way, that was back when television wasn't the primary revenue stream, nor was pay-per-view. So Nick's understanding of the business from an experience perspective was limited to a point in time that made 1995 and some of the things I was doing on television seem. So absurd. The basics. Putting matches on a live free television show that you would normally keep for pay-per-view. That is, we kind of take that for granted now.

Back in 95, when I first started doing it, everybody including Dave Meltzer and every dirt sheet writer out there, suggested that it was going to be the death of professional wrestling. So, you know, Nick had a little bit of, bad in him, too. He wasn't really comfortable. And I think in a way, and I get this, I really do understand it now. I didn't then. I do now. He resented it. He resented the amount of money that guys were making. He resented guys who couldn't hold a candle to his work rate were making two, three, four times more money than Nick ever conceived of making. The psychology to the business had changed so much that it made Nick feel, and he was, to a degree, out of place.

And then the people that he was around, he was old enough to be their dad. There's that part of it, culturally. So the vibe backstage, the pleasure you just say, he was a black top bully, or Barry Darso was saying a little while. You know, that commodity that is such a big draw to being a part of the industry was no longer there for net. So you take all of those things and you put it out of the table and you've got a relationship that just isn't working. And that's really what it was. And it's unfortunate. I really regret it because I know Nick left unfulfilled and probably somewhat resentful because of everything I just talked about.

But it was pretty obvious to me that it really wasn't working. he really wasn't into it and it wasn't contributing to WCW any longer. Well, somebody who can contribute at your house is Stopbox. I don't want to give you a heads up. If you own a handgun for self-defense, your storage likely fits into one or two frustrating categories. It's either locked away, meaning it's safe, but it's out of reach in case of an emergency or it's unsecured, which means it's vulnerable to anyone.

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That's StopboxUSA.com. Use the promo code 83 weeks, and after you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Eric, it feels like forever ago, but 31 years ago this week, we had a whole bunch of WCW talent in ECW. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about 1994, but this is a year before Nitro. And ECW is holding its very biggest event. It's the second annual November to remember at the ECW arena in Philadelphia. Now, you might be asking, why are we bringing this up on 83 weeks?

Well, because this is the show where Chris Benoit legitimately breaks Sabu's neck. And Shane Douglas does a live promo that in two weeks, he's going to be bringing in some help to take on Ron Simmons and two cold Scorpio. And that's Steve Austin and the returning Sherry Martell, who had been his manager until she signed with WCW. Let's talk a little bit about the newsletter version of this. I guess Kevin Sullivan is going to be in a match that's announced on TV, and it's written that this was a negotiated settlement between both WCW and an ECW,

because when the World's Collide pay-per-view happened, they had used that name, when World's Collide was actually an ECW idea, and now WCW is going to use it with AAA. so maybe there's a talent exchange. Does that the way you remember this coming about or what led to this unique partnership as brief as it may have been between WCW and ECW?

And it's just some Paul Heyman fecocked a scam to get talent cheap by threatening lawsuits. Paul did that all the time. And it did it effectively because, see, Paul understood having been in WCW for quite a while and being the intelligent, astute wrestling personality that he was and all that came with it, worker,

Paul knew that WCW was very lawsuit adverse. Paul knew, just like I did when I was a talent, because we would joke about it together, that if you sued WCW for $100,000 or less, Like if you needed a $75,000 payday, like you're at real financial trouble. You're a talent, not really getting booked much. You need a quick payday. Sue WCW for under $100,000 and you're going to get paid. Because the threshold in WCW legal at that time was anything that might possibly get publicity,

meaning if it's associated with WCW, and it could hurt Turner Broadcasting, and it's under $100,000, just write a freaking check and make it go away. That wasn't my approach. That wasn't Nick Lambros's approach when he came to WCW as an attorney. That wasn't Diane Myers' approach who filled Nick Lambros's role with Turner Legal. But that was Turner Legal Executive Approach is WCW, less than 100 grand, potentially embarrassing, write the check. Paul knew that. So whenever there was anything that was a little kabuki-ish,

that could look like the basis for a legal letter threatening a lawsuit, it would get legal attention, legal's, the legal department's attention, which means it would work its way back down through Diana Myers at that time or whomever, and it would work their way down through them to me, and I would be, I want to say forced, but yeah, forced to try to accommodate whatever it is Paul was trying to negotiate as a part of a settlement. that's what that was. There was no cooperative kind of,

hey, let's do something together. It was really Paul just leveraging a situation to create a story and get, and get talent that he needed for this event. Well, Texas Jack has been allowed to work for ECW while he was under WCW contract in the summer in 94. Terry Funk had been working for both companies simultaneously as well.

at this point, did you see ECW as just like an indie date that guys can get on their days off? I mean, I know it has a little bit of internet buzz, but they only had TV in Philadelphia and maybe the Sunshine Network in Florida. And I imagine some of this became kind of controversial because Cactus had spit on the WCW tag team title trying to get the idea across in his promo that the loss to Sabu meant much more to him than the tag titles. Does a thing like that when it happens, does it make you less inclined to trust Paul Heyman? Oh, I never trusted Paul Haven. Okay. Keep in mind, I started working with Paul Heyman in 1987. This is 1994.

It's not like I didn't know who Paul Heyman was. And by the way, when I worked with Paul starting in the AWA, I was, you know, I was entry level. Paul had been into business longer than I have, but Paul was working on the promotional side of the AWA, along with a local promoter from Florida by the name of Robert Russo. So I got a really good look at how Paul operated and who he was for a number of years. So by 1994, and when I say I didn't trust Paul, I mean, I admired him, respected him.

I also knew what he was capable of doing as a worker. He was smart, manipulative. He understood the voice. He understood the business. And he understood Turner Broadcasting. So I had a pretty good sense of who Paul Heyman was and what he was capable of in 1994. How much of this do you think is Kevin Sullivan's closeness with Heyman? It does feel like since Kevin Sullivan is working his way up to being one of your right hand guys.

and we know that, you know, he has a relationship with Heyman and he liked messing around with ECW. That's got to be the connective tissue between the two divisions. Yeah. Of course it was. And you really saw that later on. When guys started leaving ECW because of, you know, the financial situation they were in, um, there was,

you know, Kevin Sullivan was the pipeline. I mean, he was the gatekeeper for talent that wanted, that wanted to leave ECW and get a shot in WCW. It all came through Kevin. I didn't even know half the guys. I mean,

I knew who they were. I knew their names. She said their name. I'd be able to picture who they were, but it's not like I followed them, paid attention to their careers and what they were doing and what they were involved with in ECW. I never watched the show,

for God's sake. I don't even think I could get it at where I lived in Atlanta at that time. What, if any, value, did you think you could extract out of ECW? only ask because I know that Vince saw value there almost like a half-ass developmental or, you know, if he couldn't figure out exactly what to do with a talent, he'd send them down there, see if he couldn't get a fresh coat of paint on them. I don't think that was ever in your plans, though. Was there any value or was it just doing favors for people that you worked

with and were easy? It was opportunistic. It was an opportunity for, I guess, I don't remember the relationship. I don't know how I, let or why I let Cactus Jack work with ECW in 1994 that had to be a unique situation because typically I wouldn't do that and I'll explain why

if someone came to me and said hey Eric I have an opportunity to go work a date for a really good friend of mine I came up in the wrestling business with him and he's got a small promotion I'd really like to be able to help him out keep in mind WCW talent were under exclusive contracts.

