83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 415: Revenue Over Attitude

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

On this special LIVE edition of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad discuss all the news and notes happening this week in wrestling along with news that the WWE drew in more money last year than the Attitude era! You don't want to miss Eric's take on that plus so much more on this week's 83 Weeks.  CASH APP - Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/j5ojws30 #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Direct deposit and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. MUD/WTR - Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code 83WEEKS at http://mudwtr.com/83WEEKS  ! #mudwtrpod BLUECHEW - Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code 83WEEKS at http://BlueChew.com  INDACLOUD - If you're 21 or older, get 35% OFF your first order @IndaCloud with code 83WEEKS at https://inda.shop/83WEEKS ! #indacloudpod JCW LUNACY - Juggalo Championship Wrestling drops BRAND NEW episodes of Lunacy every Thursday at 7pm ET exclusively on their YouTube channel http://youtube.com/@psychopathic_records check it out! POLICYGENIUS - Head to http://policygenius.com/83WEEKS  to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. BETTER WILD - Right now, Betterwild is offering our listeners up to 40% off your order at http://betterwild.com/BISCHOFF  SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewithconrad.com  to learn more.

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Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I am doing great, Conrad. I am in Phoenix, Tempe, Arizona, near the ASU campus. And just gear it up, man. It's really exciting. This is going to be a really fun weekend. I'm looking forward to it.

Of course, we're talking about real American freestyle. I can't believe it, but we're finally here. Real American Freestyle 06. It feels like you guys had to be a real American freestyle of six. It feels like you guys had a run where you were doing them like every three weeks. You had a little bit of breathing room this time, but you're back in action tomorrow night. And good news, bad news. Good news is you can watch Real American Freestyle Six and the first five by signing up for the Fox Nation app.

It's only a couple bucks a month. And you get all of these great premium live events, I guess maybe we'll call them. Not just the one tomorrow night that's live, but all of the previous ones in the archives for your enjoyment as well. the bad news is if you were hoping to get tickets i think you may have waited too long eric unbelievable we sold out uh all of the the regular seats in the venue yesterday we put standing room only seats up and they sold out within a matter of a couple hours so we are legitimately standing room lonely pretty exciting sixth event i mean it's we're further ahead now than i even in my most optimistic perspective.

I never would have dreamed we'd be as far as we are after just six of us. It's really catching fire. It's been really fun to see, you know, especially when we're able to brag about, you know, sellouts, total utilization,

no more tickets available, standing room only. Real American freestyle is the hit that a lot of people in the pro wrestling circles didn't see coming. This has to feel good. You know, Eric, you as an entrepreneur and a, a content creator and a developer and a showrunner and all the different hats you've

worn in the entertainment field. You've had some hits and you've had some misses. And sometimes when you're starting, and hell, you think they're all going to be hits. But you don't really know, right? You get out there, you do your best, you hack away at it and hope for the best. It's got to feel good knowing that, hey, here we are gaining momentum show by show. Now we're freaking sold out. That's a, that's a really cool dude. Cool deal, man. You know, it's what's fun for me personally as a to the different things that I've done. You know, when I go back and I look at Nitro, when that opportunity was foist upon me by Ted Turner,

I knew that I had to change the format. I knew that I couldn't just do what we had always been doing and presenting wrestling the way WCW had presented it, and quite honestly, the way WWE presented, I had to do something different. And I essentially blew up the format and started from scratch and just did everything different. as differently as I could, right, and still present wrestling.

And that's what this challenge with Real American Freestyle has been. We knew going into it. I certainly knew going into it. This was going to be tough because freestyle wrestling is typically hard to make entertaining. And by changing the format, by adding in some of the elements that we've all seen in professional wrestling, some of them I created, some of them I adopted or stole. whatever, but by taking the entertainment format that we've created for pro wrestling, the scripted pro wrestling, and then using that to kind of shape a new format for freestyle wrestling, we've been able to make freestyle wrestling fun to watch.

And that was the biggest challenge. I know it sounds so simple, right? Just make it fun. But we're the first ones that have been able to do it. Others have tried. And a lot of people, even in the amateur wrestling community, I was talking about. talking to Evan Wick, an unbelievable athlete. I was talking to Evan yesterday.

He said, you know, Eric, I'll be honest with you. I was excited when you guys started. I was excited to have an opportunity to wrestle for real American freestyle. But deep down inside, I really didn't think you guys could pull it off because other people have tried to do what we're doing. But they failed to find a way to create a format that not only amateur wrestling fans will enjoy, but the mainstream. You know, people who are not necessarily card carrying.

freestyle wrestling fans are now finding, you know, real American freestyle and we're making it fun. I think the crossover with the MMA, you know, we've got a lot of UFC stars that are part of our league now. That has certainly helped get the word out and spread amongst the MMA audience. So it's just, it's fun to build something and to do something that's never been done before. And there's a reason why a lot of people didn't think, you know, this thing was going to work.

But we found a way. And we still got a long way to go. I don't want to sound like, you know, I'm taking a victory lap here. We're still only six events in. There's so many things that we can do to continue to improve the show. And we will to make it more entertaining, to make it more fun, and to broaden the audience. So it's a blast. I'm really blessed, really honestly blessed with this opportunity at this stage of my life.

Go join in on all the fun. Real American Freestyle.com is where you can go ahead and see the entire card. What you'll see is they've got some of the best and brightest young stars and all of amateur wrestling. I mean, I guess it's professional wrestling now, but a different kind. But you're seeing 18-year-old competitors, 24-year-old competitors, but you're also seeing some UFC legends. I can't tell you how excited I am to see your eye favor compete again.

He was my favorite competitor in WBC. Of course, he's taking on Henry. And, I mean, you've got Benson Henderson on this card and play Guida. If you're an old-school UFC fan like me, this is for you. Or if you've just really kept up with amateur wrestling and college wrestling, and collegiate wrestling and maybe Olympic wrestling, or you did as a kid. I know a lot,

I have a lot of friends who they haven't been watching Real American Freestyle in the first several, but now they've caught on and they're into it. And they wrestled in high school, but it's something they haven't really kept up with or watched on TV. I want to encourage you, throw a few bucks at Fox Nations. Go check this out tomorrow. You will not be disappointed.

It's completely sold out. Real American Freestyle.com is where you can get all the information. And Eric, I can't believe it, But you guys have another one coming up in a month in Tampa. So if you missed your chance in Arizona, you could still lock in for Tampa right now, right? Yeah, Tampa is going to be great. We've got a lot of stuff going on in Tampa that entire week.

We're going to start moving into the youth category with tournaments and things like that. So we're going to have a full week of Real American Freestyle activity down in Tampa. It's going to be a blast. Can't wait for you guys to check it out. That's Real American Freestyle.com. Of course, the rest of our show, we're going to be talking about pro wrestling and it is indeed a Friday morning. We are live at 83 weeks.com.

So what you're watching is not taped. Eric is live. You heard the coffee maker going in the morning. We're getting our Friday morning started with you. If you've got a question for Eric, we certainly want to hear from you. Go ahead and hit us up live on YouTube. And while you're here on YouTube,

be sure to hit that subscribe button. But maybe most importantly, hit that notifications bell. You don't want to miss us the next time we're live. You could interact with the EZE right here. Hey, Eric, before we jump into a lot of the other wrestling news, I don't know that you had a chance to see the victory lap between WWE and UFC.

The TKO stock is unbelievable. What a performance they've had if you take a look at it. And you can just type this in your Google machine. They're up like over 60% in the last two years. It's absurd to run they're on right now. But what stood out to me the most this week, Eric, is that WWE generated $1.7 billion in revenue in 2025.

And we're not saying lifetime. We're not saying over a decade. We're saying last freaking year, 1.7 billion. And I think this is the first time since the TKO merger. And maybe the first time in, gosh, 20 years or something ridiculous like that.

WWB generated more money than UFC. Not only more top line revenue, but more profitable as well. this sort of shocked me. I was used to, you know, the UFC model and that profit margin, but it does feel like if one of the initiatives was, hey, let's move up WWE ticket prices to be more in line with UFC ticket prices. That seems to have worked.

Now, I know there's a lot of pushback and we're going to talk about the effect on ticket sales, but if you're really running a business and you're looking at the bottom line, highest gross, highest profit, it's hard to argue. with the success, is it not? Yeah, numbers don't lie, right? I mean, it is the bottom line, as Steve Austin would say. You know, we all have different opinions, and of course, many of them are subjective, but objectively, you can't look at where WWE is today and not recognize that it's a juggernaut,

and it's continuing to grow. And, you know, you look at WWE and their revenue opportunities versus UFC, I think, obviously, I've not looked at the books, but I would venture guess that a lot of the reason for that is the licensing and merchandising market for WWE is probably quite different than it is for UFC, and that's in all likelihood. The reason why WWE has exceeded UFC. I feel like they probably have guaranteed money from Fanatics. Don't you think that's the case with WWE?

Like once upon a time, you know, respectfully, the more stuff they sold, the more profit they would make. That's pretty simple. But I feel like they probably have some sort of a, maybe there's incentives, but it feels like there's got to be some sort of a guaranteed rights deal from fanatics. Obviously, you eliminate the overhead,

but it feels like Nick Kahn has sort of made his name in this space by getting guaranteed money. You know, from this television rights or that television rights or these streaming rights or these PLE rights or what have you. I feel like the fanatics deal is almost guaranteed. So I think the only, besides those guaranteed contracts, the jacked up ticket price,

which if you take a look at the WWB ticket prices just over the last five years, I mean, it's a hockey, it's a hockey stick. They're just straight up. Don't you imagine that the fanatics deal is guaranteed? I certainly would. I mean, most licensing deals that I've ever been exposed to come with,

in advance against a guarantee. So it's not like that hasn't ever happened before. But I think it's also one of the reasons why the stock price is doing as well as it is, because the market likes stability. And when you've got contracts like your television partners, for example, the revenue from U.T.V. rights, you've got revenue from licensing, i.e. fanatics in this case. And those agreements are guaranteed agreements, guaranteed contracts. That's stability.

and the market likes that. So good for them, man. They're doing it right. That is the model. When we grow up, we want to be like them. Well, no doubt about that. We're live right now on YouTube. Want to give a shout out to the Blue Manny, Brian Hepron, who's with us. Hey, Brian.

