83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 408: Nitro Caused The Wrestling Boom

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Easy E is officially in the hot seat for a no-holds-barred Ask Eric Anything! Eric Bischoff fields your questions on everything from professional wrestling to real life, diving into fascinating "what if" scenarios like what if WCW Monday Nitro never happened? He also reveals who Hulk Hogan wanted to face in his final match and weighs in on where Chris Jericho's next chapter might lead. And that's just the beginning. Raj Giri from Wrestling News Update joins the show to break down all the biggest headlines and breaking stories from this week in wrestling. It's opinionated, unpredictable, and packed with insight — a must-listen edition of 83 Weeks you don't want to miss. STEVEN SINGER JEWELERS - No one does real diamond jewelry better. Experience the difference at Steven Singer Jewelers. Go online to http://IHateStevenSinger.com  today! Always fast and FREE shipping is waiting for you. ROCKET MONEY - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to http://RocketMoney.com/83WEEKS  SIGNOS - Visit http://SIGNOS.com  and get 25% off select plans with code 83WEEKS.  BLUECHEW - Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code 83WEEKS at http://BlueChew.com  QUINCE - Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to http://Quince.com/83WEEKS for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 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.

Coming up January 30th, join us for a fantastic wrestling experience in Atlanta with ad-freeshows.com. Friday night, it's promo class with Tony Chivani and David Crockett, where you can cut a promo in front of the JCP set from Rick Flair's last match, filmed professionally just for you. Saturday morning, it's time for the power plan with Sergeant Buddy Lee Parker and a special guest. Your chance to experience what it's like to get inside a real wrestling ring. Saturday afternoon, WWE Hall of Famer JBL will join us as we gather for the Royal Rumble Watch Along. And the $10,000 game event with Ephron, where one top guy in attendance will have a chance to win $10,000. And Sunday, it's time for a WCW Tour of Atlanta, guided by the one and only Eric Bischoff. Then we'll hit up the DDPY Performance Center.

and finish the night with a ringside seat for a 1FW TV tape pick. All this and a whole lot more. The first of three planned events this year. Make sure to join us as a top guy with an annual membership at ad-freeshows.com. You don't want to miss Eric Fischoff's power plant weekend this January 30th. Hey, hey, it's Conrad the Mortgage Guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks. Eric fish off Eric what's going on man how are you i am great i am in a beautiful south florida port lauderdale area ramp it up being for raf oh five i can't believe it there's

already time for another real american freestyle of course it's happening tomorrow night from sunrise florida and what a loaded card maybe the biggest real american freestyle event yet colby covington and luke rock hold in the main event but there's a whole lot more than that. Bo Nickel, Romero. I mean, there's Jordan Oliver, Real Woods. I mean, this is about as loaded and as stacked as of a card as we've seen yet for Real American Freestyle. How pumped are you for tomorrow night, Eric? I really am for more reasons than one, I can assure you. But you look at that card, Super David, if you could put that back up there. You know, one of the things that we talked about early on when we launched Real American Freestyle. In fact, I talked about it on my first

interview on Fox and Friends with Hulk and Chad and Izzy and specifically talked about, I specifically talked about the opportunity that Real American Freestyle has because it's really the epicenter of mixed martial arts. If you look at the skill sets of so many of the champions, unquestionably it all comes down to wrestling as a foundation and others. have talked about the same thing. I'm not pointing out anything really new. But the fact that it is, wrestling is so important and critical. And I think because the MMA audience now has gotten so big over the last, what, 30 years, right?

And certainly exploded in terms of popularity worldwide over the last 10 or whatever. I don't track it. But it's certainly exploded. I think that has created a lane for Real American Freestyle. And this card that we're looking at is a balance of that. We've got our crossover matches, for example, with Kobe Cuffington and Luke Rock. Bo Nicol, obviously, an MMA star. Yuel Romero, that's a match I want to talk about.

But then you've got down earlier in the card, you've got Bo Bassett, who is, I think, the word protege as a freestyle wrestler, as a collegiate wrestler. I think protege is not overstating what this young man is all about. we've got such a great balance of veterans, a crossover MMA stars, but yet the core of it all is freestyle wrestling. We saw the lane, we created the lane, and we're making that lane wider each and every month.

It's really exciting, and I'm blessed to be a part of it. Eric, I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I think you mean Bo Neckle is a prodigy rather than a protege. No, Bo Bassett. Bob Bassett. My apologies.

Bo Bassett is a prodigy rather than a protege. I mean, he is going to be a superstar. And you get your chance to see him tomorrow night on Fox Nation, Real American Freestyle. It's coming at you at 8 o'clock Eastern from Sunrise, Florida. What a loaded card it is. There's four title fights. And of course, in the main event, Colby Covington and Luke Rock, a lot of star power.

What's really cool about Real American Freestyle that we haven't spent a lot of time talking about is the fan zone. and this is happening in advance of the live card tomorrow night. You get to meet the athletes and the last 200 packs of Real American Freestyle Trading Cards will be there. They've always got exclusive merch. Doors open at 3 o'clock. The meet and greets are at 4 o'clock. And then the actual pay-per-view, which is only a few bucks a month over at Fox Nation.

When you subscribe to Fox Nation, not only can you watch Real American Freestyle Live tomorrow night, but you can go back and enjoy one through four. But I don't think enough people are talking about the fan engagement piece. This feels very old school. This is not something that you see in the UFC. It's not common in WWE. But back in the day, you know, I mean, Jeff Jarrett's talked about it a lot. The arena business, the touring business, the territory business, the independent business,

this fan interaction. I mean, this is as down and dirty in grassroots as it gets. And I love that real American freestyle is doing this. fans can relate to someone that they meet and they get to and especially the youth like i remember as a kid this sounds silly now as a 44 year old man i was really excited to meet tom zinc the z man in montgomery at a wcw tv in 1991 so the idea that you get to get kids excited about this so early i think it's awesome what y'all are doing eric you know i still remember the very first celebrity i ever met as a kid and this is going back i think

think it might have been around 1960 or 61. I would have been five or six years old. And at the time, there was, and I think I got this right, it was an actor by the name of Clint Walker. And Clint Walker played Daniel Boone on the series that was popular on television when I was like five or six years old.

And my mom and dad took me to the Michigan State Fair. and Plant Walker was there and I met him. And from that point forward, I had to watch Daniel Boone. As long as that series was on television, I had a connection to it. And that's what Jeff Girret saw with T&A when he integrated a lot of the fan interaction with TNA initially and why he believed in it. It's also why, you know, we see, you know, the trade shows, the convention, mentioned business, obviously, the Comic-Conns.

Once you interact with someone in person, you become a fan for life. Chad Bronsteen, his team, Tanya, Jazz, they've done such a great job. Vaux, they've done such a great job, focusing on that fan experience.

I think we had about 650 came through last time, this time we're expecting way more, and the vast majority of more kids. That's what's awesome because we're building our audience. We're making that connection one one handshake at a time one autograph at a time but we're investing in ourselves by doing it because number one it's fun the kids have a blast and it raises the energy for everybody

including the athletes but number two we're laying a foundation for a future audience so it's cool you know what's really cool most of all eric usually when you have like um when wb does their access or or their big events their fanatics fest things like that hey even when i run a star There is an admission fee, whether you're going to wrestle con or wrestle K, like, you got to pay to play, man. But how much is the fan zone at Real American Freestyle, Eric? Don't work that way. We just like to see people there.

We like, and you'll see in a show. In fact, I ask our producers and let our director know that Saturday night, I want to bring that aspect of what Real American Freestyle is. I want people at home to be able to see it and realize that this really is a fun family combat sport. And I know that kind of sounds weird putting it together, but that is one of the things when we created this lane in combat sports. We knew we had somebody said, you know, we need to be different than. And if you look at the UFC and I'm a huge fan, nothing but respect, I'll always be a fan.

But the audience is, the product is what the product is in eschewing to a more adult audience. from the interviews, just the whole promotion of the events, which I'm one of them, and I'm glad to participate, proud to participate. But we wanted to create a lane for a little more family-friendly, but still combat sport. And that's what we're getting. That's why it's so much fun to see the turnout at Fan Fest, because the intent is to broaden our lane, get as many viewers as we can. And if we get the kids interested and committed, guess what? They've got to go to mom and dad to get vaccination or to come to the next event. So it's such an investment.

When you see it actually happening in real time right before your eyes, it's fun as hell. I highly encourage you if you are within driving distance of Sunrise, Florida, go out of your way to check out Real American Freestyle in-person, R-A-F-05. Tickets are on sale now at real American freestyle.com. Or if you're not local, you can do what I'm going to do and watch on the Fox Nation app. But where else can you get this sort of engagement and activity? I'm really excited about what you guys are doing, Eric, and it feels like you've done one like every three weeks. And the rumor in innuendo is you've already got your next one planned, but this time we've got a little bit of a breather.

You're going to be doing it at the end of February in Arizona. Is that right? Yeah, man, I can't wait. I can't wait. And there's a good chance we're going to be in May. and we're going to be coming to you from overseas. I won't say too much more, but there's a real good chance that we'll be doing an event outside the U.S.

We are getting lots of questions. We're doing, ask Eric anything. And I got lots of real American freestyle questions, Eric. But a lot of people were wanting to know, when are you coming here, when are you going there? But one that did sort of piqued my interest,

hypothetically speaking, you think there's a chance you guys run an event in Iowa in 2026? I would, we were just talking about that last night, ironically. Yeah, let's put it this way. We know we have to because there's such a great audience there. It's a perfect market for us. It's a matter of routing timing and finding a building that's capable of holding up. Believe it or not, we've got a pretty significant production in terms of our set and staging.

So we've got to go into buildings that you would typically see, you know, WWE and or AEW or whatever. and that just makes it hard scheduling-wise because we're also kind of trying to weave around the UFC and WWE and all the other stuff. So we're going to get there. I can't imagine that we won't be in Iowa in 2026. Cannot recommend Real American Freestyle enough. I know this is a pro wrestling podcast

and you're thinking to yourself. So I don't know if it's for me. Hey, it only costs a couple bucks to check it out. Go check out Fox Nation. Download it right now. You get to enjoy Real American Freestyle 1 through 4 tonight, but tomorrow night live from Sunrise, Florida, Real American Freestyle Number 5. Tickets on sale at real American freestyle.com.

Today we're doing Ask Eric Anything. So if you asked a question on social media or on YouTube, we probably are going to get to your question. But there's a lot of people who have questions about the news and notes of the week. We'll do that just on the other side of this break. But first, I want to talk to you a little bit about my friend Stephen Singer's. You know, it's everyone's favorite time when our friend Stephen Singer, yeah, you know him, the I hate Stephen Singer guy, he announces his brand new gold-dipped rose color just in time for Valentine's Day. Now, this year's color is romantic. It's breathtaking and unforgettable.