There were no relationships with talent under contract that allowed them to work outside of WCW. And one of the reasons was injury. So we make a financial investment, and this is probably still the case today, I'm sure in a lot of cases with WWE, or AEW for that matter. You don't, if you've got really expensive,

or even mid-tier talent. You know, in today's market, if you're paying some of the $100,000 a year as a talent, that's a big investment. And the last thing you want, after you've had that talent on a roster for two years, three years, whatever it is, you're trying to develop that talent. The last thing you want is them to go take a date for 50 bucks and break a leg. Because now your investment is down to twilight, or at least on hold for a long period of time. And it was that reason why I typically wouldn't let somebody under an exclusive contract do a date for an ECW or anybody else that we didn't have a financial contractual relationship with.

So I'd really be curious to how that one happened. That surprises me. It had to be a reason for it. And maybe it was Mick saying, hey, I'd really like to do this and me say, fine, I don't care for one shot. Maybe that was it. I just don't remember. But I looked, how did I look at them? I didn't.

I know you, it's hard for people to understand now, but if you talk about 1994, ECW didn't exist other than what I'd hear about people talking about. I never saw it on television. It wasn't available. When I did see tape of it, it was like, well, that's certainly not a threat. It wasn't a threat to anybody

because I knew it would never be viable for commercial television. Let me give me an example. Now I'm going to keep that discussion out of it. Never mind. There's, to be fair to the audience, there is a mixed martial art promotion out there that I personally enjoy watching. And it's very physical.

It's a bare-knuckle fighting championship. I can't talk around it. David Feldman, Osiris Fees, who's one of their announcers, I've been to a couple of their shows. The fighters are great people. The shows are unbelievable. They're really,

really great MMA shows, but they're bare knuckle. So it's a little bloody, as one could imagine. Head wounds typically are in the second or third round when your heartbeat's going about 140 or 160 beats a minute and you've got a dash in your head or face. It gets really ugly, really fast. It makes it hard for linear television to embrace or advertising. right? ECW was that to professional wrestling. Even though it was professional wrestling script entertainment, it was so gory, so bloody that I knew at that time, there was no reason to pay

attention to it as a potential competitor because that product would have never made it to primetime competitive television. Could it live in sub-cable universes, small cable universes, Sure. Little local independent stations where you had to wrap yourself an aluminum foil and stand on a roof with a television on your lap. Yeah, they could get on TV there. Eventually they made it to TNN, but probably had to tone down the programming accordingly. But in 1994, they just, I just didn't care, to be honest with you. Well, something that we care about is I hate Stephen Singer. you know, all the other jewelers absolutely hate Stephen Singer. And why is that? Well, because Stephen Singer has the best real natural diamond stud earrings in America. Everybody knows gold and

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Go find something for your sweetie this holiday season right now at I hate StevenSinger.com. All right, Eric, we don't normally do this. In fact, we kind of pride ourselves on being no guests needed here on 83 weeks. But there's a brand new book that I couldn't wait to talk about. And I thought, hey, what better time to invite another Minnesota boy to the program. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Mr. Barry Darso. Barry, how are you, man?

I am doing phenomenal. Thanks for having me on. Man, that's great. Good to see you, man. Yeah, good to see you guys too. Barry, tell us a little bit about your book. I'm pretty excited about it. I had a chance to preview it.

Sickles, studs, and stolen cars, the many faces of Barry Darso. How does this book come to be, man? Well, I don't know. I've, you know, kind of go out of town, sign an autograph. two, three weeks a month all the time. I've been doing this for a few years now, and all the fans keep saying very, when you're going to write a book,

when you're going to write a book? And I never thought that I would write one, but I got with a couple of guys, and they said, yeah, you got so many stories to tell. And that was kind of the problem. There's so many stories, I didn't know where to put in the book. So I thought, well, when I just go back

and talk about a couple of my friends back in Robbinsdale and how I got into the wrestling business, And that's really how I got started. And it really felt good to start telling some stories. I couldn't remember a lot of things. But as I started, you know, thinking about some of the stories, it refreshed my memory to a lot of them that, you know, I really enjoyed thinking about them again. So there's some, you know, funny stories in there. There's some serious stuff in there.

Talk about my family. Talk about my wife, my mom, you know, God. So it was pretty exciting doing it. Well, I know fans will dig it. You can find it right now available on Amazon, both as a paperback or as a Kindle download. And in fact, if you have Kindle unlimited subscription,

it's included with that. You're absolutely going to love it. And Mr. Darsoe, I know it shouldn't define your whole career, but I suspect the main reason a lot of fans want to see you and Eric interact is specifically what happened back in March of 1995, Bob, under some rather controversial circumstances. Can you tell us what happened there, at least from your perspective, Mr. Darsoe?

Well, from my perspective, I'm assuming you're talking about the black top bully. Yes, sir. First of all, I got to say I really like Eric. Eric's been a great guy to me. He's a friend of mine. And I totally understood what he was doing. I just didn't like what happened. But, you know, he was the boss at the time, and I had to do whatever he said to be on.

So when I was the blacktop bully, when that was created, I thought that that was a great gimmick. I thought I was going to go a long ways with that gimmick. I really enjoyed it. And they put a lot of money into the gimmick. You know, I ended up sitting ringside and was screaming at Ricky Steamboat and Dustin, roads and a few other guys. So I was getting a pretty good push and I actually was in jail in Atlanta and Colonel Parker came and got me out of there. That's kind of how the whole thing really started working. What all built up to a match in a truck and it was at an uncensored

pay-per-view and Dustin and I, we thought we had one of the best matches we've had in the long time. I mean, it was fun. And it was a tough match. So it wasn't. something where you're going to be doing some high flying moves and spots and all that. It was just a, you know, a match in the back of a truck. And when we got all done with the match, we were laying in a field. And I looked at Dust and I said, dust, what a hell of a match. Thank you. And we hugged and we thought everything was just great.

So I was living in Charlotte at the time. And I went back home and told my wife. I said, oh, what a night. We just had a great match. and I was beat up. I was hurting. It was a match that I've never had before. And the next morning, the phone rings, and it was Eric on the phone.

And Eric says to me, he says, very, I got good news and I got bad news for you. I said, well, Eric, what the heck? You know, give me the good news. He says, you had one hell of a match last night. And I said, what's the bad news? He says, you're fired. I said, fired? Fired for what?

And he says, well, you guys bled in that match. And they didn't, the office did not want that. And you guys did that. And I tried to explain to him, well, that's what Mike Graham had us do. And my whole career, whatever the boss wanted me to do, I did. So anyways, Eric said to me, he says, please don't give me any, you know, grief about this or anything. I promise I'll hire you back. He says, if you can just do this and leave on good terms and everything, I'll hire you back later on.