I hope all as well. And congratulations on the new Ring Classics app. Greatly appreciate you for that. J.R. Smith says, good morning from Savannah, Georgia. The lap dog had a comment that really jumped out. I wanted to highlight. He says, hey, wasn't TCO $3 billion in debt last year? Yeah, over the last year, they took on an additional billion dollars in debt.

And I think a lot of people are seeing that report and they don't really understand it. Eric, I just wanted to take a minute and say, hey, guys, at that level, it's a tax strategy. You know, you don't pay tax on borrowed money. So if you've got all of this profit coming in and you show that giant profit, well, now you've got to pay a huge amount of tax on that. But if you can say, well, we're actually servicing some debt. you take a huge loan and then you pay the interest but you've still got the cash you kind of got that cash tax free there is a tax advantage to this like for instance you know you always hear guys you know you hear people complain online that hey this billionaire doesn't doesn't pay any tax

well it's because he doesn't pay himself anything he has a lot of value in the stock he gets loans against the stock they're positioning the loans as i don't know tax avoidance but it's a financial strategy to suggest that TKO is in any sort of financial trouble, quite the opposite. Now, are they killing the town with some of these television rights deals? And maybe, you know, they're going to get a big lick, but maybe no repeat business. That remains to be seen. That was certainly the case with Fox. But the idea that TKO is in any financial trouble.

I mean, that's way off base. It's wishful thinking amongst the Internet wrestling community dark side. cheering for failure is what keeps the internet wrestling community alive it's what makes them feel significant well it's it's certainly weird that's for sure we even see comments here tkio getting ready to sell to saudi i mean i know everybody believes that and i i can make the argument for that i mean certainly we're seeing some saudi funding for zufa boxing you know with with connor ben and a lot of other fights and reports that we've heard that, hey, they're opening up their wallet,

but they've done this with live golf and a lot of other areas as well. But, hey, they just wrote a big check for World Rumble. They're going to write an even bigger check next year for WrestleMania. That's good business for WWE. You know, should they, shouldn't they? Who knows? You know, that's for somebody else to decide.

But I do think eventually there will be a conversation about TKO selling, but they're going to sell when it's at its absolute peak. I mean, that's my perception. Like, I think these are just, you know, business guys and they're always looking for opportunities. Do you think there's ever a day, or would you disagree with that? Do you think that they will never sell? Well, you never say never, obviously.

And with the media landscape changing as rapidly as it is, for sure, I wouldn't want to make a bet either way. If it does happen, it will be a long time. Because, I mean, WWE, there's so many ways to exploit. that brand and the product across so many different forms of media and entertainment. And it's not like it hasn't been done before. You know, WWE launched their film studios way back when, whenever that was initially, to attempt to do what we're talking about here,

which is extending the brand into other forms of entertainment. In this case, the movie side of things. It, you know, it limped around. It got off the ground, but it didn't get a lot of the, altitude, but you look at the composition of TKO, the board, the people that are running that company, they now have the means to really leverage the strike of that brand into so many other forms of entertainment. Given Ari Emanuel's background and the cons, I would find it highly unlikely that there's a sale anytime in the next five or ten years.

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App bank partners, prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC, direct deposit and promotions provided by Cash app, a block ink brand. Visit cash. com slash legal slash podcast for full disclosure. So we are live here on 83 weeks on YouTube. Keep those questions coming. we're going to get to those, but briefly I wanted to talk about the rock. The rock has been a topic of discussion for quite a while since he's popped back up in

WWE, but with these new disclosures and the financial reporting from WWE, now we can talk about how much money he made. I know that sounds silly, but how about $21.7 million in TKO shares between 2024 and 2025. He also received royalties in the amount of $1.8 million across the two years. Of course, WWE covered all of his travel expenses, which totaled 2.6 million in 2024 and just 600,000 last year in 2025. You know, listen, I know that the Hulkster, boy, he had some big years in WCW and certainly in the golden era of the WWF. And we know it feels like once upon a time everybody had an Austin 316 shirt.

He was the hottest star in the business. But $21.7 million plus another 1.8. My goodness, for a limited number of dates, and I know he's more than just a performer, this has got to be one of the biggest quote unquote wrestler paydays in the history of wrestling, does it not? Yeah, it's like Hulk used to say, you know, when people would talk about who's the best worker in the business,

Hulk's response was whoever made the most money. And at this point, that would be the rock. I mean, it's pretty amazing. And a lot of that has to do with just where the business is today and how much easier it is to create revenue and exploit market opportunity than it was back certainly in the 80s when wrestling was still just kind of looked at as, it's not quite as bad as porn, but it's close in the eyes of the entertainment world. Certainly, that's changed. and with it a lot of opportunities to create revenue. And with it, a guy like Rock who is at the right place, at the right time, and had the talent and the charisma to make it work,

he's cashed in and good for him. And that's on top of the money that he's making doing movies. He's doing okay. I think he's going to be all right, Eric. He might make it. I think if he wants to order, if his wife wants to order a dessert, I think it's fine, you know. I don't think it'll be a big deal.

I do want to mention this because I love making comparisons. I think that's one of the things we love to do here on this show is talk about what's happening now and then draw some sort of comparison from yesterday year, whether it's the Monday Night Wars era or the golden era, whatever it may be. But WWE in 2025 drove more than twice as much revenue as the best year of the attitude era. That would have been the fiscal year 2001. And that's even adjusting for inflation. So when we think about as hot as WWE ever was, which was 2001, as far as ratings and fanfare and ticket sales and gross revenues and pay-per-views and all of that stuff, we adjusted for inflation.

And WWB last year was more than twice as successful. And if you go back to the Hogan era, say 1990, which was probably the peak year, it's four times bigger. So think about how big the WWF was when I was. was a kid in 1990. I mean, it was the talk of every little boy in my school. I mean, we were all wrestling obsessed with Hulk Hogan and the macho king and the ultimate

warrior and demolition. And last year, it was four times bigger, four times more profitable. I mean, when people talk about the golden era and they talk about the Monday night war era, the attitude era,

it's held on this mantle as like, hey, these were the best of times. Do you think we'll talk? about that time that we're in right now. Will we refer to this time like we do those times in the future? Of course we will. That's the nature. Of course we will. You know, and it's it's the same kind of phenomenon is true in the music industry, movies, sports, you know, how many times have you sat down and talked to somebody who's my age, you know, 60, 70 years old, 50, 60, 70s,

and talk about the NFL and the way football used to be. You know, you look back at things with a different kind of reverence, the more distance there is between that period of time and where you are right now. You always look back at, oh, that is good now, but man, it was so much better when I was young. You hear those types of conversations all the time. And of course we will, because this is an exciting time. There are a lot of 16, 18, 20, 24-year-olds that are really, really just getting into the peak wrestling fandom now.

That age group, 20 years from now, regardless of how cool things are, 20 years in the future, we'll look back at this time because of the excitement that it generated. The feelings that it created in them during this period of time, they'll look back at that period of time, and it will be even bigger than it really was. So, yeah, that's just human nature. Let's take a look and see exactly how TKO made money in 2025.

our crack producer has pulled this down from Wesslenomics, and what a visual this is, just to see all the money sort of coming and going here. I mean, Eric, as you take a look, you know, you've got the UFC in the top column, and then we go down to WWE, and when you take a look at just what the media was, you're talking about a billion dollars just on that.

The live events, 400 million and change, partnerships and marketing, aka ad sales, sponsorship, 159 million consumer products. We were talking about fanatics earlier. That'd be 136 million. So all told, 1.7 billion,

but that's how the cookie crumbles, at least for WWE. It does just jump off the page. And what's interesting is when you take a look at by comparing WWE and UFC, you see WWE commanded bigger meteorites. I guess maybe that's no surprise. They've got a big head start.

and they're more in control of their character. But the live events, I think that's what jumps off the page to me. Now, we certainly know that WWE runs more events than UFC. But when you think about the ticket pricing, man, UFC prices have been crazy forever.

But still, 232 million from ticketing last year for UFC compared to 412 for WWB. Huge difference. And I think you and I probably assumed I did at least with the influx of new ads that we've seen with WWE. It was like every match has a sponsor. Every freaking turnbuckle has a sponsor.

I mean, they've got stuff inside the guardrail. I mean, they've got stuff on the canvas. We never saw any of this with Vince. I just assumed what WWE is going to beat the snod out of UFC on sponsorship this year. Not the case. UFC to 314 million compared to WWE's 159. Now, you nailed this piece, Eric. you suggested that, hey, the merch, that's going to move a lot more for WWE than it is UFC,

and that makes sense when you think about action figures and all the other stuff for kids. UFC comes in at 47 million. Meanwhile, WWE is at 136 million. Really remarkable to do a sort of a deep dive on the data. Shout out to WrestleMania for putting this together. Does anything jump out of that and catch you by surprise, Eric? I mean, all of it, just because of the scale and the amount of money that we're talking about. But no, looking at the revenue streams and the costs, it's interesting.

Interesting in the sense that I want to use this model as an example for our growth at Real American Freestyle. There's a lot of things that we can learn from the business model for both TKL or, excuse me, UFC and WPP. We are live here at 83 Weeks.com. I want to hit a few questions now. and then we're going to briefly take a break and be back and we'll do a few more questions, but we've got lots to talk about. But one of the things that really popped off this week to the point that even my dad asked me about it, and my dad is not a wrestling fan.

I mean, if something makes mainstream news, he'll ask me about it, but he's not plopping down to watch Rawls, SmackDown or Dynamite every week. But he said, hey, son, is Vince okay? And I'm like, what do you mean? What happened? He was in the car crash. And I go, no, that's from July. He goes, no, it was just on TV today.