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My wife's got them. My mother-in-law's got them. People are so impressed with this. My mom to this day keeps one at her day. at home. She keeps one at the desk at the office. She's even got one at her condo at the beach. They're fantastic. I mean, this is something that is going to last a long time. It's a truly unique gift. If you've got someone you really care about, someone you really love, you want to hit a home run, you want to get them something special. You want to make Valentine's Day memorable.

Because listen, if you sent her flowers last year, where are they now? They were in the trash three days later. This is something that she will never forget. And I think it's even more affordable, too. Go find out while all the other jewelers hate Stephen Singer at I hate StevenSinger.com. It's time for the wrestling news update with Raj Geary. All right, all right. Welcome to the program, Raj Geary. We've got so much to talk about. It feels like there is major news every which way we look. Welcome and happy new year, Raj. This is the first time we've got to catch up in 2026. How's it going, man? That's going great. Happy New Year to you guys too. But we are delighted to be here with you the day before Real American Freestyle 05, but we're just six days away from TNA's big debut on AMC.

And, you know, I guess a lot of people are wondering what to expect from this. I don't know if you have any thoughts about T&A on AMC, but I can't wait to hear what you think and what your predictions are next week, Josh. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. I mean, the AMC prime time station average right now. now is about 200,000 viewers, give or take. So I would think it should top that in the first week.

You know, usually when you see a wrestling show debut on a new channel, you see a big debut, a big number for the debut or the move. And then, you know, it kind of drops but still stays above normal for the second week. And again, the third week before, you see it kind of stabilized, you know, in week fours, week four and week five. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, I think it should be able to beat 200,000 viewers. right off the bat. And if it does,

you know, buy a lot, then that's a good sign. And it'll be interesting to see if it beats collision. You know, collision this past Saturday, it did 241,000 viewers with a 0.03. So I would think in week one, you know, and that's for last Saturdays, obviously this Saturday. We obviously don't know. But I would think in week one it should be able to beat that number.

And if off the bat, they beat an AEW show, that's, you know, that's a pretty feather, pretty good feather in the cap to start off. And then whether they can maintain it, that would be interesting to see. It'll be a fun talking point and chatter, right, on the internet if that were to happen. The IWC will have fun with that for a long time. Let me ask you guys, because I'm kind of out of the loop. Have you seen a lot of, Raj, you probably would see a lot if you've made attention to what they're doing. how much promotion is AMC giving this outside of AMC? Are you seeing it anywhere, hearing about it anywhere?

I've been seeing it on their social. I don't watch this channel as much, so I haven't heard much about that. But, you know, I've been seeing it on their social. I would think the big push starts on Monday. So we'll see. You know, it's obviously a zag for AMC, which has never aired sports. So, you know, which is a feather in the cap for, for A, I mean, for TNA, because they're moving to a, you know, a well-established network that has never aired pro wrestling. And so for them to take a chance with TNA, you know, is a step in the right direction.

So we'll see next week, you know, what kind of promotional efforts they do. I think when you saw TNA debut on Spike, there wasn't really that much promotion at the beginning. And then they did a really good number right at the onset. And then you saw the promotion pick up from there. So we'll see. I think a lot will depend on how they do that first week as well to see, you know, what kind of promotion that AMC puts behind it. Yeah, I always kind of judge by how serious a network is about a project

or series whatever based on the amount of money, the risk going into the deal, not necessarily the cost of the project, but how much money are they going to spend or time are they going to allocate to promote the launch of a new, whatever it is, television series, movie, whatever. And if you see a significant spend,

and that's one thing I'll say about AEW in their relationship with Turner, there's a hell of a lot of promotion across the Turner, all the way across the Turner platforms for AEW. And it's being done, quite frankly, the way it should be done. But if AMC hasn't really quite made that bet,

they're not really quite interested in going too far promoting it. And it couldn't be for something other than financial reasons. It could be kind of a brand. Maybe they don't want to shock their established audience with something that's so far outside the brand by getting them over the top of the head with a lot of spots for it. But it'll be interesting to see. That to me is also a tell-tale sign.

how invested is the network really? Are they just rolling a dice and throwing up against the wall to see if it's going to stick? Or are they invested in making it work? There's a big difference, and I've seen it done both ways. Eric, I didn't see it, but I did talk to some of my friends, like our friend, Double J, and I guess he saw a commercial on football this past weekend for the debut of TNA on AMC. I did not see that. However, I have seen that to Rogers point, there has been social media posts by AMC,

but we're talking about three of those. They did a little video package for Mike Santana, who's clearly one of their top stars. They had a male talent post with Moose and Nick Nemith and Mike Santana and Frankie Kazarian, but their first post was about the Hardees, Mustafa Ali. I thought this one was interesting. Ash by elegance, who I believe retired, they posted about her. So I don't know if everybody's on the exact same page. But the big announcement yesterday, Eric, was Perez Hilton.

I don't know if you remember him, but he used to be a celebrity blogger. I guess he still is, but Perez Hilton of perezhilton.com, he announced that he's going to be there. And I don't know. I'm kind of like, I don't know if that is exactly what wrestling fans are looking for. I don't know if that's the big surprise. Yeah, it's weird. Oh, God.

Oh, no. That would be a bad move. No, no. Tell me this. This is like watching this train wrecks over. I'm going to go watch another train wreck. I mean, this is that I hope that whatever. That's funny.

We'll talk about it next week. I am looking forward to that because I think this is going to be critically important this first episode, Raj, because I think wrestling fans have proven, hey, we will try it. We will give it a shot. Now, will we stick around, whether that's Smackdown on Fox or that's Rampage for AEW? Who knows? But that first episode, I think there's going to be a lot of people who say, okay, I'll check it out.

I think the expectations have to be high. And I was kind of surprised, Raj, if I'm honest, that you thought the rating north of 200 would be good. You felt like it was going to be more in the collision ballpark. Eric, do you want to freestyle a guess about how many viewers you think TNA may have on night one? it's just a wild-ass guess without seeing any promotion outside of the network for it i'll i would say what's it in a dw is now right around 600 on average right yeah roughly i think they'll be in the 350 range maybe four that's my guess unless there's a significant amount of promotion. Now, here's where I think they're probably doing, and it would explain why

Jeff saw something in football that, Conrad, perhaps you didn't see, is because even if it's a national television show, if you're watching it on cable, you can buy local ad. I mean, Conrad, you know more about this than I do. You can buy local ad time in an NFL game, I'm assuming, or wherever he saw it. So it's a lot more targeted to buy local ads in markets than it is a big national ad. And you can also focus on key DMAs or the market that actually matters to a particular network. You can focus more precisely on that. So maybe there's more promotion going on for it. For example, if they're advertising in certain markets that everybody knows are strong pro-wrestling markets from a television perspective, strong DMAs.

if if they're buying WWE spots of WWE in those markets for example then that number could double if they are if they're not in this word of mouth social media I'm going to come in around 350 maybe four tops you know what's interesting I never considered that it could have been a localized promo but again who told me they saw it in football Jeff Chirrett and what DMA would he be in Nashville the home of TNA

it makes a lot of sense that if they did do a local buy they would have done it in Nashville to let those longtime TNA fans know that makes a lot of sense we did get a question uh from josh any who says with t and a about to make their amc debut what other big things will t and a need to do to become the undisputed number two wrestling promotion or will viewership alone make it number two if it surpasses others consistently that's interesting eric there's lots of ways to measure success in wrestling you know obviously the bottom line is what we would normally look at but we won't know exactly what that is for a company that's not publicly traded.

So a company like AEW or a company like TNA, we may never know. But what is the metric we should be looking for to determine if they're the number two promotion one day? Would that just be viewership, Eric, or is it something else in your mind? I think overly complicating it beyond just viewership is, I mean, it's fun to discuss things like that and it's fun to break down segments of revenue or try to assign value to certain aspects of business that may or may not be bottom line value, so to speak. You can spend all, and it's fun. I enjoy it. As part of what interests me about the business and the wrestling

business is because it's such a fascinating world into its own in many respect. But everything that you want, that anybody wants to talk about as success, all goes back to one thing. Leadership. So whatever metric you choose to make your argument or confirm your bias or whatever is going through your mind, whatever your motivation is, you have to accept the fact that it's only there

because somebody watches the show. So that's all I care about. That tells me, it doesn't tell me everything I need to know about the health of the rest of my business, but it tells me that I have the one thing I absolutely need to grow the rest of it. It's viewership. I don't know how it could be anything else, but honestly.

I love the way your brain works. I totally agree. I don't know that I would have agreed before you explained it, but now that you have, hey, that's what Eric's here for. He lives to enlighten. The entire wrestling world will be talking about TNA's debut on AMC next Thursday night, including us here on 83 weeks. But we're going to be live immediately following that very very,

first episode with our special guest, John Bradshaw Layfield. He's going to be joining Eric and myself right here at 83 weeks.com. We're going to do a live reaction to the debut episode of T&A on AMC. We're going to talk about what we like, what we didn't like, the good, the bad, the ugly, make some ratings, predictions, I'm sure. Join us immediately after impact next Thursday night right here at 83 weeks.com. And Raj, I'm going to put you on the spot. What do you doing next Thursday night?

Can you jump on with me and Eric and talk about this? Yeah, it should be free. So Thursday night football is gone, so I'll be watching. Well, here's the big question. Will Chris Jericho be free? Eric, this has been the talk of the wrestling business this week. And Raj, there's been lots of rumor in innuendo that not only is Jericho no longer under contract at EW, but he might actually show up on this T&A episode.

And when you think back to the very first episode of Monday Nitro, well, that makes sense. Even when AEW kicked off their announcement for their company in the parking lot in Jacksonville, who was the big star, who was the big surprise, who was the big reveal? It was Chris Jericho. Raj, do you think there's a chance we see Jericho on TNA next week? I just think his price tag would be too high. Now, you know, one thing we didn't really talk about too much when we were talking about TNA on AMC

is will WWE be pushing it on NXT? Like, will they be promoting it? And, you know, if Jericho does ultimately end up going back to WWE, could they loan Jericho out for a few T&8H just to give them a little buzz, you know, off right off the start? So I just see the price tag being too high. Jericho, you know, what's interesting. And, you know, there were reports that his contract was up at the end of descent.

And going back to 2022, AEW on their own website, when they announced that Chris Jericho signed an extension, they said it was through December of 2025. So theoretically, he should be a free agent, but he still remains on the AEW roster page on their website now. I know some people might say, well, maybe they just forgot to take him off. But just this past, you know, just recently the contracts of Mercedes Martinez, Matt Taven, Alex Abrantéantes, there are contracts expired and they were removed. They're no longer on the roster page. So they're keeping it up to date for whatever reason he's still on there.

So I don't know if he's still in talks with AEW and they're not removing him yet. But he still remains on their page. So his future is a big question mark, but it would be a huge get for TNA. It would get people talking. Even if it's a short-term deal, it would give Jericho. He'd be one of the few people to have ever worked in R.O.H. TNA, New Japan, WWE and WCW might be the only one. So it would be really interesting for him to do that.