I said, Eric, if that's what you got to do, I said, I'm with you. All right. So it ended up being later on, he did hire me back, did exactly what he said he was going to do. So that was how I seen it. I mean, it's exactly what happened. you know and I you're sorry I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit while you're telling a story about the good news and bad news phone call because that sounds exactly like exactly like what I would do um but you know you weren't you weren't mean you weren't upset you were you were talking business and and we were friends I mean that's you know and I understood it that's you know my whole life in this wrestling business I always knew who the boss was I knew you know, what my role was at all times. And I treated it like a business, just like when I owned my business,

I wanted my employees to do what I wanted them to do. And that's how I looked at the business. So when you called and said that, you're the boss, and that's what it was. No, and I appreciate that. And I was excited to bring it back for a lot of reasons. But what I could have done differently, because I always, you know, when I go back, we hear these stories and I kind of think about both sides of the issue, right? And now I always think about, okay, now that I know a lot more than I knew back then, in terms of how to handle situations, because I was learning on the job, quite honestly, faced with situations I had never been involved with before. I never seen anybody else be faced with.

It was just every day, it was something new. and this was one particular hot button that came from corporate. One of the great things about WCW is for a long time until about 98. Like corporate didn't want anything to do with wrestling, so they left me alone. They didn't even want to really know I existed. They didn't want us in the CNN Tower. So there was very little interference from corporate.

But the one issue was bleeding. And it was primarily because every time we did, did it, Vince McMahon would go on some, you know, mail-in campaign and not only, you know, bombard Ted Turner and other Turner executives, senior executives, like executive committee level, executives, but also congressmen and senators. So it turned into this big thing. So when corporate calls me and says, Eric, no more blood, I didn't get a chance to defend it or argue it or find a way to mitigate it. I just had to do exactly what you did. and then when Mike Graham, who really deserves the blame for this, because Mike knew better,

I should have fired Mike. I regret the fact that I didn't because it was unfair that I didn't. He should have been in the same conversation that you and Dustin ended up in. And that was my mistake in terms of. But you did fire Mike too. Yeah, I thought so. I thought then I handled it like a pro. Right.

But the only thing I was thinking of after you, I mean, I was after the match and I was so tired and, you know, it's just like, it's like, yeah, you know, whatever you want to do. But the first thing I thought of was, well, why didn't we do an angle out of that, you know? I mean, I could have went and apologized to everybody and this and that and told them that the barbed wire cut my head up. And I could have, you know, we could have made a heck of a deal out of this thing. We could have, but I had a whole room full of Turner executives that didn't want to hear about angles or storylines. They gave me an order. I failed to follow it. I had to show that I was taking action.

It was a confidence issue at that point between WCW and management. Had I not fired people, even if it was just to make an example, because that's all I was doing, as I mentioned to you, just let me do what I need to do to solve the problem that I have, that I wasn't even. been really able to understand or explain to you guys in sufficient detail. But yeah, there was no angle. There was no way to work it. There was no way to mitigate it. I had to do what I had to do. Keep my job.

My work I think came back as the blacktop bully, you know. So do I. Because it was a good character for you. I mean, it fit you. It was something that you enjoyed doing. And it wasn't something that was such a stretch for your character. You know, it was funny, too. because when I came in there, Flair was in charge there when I first got there.

And I met with him and he says, Barry, he goes, I really want you to create a gimmick, you know. Because I've always told everybody, I said that the hardest gimmick for me was Barry Darso. I cannot be Barry Darsel. I said, I don't know why. When I get out there, I just can't be Barry Darcy. I got to be something. And he says, well, try to think of something. and create a character.

So I called up Arne Anderson, and I said, Arn, I need some help. I said, let's meet Bobby Eaton's garage. And we all lived in Charlotte, and Bobby had a couch out there and a ping pong table. So Arn, Bobby and I are in there and we're drinking some beer and had probably, you know, eight, ten beers. And I told Arn, I said, Arn, I need to get a gimmick.

You know, what am I going to do? And he says, well, let's have a couple more beers. He's sitting back and all of a sudden, you know, he looks at me and he takes his glasses, he puts him down on his nose. He says, you're the black top bully. And I said, I love it. The black top bully. And that's how the whole gimmick started and came up. That's funny.

Now, very, I got to ask you because my wife is sitting across from me here making a snack. didn't you date my wife's best friend? Yeah, Joni Landware. Yeah, come on over here and say hi, Barry. She hates me when I do this because she doesn't have to make it bad. She's been outside. Oh, you do. I'm blind as a bad.

I can't tell. She could be sitting on my lap like her tell. Lori, what's going on? How are you? I'm great, Barry. How are you? I can't complain. And I'm, I got the greatest life in the world.

I'm the happiest guy in the world. I just, I love living. Bravo. We feel the same. Life is good. Yeah, yeah. So how do you like the cover of that book? Where's the, oh, wow.

That's wild. It'll stand out on the shelf. I love it. Yeah, like I was telling these guys, I never thought I'd be writing a book, but it was, it was fun to do, and it brought back a lot of memories for me. The hardest part, though, is I got, it's 300-some pages in there, and I could write 10,000 pages, but nobody would ever read it. Yeah. No, people don't want to read anything too long these days, so 300 pages, you nailed it.

Well, Warren, you're doing good then, huh? Excellent. No complaints. Well, I met Garrett a few times, and he took me and my son out one day, and, uh, he took me and my son out one day. we were drinking, I think, moonshine one day or something. Yeah, he got us a little out of control, but I love him. That's our guy. You actually went to the same school as Barry, right?

Isn't that right, Eric? They went to the same school? Yeah, I went to the same high school. And Lori had a friend by the name of Joni, and Johnny and Johnny and Barry were a eighth. and that's how we all do each other. Rob would still kick out a lot of wrestling talent. Well, I tell you, at Minnesota, we just, you know,

I live in Michigan right now, and it was really hard when I left Minnesota to come here, and I moved here because my son lives two miles from me, and that's where the grandkids are. I would never see them unless I, you know, moved here. So it's a little different having a Michigan driver's license than a Minnesota driver's license. Yeah, well, Lori and I are kind of faced with the same thing right now.

You know, we work pretty hard and are proud of where we live and kind of always thought of this as our forever home that we could pass down to our kids. But now that we've had a grandson down in Florida, I'm forced to kind of reevaluate the end game a little bit because every day that goes by that we're not with our grandson is an opportunity to share stuff that we're not going to have. And there's only so much time, right? Right, right. Especially with kids because they grow so fast and they change so fast and you want to be a part of that. So I understand what you did and how hard it was because I'm kind of facing that situation myself right now. Yeah, and I got all my friends calling me all the time. When are you coming home? When are you coming home? Well, it's hard to, you know, get there when I'm on the road two or three weekends a month. It's hard to make a trip over there just, you know, but I miss everybody there.