I'm like, dad, did you? you hear there was a big snowstorm in New York? He goes, yeah. I go, did you notice there was no snow and he was in a short sleeve shirt? He's like, oh, I didn't think of that. Like, yeah. Unfortunately, the day that Hogan sadly passed away. But everybody's talking about this. AOTV productions is with us here live and he says, hey, Eric, what was your reaction to the body cam footage of Vince's car crash? Did you see the footage, Eric? Yeah, I did, actually. What did you think? Didn't surprise me. I mean, it was Vince McMahon. If you've ever, if you've ever, see it. I haven't been in a car with Vince when he was driving, but I've heard plenty of

stories, and it's consistent with everything that I heard. But I didn't see anything unusual. I mean, got wrecked a $300,000 Bentley. He was pretty upset, probably stunned. But I didn't see anything else that made me go, hmm, what was really going on there? I didn't see any of that. It just drives me a friggin maniac. Well, there's no doubt about that. out and we've heard that for years and years and years. I mean, Bruce Pritchard's been telling us that for 10 years. But I did want to mention, hey, how remarkable is it that that guy was in a car crash on a highway going 100 miles an hour?

He's fine. Like, on some level, I know he's how to run a bad luck. You can call it bad luck if that even exists for billionaires. But what a run he's been on where you can get in a hundred mile an hour car crash. Have somebody come pick you up in an escalate and continue on a about today, like the dude has a golden horseshoe up his ass. Like that could have been really, really bad, Eric. Or in, and or the car that he hit, someone could have been killed.

100 mile an hour. A hundred mile an hour Bentley is, is a weapon at that point. And fortunately, nobody was hurt, including Vince, but it could have gone the other way. And it would be a much different conversation. It is a very, very heavy vehicle. That was the V12 variant. I mean, you're talking about an obscenely heavy and, expensive vehicle in excess of 100 miles an hour.

And I remember when it happened thinking, man, what are the odds that he's in the car wreck the same way that his old friend Terry Belaya passes away. It was like the universe on some level. And now all these months later for the footage to come out, I think a lot of people were shocked to see. I mean, I know everybody knows this, but I think people who grew up with wrestling,

he's sort of like our Walt Disney. And so we speak about him as if he's, not a human being. And then you see him in a car rack and you're like, oh, okay, well, yeah, he is a real human. It was a, it was an interesting case study, I think, on how people view celebrity this week. Indeed. Well, something else has been interesting and I know you've been excited about it, Eric, is mudwater. And I have to admit, there's a lot of people in my life who absolutely loves coffee. Are you one of those? Maybe you love the taste, the smell, the whole ritual, but perhaps the caffeine sends you straight into an anxiety spiral? Well, a lot of us feel

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After you purchased, they're going to ask you how you found them. Please support our show and let them know EZ. Send them your way. And we got a few really cool questions here before we get to some of these. And we are live at 83 weeks.com. It's Friday morning at 1038 Central, 1138 Eastern. We want to hear from you. If you got a question for Eric, hit us up. Reese is a new member here at 83 weeks.com.

Greatly appreciate you joining us, throwing you a little too sweet love. But he's got a great question. He says, hi, guys, I found myself watching the rise and fall of WCW DVD for many years ago. And you hear from Mike Graham stating that it was his idea and Steve Kern's idea for WCW to put on a show at Disney. Is this true? No, it's not. And Mike is not here to defend himself. So I'm going to keep my comments relatively short on this subject.

But Mike and a lot of others who were, you know, obviously a part of WCWD, not in a decision-making process, certainly didn't really have a lot of influence outside of what happened inside of the ring. But there's a saying, you know, success has a thousand fathers and failures as an orphan or something along those lines. And I think that's probably the case here. Mike Graham didn't have anything to do with it. Did he, you know, did Mike and Steve Kern have a thought at some point of doing shows now in a South stage? Probably. I wasn't the first one to do it.

There was other people that have done it. but certainly with, or at least one, but certainly with regard to WCW, Mike was not a part of that decision or process, really. Hey, I wanted to ask you, you know, you mentioned studio wrestling, and I know that you did a little bit of that. Obviously, Jim Crockett promotions had a studio show and Memphis had a studio show and, well, a lot of different promotions, including Florida, I know the territories, had studio shows.

It was recently announced that Ring of Honor is now going to become a studio show. There is a television network in Jacksonville that is going to be the home for Ring of Honor Studio Tapings, and they're going to start this Sunday. I thought that was kind of a cool idea. I really enjoyed it when the NWA tried that right before the pandemic. I felt like Billy Corgan had a lot of momentum, and he did have some great stars. He had Ricky Starks there at the time. He had Eddie Kingston there at the time. He had L.A. Knight at the time. He had Thunder Rosa at the time. He had some really great stars,

but it was a throwback. And as a friend of mine, I often says in business, you can be better than, less than, or different than. And it was different than what we saw on WWB or TNA or NXT.

So I like the idea that now, instead of Ring of Honor being positioned as, you know, the little brother of AEW, the C show, if you will. So if Dynamite is the A show and collision is the B show, will ring of honor by default is the C show.

That is the way it was positioned because it was largely in those same buildings, but to smaller crowds. The idea that it's a studio show, it may give it a totally new feel. And I know at different times you were not a big fan of studio shows, but as it applies to Ring of Honor, are you in favor of that?

No, it'll tank. It's just, it's just not. It's, no. It'll take. implies that Ring of Honor has a lot of momentum right now. I don't think it does. And it's not going to gain any. It's just going to exist

for that select group of fans that just can't get enough wrestling. Sure, there will be some people who will tune into that show. But here's the problem with studio shows is the expectation. Back when Jim Crockett was doing it,

Bergenia, when I was a fan of of AWA, was a studio show that was produced at a television station, WTCN, I think it was, on Highway 12, Golden Valor, Highway 55. So the idea of a studio show is not new, but what's changed over the years, obviously, with the live event aspect of television. Now the audience has gotten so used to seeing 5,000, 7,000, 8,000, 10,000 people in the arena, and they're part of the show. The audience is just as an important part of the show as the people that are in the ring performing. And in a studio environment, you just don't have

the energy. We saw that with TNA. That was one of the reasons why I tried as hard as I did to convince TNA management to produce the show on the road in front of a live audience in a venue, in an arena, because it's the energy that people expect to see now in a wrestling event. And when you don't show them that, when they don't have that energy, when they don't have that third character in the show, the third character being in this case being the audience, when you don't have that third character as part of your show, yeah, you're different than, but not in a good way. It's just, it just lacks the energy that people have come to expect and associate with professional wrestling. I hear you. I do want to counter with this. I, I think that's what NXT has kind of

become. And I know they're at full sale and there is a little larger and I know that T&A did this. And I know you weren't always a fan of T&A doing this in the Universal Studios. But I do think if you're trying to mitigate costs and you're trying to develop talent and you're trying to get talent reps that there can be some sort of an upside. And I think it could be interesting. I like when we're trying something that could feel different than. And I know that if you've never seen the WJCT soundstage, which is the official home, I suppose, of these Ring of Honor Studio shows. It's a 7,800 square foot room, I guess we'll call it.

So it's going to seat 400, but it's got this really cool giant screen. I mean, I don't know another way to say it, but there's like three walls of screens. So it's like 125 feet of screen. So it may feel like, I don't know, a really small, affordable version of. the sphere. But it does make me think of an idea that they tried once in the AWA with and it was way ahead of its time and it was way out there. And of course it didn't work. The whole challenge series concept. It was it was wacky. But I like the idea that we're just trying something new and maybe that we've upgraded it with technology. There you go. I mean that to me, it's like,

hey, I don't know what to expect, but I'm kind of looking forward to seeing it. And I'm really excited that if house shows, if we've decided that there's no money in house shows for whatever reason. And a friend of mine once decided that for WCW that, hey, every time we leave the door, we're losing money. But we do need reps. I feel like injuries are more prevalent now because there are fewer reps. And I don't know. I like the idea of getting guys working, if that makes sense. And I think this is going to be a cool looking venue. I at least want to try it and check it out. But it doesn't sound like you're nearly as bullish. No, I'm sure. I was, uh, I was, uh, I was, uh, I'll check it out, take a look at it, but I kind of know what to expect.

And unless there's a treatment for that venue, meaning unless somebody comes in a set designer, a production designer, and says, okay, we've got this 400-seat venue. We're not going to have a big crowd. We're not going to have the energy that people normally associate with professional wrestling. We're not going to get the kind of reaction responses to the action that happens inside of the ring, the way we would like to see it. So all that being said, what can we?

do to this venue stylistically to make it cool, to make it have its own vibe, to mitigate the fact that there's only going to be 400 people in the audience. That's the challenge. And certainly I'll check it out to see if somebody comes up with a couple different ways of trying to do that. But, you know, it's a studio show. It's a studio show. It is what it is and what they've always been.

I will say as a long-term ECW fan, I mean, way back in the day, some of my most fun wrestling experiences happened with like 1,500 or 2,000 people. And don't get me wrong, being at a WrestleMania and a giant stadium, hey, that's cool. But I don't know. It does. I think my preference would be smaller venues. So I, for one, am biased and I'm looking forward to a smaller venue.

I say that as somebody who, you know, for my senior trip in high school, a lot of my friends were like, let's go to Cancun. I'm like, let's go to the ECW arena. So, like, that was a cool thing for me. And I was excited to go see T&A for the first time at a paper review in Universal Studios. I like the intimate vibe of a show. Moostodon friend of the show is with us here. And he says, I think R.O.H has needed a home like this for a while.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it works. O'Connor, 1981, says, I haven't seen R.O.H. in a long time. What channel isn't on? It's on Honor Club. They have their own app now. Just Google R.O.H. Honor Club.

Musadon says for what ROH is at this point, I think it's a good fit. I kind of agree. I'm excited to see what this looks like. I'm sure pictures will come out this Sunday. We'll all stay tuned and we'll be talking about it next week here on the program, I'm sure. We got another question here from AOTV productions. Of course, Eric, this weekend is the elimination chamber.