But, you know, whether TNA can afford it or not is another question. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm having fun watching this because it really is kind of, it's entertaining to see Chris's moves behind the scenes. And his teases because they're so subtle and they're so timely, he knows what he's doing. And whether he's building up his character to stay in AEW or whether he's indeed going to make a move.

Actually, I see value in both for Chris. Either way, I'm entertained by it because that's what people are. It's some of the most interesting story that people are talking about, even though it's behind the scenes. And there isn't any real story other than Chris's contract expired. The rest of it's all our imaginations, but it's fun to watch and participate in it. Yeah, and listen, let's be honest. It would be stranger things have happened. I mean, it wasn't that long ago.

We didn't see Andrade. And then he popped up in AEW and then he disappeared for a few months and now he's back. And I think we all thought, well, he must have a non-compete that allows him to work everywhere else. Now, maybe he negotiated everywhere else except AEW, but he's back in AEW. And that's what makes this fun. We don't really know what's next for Jericho. I like that he's kept us all guessing. As fun as it would be to see him debut on Monday Night Raw or,

as fun as it would be to see him, you know, debut on the first episode of TNA on AMC. It would be just as fun if he popped up on dynamite. So we don't know what's coming. I'm looking forward to seeing it. But this morning, a report came out from a cultaholic that says, Chris Jericho has already agreed to a WWE return. There's a lot of smoke around this from what I was gathering from people who were calling and texting me from people who would know that Chris Jericho was very interested in working

in TNA. I don't want to betray any confidences, but back in 2018, his band Fossey was touring, and they were here in Huntsville. I got to hang out with Chris afterwards, and this is in advance of AEW becoming a thing, and when we were talking about his contract

and that he wasn't signed with WWE, and he was building the crews, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do next? And I said, hey, what about the Jags guy? And he did an about face, like, how do you know about that? I'm like, yeah, Tony's my friend.

And we had a great conversation about that, but we also talked about, and Chris educated me on the Asper family, about, hey, people are sleeping on T&A. This is Chris speaking, hypothetically, something along the lines of people are sleeping on them. They've got real investment behind them. They've got real money behind them. And knowing their relationship with WWE, it does feel like, you know, Jericho has wrestled

everywhere else, DCW, WCW, WWF, New Japan. It feels like, you know what? why not scratch that off the list, especially if there's some loose affiliation with WWE. Raj, would you be surprised to see some sort of an agreement worked out where Jericho is under contract to WWE, and maybe they do save his return,

if you will, for WWE programming? But down the road, I think it's totally within reason to think we will see Jericho and TNA at some point, don't you think? Well, you know, that would be a huge lend for WWU.

to give Jericho's first AEW appearance, post-AEW appearance to TNA. I would think they'd want to save that for something like the Rumble. But, you know, I'm sure WWE doesn't want their talent, their top, you know, talent making seven figures, getting injured in a TNA ring. That's why you'll see NXT talents wrestle in TNA, but you won't see AJ Stiles or CM Punk or, you know, the big names. They'll AJ Styles appeared, but not wrestlers.

So I can easily see Jericho make an appearance and doing things like that. But be signed with WWE. I just don't see them having him wrestled for him. Let me just throw this out there for fun. I'm not saying this is what I think is going to happen. But what if there's a story driven or maybe not even as much story is strategic. way to reintroduce Chris to the WWE audience, but just doing it differently than we've normally done it.

Taking Chris from AEW and dropping them into WWE, yeah, you're going to get that welcome home while it's back, nostalgic, it's kind of a nostalgia pop, but it's a brand loyalty spot is what that is, and pop that would come with it. But there's also a different way, possibly, of doing it, where, because this is part, I think I know a little bit about what motivates Chris. I think Chris would like to do it. I think Chris wants to be involved in T&A, maybe just to check the box, but also,

there's just an attachment to it. It's Canadian, right? Chris is that way to a degree. He's going to, he'd like to see the hometown guys win. And if he can contribute in any way, he will. That's my sense of who Chris is. For that reason, I think Chris would be very interested in doing it. And if so, could there be a story-driven way that lands Chris into that retirement tour that really is probably his goal?

So could we get there using TNA as a platform, creating some demand from the audience to see Chris retire in WWE, therefore get that retirement to establish a piece of via storyline as opposed to just dropping a met? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, and that is one thing. Like, if Chris, as part of this contractual wants for a WW return says, look, part of this return is I do want to work, you know, T&A or, you know, select dates here and there for, you know, non-AEW-affiliated promotions, would WWE go for that? I mean, this is a different regime.

It's not Vince. You know, they've been a lot more willing to work with other promotions than Vince ever would have. So it's possible. I would still be surprised to see him wrestle in TNA, but, you know, like you said, that's the one thing Jericho has never done. I'm sure he'd love to take that, you know, off his list because I forgot ECW that Conrad just mentioned. So it would be, it'll be really interesting to see. I think this next month will tell a lot. It's going to be fun.

And this is the, this is the part of the wrestling business that entertains me most. So I love hearing your take on this. So, Raj, thanks for being here. We're excited to have Raj here. And we're going to have Raj with us this Thursday night after we see the debut of T&A on AMC, make plans to join us immediately following right here at 83 weeks.com. And we're going to move on from Jericho, but I just want to lob this your way, Raj.

I know what you're saying and I hear what you're saying about if I'm WWE do I really want him wrestling with TNA I want to reserve those dates for our programming you know there's been a lot of crossover with TNA and NXT maybe he shows up as a TNA guy hypothetically I'm not saying that's going to happen but what if and then he finds himself feuding with NXT now WWE is getting some value there and maybe you can help build an audience on AMC and at the exact same time build an audience for NXT and if the rumor is true that WWB has first right of refusal upon purchasing TNA,

for a variety of reasons, I'm sure, legally, mostly. But hypothetically, if that's true, then you want to ensure success. WWB, I think Eric, would love nothing more than to lock down a long-term great deal with AMC, and the way to make sure that happens is to guarantee TNA is successful, and then what do you know, so I think they could be crazy like a fox. I'm not saying this is going to happen, but what is... I am. I want to say you on TNA,

and now they're going to feud with NXT, and boy, one hand washes the other, that'd be good for NXT. It'd be good for TNA. What do you think of that, Eric? I didn't see the storyplay that you just laid out, but that was fantastic, by the way, or your view of that creatively.

What I wanted to say, but I didn't want to interrupt Raj, because he touched on it a little bit. But I think I absolutely believe that WWE is going to try to strategically help TNA in any way possible because it's in WWE's best interest if TNA is successful for a lot of reasons. It's in their best interest. And this is the first time I heard that there may be something in that agreement that puts WWA a favored nations or a favorable position if there's going to be an exit or or sale of the

company. If that's true, that's a if, but if that's true, then I absolutely am convinced that this is a great opportunity for Chris to reintroduce himself to the WWE universe in a storyline-driven way that makes him the ultimate baby face. Canadian, too, by the way, Brett, I'm sorry, but it's true, Brett. you'd have to give a tip of a hat to Chris Jericho if he pulls this off. But if Chris can be instrumental, play that Lex Lugar-like kind of surprise, but at the same time be a part of the programming,

create a battle between those two brands. Chris wins. He's going to get that retirement toward Garrigan, Pricking Deed. But in the meantime, he's having fun doing something that fits his character and where he's at in his career. And it checks all kinds of boxes. I'll be shocked if it doesn't happen. And disappointed, too, by the way.

Sorry about that. I do want to ask, Eric, I know this is silly. I promise we're going to move on from Jericho, but it was suggested, hey, what if he came back at the Rumble? And somebody pointed something out to me, and I don't know if this is real or not. I've never had to do this. Eric, you have. I wanted to ask you.

Someone said, hey, it's going to be really difficult to make surprises happen for an international Royal Rumble. And I was like, well, what do you mean? And I guess with the visa paperwork, Maybe there is some visibility or there's not visibility, but, you know, listen, once upon a time, guys like Mike Johnson and others, they had their ear to the ground with some of these airline companies. They would know when a flight was booked for this guy here, there, or yawn, and that's domestic. But I guess maybe there is more visibility. If you're trying to keep something hush, hush, you have to file so much international paperwork.

Does that even make sense? Is that a fair thing? Do you think we'll still see those surprises? Is it possible to do, Eric, or in this day and age, with something like that leak? I mean, of course, it could leak. It's hard for me to imagine that, of course, with technology the way it is and AI, who knows, but it's hard for me to imagine that anybody would have the time and the motivation to invest in finding that out. Is the information out there publicly available?

I guess it probably is. Some of it, maybe not, because of privacy laws. I don't know, especially when we're talking about access to international information. There's just too much I don't know. to even wager a guest. But I think to answer your question, yes, it's still possible. However, it's way more difficult. And that's what makes it so rare to really pull off a good one. But it can still be done, of course. Just to add to that. Oh, sorry. I was going to say, there has been one, the only time I could

think of, there has been one time where they did do a surprise return, you know, at an event in Saudi Arabia. And granted, it was Kyrie saying in 2023. No one knew that was coming. It was never reported. And, you know, and she made a surprise return. So it has happened. Obviously, a star is big as Chris Jericho. It'll be a lot more difficult.

Well, let's switch gears here, Raj. There's been lots of other news and notes in the new year. Lots of wrestling fans were curious at the end of the year on Peacock. Oh, my God, we're losing the WWR cops. Where are they going? And we've even discussed, hey, hypothetically, is everything from the WC to W. Archives going to wind up on YouTube. But I guess there's been a report about PLEs and Netflix.

What's going on, Rosh? Yeah, stuff is kind of all over the place now. The majority of the WW library was removed from Peacock on January 1st. Now on Peacock, the stuff that remains are still, you get all the Smackdowns going back to 1999. Only the last two Saturday night's main events and the major NXT shows. And those will remain until, you know, until March and then, you know, We'll see if a new deal is made or if those move on. Now, the WWPLs, a lot of them are now on Netflix.