But I got a good home here so I can't complain. What part of Michigan are you in? I'm in Ross Common, Michigan. I'm 90 miles south of the McDonough Bridge. It's kind of up in the middle of nowhere. Wow. You're in a beautiful part of Michigan, dude. Yeah, it's incredible fishing, hunting.

People are great. A small town. If there's four or five people at the stoplight, it's a traffic jam. No, you're in a, you know, people don't realize how beautiful northern Michigan is. obviously the upper peninsula is kind of its own country in a way, but where you're at is good for you, man, good for you. Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask you, so the black top bully, how come when you brought me back, you didn't keep me as the black top bully? I don't know. I don't know. Barry, I read the story in your book, but I think as the story goes, when Dustin is released from WCW, he goes and eventually several months later, joins WWB and becomes gold dust. And I think you were trying your hand in car sales. And one day just call up Eric and Eric hires you back and you came up with the new gimmick.

Tell us what was going on there, how that all went down. You know, I really can't remember all of it. I was with John Nort at the car lot and John and I were sitting around and we called up Vince. We talked to Vince for a little while and laughed. And then Eric brought us in for a TV match in Minneapolis. And then it ended up being where he had me up to the office up in Atlanta. And we just talked. And that's when he hired me up there.

So really, I didn't know what I was going to do. I was, you know, Barry Darso. And, you know, at that time of my career, it wasn't like I was going to be, you know, a top, top guy. I was pretty beat up and hurting. And, you know, I was just thankful to have a job. And he ended up giving me one of the best jobs ever. I never had. It only worked about two days a month and that paid good money. I mean, it was, and I remember Eric, you told me, you said, Barry, he says, you know, he says, you don't have to,

you know, work every day here. You can enjoy yourself and you deserve a retirement kind of a deal. And that's, that's when I came and that's why I was. Before I forget, I wanted to ask you, Barry, we took one back in time, but you mentioned, Dakota, your son, a couple of times. How's that? Dakota doing? He's doing phenomenal. He's a sergeant at the Ross Common Sheriff's Department and a K-9 officer. I am really, really proud of him. He's just a really good kid. And he's a hard worker and very serious about his job. He loves it. Is Dakota, for people that don't know, I got a call from Bruce Pritchard. Bruce might have been in T&A at the time or was just before he got to

and I can't remember. But he said, hey, you know, Dakota, you know, we'd like to give him a shot. And I thought this would be a great opportunity. Anyway, however Dakota got in there, I can't remember the specifics of how he got in front of us. Barry, maybe you called me. I don't even remember. I thought it was Bruce, maybe not. But anyway, we gave Dakota a shot.

Dakota came in and worked with Garrett and West Briscoe for a little while. So Dakota had some time in T&A, got some camera time, he had an opportunity along with West Briscoe. And then Dakota went off and joined the police department. And I believe, very correct me from wrong, he's a canine officer, trainer. Yeah, he's a canine officer. In fact, when he was, he had a contract with the WWE,

and he was there for two years, and he was starting to really learn how to work, and he did incredible. Then when he got with you guys there, he was just kind of, you know, he knew how to do everything, everything, but didn't know really how to take charge and do it. In the last few matches, he took charge and he really came on and he looked fantastic. And, yeah, you gave him a break, and Hulp gave him a break. And then right before he left there, Hulp told him, he says, Dakota, I'm going to be leaving here.

He says, I don't know if you want to stay here or whatever. I don't know if it was you or, you know, I don't know if you said it or whatever, but he said, you might want to try to go someplace else. So he called me up and he says, Dad, what do I do? I said, Dakota, get out of wrestling. I said, you always want to be a cop. I said, you know, and at that time he had a son and his wife was with him right now. And I said, just get out and get a regular job.

Because I said, if you don't have a job with the WWE, it's going to be hard to make good money and and you know it broke his heart because he was just really getting good at matches with you know learning how to do all this stuff so um as his as his dad i was excited that he did get out because i knew how the business was and if you're not one of the top guys making good money it's a tough business i had i had the same conversations with garret for the exact same reason at the exact same time so and he misses it and he just still wishes he was doing it you know But, well, you know, you get the itch and being around all the guys and the excitement and the TV and everything. And it just, it was tough on him.

You know, and he gets calls all the time, you know, to go in the ring. And it's like, no, I can't do it anymore. That's not my job anymore, you know. Good. I'm glad he's doing well. He's such a great kid. You know, do you remember the conversation you and I had in the office? We got to laugh about this.

I was up in the office. and you said to me, I was sitting in the chair and you said to me, Barry, so what kind of money you think you should make? And I said, well, Eric, I think I'm, you should be making about $2 million. And you looked at me and you laughed. And I said, who do you laugh at? And he goes, how can I justify that? And I says, well, if you let me beat Hulk in about 30 seconds and let me beat Claire

and beat all these guys, I'll be a top guy, and then it'd be worth about $2 million. That's a good laugh. And you looked at me and you laughed, and you said, yeah, that's not going to happen. Well, because I'd heard that, because I heard that pitch before. Everybody that came in looking for a job

wanted to do exactly what you wanted to do for the same place said. But, I mean, you asked, so I got to tell you. That was a good try. Yeah, I can't say, oh, yeah, Eric, I'm only worked 20 grand, and I'll take a contract for that, you know.

This is exactly what I would expect from a Minnesota use car sales. So Conrad. Yes, sir. So Megan Flair. Yes, sir. How in the world did all that happen? I met Megan way, way back when I first met Rick. Well, here's how happened.

He introduced us. And ta-da, now she has a new last name. I'm a hell of a salesman. What can I say? Yeah, I bet. She's the same version of Rick. Yeah, I haven't seen her for years, so I don't even know, you know, I don't even know if I'd recognize her if I seen her. Probably wouldn't. She's been bodybuilding. Now, I haven't seen Megan in a while, but I've seen pictures of her.

Wow, is she still competing? Oh, yeah. She only did one competition this year, but she's refo. focused in a different area. You know, when you do these fitness competitions, there's like five or six different versions of it. And so yeah, she's adjusting the sales a little bit, but she was, she was training in Tennessee today. She's full speed ahead. Unbelievable. Good for her. I did see a picture. When, when I found out that I was going to be on your show, I got a picture over and seen her bodybuilding. Unbelievable. Yeah, we're proud of her. She's doing a great job. That's huge. And you did a great job with.

the book. I want to give it another plug here. If you haven't already, I encourage you, go check it out. It's available on Amazon. You can also pick it up. Well, pretty much anywhere you enjoy books. I've got a Kindle. I got it there. You can too. Sickles, studs, and stolen cars. You're going to learn everything about Mr. Darso's career. He talks about breaking in. He talks about working for the Crockets. He talks about working for Vince. You get the whole demolition run. You get the repo man stories. You get the black cop bully stuff. And maybe the favorite. it. The golf gimmick. I mean, you had to have more fun with the golf gimmick. Because that's just the perfect way to wind down a national career, Mr. Darsoe, with a passion

like that. I'd tell you, I've loved every gimmick, just being part of it. My whole thing with the golf deal was, I was hoping to talk to John Daly and have him come in be my manager. Because at that time, I really was golfing. I was a seven-handicap. and I thought it could get better. And I wanted to go on the road and do celebrity golf tournaments. And I wanted to do a whole bunch of stuff for Make-A-Wish. That's kind of how the whole thing got started, but it just didn't really work right or anything.