And we're going to talk about the elimination chamber a little later. But the thing that everybody's kind of buzzing about right now, and I love that we get so fixated on these story, lines and silly things. Like to this day, I know if you do like a, a public appearance and you're doing a Q&A and fans can just ask questions, if you go long enough, somebody is going to ask Eric Bischoff about the white limo.

I mean, how many times have you been asked that through the years, Eric? Hundreds. So I'm just saying it's like it is something that fans are going to fixate on. And they're doing that right now with two things. Who is the masked man associated with the vision? and then what aOTV production says hey eric who or what do you think is in the wwee box some fan theories are chris jericho danhausen page and even vince mcman

there's lots of suggestions about hey what's in the box and believe it or not there are betting sites and the betting favorite is that it's danhausen and i think the second highest most money or whatever that's been bet is that it's chris jericho i like that people are guessing You know, it feels like one of the things that was paramount for you with nitro in that Sarsa formula is people love surprises. They want to be kept on their toes. They want to keep guessing. And as silly as it is, this box has people guessing, Eric. No, it's fun, right?

And I think it's getting people talking. You know, go back to what I think is, excuse me, the main reason that NWO. took off as fast as it did, excuse me, one second, is because of the, who's the third man component. That storyline started off so strong because we created a mystery and it got people talking. You know, once the show was over, they used to call it water cooler talk. I don't think they even referenced that any longer. But, you know, the day after the show, everybody was comparing ideas and suggesting who it might be. That's fun.

I mean, that's a fun way to engage your audience, to keep them guessing, to keep them talking, and to keep them tuning in to find out who is ultimately going to be. And yes, the audience, I think it's true across the board. We just like surprises. It's a human condition. We love it. You get that dopamine hit or adrenaline, depending on the situation. But I think it is fun.

It's a great storytelling device because it keeps the audience engaged from week to week. And ultimately, there will be some sort of a payoff. I hope it's a big payoff because the good news is you got people talking, you got people excited, you have people comparing notes and challenging each other as to who they think it's going to be, and eventually that person is going to get revealed. And I hope that that reveal meets the expectation. Otherwise, it could backfire.

It's going to be interesting to see what it is. I don't know that anybody has suggested that it's bad bunny or anything like that, but I wonder, is there a WrestleMania celebrity component to this, some sort of tie-in? we'll see. I kind of, I'm hoping for it. Let's put it that way. I don't have a feel for anything, but I'm hoping that it's something.

I mean, I'd love to see it be Chris Jericho. Chris is going to make that move. I have no idea if he is or not. But that would be, you know, that would be a surprise that would meet or exceed expectations. I think anything less than that is potentially going to be a letdown.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are position. their self to be disappointed. I mean, I've heard so many over the top suggestions. It's the rock. Like you're going to, you're going to work yourself up. And, hey, you know what? Speaking of working yourself up, can I recommend blue chew gold? I don't know if you guys have heard about this, but blue shoe gold is the newest innovation from the number one chewable ED brand, but this ain't your grandpa's little blue pill. This is the four in one beast that's setting the gold standard for performance. We're talking two ingredients for

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As always, get 10% off your first month of Bluechew gold with the promo code 83 weeks. That's right. You know the promo code. 83 weeks. Just visit BluCube.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Choo for sponsoring today's podcast. Hey, let's do a few more questions here. We've got one from AOTV productions who says, hey, Eric, now that A.J. Lee is back.

What are the chances are BFF Caitlin? comes back to team with her. I'll be honest, Eric, I wasn't watching wrestling during the Caitlin era. Did you meet or work with Caitlin? Do you remember her? I do not. I may have met her. I may have been in WWE at the same time she was, but I can't say I can recall meeting her. She was there for 2010 to 2014. I wasn't really paying a lot of attention, but I know the entire wrestling world's been paying attention to AJ Lee's return. And of course, with her wrestling in her hometown of Chicago at the United Center tomorrow night. People are going to be talking more about AJ Lee.

We're live with Eric Bischoff right now a few minutes before noon, Eastern. If you've got a question for Eric, keep those questions coming. We've got lots of news we want to talk about as well. But here's a fun question from Hobo Raider. We've never been asked about this before, and I love this.

What is your opinion of the barbarian? You know, for whatever reason, Eric, whenever we talk about the faces of fear, we always talk about what a badass haiku or Ming is. we don't really spend a lot of time talking about barbarian, but you worked with him for a long time. What can you tell us about Barb? Gentle,

very respectful, extremely professional, unlike the character that he portrayed in the ring. He was scary as hell in a ring. And I'm sure he would be scariest hell outside of the ring, given the proper motivation. But my interactions with him, he stood out to me because he was legitimately like the gentle job.

You know, so capable of, of inflicting so much harm at any given moment, but just the gentlest, nicest. He was very quiet. You didn't hear a lot out of him. You know, he's very, very quiet, almost an introvert. Let's talk a little bit about WrestleMania. Mike Johnson from PW Insider. Shout out to Mike. I know he's one of Eric's most beloved Rassland reporters.

He had a report. He's a incredible guy. He does a great job. love his work really fun guy too got to work on him on the muffets a little bit but other than that when we see a lot of like uh wrestling mania let's talk about the start time it's written here by mike johnson from pw inside or ticket holders for russomania 42 have begun receiving emails that the event will now start an hour earlier than originally scheduled 2 30 p.m. local time there's no word whether this means the broadcast time for the show has changed um listen that's not

a huge deal, but you and I haven't spent a lot of time talking about this. I do want to ask, when you get a West Coast show like this, I know technically Las Vegas isn't the West Coast, but damn it, it's close enough. You know, you're starting in the afternoon. As a performer, I'm sure you loved that because it meant, hey, you can still go out to dinner or catch a right out home, whatever it may be. But when you're not talking about just the logistics of travel and ease of quality of life afterwards, but I'm talking about, you're talking about, talking about actually performing in front of the audience. Did you think performing in the daytime like that at a big show took anything away?

Because they always go to such a dramatic expense for things like the LED boards and the lighting and the pyro and doing some of that stuff in broad daylight at times feels counterintuitive. It feels less than to me as a fan watching at home. As a performer, you know, the vibe that you're trying to create or curate as the promoter even, Does the daytime, the daylight difference make a difference to you at all? I think it makes a difference visually for sure. I mean, you think about the amount of money and time is spent on lighting. I mean, look what happened in Saudi when the lighting was wrong,

the seats, the little lanterns that they put up on the seats, whatever. Lighting is such a big part of the presentation, and a lot of money is invested in lighting. And that all changes when you do a daytime show. For me personally, I like nighttime shows better. I just think visually they're more stimulating because of what you're able to do with lighting. Daytime shows, that's somewhat limited. I much prefer evening shows from a visual perspective.

From a performance perspective, I'd love to get in there and start the show at 2.30 and be done at a reasonable time, not so much because I want to need to go out to eat. but it's tough when you're doing a show in prime time and especially something like Russellmania where you're wrapping up at midnight or 1 o'clock in the morning the audience loses energy the performers no matter what lose energy it's to me it's it's challenging in that respect but you can make up for it so many other ways

Eric we've got a great question about AI you and I've not spent a lot of time talking about AI we first talked about it maybe two years ago when we were freestyling using AI for creative storyline ideas and we had fun with it. But we haven't spent much time talking about it since. But Willie Thornburn is with us here live and he says, well, WW use AI to produce dream matches and perhaps retailing professional wrestling history. And that's interesting.

You know, I've had this conversation with a mutual friend of ours in the last week or so that when you think about IP and you think about characters, I do think that Lucha Libre maybe has it figured out. I hate to make such a comparison, but the whole Cogan character essentially died when the real life Cary Belaya did. You know, the whole Cogan character cannot go on.

But somewhere in the world, about 12 different Mickey Mousees are reporting to work today just as they have for the last hundred years. And so in Mexico, a great star like LaParca, the original LaParca may pass on, and now there's another LaParka, and they just, they're going to rent slather repeat. Now, that's the way they've been doing it, the old school way.

But with AI, do you think that in the future fans may be excited to see AI Hulk Hogan versus AI Rick Blair one more time? Is that something that fans will open their wallet up for? Is it viable long term, or is that so far-fetched that it's not realistic? I don't think it's far-fetched at all. I'll be shocked if it doesn't happen within the next couple of years. as the technology for AI continues to improve. It's really just a question, not if it's going to happen, it's when it's going to happen.

And I think that's, well, it's driven primarily by technology and expense. You could probably do it right now, but it's probably not viable from a financial perspective. And I doubt that the quality is what people would want it to be. But, man, that world is changing. It'll be different by the time we're done producing the show. show. I mean, it's the technology is evolving so rapidly. It's kind of mind boggling, to be honest. I've heard people even suggest that perhaps that was, you know, the motivation for Paramount

being up for sale. Like whoever could maybe grab that, you know, maybe, or Warner Brothers, rather, whoever could grab Warner Brothers could grab some of that IP and perhaps, you know, make money with it in a variety of ways in the future at a much. reduced cost. So I think they're on to something. And I, if I don't know, I don't have any inside information,

but I would imagine that may be part of the way WWE has gotten a lot of their loans is getting loans against the IP. Because that stuff has value. Like every time you see one of those TMs or you see one of those R's by a superstar's name, somebody's getting paid for that. Somebody can license that. That thing has value.

Not just for the individual performer, but for WWE and their shareholders. How AI is going to affect. What do you guys think? Let us know in the comments. Is there a dream AI idea that you have and how does it apply to wrestling? Let us know in the comments right here on YouTube. Another question that we've got here from Stevie.

He says during the Nitro era, I remember many pay-per-views had non-title matches as the main event instead of a big world title match. Any particular reason why you did that back then. This was kind of common. Even at the height of like the Monday Night Wars, It wasn't standard practice that the world title was always on the line. And I assume part of that was born out of the deal structure you had with

Fulke Hogan. You didn't want to have him on every pay-per-view, maybe from a burnout perspective, but also just from an overhead perspective. But there were paper views. Like I remember a spring stampede where, you know, it felt like kind of a random main event.