Now, this is just WWE, not the WCW paperviews. The WCW paper views, you can find on their YouTube channel. A lot of people don't know this exists, but there's a WCW YouTube channel that WWE owns. And there is, you can find, they don't have everything or not even close. They have like 50 nitros or close to 50 nitros, a bunch of Clash of Champions, like about 50 pay-per-views and things like that. So you can find that content there. And with the PLEs on Netflix, they're going to be up until September, up until Russell plaza, when the ESPN deal started with WWE. And so you're not going to see any of the ESPN WWPELEs on there, you know, until, you know,

years ahead when that deal is over and if a new deal is created or whatever. But for now, that's where things stand. With the ROSs, they're expected to show up. on Netflix as well, the old Ross. Talk to us a little bit about ratings. What are you seeing right now? I know historically December is not the best time of year in the wrestling business. With the benefit of hindsight, how did they look in 2025, Raj? I mean, you know, the new Nielsen, the big data plus panel methodology,

has really done a number on wrestling. it's hurt NXT and AEW more than SmackDown because SmackDown is still a lot of nights, number one on all the television in the demo. So this past December, Smackdown, it averaged 1.1 million viewers with a 0.25 and 18 to 49. It was actually down from November,

but up from October, and in January, the first episode they did in January, it's way up from December. So that's a good sign. NXT, they average 598,000, viewers with a 0.09, which was actually up from November. And again, the first episode of this year was up significantly from that. So that's good. AEW had really bad December. Dynamite total viewers, 475,000 with a 0.08. And this is not counting the Christmas Eve episode. The ratings

for that episode never were made public. And that's the first time in the history has shown that we never got the rating for an episode. So it's likely lower than that, but all-time low for a month. And then collision, 275,000 viewers in December with a 0.04. Again, that's also not counting the December 13th episode. Those ratings were never made available first time for that show that that's ever happened. So it's likely lower. And then the first episode of the year for collision, it only did 241,000 viewers with 0.03.

So it's actually even lower than December average. So, you know, bad month overall for all the shows, really bad for AEW. And Dynamite, you know, they aired on New Year's Eve. Like I said, Christmas Eve was not counted in this. So we'll see if they could turn around. We'll see it this week. I mean, they faced a lot of tough competition on New Year's Eve. You know, it was a weird month for them, but we'll see if they could turn it around.

I mean, those two nights, honestly, guys, Christmas Eve. or Christmas, those two nights, and a New Year's Eve, you should just put down a best-off, you know, do anything other than try to put your guys out in the ring and try to create a professional wrestling show, because no one's in a matter what you do. I mean, these ratings are, you know, make me chuckle, but you have to expect that. You know, Christmas Eve is not the time that anybody sits around and watches wrestling,

generally speaking. You know, New Year's the same thing. It doesn't matter how good the show is or isn't. So, you know, throw on a best up. Come on. But here's the other funny part, that someone had the access and the desire and the goal of making sure that those ratings never saw the light of day.

That's unbelievable. Yeah. out. Raj, there's been a lot of news this week. Anything else we want to hit? Or is it all eyes on next Thursday night at this point? I think this could be a busy month. And it starts, I think, all eyes on this Thursday night.

And going forward, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Hey, you guys, you know what? This Thursday night, I'm going to be able to see what I'm watching. I've been struggling with cataracts now for like five years. My eye doctor's been saying, now you've got to get those cataracts taken out. but they're not quite bad enough yet. So it's like I've got to wait till I'm almost, you know, blind before they'll actually do the surgery. Well, I crossed that line a while ago.

And even with glasses, it's really kind of hard to focus and see and reading all that. But I get my surgery on Tuesday and Wednesday. And by Thursday, I'll be watching this show with a fresh set of eyes, so to speak. Well, come join us. Raj will be there. I'm going to be there. going to be there and jbl will be there 83 weeks.com is the place to be this thursday night immediately following tna's debut on amc it's a big night for wrestling fans huge night for t and a

we're excited to celebrate here at 83 weeks dot com hit that subscribe button turn on your notifications bell and we'll see you next thursday ross thanks so much for all the news update man this was fantastic where can everybody keep up with you through the week yeah just keep up with me on on x at the roj gary and and thanks again guys it's always a pleasure Thank you, Ryan. We love having Raj on here. We also love keeping more of our own money, which is why we love rocket money. If you haven't already, what are you waiting for? I mean, listen, you might think that you have a solid handle on your budget. Maybe your spreadsheet says you should have some extra thousand dollars left over or something like that each month. But if

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Just go right now to RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks. That's rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks. Rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks. Eric, we are going to be doing a Ask Eric anything here. So we've got tons of questions to get to. But before we do, I saw a fantastic post and I couldn't help but share it with both you and I even DM'd it to Kevin Nash. It was of an old Japanese magazine cover. Oh, yeah.

And it was from the night that Hulk Hogan turned heel. And I thought, you know what? I've never seen this. This is arguably, in my opinion, maybe the coolest, least talked about photos and pro wrestling history. I mean, we have that iconic photo, maybe it was even a screen grab, of Mean Gene holding the microphone for Hulk Hogan with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in tow. We memorialized it and had it painted and it hangs on your home studio there in Cody

Wyoming. But the cover of this Japanese magazine, man, this is terrific. I know this probably wasn't part of your fandom, but Eric, almost everyone my age, I'm sure Dave is here with us as our track producer. He would recall, we were all as fans. super excited to see our first Japanese magazine. Like when you see your first Japanese wrestling magazine, it feels like you've found something that you're not supposed to have.

Like if you just knew a guy who had one, the photos, the approach to the way wrestling was covered in Japan, it was just so different than. And I thought, man, what a great testament to Hulk Hogan that respectfully,

he wasn't necessarily looking for the photographers from WCW or any of, or anywhere. He knew what a big deal this would be in Japan and that it would be featured and showcased. So he found these, I think this is fantastic. He found these Japanese photographers at ringside. Make sure Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were there sets up for that shot. It was an unbelievable photo. And I just think, man, what a crafty veteran. Hulk Hogan knew, hey, this is the camera we need to focus on. This is where it's going to get the most attention. What a great shot. Had you ever seen that before? I had not seen that shot, but I really want to dig into Hulk's relationship with the Japanese photographers.

Everything you said is 100% true. Hulk knew. He knew the value of that moment. He knew that the value of that moment is maybe a little different in Japan that it even would have been at that time in the United States. Two different audiences, whatever, cultures. But Hulk also is, I've said this in my name. times as a perfect example. He was incredibly loyal. And a lot of the, and I don't know who took that shot. I wish I did. But I do know that Hulk had a very close relationship with a lot

of the Japanese photographers who would fly over for our big events, or I'm sure WWF's events at the time. And he had a real friendship with those people because they helped him early on. They treated him with respect in Japan because that's part of their culture. They gave him a lot of press. It was all very favorable press. He developed a very close relationship with the sports media and wrestling photographers in particular. So that when they came over, because he was loyal first, and yes, it made good sense business-wise. Of course it did.

But that wasn't the reason he did it. That was a bonus for everybody, including him. But the reason he did it is because he wanted to do something nice for the people that treated him with so much respect and helped him early on in his career, which explains a lot of other people that surrounded Hulk Hogan throughout his life, despite the fact that on paper it really didn't make much sense. But loyalty was one of the things that I found that I respected most about Hulk, to be honest. such an iconic photo man i'll just love this shot i first sent the um the different variation of the photo that didn't have the japanese magazine cover to dsylva in like a private text or dm and he said man can you imagine getting that one autographed shout out to rora leicier for for finding this

and posting this on social just such an iconic shot it does feel like eric and again you know, they're talking about something that I can't believe, but later this year, it's 30 years old. This would have been like an incredible promo shot or collectible, like as these guys sort of, you know, did all the different comic cons and conventions and you and I were even fortunate enough to be a part of their 25 year anniversary, I guess it was, the celebration of the NWO down at Hogan's Beach Shop years ago. But I just, man, what a missed opportunity that was.

have loved to have had that as a collectible, either offered by WCW or the guys in their post WCW career. One of the coolest shots of one of the coolest factions and the biggest moments in wrestling history. In fact, I'm going to ask you to hold on to that Super Dave because I'm going to do something with that. I don't know what, but that that photo is awesome. Do we, do we ever, do we know who owns it or who took that shot? I'll find out. You know, we, uh, we will get to the bottom of that. I'm sure Andrew Dice Clay and Alan and Roy and some of our internet friends. They, uh, I know some of them I know. Some of them I, and if it's who I'm hoping it is, I saw this

individual at Holt's funeral. In fact, this individual, uh, when I went to see Halk, the very, this is a perfect example of what I mean because I know a lot of people listening out here going, oh, is Eric putting over Hulk. Oh my God. Look, I saw what I saw. I saw. experience what I experience and it's different than a lot of people from the outside looking in and a perfect example of that is the very last time I saw Hulk. Something told me that it was time. You know, Hulk and I talked about me coming to skin while he was in the hospital and out of the hospital and it was never really a good time. I stay close to Nick to make sure that, you know, me coming down didn't become a burden for anybody in terms of, you know, working around schedules

and things like that. And I got to the point where I went, you know what? If I wait for this to be the perfect time, it may not come. So I went to the house and told my wife, I'm going to Tampa tomorrow. I'm going to go down to see Holt. I just felt that I had to do that. And when I got to Holt's house, this individual, who I'm hoping owns this shot for a variety of reasons, was there because of his long-standing, in Japanese, long-standing relationship with Holt, going back to Holtz. first times in Japan. That's exactly what I mean about the loyalty that Hulk had for some of these

Japanese photographers and they for him. Perfect example. We love that shot. We love Hulk Hogan. We love the NWO. Just fantastic. And glad we got to talk about that today. Let's jump into some questions, Eric. We got a bunch of these. I don't know that we'll get to all of them, but Drew wants to know. He says you were a close personal friend of Hulk Hogan. I heard him say his last match was to be against John Sina until health issues with either one derailed it. Do you remember him talking to you about this and what would you have booked his last match to be? That's a great question, Eric. Yeah.

Not only was I aware of it, I was sitting next to Hulk as he was on the phone negotiating the deal in a real time. So, yeah, I was very aware, at least of those conversations. Now, I was only hearing one side of the conversation. It wasn't like I was eavesdropping them and we were in a car, for example, or on the boat or something. So, but I heard, you know, obviously Hulk's side of that conversation. I can't tell you how far it eventually got. I wasn't involved in the details of it, but I certainly was involved in some of the scheduling. I remember talking about scheduling in terms of getting access to Hulk.

in mind the reason I was there I was actually living at Hulks condo at the time to help out and so Huck wasn't moving around real well this is one of the beginning where the back subject started getting really really bad so I remember being a part of those or listening to those discussions and then a little bit of what the match might look like but very little of that did I pay attention to nor nor exposed to. But yeah, it actually did happen. It's a true story. I was there. Hypothetically, I know you don't love to fantasy book, but if you could have booked Hulk Hogan's last match, we know as it wound up being, it was a six man overseas.

I don't even know that it was filmed. It certainly never aired on programming, but it was a TNA six man. Pully Ray was there and others. What would your storybook ending for Hulk Hogan's last match? What would that have been? Well, you know, So I guess from an era perspective, era meaning what was hot during that time, I mean I would have loved to have seen a stone cold Hulk Hogan, WCW versus WW. Ironically, as soon they were opposite sides of the brand that they started out on career-wise. But in terms of where the business was at that time, as long as we're fantasy booking, I want to go back to about 9. 1998 to do this, by the way. Maybe 2000.

Save my ass. Who knows? Maybe not. But that would be obvious. Another one would be, again, this is all fantasy, assuming everybody's heads were on straight and everybody wanted to do the best thing for the show and for the moment, for the sport, for the business. That would be Hulk and Brett. If that could have ever really come together, that would have been a fun one to watch. in the ring to make his opponent look better than he really is.