But it was a lot of fun. I've had so many gimmicks and had so much fun with all of them. That was a good way to the end of the career, you know. Well, we absolutely loved having you on the show. I dug the book. I know our listeners will too. You go in great detail about every aspect of your career. I highly recommend it one more time. Go check it out on Amazon or Kindle. This was a fantastic book. Sickles, Studs and Stolen Cars. Mr. Darso, thank you so much for all the time. Hey, thank you. And Eric, great to see you again. Thank you, Conrad. I love it. You guys got a great show.

I don't know if you ever seen our demo pod, but you're going to, you know, we've done about eight or nine episodes of that. So I'm just about that. Here, I thought I was going to be retired. I'm working more now I ever did my whole life. So good for you, Barry. Nobody wants to retire. Retirement. I enjoy it. Yeah. Ross Common, Buck's the football team here is incredible, basketball, everything. It's just, it's great to see the grandkids in all the sports. So, yeah. Thanks, Barry. Thanks for all the time. You guys take care. me too, bye. Bye one.

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It's time for the wrestling news update with Raj Geary. All right, let's welcome into the program, Raj Geary. It's one of our favorite times of the show each and every week. We get to catch up with Raj and see what's going on in wrestling the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I guess we should start with the news. that we just saw last night, AEW is bringing back another championship. But this is from way back when the national title that feels like the old Jim Crockett promotions days, Raj, what do you expect from the national title from AEW?

I mean, it looks a lot like the NWA title, if you've seen the belt. I mean, with this title, I mean, you know, before you've had AEW continental and international title, sorry, that were combined as the unified championship. So with this title, you'll now have four men's singles titles. You'll have the tag titles, the trios titles. You'll also have the women's singles titles. You've got two there, as well as the women's tag titles coming up. So that's a total of nine championships. And that's not counting if the continental title would go back to being split, from the unified title when the Continental Classic comes up.

So I think it's just, it's just way too many. It's hard to keep track of, I know people, people like to do the, well, what about WWE and all that? But for the most part, WWE has a bunch of titles for each brand. You know, you don't see the raw brand titles on Smackdown. You don't see the Smackdown titles on Raw, being defended on Raw. They kind of stay on their own show. So you have five, six with the women's tag titles on Raw and on SmackDown.

And now, you know, with AEW, you're not, you now have nine. And there, you couldn't do an episode of dynamite with all championship matches because you wouldn't have enough time with the number of championships they have now. And Eric, you know, as someone who book wrestling, it just seems like, what's the purpose of having a championship if it doesn't get the talent over? and it doesn't mean anything in the ratings. So I just think it's too many. But hey, Tony just seems, you know,

I think both companies have their crutches. Tony seems to like when ratings are down, making big announcements or introducing new titles. And here we are. It's called neurodivergent booking or creative. That's exactly what it is. It's all over the map. And nothing means anything.

If there's no value, if there's no perceived value, if there's no stakes, just it's just garnish on a plate by throwing more garnish on the same plate and expecting people to feel differently about it whatever it's not really very creative it's actually worse than not very creative it actually hurts because it further dilutes the value or the perceived value of any other title and the story that goes with it i do want to ask you eric i don't know if you've seen, but I know, I know this is on Raj's radar. Smackdown this past Friday in Salt Lake on Halloween night, well, it didn't draw the best. And they did Saturday night's main event

the very next day in the same city. What happened and what do you chalk it up to, if anything, Raj? Well, Smackdown, they only did 4,300 tickets on, but this was Halloween night. And so they did a, they did a two-night doubleheader with Smackdown and Saturday night. I made a best Friday. night being Smackdown and Saturday Night's made an event the following night. Smackdown was on Halloween and you could see the difference. You know, it was almost double the amount of people that went to Saturday Night's made event. So clearly Halloween had a big effect on attendance, but also, you know, Salt Lake City.

It's not really a wrestling hotbed. It's not like doing back-to-back nights, you know, in New York or L.A. or somewhere like that doing Salt Lake City. So the 4,300 is the lowest attendance they've had in Smackdown for a while. And it's kind of expected, I think. I don't think it's much of a surprise being Halloween night and where they were. But, you know, it did lead to a lot of people online saying, okay, the bloom is off the rose, blah, blah, blah.

But then you look at the next few weeks of what they're doing. And it's just huge numbers are probably going to be doing their biggest arena gate ever for John Cena's retirement. So they got a lot of big stuff coming up. So whether the bloom is off the rose, it does look like there is a little bit of softening. but TCO, they reported earnings, their third quarter earnings this past week. And WWE live event revenue for the quarter was 82.5 million, up 61% from the same quarter last year, 61% increase. So it just shows, like, as far as the ticket pricing and everything going, whether or not they've hit the peak,

maybe they have for Salt Lake City, it definitely seems like they have. I think next time they go to Salt Lake City, they don't do two nights back to back, and they also lower those ticket prices. But overall, they're clearly doing something right because that is a big increase year over year. And over the past few years, the ticket prices have doubled, and they're seeing these kind of gains. Guys, think about it. If you're to your point, Raj, and I think you're right on the money, you live in Salt Lake,

you're a wrestling fan. You hear WWEs coming to town. Shit, they're coming to town on Halloween. I'm going to a party. But wait. They're going to be here tomorrow, too. Which one am I going to go to? I mean, splitting the market, I mean, Salt Lake City is a small television market.

That is not a major market. And splitting it, so you've got an event on a Friday night and a Saturday night. Frankly, I'm shocked that they drew it all on Friday. I think you're on 4,300 people on a Halloween night. When you've got an event taking place tomorrow night in the same market, in the same venue, I think it's pretty amazing, actually. Halloween is one of those holidays where you don't get it off. And I love Halloween on Fridays.

It's very rare when it's a Friday, right? It changes everything when it happens on a Friday. If it would be on a Halloween fell on a Tuesday or Wednesday, might not affect attendance. But on a Friday night, can you imagine the parties, even a market like Salt Lake City? And it's not like I'm out of the party scene. But it's Halloween.

On Friday night, it's, Downtown's going to be jammed. Yeah, and I think Halloween on a Friday is up there with like Fourth of July and Memorial Day where it's going to affect your ratings that always has. And this was no different. So again, it is a one-off, I think, you know, the weeks ahead will come more of the story. If the prices, if we are seeing the point of, you know, the point where prices need to start coming down. but I don't think you could go by this one weekend. We should mention that the very next day,

you know, when they're doing Saturday night's main event, it's not Halloween, but it's heads up with game seven of the World Freaking series. And it's a college football weekend. Like, this is a pretty staggering stacked, you know,

opposition that you're trying to counter program if you're WWE. But if you take a look at Monday's ticket sales, it felt like, man, the crowd was with it. It looked like a capacity crowd. Like, I do think you're right, Raj. This is just an anomaly. And I don't think we'll see more of it.