It was still fun. My friends and I still got it. We still enjoyed it. But it was a departure from the paint by numbers formula that had been tried and true in pay-per-view for a long time. Who would have been steering that ship? Was that Kevin Sullivan? Was that you?

Is that someone else? Depending on what period of time we're talking about, certainly Kevin Sullivan would have been driving the car, so to speak. I would have been in the passenger side giving notes and directions from time to time. But I think, you know, looking back, one of the reasons that I embrace that, concept was to, it's like if you give the audience what they want every single time, you're not creating demand. You're not creating the need in the audience to see the match they really want to see. In other words, you can build to that title match. It can be a storyline

device to help build anticipation for when you do bring the, the title match to a pay-per-view. Just building anticipation. It was another way, in short, it was another way to kind of create participation or create anticipation for a world title match as opposed to just clocking them in because, well, that's what we always do.

Let's take a look at 1997 in particular. I think most wrestling fans, myself included, think about 97 as like the creative peak of WCW. I'm sure they made more money in 98 with goal. and all the momentum, but 97 was probably my peak WCW fandom. And we started the year and sold out with Hogan and the giant for the title. That's the main event. The next month in February, it's Hogan and Piper at Super Brawl.

But then for uncensored, it's a triangle elimination match with, you know, multiple teams. So the NWO versus team Piper versus team WCW. For Spring Stampede, it's DDP and Randy Savage, no title on the line. For Slambury, it's a six-man tag. It's Kevin Green, Roddy Piper, and Rick Flair against the outsiders and Sean Waltman. As you go to the Great American Bash, it's DDP and Randy Savage again.

If you take a look at the Bash at the Beach Show, that's when we've got Dennis Rodman tagging with Hulk Hogan to take on Lex Lugar and the Giant. So it's interesting that you go all of these months and you have to wait until Road Wild, and that's where Hogan wins the title back to Lex Lugar in the main event. but we went February to August and all the paper reviews in between were a combination of other things,

but no title shots. I think that was one of the things that made WCW so fun at the time is it felt like it was a different main event. Now, don't get me wrong, you had a lot of the same players and that it was the NWO, but it didn't have to be Hogan. It could be a combination of, hey, it's Randy Savage versus DDP, or it's Paul and Nash and Waltman versus Flair and Piper and Green. I think that was one of the things that I enjoyed the most about 1997 WCW compared to 1997 WWF where the world title match,

fine large, was in the main event almost every time. I think it was fun. Whoever, you know, was driving the ship in 97, I think deserves some kudos. Eric's freezing up and you'll never freeze up when you're hooking up with

into cloud. I want to throw some love to these guys. I'm a big believer in this product. I've got a friend who's traveling with me right now. And it is his go-to. I mean, we, we jumped in the car last night to take the road trip. He wanted to make sure, hey, does you bring the end of cloud? And here's like your February reality check.

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And don't forget to fill out the quick survey. Let them know that you found out about it on this show. As always, enjoy responsibly and a massive thank you to our friends at Enda-Cloud for supporting our show and making February feel a little lighter. It's time for the wrestling news update with Raj Geary. Raj, I'm excited that you're here, man. There's been so much freaking news that came out this week. But of course, the biggest news that everybody wants to hear about right now,

and we're live on YouTube with a live studio audience, people want to know what's going on with this Warner Brothers deal. You know, hey, what's going on with Netflix? What's going on with Paramount? What's next? What do you expect? Where are we right now, Raj? All right. So there's been just a lot that went on this week. The last week, Netflix granted WBD a seven-day waiver to re-engage with Paramount.

So they were allowed to renegotiate for several days and that if it didn't work out, they were out. And it was just Netflix. But Paramount raised their bid a dollar per share. And Netflix had four days to enhance their existing proposal. but they declined to. So Netflix is now out. Now it's Paramount Skydance. They got it essentially.

They still need regulatory approval. But the WBD board said it valued Paramount's $31 per share offer for the entire company, which includes linear. So that would include TBS, T&T, blah, blah, blah. They found that to be superior to an existing deal, existing deal with Netflix of 2775 per share, which was just for studios and streaming, basically the good parts of the business, where as Paramount's getting the entire business, which is the good and the bad, which is linear. So essentially Netflix was offering $83 billion

for the good stuff. Paramount offered $11, did I see, I think I said billion, but it's $83 billion for the good stuff, and Paramount offered $11 billion for. everything and they also agreed to pay the $2.8 billion breakup fee that WBD would owe Netflix if that deal didn't go through. So basically Netflix now, they're making $2.8 billion for really all they did, you know, was negotiations, some due diligence, and some White House trips. So it's a great deal for them. They also have their competitors straddled with a ton of debt because Paramount's winning bid includes $57.5 billion in debt financing, just going to pose some leverage challenges.

And so the entity in total will have over $90 billion in debt. Paramount promise $6 billion in cost energy. So that, you know, for wrestling fans, what that means is now HBO Max will be combined into Paramount Plus. Also CNN and CBS News will be under one roof. So you'll see a lot of layoffs because you're going to have a lot of synergies with these companies. And they'll need those savings because the debt service on that $90 billion is going to be pretty crazy. And then as far as when this is going to go through, there is a 25 cent ticking fee per share per quarter beginning after September 30th. So this deal

is likely to be done by late summer. Otherwise, you know, they'll be paying extra. And like I said, It'll still need like regulatory approval. But it kind of seems like a win-win for all. Like, Paramount really needed this deal. They have a $12 billion market cap, and they just bought an $11 billion media empire. So they needed it. Netflix gets a $2.8 billion breakup feed.

They didn't really need it. They hurt a competitor with the amount of debt that they're going to have. And, you know, WBT, you saw how much they lost this quarter, and, you know, they got a great deal. You look at where their stock was a year ago, and now they're going to be getting 31 per share. So it's a great deal. So ultimately it just seems like a win-win for all. Roger, you think they're going to end up spinning off, like, for example, CNN or any of the other parts of the company? They've acquired all of it, but do you think there's any plan to spin off those?

less productive or less profitable divisions? I think they'll merge them. I think they'll have to, you know, again, with all the debt that they'll have. So I could see CNN and CBS News kind of being merged into one, obviously with Paramount Plus and HBO Max, David Ellison last October said he plans for HBO Max to be merged into Paramount Plus, which to me HBO seems like the superior brand but they want to do that in Paramount Plus. And with this deal, I mean, now they'll have basically all the major sports, except for the NBA under their umbrella.

You know, obviously, Paramount Plus already had the big UFC deal, CBS with the NFL, MLB, NHL, March Madness, the PJ Tour, Big Ten, Pac-10. I mean, just they're going to have so much. But as far as spitting off, some of the lesser, known entities. I could see them, you know, with the linear, it's just a money drag, you know, as far as the TV channels go. So what they decide to do with those will be interesting because there has, there's not much of an upside keeping those long term. Now, whether they decide to merge those with something like a versant, which was, you know, formerly NBC, we'll see. But as far as

spending something off, that's the only section that I could really see them doing. I could see them wanting to keep CNN, but merging it with CBS News. How does this affect AEW? Is there any speculation about that? There's a lot. You know, obviously, the one thing a lot of people are talking about is, obviously, is Paramount ties with TKO, not just with the UFC deal, but David Ellison has considered R.E. Manuel, the TKO CEO, a mentor over the year.

So they have a very tight relationship. Now, would that affect this? You know, who knows? I wouldn't want to see, I don't see TKO interfering in active negotiations between Paramount and AEW because we saw what happened when that happened with MLW. There was that big lawsuit that TKO had to settle outside of court. MLW got a big payoff. But could they just not enter the table now?

you know, AEW, they're in the second year of a three-year deal with a fourth-year option. The third year, so basically, you know, this deal to finalize is going to take, you know, months and months and months. So this year is going to be done. So next year, everything should stay the same, whether AEW moves to Paramount Plus, if they do all the merging that quickly, we'll see. But for the terms of this deal, there should be no changes. Now, what happens with the next deal is where it gets interesting. You know, like I mentioned, the amount of debt that Paramount Plus is going to have with this new deal with $90 billion. And they'll want to keep, obviously.

The NFL is looking to open up bids again later this year or next year. They're going to want to keep the NFL. They're paying a ton for the UFC. So what that does for the more fringe sports is, you know, like pro wrestling kind of falls into is, especially a secondary group. It'll be interesting to see how much they're willing to pay for something like that. So there's a lot of factors. Would they want to keep it for cheap?

Again, do they even want it? We don't know how the Ellicence feel about AEW as a property. You know, does it make money for WPD right now? Or is it a loss leader? You know, usually the bigger brands like NFL, WWE, UFC are usually lost leaders. If AEW doesn't make money, is it worth keeping in their portfolio when they have, you know, all these other major sports under their umbrella now? So it's going to be one to watch.

I think it's, you know, ultimately this isn't AEW's only option. You know, we found out that WBD, well, we always assume, but we found out for sure that WBD does own a stake in AEW under 10%. What happens with that? Why do we think it's under 10%? Because I'm speculating, let me be clear, speculating that it's probably closer to 30% than it is 10%. Well, if it was over 10%, they would have to report that. So, I mean, that's the main reason, unless there's some creative accounting going on. Yeah, that happens.

Yeah, exactly. When I tell you, deals can be just as creative as the finishes of a good match. Yeah, so, I mean, they definitely own a stake. Now, how much of that stake remains to be seen. And what that happens with the sale, you know, again, it's such a small part of this deal that it doesn't really matter. But the belief is it's under 10%. again, unless they found a way to have more without needing to report it. We shall see.

There's lots of speculation about how this could affect AEW. What do you think would be, like if you're Tony Kahn and you think, hey, I don't know how this is going to affect me, what do you think he's working on right now as like, I don't know, a plan B, a backup plan, a pivot? if it's even necessary, and it may not be, but certainly he would be foolish to not at least be thinking like, hey, I got to have more than one option here. As you survey the landscape, is there something that you think is behind glass,

you can break in case of emergency, or does it make sense to sort of carve out his own niche and maybe own his own distribution, like a Fox Nation app sort of thing? What do you think? I just think the reach would be so low if he went through his own distribution, like having his own app. It would just, I think that would be terrible for the company.