You know, just like Rick Flair is known for, other, you know, stars at that level are known for really, as they say, you know, turning chicken salad out of chicken shit. Again, and that could have been a really, really cool story and match. Beyond that, I don't know, I'd have to think about it. In a real, real fantasy world, like if we're writing a movie and not. and not trying to deal with real life, I would have thought it might be fun to think about ending both career. You know, everybody's like, puts your career on the line.

What if they're, this is the last time either one of them are going to wrestle. Now it's just pride because that's relatable, right? These guys have been out, when you hear this, you know, it's the time to retire and it's retirement tour and I'm fighting whatever for a belt. None of that makes any sense. You're fighting for your legacy. you're fighting for your ego, you're fighting for your pride, whatever you want to call it. That's a relatable kind of issue.

And if you could figure out a way to craft that story and then mess around with, you know, father time, I'd like to, I'd like to try to write a story that saw Hulk and Randy in that scenario. Where it's just about the pride. It's not about the money. It's not about the girl. It's not about anything. it's about the story and who gets to write the end of it. That would be awesome.

Man, what a great idea. You know, my brain immediately went to another name and another place, but I totally love that idea. I think a lot of fans, you know, obviously we enjoyed seeing Hulk wrestle after it, but if you're going to go out with a bang,

if hypothetically his last match would have been against the Rock at WrestleMania, I mean, if he would have just shut it down after that, I mean, I got to think with the benefit of hindsight, even when you look back, that was the biggest moment, you know, that he enjoyed his last really huge iconic moment. Like, I know that sometimes because people's opinions about Harry Belaya may have changed for whatever reason. So many talent guys who you see wrestle every night on Monday or Wednesday or Friday,

that's their favorite match because of the crowd engagement. And when you see the crowd reaction to Hulk Hogan and the Rock, it feels like something otherworldly. It wasn't even the main event of that WrestleMania, but it is the only thing people talk about from that WrestleMania. So I wish he would have gotten a send-off like that with that sort of crowd reaction. He wrestled 55 matches after that, though. The last match that we referenced earlier as a six-man went down in Manchester, England,

of all places. It was a six-man, Hulk Hogan, James Storm, and Sting against Bobby Rude, bully Ray and Kurt Angle. So a star studded affair and really cool. But those folks, and I'm sure Hogan and the guys in the matches themselves, they would have never imagined this is Hulk Hogan's last match. But I didn't even know this until, you know, a quick search over at Cage Match, a nice little reminder.

Do you know who Hulk Hogan's last singles match was against Daring? I do not. Sting. Really? That's how cool is that? To know that Sting got Hulk Hogan's last. last singles match. And of course, that is, you know,

when you think about the feather in the cap of WCW, I think most fans look back and they say these three big matches. Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair, Bash of the Beach 94, Hulk Hogan and Sting, Starcade 97. And then, you know, the other one, the real high water mark, I think most people who worked in WCW would say Georgia Dome,

July 6, 1998, Goldberg and Hulk Cogan in the Georgia Dome. I just think it's really, really cool to think his last singles match was against Sting. Something about that kind of makes me happy. Do you know where it was or was it a television man? Obviously it was television, but. Bound for Glory 2011 in Philadelphia.

I'd like to go back and watch that match. Yeah, me too. I mean, I haven't watched that match at a long time. I'm going to go out of my way to watch Bound for Glory 2011. I know that, you know, Hulk was, you know, probably not in peak fighting condition in 2011. It's going to look and feel a little different than their 19th. 1997 match, but just knowing their shared history, that's interesting.

Let us know in the comments below. Who would you have liked to have seen Hulk Hogan have his last match against? I thought for sure that Eric was going to say Rick Flair. I'm not disappointed that the last singles match did wind up against Sting, and it was on pay-per-view, so that's pretty cool. But Randy Savage, man, that can get me really excited. I love that idea. And you kind of hit it out of the park with the whole Austin thing.

You know, you talk about the biggest star of the 80s versus the biggest star of the 90s. That could have been really, really cool. Let us know below who you would have liked to have seen Hulk Hogan's last match be against. Let's do another one here. Randy wants to know, how big and important today do you think social media would have impacted the Monday Night War? Would it have developed the same type of tribalism that we currently have have with AEW and WWE? That's a great question, Eric. What's so you? Oh, absolutely. I would have loved every second of it. I would have fueled it. I would have thrown gasoline on it. If I could find me some napalm, I'd throw that into the arsenal, I'd heat that bitch up as hot as I

could get it and have fun doing it. Would have had a big impact, just like it does today. But, you know, the Monday night wars, not that, you know, wrestling wars hadn't happened before, of course they did, but not about primetime television on a national television show, you know, available in 90 million homes. that was kind of a first. And any time something happens the first time, it kind of over-indexes into the future. But it would have been massive.

It would have had a great impact on both brands. It would have become just as tribal, if not more so. It would have been more visceral because so many people believed it was real in the moment. So many people believed that it was a legit invasion, you know, Kevin and Scott. They just, they bought into it. And that kind of audience acceptance, when the audience wraps themselves around a storyline and get so emotionally invested that they start reacting, you know,

outside of logic in some respects, then you know you got them. And I would have fed that. I would have so much fun with that. I might end up in jail. I don't know. We're sued or something. I just stirred that pot.

I got to tell you that it never crossed my mind, you know, knowing how much you love to just sort of poke at the WWF, giving away their spoilers and things like that. Live on Nitro, you would have been the ultimate role, the ultimate demon. I mean, you're having fun now when there's no stakes, just busting people's balls on social media. But the idea that there was a financial reward for it. I mean, gosh. Yeah. I mean, I would have been like one of those mad Viking warriors just hacking and slashing my way through social media and having with a smile on my face while I terrorized those who had never had never heard such a thing. I would have had so much fun.

And it would have been it would have been as entertaining as the show. As oftentimes, you know, social media is right now. There's a lot of things going on in the internet wrestling community, for example. that's more interesting than what I see in some of the shows I drop in on every once in a while. Because it's real life. It's drama. There's stakes. There's personalities.

And oh, by the way, it's real life. So I find those behind this, you know, the business of the wrestling business to be far more entertaining than what I see on screen because it's the stakes are real. Man, just you would have been such a demon on social media. Yeah, it's exciting to even think about. When did you know? I mean, you had to know as a younger person that I'm not even talking about from just a wrestling perspective. But when did you know it was part of your personality that you love to be the heel? Oh, I don't know.

I mean, I've never, I'm just me. Now, on television, I mean with the volume turned up. Right. And exaggerating certain aspects of my personality. but that's it. I just turn up the volume and exploit those. Sometimes they're flaws, to be honest. But I turn up the volume on them, you know, if it's a good story, if it fits the character.

But I've never looked at it as I'm a baby face or I'm a heel. I'm just me. Sometimes it volumes up. Sometimes it volumes down. Sometimes the volume's off, depending on the situation. Well, I know, Bruce. Richard, he prides himself on being a heel in real life. Like one of the first times, maybe the third time I hung out with Bruce.

We were watching a football game. There was a big group of us and it was Alabama versus Texas A&M, I think. Either way, Bruce starts immediately taking the temperature of everyone around him and realizes they're all Alabama fans. I'm going to pull for the other team. Now, Bruce himself, not a big football fan, certainly more of a pro fan than a college fan. So he couldn't have named one player or coach, maybe even in the history of Texas A&M.

But in that moment, he just surveyed the landscape and said, oh, they're all pulling for this one team. I'm going to take the antagonist role. I'm going the other way. And he's obviously having fun with it. Halfway through the football game, he starts yelling home run, grand slam, all these baseball terms, just to needle everyone.

But Bruce is a natural heel. And I can't help but feel like on social media, when you open up the Twitter app, it feels like the Star Wars theme or the Darth Vader theme starts playing in the background. It's like, oh, here he comes. He's going to bust somebody's balls today.

But I do think that Bruce embraces the whole heel role. Yeah, he does. And I've experienced some of those same kind of things in knowing Bruce. And I guess, you know, do I have fun playing the character or engaging with people on social media based on the character that they think I am?

Hell, yeah. But do I really, you know, deep down inside, am I expressing my real feelings? Absolutely not. I'm just having fun with people. And in some ways, learning, it's a little bit, it's a little bit like learning ring psychology is learning social media psychology.

It's different, right? You don't have the ability to read somebody's body language, when you're communicating in a good way or even in a confrontational way. You don't really get to see anything. So you have to kind of learn how to interpret what you would normally pick up in body language through the patterns in the way people approach social media.

It's just fascinating to me. It's just watching how our culture is evolving with technology is like a daily fascination of mine. This is just one aspect of it. Let's do another great question here. Never seen this one before. Love it. Big Brain on Daryl.

He says the WCW business question, but how did the advertising concept of mayhem come about that was used for the November pay-per-view, music, CD, and video game in November of 1999? Now, I know Eric, you're immediately going to say, I don't know, I was gone by September. But as a reminder, the video game, WCW Mayhem, comes out in September.

and then in November there is a CD of WCW theme songs that comes out and it's called WCW Mayhem and that same month that is the name of the pay-per-view. It does feel like this was a concerted effort to establish a new brand, much like, you know, WWE has SummerSlam or Royal Rumble or Starcade. It feels like you guys were trying to do something with Mayhem here. We know it became the November pay-per-view in both 99 and 2000. Of course, we never saw November of 2001, so that was the end. But do you remember there being a real strategy around, hey, let's launch this new brand.

And the best way to sort of own this word, mayhem is, hey, let's use it in all aspects. Let's put it on a video game. Let's put it on a CD. Let's put it on a pay-per-view. Can you tell us about WCW mayhem and what the original goal for that was? Well, the goal is you just did a great job of explaining what the goal was. and that was to brand that pay-per-view. We've gone back, we can go back to, you know,

a couple of times a year on this podcast for the last six or seven years. I talk about when this subject comes up, how important it was for me to differentiate our pay-per-views and give each one of them their own personality slash brand. We've had that conversation a lot. As it related to WCW, uncensored, for example, or the Sturgis rally in August, or the Sturgis show. in August, those were attempts to brand to give personalities to a specific pay-per-view.

What you're seeing here or what you saw with Mayhem in 1999 was a refined approach to that template so that we had the music and the album CD coming out much like a movie would with its soundtrack available coordination, right? So you're merchandising the movie in one case or the pay-per-view in another. So when you're promoting, for example, you're promoting this big event and the music from and all that, just like you would have movie. That's what the mayhem creative strategy was going into that event. And that conversation, by the way, the ideas, the basic ideas for that, including the music, because I was involved in that, probably went back almost a year previous. So the result in 99 was probably the initial ideation, the concept of the project probably started a year before because it would take that long for all those deals to come together, particularly on the music side.