But if you're a shareholder, Eric, how much do you love hearing revenues are up 61% from this time last year for tickets sales? That's crazy. Yeah. And again, to beat this to death, but the fact that they drew as well as they did on a Saturday night,

of course, the audience, the people that bought tickets wouldn't have known they were going into a game seriously. But still, I mean, it's so impressive. And I don't know what they did for a rating on Saturday night if that's been announced yet.

But, man, it's like it's so hard nowadays to move in any direction without bumping headfirst at least into one or two heavy competitors. I mean, we're facing that right now with real American freestyle. It's like it doesn't matter what weekend of the month you pick. You're going to be bouncing up against something that's competitive. So the fact that they're doing as well as they can with the type of competition. position for eyeballs that they are, it's pretty impressive. And if it comes with that much growth, yeah, even more so. Yeah, and to that point, you know, Rob, this coming Monday night in Boston,

they're going to be at about 15,000 fans the following week at Madison Square Gardens, you know, going to be about 16,000. So 1617. So it's, you know, again, that one weekend, you can't judge use that as a purser going forward. I do want to ask, Raj, you mentioned the TKO earnings call, and I think WWE posted some tremendous numbers.

Can you catch us up on that? Yeah, it was pretty wild. They did $1.119 billion for the quarter. I'm sorry, for the first nine months of 25. So $402 million per Q3, up from $326 million from the prior quarter. Just huge increases all around. Media rights, live events, partnerships and marketing, consumer licensing, just everything.

So going from $326 million to $402 and increases $76 million in one quarter, just big increases year over year. And, you know, a lot of that has to do with them ending the peacock relationship early and ESPN coming in early. The Netflix media rights deal is now in place as well as having two nights a summer slam. So a very successful quarter. So it was, you know, I'm sure a lot of champagne at TKO headquarters this week. Raj, I want to ask you about that because I know the earnings call was earlier this week. And it feels like especially when you're saying, hey, we're up 430% from the same quarter last year,

you would think that the stock would be rallying. But that, as we're recording right now, is not exactly the case. Over the last five days, it's actually down a little bit. You keep your finger on that pulse a little closer than Eric and I do. What do you think is the cause of that? Because it feels like with such a positive report, shouldn't it be going up? Well, the market in general is down this week. You know, the NASDAQ's down about 4%.

SMP 500 is down 1%. All week you've been seeing these companies, Robin Hood, and met a last week. And all these huge companies, they're beating earnings, they're beating expectations. And yet their stock is going down. So I feel like it's just kind of one of those things

where a lot of people are looking to sell while it's high. And, you know, it's been pretty wild how many companies have reported good news. And their stocks are down. The stock price is down huge this week, a lot today. So with the market, it's just one of those things where, look at these as like times to buy is how I look at it.

I want to ask you too, you know, with the ratings, everybody's talking about maybe record low ratings for SmackDown. And I know that there's been some updates with the way Nielsen ratings are being calculated. What can you give us in the way of an update on either one of those fronts, Josh? Yeah. So, you know, we've talked about the big data and panel methodology that Nielsen is now using how it's really hurt wrestling ratings. since it started, Dynamites down 21%,

Smackdown's down 22%, NXT and Collision are both down 15%. And collision down 15% with how low their numbers are. You know, they're hovering between 200, 250,000 viewers now on T&T. You know, in a 0.03, they did a 0.03 last week, but that was against Game 7 of the World Series, but still, they've been in that range. Smackdown last week also did it's all time.

low as far as 18 to 49 goes. They did like, I think it was 939,000 viewers. So they dipped under a million. Again, that was on Halloween against game six of the World Series. So that was expected. I tweeted last week that it was going to be the lowest rating that they've done. I tweeted that days before the show aired. It's predictable.

Next week, it's going to be way up. It's not like all of a sudden they got the sudden surge of popularity in one week. But it is of real concern with this. this new methodology, the new Nielsen ratings. SmackDend was still number one for the night, even though they dipped under a million, was still number one for the night on cable in the demo, and number four on all of television in the demo.

So they're still, even though the numbers are way down with this new Nielsen tracking, they're still doing really well as far as the rest of television and cable goes on Friday nights. Collision now, they're way down. They were like number 21 this past Saturday. And, you know, yes, they had competition with the World Series, but so did everybody else. And they were down to number 21.

That's, their numbers are kind of getting in that scary territory. Dynamite has gotten really low. They're in the unfortunate position of having their rights deals coming up in two years. This is year one of the three-year deal. And with the table numbers where they are, and if it's true that they have no idea what their max numbers are, the HBO max numbers, and I don't see how you can negotiate with new companies because you can't tout those, you know, the streaming numbers. You got the Netflix. It came out this past week that Netflix is now interested in buying WBD and maybe next week we do a, because that

could be a longer discussion because right now the three main companies looking to buy WBD are Netflix, Paramount and Comcast NBC, and all those have relationships. with WWE. So it gets messy. And it's one of those things that AEW really needs to start focusing on getting those numbers up because even though streaming is taking over cable, you still want those numbers to be strong because you could still get a cable deal possibly in three years or two years in case a streaming deal doesn't work out because

all the major streamers are tied up with WWE. Eric, when you take a look at the television landscape right now, Like if, if for some reason, you know, there was going to be a shift for AEW because we don't know what's going to happen with the Warner Brothers deal and where it could land. Would you have an immediate knee jerk reaction to, oh, here, this could be a potential backup plan or a plan B away from Turner? I would be working so desperately hard on a plan B right now. It would make people around me crazy. This is unsustainable. And I'm not saying that because I'm, you know, negative anti-A-E-W.

These numbers, and I've been saying it for years now, if you don't focus on story, if you don't focus on character. I'm not talking about Dave Meltzer. They have so many stories. It's hard to keep track, which is more craziness. And I've been, not I, but we have been talking about what Tony needs to do for four years. I individually have been predicting what is going to happen. along the way if he fails to do it. And he said every benchmark I've laid out. Now they're at the point where not only do you have renegotiation staring you down, you know, staring you down,

staring you down, you've got a possible acquisition of your network and you've got to have a plan B. Now, maybe it's different for billionaires because at the end of the day, how bad is it really going to be, right? From finance, it's not like anybody's going to live or die financially based on a successful failure of AEW, the cons are going to be just fine, no matter what. But the entity AEW, I just don't see how this is sustainable.

These numbers are ridiculously low. They're pathetically low. Dynamite, prime time. You're looking at 400,500,000 viewers. And I don't care if it's number seven on the network. It doesn't fucking matter. That's like a, it's like, that's a participation trophy comment. You're either driving revenue or you're not.

And this company's not driving revenue. I don't care what anybody says. It's not possible for them to drive enough revenue to be a return on investment for Turner broadcasting. It is not possible. Not enough people watch that show. It's, it, I hope they have a plan B. I really do.