I think he needs a major media conglomerate as a partner. And, you know, we've talked about this before. Putting your eggs in one back in that WVD basket has kind of come back to vitamin the ass. It's this Paramount Plus deal. If they're not interested in renewing AEW once this current deal is up and not renewing that option year. And you look at what's out there, Apple, it's not the right fit. Apple is even more prestige programming than HBO.

I mean, they're really picky with their TV shows and the sports that they air. So Apple TV doesn't seem to be an option. Amazon is the only one because WWE has their fingers with so many of the other main streaming services and

media players out there. That's the only one that seems completely free, that there'd be a real opening. But outside of that, you know, back in the day, I'd say ABC, ESPN, but you know, WWE is working with ESPN, and it's crazy seeing these NBA games on ESPN, and you see the WWO logo on the floor, I mean, on the rails.

WWD, I mean, WWE has smartly made all these media partnerships, and again, this is for their own well-being. I don't think they had AEW in mind. when they're doing these, you see the record-breaking profits that they're making by doing these deals with different media companies. And so Amazon is really the only one outside of Paramount that I see as a realistic option. Raj, I want to ask you, you know, there's been some changes that I saw in cable, and I'll admit I don't have cable.

I'm not a cable guy. But I think something happened with Xfinity and WWE fans this week. What's going on there? Yeah, so Xfinity. So, you know, it's been, what, like last August, September, at first ESPN, when they announced the deal with WWE, they made it sound like everyone that had access to ESPN would have access to the app, which turned out not to be the case.

But this month, earlier this month, it was Comcast said, we should have something announced soon regarding Exfinity and the ESPN app. And so that happened. So now XFPD customers will have access to the ESPN unlimited plan just in time for the elimination chamber this weekend. And so I asked on, you know, I've asked around apparently people, the current Xfinity customers have had no problems, you know, activating the ESPN unlimited app.

And, but you do have to have a current cable streaming plan with XFinity. It's not, like, if you just have internet through XFINITY, you're not going to get it. You have to have a plan that has ESPN on it. And so those customers are eligible to, to, to, to, So if you didn't know about it and you just heard about it now, you know, go ahead and sign up. And I heard the process is really easy and it's been pretty straightforward. Something else I wanted to ask you, Raj, is there was news that kind of caught me off guard. I guess it makes sense, but it feels like as long as I can remember,

WrestleMania has been the show that everybody, every promotion wants to piggyback, whether you're doing a wrestling-themed comedy show or meeting greets or maybe you run an independent show or I mean I remember ring of honor was maybe one of the first outfits who were sort of piggybacking WrestleMania weekend and running like a super show for Ring of Honor that same weekend but I was surprised and maybe I shouldn't have been that it seems like NXT announced hey we're not going to run WrestleMania weekend I think stand and deliver has moved away from WrestleMania weekend And is this all just because of scheduling and logistics that they have so much that they're doing with the Hall of Fame and Smackdown and Raw and oh my. Is it just too much of that or is it something else?

Because I know in previous weeks we've talked about ticket sales and tourism in Vegas being down. Now it feels like not only is it not wrestling any weekend. It's not even in Vegas. It's in St. Louis. So it is a total about face. We don't see this very often from WWE. What's going on with this? Yeah, so this isn't necessarily a permanent thing.

They're doing it this year because WrestleMania is on the West Coast again, and logistically, it's just been, you know, it's a big pain in the arts, you know, they went from, because back in the day before 2020, you know, WrestleMania was a one-night event. And so it's easy to put stand and deliver on those Saturdays. Now, WrestleMania is two nights. You got Smackdown on Friday, Raw on Monday. So they've really been trying to like sandwich NXT stand and deliver somewhere in there.

And now it's a morning show. You know, and with the West Coast doing it early in the morning, you know, the crew has to show up at like 5 a.m., 5.30 a.m. So logistically, it was just a big pain. And so they feel like this way it will give stand and deliver more attention being out of that weekend, being just crammed in there. And also it helped the casting crew out with. having to deal with yet another show. So it makes all the sense in the world to, you know, to kind of move it away from that weekend,

just with everything going on. And again, WrestleMania used to not be two nights. Now with it being two nights, doing it just the morning of that show. It was a pain, you know, like for people to get as soon as San the liver was over to get to WrestleMania. And now that won't be an issue. Roger, I appreciate you giving us all the details and all the scoops. Did we miss anything this week?

anything else on your radar we should discuss? No, I think you guys, you guys have pretty much covered everything else. So yeah, busy news week, but it's going to get busier heading into mania. Before I let you go, I want you to give us a prediction in the men's elimination chamber. This weekend, of course, is the elimination chamber. I'm going to get Eric's pick in a little bit, but we know on the men's side of things. We've got Randy Orton, L.A. Knight, Cody Rhodes, J.von Evans, Trick Williams, and Jay Uso. and the winner is going to get a title shot at WrestleMania.

Who's your favorite in this one, Raj? I think it's going to be Cody, but I'd like to see them mix it up and go with someone else. But, you know, of those four, what's the biggest main event? And I think it's probably going to be Cody. So I think it'll be Drew and Cody and maybe Jacob Fatu gets involved somehow. And they managed to add him in there because Cody and Drew has been done a lot already. but I got to go with Cody. Well, I appreciate the time, Raj.

Tell everybody how they can keep up with you through the week. Yeah, just following me on Twitter at the Raj Geary. Thanks so much, Raj. We'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks. And we've got more of your questions. We're live with Eric Bischoff here at 83weeks.com. Keep those questions coming. J.C.W. Lunacy.

New episodes every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. For over 25 years, J.C.W. has delivered the very best in pro wrestling entertainment, bringing fans deep storytelling drama, gut-busting comedy, and unbelievable in-ring action. From wild characters to unforgettable rivalries, don't miss a single moment. Tune in every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube, J.C.W. Lunacy. Real quick, I want to look at there. Eric Bischoff just in time. Hey, Eric, you know, we had a great question earlier. You are in a hotel, of course, because it's Real American Freestyle Weekend.

But I see, and someone suggested that it was an Airbnb, and I know it's a hotel because it's the company hotel or TV hotel or whatever you call it, Real American Freestyle. But one of the comments here live said, can we see Eric sitting in that funky chair in the corner? So when I do the commercial next time, because we do have at least one more commercial, while I'm doing the read, if you could just post up in the chair and we come back and you're over there, I think that would be kind of fun. We'll make it happen. It is kind of a cool chair.

And I was actually when I was setting up here, I'm at the Renaissance in Phoenix, Renaissance Hotel. Nice hotel, by the way, to great part of Phoenix. They really cleaned it up. Great restaurants all around here with a walking distance. It's kind of fun.

But when I was setting up in here, oh, man, maybe I should try to use this chair, but it sits too low. We just sit in for, you know, a couple hours. But it is kind of a cool chair. It's get that art deco kind of vibe to it. I want to give a little share.

Shout out to Donovius Mac, who's with us here live. Appreciate you being a member here at 83 weeks.com. And Donovius says, Eric, do you think AJ Stiles should have had one more match in T&A before he retired? You know, there's a lot of questions leading into this past Monday Night Raw. Is this his last WWE appearance or has he actually retired? And AJ has cleared that up. He did a podcast with his good brothers, Carl Anderson, and Luke Gallows, and revealed that no, he is actually retired and that's the end for him in ring.

But I think it's a fair question from Donovius. As a fan, as you associate him with TNA, I associate him with TNA, it feels like everyone did. And we know that he made a cameo on their first AMC television show. But do you wish that you would have seen A.J. Russell one last match in TNA? Yes and no. I would, I would have liked to see him wrestle Frankie. just because of that little seed that they planted. And because those guys have, they've known each other for so long.

They're such good friends. And they're both phenomenal performers. On a personal note, I think I would have kind of liked to see it because it's kind of a full circle, you know, put the period at the end of the sentence, kind of an opportunity. But at the same time, you know, I like the idea that the last time we saw AJ Styles in action, it was on the main stage, the grand stage, and not on a lesser event. So part of me would like to see it, but part of me is also happy that he's ending his career

exactly the way he wants to. And that's a privilege. Not a lot of people get that. Injuries can disrupt your plans and your goals and your dreams. Politics, you know, internally can affect it. There's a million things that can affect it. but when you take somebody like AJ who's had such an amazing career is so well respected by everybody,

it's nice to see someone like that ending their career the way they want to do it, when they want to do it. Mike Johnson reported that AJ Styles officially retired this past Monday. Multiple sources have confirmed that WWB and AJ Styles have come to terms on a new deal that will keep him officially with the company. the belief among those spoken with is that he will be helping with the development of new talent and AJ actually confirmed that. He was quoted as saying, I'm going to be working with WWE. That's not going to change. I have these dreams and aspirations of helping out the younger talent

and helping them get ready. If somebody's not ready who wants to get there, it's my job to hopefully get them to that point where they can do well and they're confident when they step into a WWE ring, that they have the ability and the talent that they're one of the boys or one of the girls that they belong. Being able to help with that is a blessing. I'm so excited about it. That's a quote from his appearance on Gallo's and Anderson's podcast, Talk and Shop Live. Pretty cool that he was able to do that appearance.

And I guess the rumor and innuendo that his contract was up in February. Allegedly, he wanted to keep wrestling through the end of the year. WWE said, no, we're good. Let's just finish up in February. There was a lot of speculation. Oh, he's going to go work for AEW. And I think his wife even posted after Monday night that she could reveal that her son had signed a WWIID contract.

So AJ even left the door open and doing one of his interviews around the Royal Rumble where he said, hey, I'm not going to say never, say never. If my son decides to become a wrestler and I have an opportunity to tag with him one day, maybe. I can get excited about that. The same way I got excited seeing Dusty tag with Dustin, that would be really cool to see AJ and his son. But I don't think a lot of AEW fans were hoping for this. I think they were hoping for more dream matches with him and Will Osprey or him and Kenny Omega and that sort of thing. But AJ was pretty honest in an interview with Carl Anderson, where he said, hey man, I don't know that I can do it. And I don't want to embarrass myself. And I feel like

I'm on the brink of doing that. I want to retire before I embarrass myself. And I thought, man, it's almost like AJ is like our wrestling equivalent of Barry Sanders. You know, he's leaving on top of his game. Like, if somebody were to convince me that, hey, you know, if this retirement angle wouldn't have happened. And it was AJ in the box.