Well, let me tell you what will not take long to come together, and that's your new strategy for maintaining a healthy weight. I don't know if you've noticed, but Eric Bischoff is looking better than ever. and one of the things that he would credit for a lot of that success is Cignos. Eric, I know this continuous glucose monitor is something that you really believe in. Can you tell us a little bit about why Cignos is so important to you and what it's helped you do? I have learned at this late stage in life that I am insulin sensitive. Now, that's all that means is, for example, I'll just give you an example. I eat if I ate a Sniffers bar or any candy bar filled with sugar most people when they eat a candy bar gives them energy most people if I eat a candy bar I will fall asleep like an old St. Bernard in the corner next to a fire it'll just knock me out right because I'm insulin sensitive I've learned through this rabbit hole of nutrition and metabolic knowledge and information um

I've learned that I want to manage my blood glucose. What I really want to manage is my energy. I don't manage my calories. I don't manage all I manage, where my starting point, kind of like viewership, my starting point is how I feel. And I've learned that I can manage how I feel and my energy level much better if I'm really dialed into my blood glucose level.

For example, I feel really awesome at about an 85. I think it's 85 milligrams. Whatever the medical reading is, I feel awesome in about 85. I feel pretty good at 105 and 110. And I feel better than most at 115 or 120. But I feel absolutely my best when I can maintain about an 85 blood glucose level for me. And, oh, by the way, the weight just peels. off. I don't even think about it anymore. It's the last thing on my mind is whether what I should

eat or how much of something I should eat because of calories. I do think about what that food is going to do to my blood glucose. That I do think about. And by thinking about it that way, the rest of it all just happens on its own. It's pretty awesome. It's an amazing product. And if you're serious about trying to understand or better understand your body's reaction to food or stress or sleep or movement. Signos is the way to go, man. You're not talking about just best practices or theories. You actually have real-time insight into what's going on in your body. You see, all of our bodies are unique, and Signos pairs a glucose monitor with AI to reveal how your body responds to different foods. So you can build habits that will help you lose weight, keep it off,

and feel great while doing it. That's what Eric's talking about. He feels fantastic, and he gives all the credit to Signos. Signos will help you track unique to you data and provide you with that feedback to give you a healthier, happier life. Signos incorporates exercise, sleep, and step tracking in addition to tracking your glucose. The Signos app will provide that real-time learning with personalized tips and insights, as well as in-wap education and activities and experiments and challenges. Additionally, with Signos, you'll also have access to a dietitian.

And Cynos is trying to foster a community, like an in-app community, and they even have a dedicated Facebook group. You're going to learn which foods work best for your unique body and metabolism, and you can avoid the holiday weight gain next year. You can build healthier eating habits this year and still get ahead of those goals. I'm a big believer in this product. My wife was blown away when she saw that there is a continuous glucose monitor. She is in medical research. she knows it's called a quote unquote CGM. And when she first opened it at our house, she said, hey, Conrad, this is the real deal.

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That's signos.com. The code is 83 weeks and you'll get 25% of select plans today. Eric, we've got a really good question here. And I think this is one you're going to have to think about. Ronan Pro over on Twitter asked it, what do you think would have happened to the wrestling industry if they never let you have Nitro? Because it was a game changer for sure.

So WCW is still existing. They've got pro. They've got worldwide. And of course, their A show is WCW Saturday night. Now, meanwhile, on the other station, WV has syndicated shows like superstars on the weekend. But Monday Night Raw is the number one show. And it's on, of course, Monday nights on USA. But if WCW doesn't get Nitro, what does the wrestling business look like today, do you think? You're muted, Eric. Sorry. You see, that's a really, really good question. I know how this is going to sound, but I don't care.

I don't think the business, I don't think we would, the business wouldn't exist today the way it exists and where it exists had it not been for Nitro. You wouldn't be watching WWE on Netflix. You wouldn't be, you'd be, would it still be here? Sure. But it would be a niche little product. it wouldn't be the business you see today. No way.

Because all you need to do is go back in time and look. Look at the numbers. Look at the reality. Look at the financials. Look at the trends. Look at where the business was going before Nitro. Even for WWE, yes, they were on raw and they were doing very well. But look at where the business was going.

all the way up until September 1995. And shortly thereafter, when that war heated up, all of a sudden the category, professional wrestling, heated up. People who had forgotten about or lost interest in professional wrestling, all of a sudden came back to the table. We exploded the business because of the nature of the head-to-head competition. But if you look at WWE's content, their programming strategy, their roadmap, their formula was all targeted teens and preteens.

It's not deniable. It's not an opinion. It's not a theory. It's a reality. If WWE, if there wouldn't have been a nitro, why would WWE have shifted gears, dramatically shifted gears, philosophically, tastefully in every other way? Why would they have dramatically shifted gears from a teen and preteen architecture to an 18 to 49-year-old architecture? The answer is they wouldn't have. They were forced into that strategy because we were putting them out of business with ours. So when November of 1987 or thereabouts, when Vince McMahon came out and said, we're no longer going to insult the intelligence of our audience, That was him signaling, we're changing gears here, fans, because we have to. And he's going to make it sound exciting.

He did. And that's exactly what he did. And that move saved that company financially. Had they not moved away from that teen and preteen strategy for everything they did, everything that had a WWE brand on it was branded through the perspective of the lens of teens and preteen because that was their market. It's where they made all their money. They would not have shifted gears unless they would have been forced to. And if they would have held on to that strategy, we saw where it was going before Nitro. The patterns are there, how show attendance. You can decide different variables to as

to why. You're welcome to entertain yourself all you want. But the reality is the business was dying, not dying, but it wasn't growing. I guess it was dying because you're either growing or dying. There's no in between. So yes, it was going to a slow death, so to speak. Atrophy, probably better stated. But Nitro changed that. Monday Night Wars changed that. Coke and Pepsi Wars changed that business. Had that not happened, I don't think you're looking at WWE the way we look at it today. Eric, since we've been live this morning, there's been a lawsuit pop up that the internet wrestling media is covering.

It's a new headline that everybody's going to be talking about today, so I want to bring it to your attention. Post Wrestling has released a report that says a new class action lawsuit filed Thursday accuses WWE and ESPN of deceptive marketing practices with the move of PLEs to ESPN's direct-to-consumer streaming service. The complaint takes issue with how some fans who already get ESPN channels through cable or other providers were still required to pay an additional monthly fee to watch WWE events. The plaintiffs allege this contradicts marketing communications from both WWE and ESPN,

which they claim suggests that all existing ESPN subscribers would have access to PLEs. So, Eric, I don't know what to expect out of this, but my gut says, I know this gets a headline today, but it ain't going nowhere. This is a nothing burger. What say you? Yeah, but me same.

A class action lawsuit for bad planning or shitty marketing? I guess. What law firm took that on? I mean, what do you hope to get out of that other than a headline? It's silly. Not a lawyer.

Maybe, you know, our buddy, the gimmick doctor can, can, a gimmick lawyer can tell us, but damn, seems, seems like somebody just dying to get a headline. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think that goes anywhere. I mean, I know we talked about it beforehand. We felt like it was a little confusing the way it had been marketing, but I mean, confusing marketing is not necessarily illegal.

I mean, if you can start suing people for stupid nowadays, like if that's your claim and it get you in front of a judge, particularly in a class action kind of a way, well, hell, I'm, I'm going to go, I'm going to get to work and go find me some stupid, make a living, soon stupid people. I mean, that's how silly this is. Let's do another one here. This is a fun question, uh, especially for a guy like you. Trevor wants to know, what city did you get the most heat in? There had to be some city that you love to mess with. I know we've talked about, uh, when you were in Cedar Rapids, riding around. on the back of the garbage truck and the freezing cold and the snow before the very first sold out.

So I know there's some cities and some moments that still stand out to you. But when do you remember being in the ring and feeling just white hot heat and thinking, I love this town. This is fantastic. Thank you so much, insert city here. So I'm like bragging, but there was a period of time. I don't remember the timeline, but somewhere between 97, somewhere beginning in 97 and into 98 where I had as much heat than anybody in the company and more than the vast majority. Industry, not company, industry. Yeah.

So during that period of time, it was everywhere and it was awesome. And it was the most satisfying feeling that I can't. can't explain that I've ever had. It's awesome, right? But if I had to pick one moment where that heat went from white hot to a temperature that I had never heard of before or level, I would say the Hammerstein during the ECW thing we did with WWE, that was freaking awesome.

Because that heat is like the band, canned heat, right? It was canned heat, meaning you're all stuck in that little space, and the energy is just, you could cut it with a knife, and it was all contained in that small environment. So, I mean, everything, the energy was ambient, obviously the noise, the sound was, the ambiance, just the energy that you're able to create in that particular environment, that particular night for me, given my character and the way that the ECW audience, related to that character. That shit was so wild that it stands out.

It's probably the most exciting moments in terms of being a heel that I've had. Doing more fun things, you know, pulling out the masks, you know, taking some pretty cool bumps. Those are all really cool things. But in terms of actually feeling in my soul, the heat and the energy, that would have been the night. Eric, I know your brain doesn't work like. this just from hanging out with you and you don't think, man, that would have been

cooler, I wish I would have done that, or this was a missed opportunity. But you, without even being there, were one of the biggest heels in the old ECW arena. And I know that you never appeared on camera there, but once upon a time, I know you did conventions and meet and greets and things like that at the now 2300 arena, the corner of Swanson and Rittner there in South Philadelphia. But with the benefit of hindsight, and I know it wasn't going to happen for a variety of reasons. But can you imagine the heat you would have gotten in 95 or 96 or 97? If you did, you know, lights off, lights on. Oh my God, Eric Bischoff is in the ECW arena. Would that not have

been like the craziest most of? I mean, it was awesome when Jerry Lawler did it. It was great when Jim Cornett did it. But I mean, everyone took shots at you in ECW. And the idea that you were there and you represented the enemy and you don't talk about hostile territory. I can have a lot of fun thinking about Eric Bischoff in the ECW arena. In some ways, but I think it would have killed what made ECW so unique. I mean, that would have been in my,

my view. I mean, the idea of it is cool, theoretically, the idea of it. But I just don't think that I can't imagine me playing a character that would, that that audience would have embraced at that time.

They're not going to look at me as a baby face. they're not even going to want me there as a heel. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it would have been possible. It's hard to imagine it. I guess that's what's really what I'm trying to say is it's hard to imagine, but certainly not impossible. You know, think about 1997.

You know, there's this whole, uh, theory out there that there was a mole in the ECW locker room. And he was, you know, back channeling conversations to allow talent, the opportunity to jump from ECW to WCW, whether it was Raven or Stevie Richards or Perry Saturn or Mikey Whiprick or all these others. Sandman was to follow and so many others. But I think it would have been really interesting if the guy who seemingly, quote, unquote, stole talent like Chris Jericho and Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malinko and Ray Mysterio and psychosis and

who've into and you get all of those guys now. If you were doing some sort of interpromotional invasion, I know they tried this with the WWF, but, and we loved it at the time in 97, don't get me wrong. But if you really wanted to achieve the peak of that story, it's way cooler. If it's Eric Bischoff with the guys he stole from ECW doing some sort of thing, that would have been really fun for me as a fan in 97, Eric. And if, and here's the other part of it that I didn't even think about at first, but Heyman is so freaking good.