And if I were them, said this when they launched, when being on tour was a rumor, I said this to you, Conrad, on a podcast. If I were them, I would plant my flag with a streaming platform because that's where the puck is going, as Wayne Gretzky would say. But they went with TV. And they evidently made some money from television. But if this deal goes away, I don't know where they go. where are you going to go in cable television when you've got the track record?

Here's what they've accomplished over the last five years. They've lost an average of 20 plus percent of their audience year over year over year. Who wants to buy that? And if you do, you're buying it for nickels and dimes, not dollars. Because that's all it's worth. because that audience, the maximum you're going to be able to extract from the advertising community for the audience that that show represents is so minimal, they can't command a big budget in cable. So they'll, AEW will be courting opportunistic deals, opportunistic meaning desperate on the cable buyer's part.

the cable buyers that'll be interested you saw it with t and a folks when spike left when t and a left spike which was i don't want to get into that when dna lost spike and they went to what was the first place they went to the id network or some shit like that small little emerging platform they went there for nickels compared to what they were getting on spike because their audience was so low, that's the only people that were interested in them. That's where AEW is currently. Now, Turner Network holds together.

There's no acquisition, whatever. They'll be able to ride this out. There's no payday at the end of this rainbow. There's no big broadcast rights deal at the end of this rainbow because they have spent five years proving that they're screwing themselves into the dirt. They're really good at it.

They've been doing it 20% year over year over year. And to Eric, to your point as well. You know, we've talked about how wrestling, even though WWE has done a lot over the last 15 years to make it more palatable to sponsors and advertisers and networks, it's still wrestling. And you have to overperform other shows. You know, if you're doing the same rating as the challenge, well, the challenge is getting higher ad revenue and higher ad dollars. You've got to beat shows like that. And, you know, last week, granted, this was against Game 5 of the World Series.

And the reason why I feel like this is still pretty fair, they did 459,000 viewers with a 0.08, 18 to 49. And the reason why I think it's fair is because the week before, they did about the same numbers. They did 477,000 viewers with a 0.08, 18 to 49. Now, I can look at it and say, well, look, we got a new rating system and that's why. But the networks, when it comes time for renewal, they don't care. These are the new ratings. These are what they are. And they see those numbers.

they're not great. I mean, they're not justifying, in my opinion, the kind of deal that AEW reportedly got last year. I agree. Well, Raj, I appreciate all the updates, as always, where can some of our listeners find you through the rest of the week? Yeah, just follow me on Twitter at the Rodgerie. And also check me out on Massive Heat on podcast Heat.

check us out. We try to do an episode every week, so check us out on podcast, Heat Wrestling with Matt Morgan and Jack Farmer. Thanks for all the time, Raj. It's a blast as always, man. Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. Take care. Thanks, please, Raj. Take care, guys. J.C.W. Lunacy. New episodes every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. For over 25 years, J.C.W. has delivered the very best in pro-w 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. Lunacea. Eric, we've had a blast talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly of professional wrestling this week, but one of the things I wanted to bring to your attention, and I don't know if you've paid any attention to this, but last week, David O'Tunga, who we know from WWE,

He is maybe the most famous Rasselin lawyer of all time. And he did a video where he sort of dismantled the independent contractor classification. And he apologized for WWE for doing so. He actually said, I always knew the time would come where I'd have to make this video. So let me apologize in advance to WWE because I'm now going to completely dismantle your independent contractor clause in the contract. Look, WWE, I don't want any smoke with you. I don't want any problems.

but I promised on my channel I would try to be objective. And just with everything going on, I have to cover this. I really do. Look, I'd be more than happy to help you guys rewrite this. I'd be more than happy to rewrite it for you. But I have to go through it as is. And I just want to say that beforehand. Please don't be mad. Now, I appreciate that he's doing a preamble.

But man, have you not been hearing about this independent contractor status and wrestling for decades at this point? Yeah. I remember. Yes, because it's a vulnerability. I mean, we looked at this at Turner Broadcasting because it's sketchy. Not sketchy isn't the right word.

It's fraught with potential issues. If you look at this, and I don't have the list memorized, I used to know it off the top of my head. But there's like eight or ten benchmarks that define whether or not you are truly an independent contractor. And if, you know, having been familiar with the, I was an employee at Turner Broadcasting. I wasn't an independent contractor, but I was engaged in the independent contractor agreements, obviously for talent. So I had a pretty thorough understanding of where the risks were.

And I remember when I heard that WWE was going public. When that news first broke, the first thing I did was, jump back into the independent contractor status because I understood how the revenue model and expense model of professional wrestling work from Turner and certainly in in WWE. I was really, really aware of it, not to a David Ortunga's degree, but certainly more than the average guy on the street because it was part of my business and lawsuits, both being on both ends of them. And I remember when WWE went public, like I said, I was like, wow,

because that's like the one big thing that if anybody ever penetrated the independent contractor defense, it would become a major vulnerability. Because some of the fines associated with, from my understanding, reading about it and being aware of it back then, where that if an independent contractor sued me, for example, when I was an executive, to turn of broadcasting, and the jury found for them,

I would owe them back pay, back taxes, there'd be a whole lot of expense beyond just, okay, writing my check for, you know, their back pay. There were a lot of other potential major expenses associated with kind of a broad base. Now, independent contractors don't work here and here's why. So it's always been there. It's always been, you know, one of those issues internally

where at least when I was involved as an executive was always kind of a skeleton in the closet that may actually come to life. And I don't know how serious it is now or here, but it's not surprising that it's rearing its ugly head again because it's an issue. Well, the gist from David Otunga is that W.W.E. has wanted to call their contractors, their professional wrestlers, independent contractors,

to avoid paying for employee benefits, taxes, and health coverage. But it's that same label that David says their non-competes are probably not even enforceable because he says the entire system relies upon a contradiction. The idea being, if you're truly independent, well, they can't dictate where, when, and for whom you work after you leave. And we know that's not the case with WWV. But if they are able to restrict where you can work,

that means you're more of an employee and not truly independent. And if you're truly independent, then they can't really impose a one-year non-compete or stop you from earning an income somewhere else. Now, we've talked about this with Raj in recent weeks. And of course, this bubble to the surface over the Andrade situation. But now with the former Ridge Holland, you know, he was released. I don't know if you saw this, but this is getting some steam this week.