And AJ somehow gets into the elimination chamber and he wins and he gets a title shot at WrestleMania. I would buy that. Like, I guess what I'm saying is, even at his age where he's decided he's lost the step. I think he's very believable as a WrestleMania main event. And to go out on top and to be your idea, congrats to AJ, right? That's all we can ask for, I hope for, for anybody. Absolutely. Like I said, it's rare. And it's a blessing. AJ's

worked hard for it. It deserves it. I'm happy for me. Well, we want to know from you guys, what do you think about AJ Stiles? Biggie Mac is with us. And he says, what do you guys think about AJ Styles going into the Hall of Fame and do you believe he will stay retired. Didn't seem like he will on Stephanie McMahon's podcast. As always, thanks for answering us. I think with wrestling retirements, Eric, you know, never say never. You know, Terry Funk is no longer with us. But if he was, he would have come out of retirement again last year, I'm sure. I mean, he had fun and he couldn't get it out of his blood. Hey, he's doing what he wants. Good for him.

But I do believe that AJ, when he says he's retired, he means it right now, but plans could change. What did you think about the surprise announcement that, hey, you're going in the hall, of Fame this year. I think it's pretty cool. I think it's pretty cool. I don't know if AJ was really surprised if he had an idea that it might be coming. I don't know. But either way, I think it's really cool.

For him to end his career, retire under his own terms, the way he wanted to do it, when he wanted to do it, for the most part, and then get inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Undertaker, no less. Yeah, that's kind of a big deal. And as far as changing his mind, I've talked about this with you many times that that connection between the performer and the audience is real. And it's addictive in a good way, I guess. You can't get that fulfillment, that type of fulfillment, that connection to the audience. But you've got six, eight, ten, ten, fifteen, twenty thousand people in the palm of your hand because you're that damn good at what you do.

and you're creating a story and you're creating emotion and you're connecting with that live audience. That rush, buzz, whatever you want to call it, people miss it. It's what brought Hulk Hogan back. Hulk knew that he was limited physically, but his desire to get out there and connect with the audience, it's part of who he was. It was part of his identity. And I think Rick Flair, same thing. The character Rick Flair is probably as much a part of Richard Fleeer's personality than it's ever been.

Rick can't let, he doesn't want to. It's not that he can't. He doesn't want to let go with that connection. He doesn't want that character to just evaporate into the ether. He keeps it alive. He stays in public. He's doing appearances. Part of that is the connection to the audience that you just don't want to let go.

me with you. AJ may be of the state of mind right now where he wants to spend time with his family. He wants to coach. He wants to help develop talent. That is going to be very fulfilling to AJ and will give him a feeling of significance and relevance that perhaps is enough for AJ. Sometimes it is enough for certain people. But there are other people, performers, that walk away from it. and after six, eight months, they start missing that, that buzz that they can't get anywhere else. You can't get in the bottle. You can't get it in a pill. You can't build it with your hands.

You can only get that connection as a performer by performing. So it all depends on how much he misses that. Lots of people have comments here online. Simi palsy says wrestling retirements are a complete sham. I can't think of one wrestling or retirement where the person actually followed through. I don't know. I think there's been a few of those. We'll see what happens. We will. We'll also see what happens this weekend.

Of course, I'm going to be watching Real American Freestyle, but a lot of wrestling fans are going to be watching Elimination Chamber, as well they should. Ask Raj Geary his pick. I want to throw it to you now, Eric. Tomorrow night, United Center. Show's not sold out. It's blacked out. So if you're planning to watch it in a bar in Chicago,

go home and watch it on ESPN Unlimited. Randy Orton, L.A. Night. Cody Rhodes, Jvon Evans, Trick Williams, and Jay Uso. Allegedly, Jay Uso wasn't supposed to be in this match. It was supposed to be Bronson Reed. He was injured on live television. They called an audible. Uso gets the spot.

I know you've been on the L.A. night train for a while. You've always been a huge Randy Orton fan. Lots of folks pulling for Evans and Trick Williams seems like he may be the breakout star of 2026 in WW. But the winner goes on to WrestleMania for a title shot. So Raj picked Cody. Who would you pick now, Eric? I'd have to agree with Raj. From a business perspective,

Cody would be the right choice. I personally would not be disappointed if it was Randy or L.A. Knight. I think either would be exciting for me personally, but business-wise, Cody. On the women's side, we got Tiffany Stratton, Rio Ripley, Alexa, Kiana James, and Raquel Rodriguez. as I think the betting favorite right now is Tiffany Stratton. I talked to JR yesterday.

He'd like to see Ria Ripley win. Who do you expect to get their hand raised in this one? I'd like to see Ria as well, but I agree with you. I think Tiffany Stratton is probably ready to go. And that's probably what we'll see. But I would definitely like, I'm a big fan of Ria Rippley's. She's just such a unique character. I mean, she's fun, but she's mysterious.

there's something about her that it's hard to put your figure on it but she's got an amazing aura that's a good good word i use that today speaking of aura there's going to be a lot of aura in chicago at the united center we've got becky lynch and a j lee for the women's intercontinental championship of course chicago is home for a j lee becky lynch is i don't know a beloved heel if that's even a thing she's a star everybody knows it but she's doing some of her more interesting heel work right now. I mean, her tweets and such are a hoot. But we're going to have a pretty hostile environment here.

Of course, AJ Lee has never held the women's intercontinental championship. It didn't exist way back when. Do you think we crown a new champion in AJ's hometown here? Do you expect something different, Eric? You know, I wasn't very familiar with AJ Lee. I wasn't really watching when she was active in WWE the first time. I don't know, not watching it enough to remember her anyway. But she's really good.

But she's got a hell of a promo. She's, she's interesting, but I think it's going to be Becky. I think Becky is, we need a heel. And she's doing such phenomenal heel work. It's really interesting watching her. I told you back 2000, early 2019 is when I first started paying attention to Becky Lynch, only because of what she was doing on social media. She was really using social media as a tool to get her character over

way more effectively than anybody else who was using social media at the time. She was actually making her social media work for her. She's doing the same thing now. And I think the heat that they'll be able to get on Becky, by doing whatever she's going to end up doing, to AJ Lee. I think it'll be valuable heat. It'll pay dividends for a long time. So I expect

to see Becky. In Chicago, the United Center, who else should be in the world title match than CM Punk? CM Punk and Finn Baller. Finn Baller has been criminally underrated and misused during a lot of his WWB tenure. Heck of

a nice guy. Incredible athlete. Really amazing in-ring performer. These guys are going to be battling for the World Heavyweight Championship in Chicago. Anytime Punk's in Chicago, it's electric. What do you expect in this one? A great match.

Not a lot of story here. Not a lot of build up, anticipation, excitement, whatever. But this is going to be a great match. And I'm looking forward to that. I'm also a fan of Finn Baylor. So it's going to be fun to see him elevated in a match like this to see what he can do. I'm interested to see and what a great idea

jumping Jeff Farmer not the real one I'm sure he's here on YouTube and he had a great comment he says is the demon in the box that wouldn't that be interesting if it were Finn Baller's demon to come out of that box that would be that's a pretty damn good idea

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Hey, man, we're live at 83 weeks.com. You guys said, we want to see Eric in the funky chair. And by God, Eric made it happen. And of course, he is on site in Arizona getting ready for a sold out real American freestyle tomorrow. Make plans to check it out on Fox Nation. It is sold out, but you can still watch it the same way I am at home on Fox Nation. Eric, I've got a few more news and notes I want to hit you with. One of the things that came across my timeline yesterday that I thought, man, I got to bring this up to Eric.

What a great post we saw about your old great personal friend, Vern Ganya. yesterday he would have turned 100 years old, a true pioneer, a champion, a visionary, and the idea that my man was born 100 years ago yesterday, I don't think it can be overstated. And, you know, obviously whenever people talk about your success and wrestling, they always talk about Ted Turner and they talk about WCW. And maybe later they'll talk about Vince McMahon or they'll talk about what you're doing now.

But, you know, media, the landscape and what was covering and what was discussed and all that, it just wasn't the same way. And I feel like it's kind of been forgotten to history that Bern Ganya, born 100 years ago yesterday, is really the reason that you're involved in any of this, right? It's so crazy to think about. And I, too, when I saw that post yesterday, it really made me think. And, in fact, I went on to Grock and, you know, took a look at Vern's amateur record. And Vern was such a supporter of amateur wrestling. He wrestled the University of Minnesota and was very active in that program as an alumni supporting it. But Vern just loved amateur.

He loved the sport of wrestling. And it was because of Vern's love for amateur wrestling and his support of it that I was able to get a job in the pro wrestling business by using that amateur wrestling card to get a meeting. I knew that Vern was such a supporter. I knew that, you know, he knew my high school wrestling coach. And I thought, well, if nothing else, I'm going to drop that name on him and see if I can wheezel my way into a meeting. And I did, and it worked. And he hired me, gave me a job. And if it were not for Bern, God, yeah.

And the fact that he was such a supporter of amateur wrestling, I wouldn't be sitting here doing this podcast with you today. So, oh, just a huge debt of gratitude. My family does. Our lives were changed dramatically for the better because of the opportunity that Byrne gave me. And it all started with Byrne's love for the sport of wrestling. And I also thought about how ironic it is that, you know, it was because of my amateur wrestling background that I was able to get a job through Vern in sports entertainment and then went on to do what I did for the Turner organization and wrestling.

But it was that experience that brought me right back to where it all started, amateur wrestling. So it's kind of a full circle thing. And like I say, I'll always deep debt of gratitude to Verne Gaon. Eric, I know you and I, you know, at times we can both be sentimental. And when I think about the guy who recruited and trained me in the mortgage business, my mentor in the mortgage business, he's always going to be on my short list of the people who made the biggest, most profound impact in my life. And it feels like Vern Gagne is probably on a similar list like that for you.