Yes. At the time, I was pretty good. Yes. the the the promos themselves would have probably helped drive that business for a year or two what could have been what could have been uh Robbie Rogers has a great question he says hey Eric what happened with you in MLW are there any more plans for return yeah you did have some fun I think maybe as a one-off or a twice off or whatever what is the latest with you and MLW?

nothing. I really enjoyed working with court and his team. It was fun for me. There was time in my schedule. The way we approached it creatively was a little different than I normally do when I make appearances for people. I generally don't appear on television unless it's WWE related or, you know, I did an appearance of two in AEWs. But typically I don't do TV appearances. But I did this one because I got to be a little creatively involved in it. it, the way we set it up, and a fit. But it was never an intention to do anything long term. So I wish him to best a lot.

So I have a great relationship with everybody there. David Sahadi, who is there when I was there is now working for Real American Free Sale. So for no other reason, then I've got a great member of my production team out of the deal. I'm glad I did it. I think I donated like my fee I donated. to Tofer Towers. So it was just something I wanted to do for fun. That was fantastic.

I love to see you make some more appearances like that. Yellow Shugas, as I'm curious by the Rock and Roll Express was made into a job tag team in the 90s and WCW and WWF after all their 80s success, what didn't transition them into top stars of the new era, Eric?

I just think the taste of the audience in general. Just because someone has success regionally in one decade doesn't necessarily mean that that success is automatically going to translate to a national audience. Number one. Number two, I think the business had kind of changed focus a little bit, you know, and not in a good way, by the way. I think the focus on the larger-than-life characters not only stalled or killed the careers of smaller guys. That could actually go out there and work and do a great job. And there's plenty of them out there to talk about. When I say smaller guys, I'm talking about guys under 220, which is still a pretty healthy-sized man, right?

but in the wrestling business at the time, it was the larger than life. You know, 300 plus. Give me a monster. And the smaller guys could have much, much, much better matches, more interesting matches. And you can think of a million of them they could do it. But anyway, got off track.

Sorry. Can you imagine the money that they would have made if, uh, when the rock and roll. Express were at their peak, you know, 1988, 1985, 1986, 1987. If they had a blue chew sponsorship,

I mean, the way I hear it, I mean, I think Jim Cornett once said, Ricky Morton had more sex on the weight of the ring than I had in a year. A fellow, you already know what time it is. It's time to level up.

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And we thank Bluechew for sponsoring today's podcast. Let's do another question here from Jack Gaffney. Eric, when you had millions watching every week, how disciplined was the sales operation behind the scenes? And do you think WCW failed because of the creative chaos or because there wasn't a unified, accountable sales strategy converting those eyeballs into long-term dollars? man, I love an infrastructure question.

What say you, Eric? Yeah, one of the disadvantages, I mean, WCW had a lot of advantages being owned by a television company, right? That should be obvious. But there were disadvantages as well. Here's one. I had no control over the sales team that represented advertising sales for WCW. There was nothing that I could do to augment or support. add sales as it related to WCW.

That was handled by a division in New York that didn't want to hear from us. They didn't even want to have a conversation with us. Don't interfere with my business. This is my territory. Stay out of it. That was the attitude. Which would have been okay if they were actually out there selling it. But they didn't because this is where the corporate perspective on WCW had such a negative impact,

even though we were owned by a television company. when it came to ad sales, which takes place on Madison Avenue in New York, there is a culture that permeates that industry in New York and Chicago, by the way, but mostly in New York. The people that populated that universe, the last thing they ever wanted to admit is that their company actually produced professional wrestling. That culture in that business at that time, looked at WCW as softcore porn.

Yes, we haven't, but we don't want to talk about it. We're not going to try to sell it to you. If you really want it, we can get it. But that was the general approach towards WCW, not only from ad sales, but from any other support division within Turner Broadcasting, until Metro came along. and then it reversed.

But for a long time, we didn't have control over our destiny, which was really the heart of that question. And that's not the reason. I mean, lack of ad sales, for example, isn't the reason WCW is no longer part of the Turner portfolio. The reason for that had nothing to do with the performance of the division. I suggest you read Guy Blake's books. He goes into it in detail.

And I can tell with the nature of your question, you have an intellectual curiosity on the subject that you owe it to yourself to read the book because you'll have a much clearer picture that I can give you. But the overall approach to WCW internally was to do everything that they could to kill it. So the real issue was the support we got across globally from Turner, not just with ad sales. Another question here from D. Eric, this isn't a question, but I want to thank you listening to your shows has helped me out in the business world. My wife and I have opened a bed and breakfast.

Thank you for all of your insight. How about that, man? You live to enlighten here on 83 weeks. Yeah. I love hearing that stuff. I do. It makes you, you know,

obviously the transactional nature of what we do is should be obvious to everyone who listens to our fantastic reads. Bluetooth reads by the way, crack me up every time I hear one. I don't know what it is. It's just funny the way you do it. But there's also the other part of doing this that I really, really enjoy. And it's this, just connecting, talking, having fun with the subject that's been a part of my life for the last 30 or 40 years. Pretty cool.

But Ryan Brooks has an interesting. Not sure either will see this, but what an Eric's opinion is the biggest missed opportunity in the wrestling business. now I think he may have been asking in your career in hindsight but I would rather talk about today as you take a look and you survey what TNA is doing what WWE's doing what AEW is doing those are kind of the big three here in America what is the biggest missed opportunity whether it's with those three or it's international or it's another promotion is there something that stands out that you're like why is no one doing this whatever that maybe? I mean, obviously, pretty hard to look at anything WWE's doing overall and a sign of

missed to it. Their growth is unbelievable. And I don't see it slowing down much in some categories it will. But in many, it's only going to continue to grow. T&A, look at what missed opportunity, We had her about ready to land on a much, much better television platform that could really change their trajectory in a meaningful way, not in an incremental way, but in a meaningful way. And I think they've got a good shot of doing that. AEW, I guess, if I had to identify one business issue, not creative, not creative, not brand, not psychology, but a business issue. If you go back to, and I'm going to find it, maybe somebody can help me do this if you're listening.

You and I did a podcast before the Turner deal was announced with AEW. It was in a rumor phase, discussion phase, whatever. It was public though. And I think you asked me about it and what I would do. Or somehow you asked me a question. as to what I would do if I was in Tony's position in terms of finding a television network. And I think I said something to the effect of, I'm going to skate to where the puck is going, not to where the puck is, Wang Gretzky.

I love that quote. And the puck was going and has been going for quite some time into the streaming category. That's the future. Ask anybody in the linear television business, they'll tell you. They'll be the first ones to tell you. Streaming is the future. And if I was in Tony's shoes right now, I would have been disappointed that I didn't do a better job

building my own streaming platform or engaged in business with somebody who is in a major way. They got there late. And frankly, I don't think they're really getting much of a tag yet. Probably they're in the same position I was in with Turner early on before Nitro, where there's probably very little internal support for anything that's got the initials AEW, outside of probably TBS and maybe a TNT. So they're probably not going to get a lot of support across the boards.

But I think that was a missed opportunity. More emphasis on owning your audience. Because if, for example, the TBS deal goes away. At some point, it will. They'll either expire and get renewed, in which case it's no big deal. None of this matters. Or it doesn't get renewed. and now Tony's out shopping,

it's a lot easier to shop if you're bringing a couple, two or three million people with you, whether it be your YouTube channel or whatever other streaming platform you can build, but if you can take your fan base with you to the table to negotiate your deal,

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quince.com slash 83 weeks. Let's do another one here with Zill. Zill says, Eric, if you were starting a new wrestling company today with presumably far fewer funds than WW and AEW, how would you lure talent to your company? Merchandise Rev Share, house show revenue,

your opportunity. That's interesting. So if you are, I mean, let's just call it like it is. You're a TNA. I don't know. But allegedly,

there's some major contracts that are coming due with TNA and I don't know that they necessarily have the budget to compete with WWE or AEW. Is it just opportunity? Is that the lure? Does that have to be the lure?

Because if it's not financial, it must be something else, no? What has to be financial? I mean, look, could it be done? look, but Paul Heyman did it. Yeah.

Paul Hammond didn't have a lot of money. I mean, he had some, obviously, but, you know, he didn't have enough to keep everybody paid, which is why a lot of them came to, well, come to work for me, not because they couldn't wait to work for Eric Pischoff and WCW, but they had bills to pay. It was a financial decision, right? Can it be done? Sure. The challenge is finding.

obviously it's a talent-driven business, always has been, always will be. That will never change. So where do you find the talent that is willing to work, I mean, have matches, help you promote, help you put up the ring, you know, sell popcorn during intermission as long as you're not, your match isn't next. You know what I mean? It's kind of a startup, all hands-on-deck kind of environment. and finding the talent that would be willing to work with the organization, maybe as a part owner or some kind of rev share opportunity with the business overall because there is no merchandising business in a new startup wrestling company. It doesn't exist.

That's an ancillary revenue opportunity that comes after viewership. It's one of those things that we started talking about the show. Once you get a viewer, you can hopefully sell them something. but you've got to have the viewership first. And if you want to start selling merchandise, if you want toy deals, if you want trading card deals, that only happens after you scale.

You grow your audience and there's a significant enough market now for your product that people will actually roll the dice and launch a business using your brand. That takes years to get to that level. But it all starts with 10%. talent. So what would I would do? I would do my best. I would pray a lot. I would search a lot. I'd look for really, really unique talent that are entrepreneurs that would be willing to jump on this ride with me. And it would be a fun ride as long as there was another way you could pay your bills

because it would take a long time. The snake's addiction over on Twitter says, should all promotions be limited to 90 minutes of airtime per week? There's just way too much wrestling on TV. I know a lot of people who are watching this would disagree with that. They love that they can watch wrestling every day of the week. I kind of agree with Snake's addiction. It's, it's a little hard to keep up, especially if you watch TV with your wife and she is not a big wrestling fan. It's challenging to keep up with all of it. And I know at different times you've talked about not wanting to do thunder that you went into that kicking and screaming. And there were a lot of reasons why part of it for infrastructure, but I'm sure part of it was also too, just over saturation is real. Was that a concern of yours with thunder?

And what do you think of snake's idea of, hey, 90 minutes of air time a week? That's fine. What's say you? I don't want any more government. I don't want anybody else tell me what I can and cannot do, what I can and cannot watch, what I can and cannot think.