He was injured while working for TNA and then he was released. And, you know, when I say released, I mean, I guess better said, his contract isn't being renewed. But when his contract's ending, he'll still be injured and unable to provide an income. And when he posted about it on social media earlier this week, WWE said, nope, that's breach of contract. we're not even going to pay you out through the end of your contract. And so now everybody's really hammering this independent contractor clause. I'm curious, do you think this becomes a major mainstream legal issue at this point for

WWE? And I'm wondering how much of that could be politically motivated because we're hearing lots of rumor and innuendo that Donald Trump may actually be at John Cena's last match. And I don't know, man, is this the time when maybe this contractor status comes to a head once and for all. If you had to make a coin clip, what would you say? I don't think so. Because it's going to be a massive legal battle. You'd have to be really financially well off to afford to challenge this. You have to really be invested in it. And it's risky. There's a lot of reasons why there's a lot of defense for it,

too. We've talked about some of the vulnerabilities, but there's also a defense for it. So either way, it's going to be a long, drawn out incredibly expensive exploration. I just don't see anybody have any appetite to do it. Well, I know you've got an appetite to get the best shave of your life. I'm talking about Harry's Plus. Maybe your old razor has gone too dull, too fast. Maybe you're seeing some irritation on your neck. I want to brag on Harry's Plus because I think you'll love the step up in craftsmanship. Even if you've tried Harry's before. The new Harry's Plus is the real deal. That's right. Harries has just launched a brand new razor called the Harry's Plus. Harry's has spent like 10 years developing the most advanced

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just head on over to harrys.com slash 83 weeks to claim this offer and after you purchase they'll ask you how you heard about them please support our show and tell them we sent you eric i had a blast talking about nitro from 30 years ago how cool was it to catch up with barry darso today yeah that's so cool i love his accent he's very has the uh quintessential minnesota accent brings back memories makes me want to go duck honey whenever i talk to barry i just want to go duck honey You were mentioning earlier all the history with Robinsdale. I mean, there's something in the water in Minnesota. How much of that was Vern and how much of it was just gizmet? I think a lot of it was Vern.

You know, Vern was born and raised in Robinsdale, went to Robinsondale Senior High School, ended up making the Olympic team, and went to the Marines. It was a big name in Minnesota athletics at the University of Minnesota. And Vern was a very big supporter of amateur wrestling in Minnesota. I think Vern's influence, and then eventually became, you know, the owner of the AWA. So I think Vern's influence with the amateur wrestling community, certainly guys like Brad Riggins who became the trainer for Vern Gagne and trained names from Leon White, the Steiner brothers. So many of the big names that you don't even necessarily associate with Minnesota,

but came through Minnesota because of Vern Gagne's influence, not only as a promoter at a place to work, but as a trainer and a guy who created a lot of stars that went on and became big. Rick Flair is another perfect example. You don't associate Rick Flair necessarily with the AWA or even directly Verganya unless you know the story. But Rick Flair is a product of the Vernanja-Robbinsdale influence in that market. So you can, it's one of the, you know, I'm sure like Eddie Graham in Florida, you probably have some of the same, you know, type of parallels you could make. But, you know, it's fascinating to go back in time and realize just how much of an influence certain individuals like Vernanja and others, you know, Jerry Gerrett, for example, in the Mid-South or Memphis territory.

Just how much influence they actually had on the business that you didn't even realize. We love talking about Minnesota, and we love talking about the good old days of professional wrestling. we're going to have some fun chatter next week. We're getting closer and closer to John Sina's last match. There's lots of speculation out there, Eric. I don't know if you've seen this, but some people are saying, thanks to that new promo and maybe you missed this,

but John Sina on Saturday night's main event announced that they're going to be starting a 16 man tournament. It starts this coming week on Monday Night Raw, and we're going to see a series of matches, and whoever wins is going to get the opportunity to face John Sina in his final match. And there's been lots of speculation. and John Cena played into that. When in the voiceover, he said that you'll see stars from Raw Smackdown,

NXT, and maybe some folks who don't even work here. So now people are like, oh my God, it's Edge. Oh my God. It's Chris Jericho. People are having fun with it, but it feels like the smart money, as people may say, is on, is on Gunther. Do you have a preference? Do you have a call?

Who do you expect seeing his last match to be against? Oh, I don't know who I expected to see Who I expect to see it against I know I'd like to see Chris Jericho I'm a nostalgia guy I'd like you know if it were edge If there was a good reason for it and set up for it I'd like to see that

I'd like to see something that really Obviously that means something Beyond just the finish of the match I'd like it to represent who John Sina is So the nostalgia a part of me, sure, Jericho, Ed, someone like that. The other part of me would love to see him give it to somebody that no one expected. Some young, upcoming talent that's emerging, that's in the ascending phase of his

career. And I like that person to get that opportunity in a way that felt like it came from out of nowhere. No one expected it to surprise, if you will, because the story is going to be in the format of the tournament. The great thing about a tournament is that if it's used and booked properly, not the neurodivergent, just throws it up against a wall in a tournament format, and let's just see where it ends up.

I'm talking about using the tournament as essentially the basis or the structure for a story arc, and really do a good job keeping stories going along the way, keep the states in front of people along the way. But if there was a way for somebody to emerge into that tournament, that nobody saw coming that got the opportunity of a freaking lifetime to face John Cid in this final match, somehow win, to catapult themselves to the very top of the line in WWE. That's a story that would make me feel good in so many ways

because the aspirational part of me, the part of me that wants to see somebody achieve something phenomenal for themselves, and go along for the ride vicariously myself on an emotional basis, I get to go along for that journey. I'd like to see that. But I'd also lead to see John Cena make a statement. The guy who's been criticized for so long for burying other people and keeping people down, because that's always the rap, right, when you're at the top,

you stay at the top for any length of time. Your rap is going to be you're holding people down. Well, guess what? You probably are because you're making a shit done of money, which is why the boss keeps you in that position. You're not in that spot because somebody just lights you. You're in that spot because you're driving revenue. And it's provable.

It's in black and white. But John Cena, nonetheless, has the reputation of the guy that varies talent to keep himself over. And I know that that's not the case. I know that's not really who John Cina is. So imagine how people would react. If some cat from out of the blue, some young person and nobody's solved making, it at this point in time,

it's that one and a million shot. It actually beats John Sina and catapults himself. That's John Sina making a statement that he knows how to get people over to. It does and will. So that's like the happiest of all happy endings. Well, we're looking for a happy ending here on the show next week. Wait a minute.

Maybe not. I was going to say that just came out wrong. Shit. I don't even know that we can say that. Here's what I know. We want to hear from me, you go hit the subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell right now at 83 weeks.com. And we would love to have your interaction.

Follow us online. He is at E. Bischoff. I am at Hey, Hey, Hey, it's Conrad. And we are at 83 weeks. You can find us at 83 weeks on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. And Eric, we've, uh, we've got a fun winter ahead of us. You know, we've got John Cena's last match. We've got full gear.

We've got Survivor series. There's talk of maybe John Cena getting a title shot there. I can't wait to see how we get ready and start marching towards the Royal Rumble. And I know that a little birdie gave you a heads up about some plans. We may have up our sleeves for Royal Rumble weekend. How excited are you for that? I'm so excited. It's on my calendar.

I've told everybody in my circle to book around it. That's how important it is. Let me just say this. If you're looking for the most unique, most amazing experience you've ever had in your wrestling fandom, maybe block off Royal Rumble weekend and pack a bag. We'll have some information in the coming weeks, but that'll do it for us right now. Hit the subscribe button and we'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Derek Pischoff. All right, real quick, want to remind everybody, especially this time of year,

did you know at Save withconrad.com you can skip your next two house payments? That's right. You'll get a cheaper monthly payment and no payments until next year. How about a little Christmas vacation from house payments? That's right. No payments in November or December at save with Conrad.com.