I don't want it ever. So that's a bad idea. Now, I do agree. There's just an awful lot of, wrestling on but why would limiting it to 90 minutes a week make it any easier to follow it's confusing it's i guess you're assuming that all of the stories and in the way things progress for our monthly pay-per-views would all happen in a condensed version i guess it could technically but it wouldn't matter to anybody. There'd be no, there'd be no emotion attached to it. People wouldn't be

engaged in it. The nature of the business today is it needs as much television to support the PLEs and the pay-per-views and to create the revenue that keeps these companies' doors open. When I was running Nitro, when I was running WCW, I'm sorry, like in 97, 98, if you looked at our revenue, top line revenue. 25% of it came from pay-per-view, 25% of it came from ad sales, 25% of it came from licensing and merchandising, 25% of it came from ticket sales.

Those were the four legs on the financial table, so to speak. Now if you look at the business, and I just did yesterday, WWEs, for example, 65% of their revenue, total company revenue, some 65 to 70% on average, comes from television. Not 25%, almost 70% on average. The rest of their total revenue comes from the combination of those three other areas. What I'm saying is television is such an important. It is the heart and it is the blood that gets.

gets pumped through the heart of every wrestling company right now. W. W. TNA, A.W, MLW, you name it. They're absolutely dependent upon television because they can't afford the rest of those revenue streams. And those streams, for example, with MLW, they're not going to go out and do any kind of a meaningful live tour where ticket sales and merchandising all of a sudden become a revenue stream. Because they're not at scale yet.

They don't have the viewership yet. to support any of that ancillary business. Therefore, the only money these companies are making, Tony's, Tony Con, and AW is an example. I don't know what their numbers are. Nobody does other than them, but I wouldn't venture to say less than 10% of their revenues come from licensing and merchant 20% maybe,

licensing and merchandising in the traditional ancillary elements of traditional wrestling revenue models like WWF. as in WCW was, right? It's all different now. So I know that the people at home go, oh, there's too much television we can't watch. Well, that's the only way these companies are going to exist is to continue pumping up programming

that somebody will pay them for because that's the only money they're making. In some cases, obviously not in WWB's case. But everybody else, you're absolutely relying on that television revenue. It goes away, so do you. I 100 million percent agree with you. However, I think you just gave a business answer.

I'm looking at more of a creative. Like creatively, don't we want to leave them, don't we want to leave them wanting more? Absolutely. I feel like I, and listen, I'm obviously a big wrestling fan. I do five fucking wrestling podcasts a week.

But the idea that I'm going to watch two and a half hours of Raw and three hours of Smackdown and two hours of NXT and two hours of dynamite and two hours of collision and two hours of AMC, and I'm going to do that every week. Like that's, that's an incredibly tall task. I myself find myself recording the show and then fast forwarding at the next morning.

I'm going to slow down and watch the things I really want to watch and I'm going to fast forward the others. I'm not getting the full experience, but creatively there's too much for me to get emotionally invested in because I would be busy literally seven days a week watching wrestling. So I'm not saying or suggesting that this should be mandated by the government or something like that. like you can only watch 90 minutes.

I'm not suggesting that. But creatively, I do think you can oversaturate it to where it's like, eh, I'm ready for something else. I don't want to watch that anymore. Well, the other pressure is definitely uncreative and talent. Because no matter how, you know, if it's like, uh, Stevie Nix, like if Stevie Nix lived down the street from me and every Friday night, Stevie Nix invited me and my wife over to the house to barbecue and hear her sing,

like that would be the coolest thing in the world for about a month. Yep. And then it would be like, honey, should we really go, maybe we should call and say we're not feeling well or we've got something we have to do, emergency? Because I'm kind of tired of it. You fall out of love fast, right? Delusion is one of the reasons why I brought in Brett Hart and paid him what I paid them.

Because right about that same time, I've got Thunder, I know that now I need another show that everybody's going to compare to Nitro, everybody's going to want nitro level success and expected, by the way, because it's a lot of months. Let's do it again. Should be pretty easy, right? Do the same thing. Eric, come on, go do it. Well, it doesn't work quite that way because now of a sudden you're putting a lot of creative, you're putting a lot of audience pressure on that talent, meaning fatigue. You're just over-exposing them. It's not cool anymore. Just like Stevie Nix would only be cool if I saw you know, once or twice, you know, on my street singing down the street having barbecue.

After a while, you just go, yeah, Stevie's singing again. He's lonely, whatever. Same thing happens with wrestling. That's why Brett Hart got brought in because it takes some of that creative pressure off the very top with this new brand. But yes, you can oversaturate. Yes, you can make it way more difficult. And you said something that's so critically important. And people don't, most people really, they know when they enjoy good,

television, but they most of the time don't know why. Right. The psychology that creates that connection between the viewer and the moment is a really fascinating thing to dig into. It's a fun rabbit hole. And that's what makes wrestling so interesting because you're in the ring in the moment manipulating that audience. And you're able to manipulate them primarily based on your ability to read them and feel

them and know what they're looking for. And then guys like Rick Flair could convert that instinct. that knowledge, that connection to the audience, he knew how to, what to do next in order to maintain, grow, change, whatever, that emotion. That part of television is fun.

And that's one of the reasons that I do think wrestling is such a unique entertainment genre. I want to add two more things. And then we're going to put a button on today's 83 weeks. We greatly appreciate you guys hanging out with us and spending some time with us. today. I want to encourage you to hit that subscribe button and turn on the notifications bell because we're going to be live next week next Thursday, immediately following the debut, TNA on AMC,

Raj Gehry is going to be here, JBL is going to be here. We're going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the TNA debut. All eyes in the wrestling world will be on AMC next Thursday, and immediately following, they're going to be here at 83weeks.com, make plans to join us. Eric, I don't know that you had a chance to see it, but this past weekend, of course, was the New Japan equivalent of WrestleMania. It was Russell Kingdom and the Tokyo Dome sold out incredible main event. Dave Meltzer gave

the main event six stars as Tanahashi had his last match against Okada. Okada, of course, is a contracted talent for AEW, but what an amazing farewell and send off New Japan put together for Tanahashi. You had a who's who of dignitaries

from Japan and even from here in America. AEW talent like Jay White and Keniomeca, and Will Osprey and Koto Abushi and so many others coming to pay their respects. And he even got a victory laugh around the arena. He's saying farewell to his fans and crying and they've got like a big, you see there. You know, he's being carried around the arena so he can wave to all of his fans one last time. Just one of the most classy sendoffs you could ever see in professional wrestling.

And honestly, a stark contrast to the way we saw John Cena finish his last match. in WWE. Not saying that either or wrong or right, just saying this was the approach to the American-owned WWB and well, the New Japan promotion and the way they bid farewell to Tanahashi. What do you think about

the difference between the two and is that mostly cultural or is it something else? It's very cultural. I mean, this is an example of some of the experiences I had with New Japan and the way they presented

legends and people of importance in the industry. So now this is, you can't really compare two different cultures, two different expectations by the audience. The relationship, I think, between the audience and the wrestlers, maybe somewhat different. Again, culturally, in Japan, and it is here. So it's really hard to compare. But it's cool.

It's a great thing to experience. You know, selling out the Tokyo Dome is no small feat. So that in and of itself is very cool. But just imagining having been in situations like that at the Tokyo Dome, just imagining. Because there's a level, it's kind of like the energy I was, you know, the heat that I was feeling and easy. As I tried to explain it, what that kind of feels like, even though it's hard to. There's an energy for me that I experienced in the Tokyo Dome that was different. than anything else I'd ever experienced.

And I think it was the kind of respect that the audience has for the wrestlers. It's different than it is here. Here it's their TV star, yay, I get it. I'm in proximity. I'm excited because I'm part of something that somebody I look up to is part of, yay, it's a party. Whereas there's a level of reverence, I think, in Japan that I don't, experience anywhere else. And it's very cool. It's a very cool thing to see. You see it out in the

street. You see it in the stores. You see it on the train. It's a very, very different culture. And that respect is such a central part of it that you can feel it when you're in a room of 60 or 70,000 people. Well, apparently, according to reports from body slam.net, a lot of people are feeling that tonight it might be time for a change, Eric. Of course, Smackdown is three hours. Matt Cardona is back in WWE. But the main event is a three stages of hell match tonight. Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre.

And the report is there's a push internally for multiple personnel in WWE to have Drew McIntyre beat Cody Rhodes for the undisputed WWE championship in tonight's match. What say you, Eric, if you were a betting man, do you think this happens? is this the end of Cody's run tonight? Is Drew McIntyre going to be our champ this time tomorrow? Would you hold off and do something different?

Or does this set up a fantastic rematch maybe at Royal Rumble? What would Eric do? We're into January. Does this have any potential WrestleMania implications? You got to think it does, right? This is about the time you start laying out the first couple of weeks of Act 1. Maybe they've already started. But generally, this is about the time you really want to start pointing more directly towards a Russell Media storyline finish.

So I don't know. I don't know. I can't imagine Cody's going to disappear long, or if he does, he's probably going to come back with something to say about it. So maybe that's the angle. But it's not like he's going to walk away from TV for any amount of time. So I don't know. It's going to be fun to watch. I'd say what's not going to be fun is three hours.

My God. Why? Does anybody know why? Money. This is the same guy I'm talking to just a few minutes ago, said no. 65% of the revenue is probably, yeah, three fucking hours of smack down the night. Yeah, let's see. Here's that same guy would also say long term.

You don't want to bore your audience to death. or your audience stick around. And you said it, leave them wanting more. Yes. It's hard to leave people wanting more when you've planted them like a fucking tree on the couch for three hours. And you want to leave them wanting more?

It's a little challenging, folks. Not a long-term strategy that I would sign off on. I get the revenue part. I was forced into that. Fred Siegel. Pit Turner. two hours now we're going to do three hours now i don't want to do three hours it doesn't matter

two three hours because it because the revenue can support it but man creatively kills you to me a three hour wrestling show a three a weekly it's the difference between buying a house or building a house i know that sounds silly but that's what i do for a living and the people i've worked with who build a house and i've done this too at the time you get to the end of that process i mean you may be nine months a year, depending on how big and how complicated permitting and the design of the house is or construction. It could be 18 months or more. But when you're at the end of that marathon, instead of being really excited to move into your quote unquote dream home, and it is, boy, it was such a long process that instead of being, oh my God, I'm so excited. I'm in my new

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Eric, I had so much fun catching up with you today for I ask Eric, anything. I can't lie. I'm fired up for tomorrow night. Real American Freestyle has become a guilty pleasure of mine. I've got the Fox Nation app. It only costs me a couple bucks a month. You can join and sign up right now and watch Real American Freestyle 1 through 4, but 5 is live tomorrow night. And if you're in the sunrise area, be sure to swing by. Go say hey to Eric. There's a huge fan event before. Doors open at three. Tickets are on sale now. Real American Freestyle.com. Eric, thanks for taking so much time on a very busy weekend to jump in and have some fun here on 83 weeks.

It is fun. I always look forward to doing this show. And thanks to you and Super Dave for bringing it all together and working with my stupid schedule. But we do the best we can. And we're doing a great job, having a lot of fun. And we'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Fishoff.