And so is Hulk Hogan. And I bring his name up today, because. Heritage Auctions is finishing an auction for his WrestleMania 1 boots and they end this Sunday. Now, this really blew up earlier this year, I guess it maybe it was late last year, when Jerry Briscoe had done some shed treasures. He went digging around behind his house there in Tampa and he found that he actually had Hogan's outfit from WrestleMania 9, which at the time,

everyone thought would be Hogan's last WrestleMania. Now, we know that Didn't wind up being the case. He came back to WrestleMania 18 and a few other appearances. But they sold for 150, 160, some crazy amount of money for a pair of boots. And then just a couple of weeks ago, one single boot, not both, but a single boot from the WrestleMania 18 return, Hogan versus Rock, also sold for six figures. And here we are a couple of days away from the pair of boots from the first WrestleMania. and right now it's at $158,600.

These boots are going to go easily over $200,000 for a pair of boots. And I don't think that I still think that's a tremendous value, even at $200 grand. I wouldn't surprise me to see that they're $300 grand or more. I mean, when you think about WWE and professional wrestling, I think if you were to use a word salad and word association, and you just surveyed 100 people randomly on the street. What's the first words you think of or phrase you think of when I say professional wrestling? I feel like most people would say WrestleMania or Hulk Hogan or a combination of those.

This is incredible to see the resurgence of wrestling memorabilia, specifically Hulk Hogan memorabilia, and it feels like every few weeks we're setting a new record. What do you think about the WrestleMania one boots? being auctioned off by heritage auctions, man, they're going to be cruising closer to, I think a quarter million is not unrealistic for these boots. It's hard to believe, isn't it?

$4 million dollars for a pair of wrestling boots. It's awesome, but I think it's also a testament to the impact that Hulk Hogan had on what we know of as sports entertainment. And you do, you know, for a long time, I think it's one of the things that Vince and Hulk often class, You know, in the beginning,

Alk really believed that he deserved to own a piece of that company because Hulk believed that through his effort and work and his character, he was at least partly responsible for the success of early WWE. Of course, Vince didn't feel that way. And that issue was always there. It was, towards the end, the parts that I saw at least, it was almost like they both knew it, it was almost kind of a humorous kind of tension between them.

But at times it did get ugly. And there was a strain on that relationship. But I think this just kind of illustrates how significant of a part of history that Hulk Hogan really, really was. And we'll probably see a lot more of it in the years to come. You know, I get accused a lot and I understand it. You know, I, um, I do a podcast with Jim Ross. I do a podcast with Tony Chivani.

I do a podcast with Jeff Jarrett. I do commentary for QT Marshall's independent promotion and one fall wrestling. So I work fairly closely with four people who work for AW. So I get while people think that I'm an AW shield at times. I understand it. But the thing that is a real head scratcher for me is, Aaron you surprised? And I guess the auction's not over yet.

But why doesn't WWE? own the WrestleMania 1 Hulk Hogan boots. I hope that they're the high bidder. And I know that there's a lot of people who say, these belong with a real collector and but true collector and blah, blah, blah, respectfully, the folks who are saying that, I don't think they know who's going to spend $250,000 on boots.

But WWE can do it. They had their most profitable year ever. And if they're ever intent on growing and building a physical hall of fame one day, it feels like having Hulk Hogan's boots from the first WrestleMania would be a real centerpiece for the entire thing. Like, I'm kind of shocked that seemingly TKO hasn't jumped all over this. Or have they?

Do we know that they have? Well, I guess we don't know. And we'll find out on the other side. I guess that's what I'm suggesting here. I hope that if they, because the narrative amongst collectors, Eric, the high end collectors is that quote unquote, WWB won't pay.

Like, I can reveal that I've had agreements with WWV and they didn't honor their agreement. Like we agreed on a price and then ultimately they said, oh no, we didn't get that signed off on. And I was able to turn around and in two phone calls sell it for much more to a separate private collector. The WWE is basically saying, eh, we'd rather have the money than the history. I mean, that's not me saying that in theory. I did that deal with them. So when I see this, I'm like, man, I can't believe they'd let that.

sort of outside of the tent. I would keep that in the fit. Like that would be a centerpiece for my entire Hall of Fame. Like this is the guy from the show. I got to have it. I would think so too. And again, we don't know that they're not fitting.

We don't do this. An anonymous bidder on their behalf. It would be Vince McMahon. If I was Vince, I'd want those boots. That's as much a part of my history if I'm Vince McMahon as it was Hulk Hogan's. And I'd want those damn boots. and he can certainly afford it.

It's an interesting thought about WWE owning them or TKL. You know, Jeremy Paddowar is a very active collector. He knows this stuff. He's also on our board here at Real American Freestyle. He's going to be here this weekend. I'm going to ask Jeremy his thoughts on who's actually bidding and get his take on whether or not TKL should or would get involved in the year. in the bidding process.

I mean, I think when you just think about the success of WWB, I mean, you just look at, you know, some of the more iconic memorabilia from the traditional sports, you know, a Michael Jordan this, a Babe Ruth, that, that sort of thing. And you start to realize, man, this is an incredible value at whatever it is, even if it was $300,000. I still think there's a lot of meat left on the bone, but the idea that TCO wouldn't just jump at this

and say, hey, whatever it is, we've got to have this. This can't get outside. Does that, would that keep people out of the, but if it was known that TKO or Vince McMahon for that matter, were bidding, does that, do you think that would have a negative effect on the bidding process? Would less people get involved in bidding, knowing that they're bidding against the TKO or Vince McMahon? I don't know.

You know, that's interesting. But I do know that I shouldn't say I do know. I feel like a lot of these auction houses, they do want to keep it anonymous. And there's a whole subculture of that about who's juicing what. And everybody's got their own theory on like the Logan Paul auction and whether or not that was a real number. And where these fellows in cahoots, who knows what's real and what's not. But there's always speculation when there's a new record number set like this. But I do find it interesting that we're even having a conversation about an item like that.

That's so integral to the history of WWE, which is enjoying more success than ever before by a huge margin. They're seemingly flushed with cash. Like, what are we talking about? But, hey, we'll see what happens Sunday. We will be talking about it next week here on the program. We do have some great questions. And we got one from a wrestling historian that I think is going to knock your socks off, Eric. I can't wait to ask you about this.

I also want to talk a little bit about what's next for Cody. he's made a pretty bold statement this week. But right now, I want to brag about Better Wild. You know, I've been telling you for a few months now that my wife got a third dog. I can't lie, I wasn't totally on board with this idea. And now I'm falling in love with the little dude. And even though she gave him the most embarrassing name of all. I have a dog in my house named Little Daddy.

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So Eric, we got a question here from wrestling historian and I'll admit I've seen him ask this before and then we get lost with time and I forget to ask. But boy, he made sure I wouldn't miss it this time and I think you're going to be intrigued by the question. according to a Scott Hall interview, he was let go from WCW after breaking up with Emily Sherman. I guess that's Brad Siegel's niece. Do you agree with that decision? If not, how would you have handled it? So this is, as Jeff Jarrett would say, maybe the story behind the story, but is it true? What do you remember?

Scott did have a relationship with Emily. Emily came to where, you know, Brad asked me if I could hire, I think she was his niece. And I did. She was very talented. She worked hard. but she got very, she got very close to Scott and it became problematic. Scott took, let's be honest about it in the timeframe. Scott was really struggling.

I mean, he struggled almost consistently, but there were times when it was worse than others. And during a particularly tough spot for Scott, he did get involved with Emily. And Scott tried to leverage that relationship, perhaps more than he should have, and it got to be a problem internally. Scott wasn't let go because of that. Scott was let go because of other issues. They just happened to be taking place at the same time. So it probably looked to some as though that was the cause.

It really wasn't. It was the underlying issues of his addictions that caused that problem. The collectoverse is with us here live on Twitter, and they want to know, Eric, if you could change one thing about the current WWE product, what would that one thing be? Oh, I can't. I just can't. I can't think of it. You know, there's always ways to improve the narrative, promos, backstage interviews, things like that. But aside from that, I don't know, man. There's just no holes in that. game. I just couldn't think of what it would be. I wish it was a little grittier. You know, at times it does feel a little paint by numbers.

And I like the unpredictableness of times of ECW and WCW programming. And very often it feels well planned. All the cameramen are always in the right spot at the right time. They're always getting great shots. I mean, it feels like a ridiculous thing to complain and say, man, it looks too good. But occasionally it does feel like it doesn't have that edge for me just a little bit. And that's a testament to them for how great they are at their jobs, you know, being able to predict, as you would say, where the puck is going rather than where the puck is.

But I do think at times I miss some of the grittiness, if that makes sense. No, of course, it makes sense. And I agree with that. I just have given up on it. I think the level of production has become expected by networks and advertisers. So I don't see them ever going back to a grittier type of presentation. It's one of the things when AEW started that I was most excited about with AEWs. It did have that kind of, you can almost smell the inside of the arena the way the show was shot.

I like that. That's a compliment. It's not a criticism. For those of you out there in the Internet, wrestling community, that just can't wait for me to say something that sounds like a criticism of AEW. I liked the fact that they weren't just polished as WWE. In fact, I think I made the reference of WWE reminds me much more of Disney on Ice sometimes than it does professional wrestling.

I, too, like the gradiness, but like I said, I've kind of given up on it. It's too big to go back to that type of presentation. We got another question here, and I thought this was a pretty good, one. Before I get to it, though, I want to ask you about something that I saw. I can't believe this is real. But Booker T has a podcast with our friend Brad Gilmore called the Hall of Fame podcast. I think they do it on radio in the Houston market as well. But what stood out to me is there was a conversation recently about Brian Nobs beating up Matt Damon. I know what you're thinking to yourself. Self, you mean like Matt Bourne? No, like Jason Bourne, like the movie star.

like Goodwill hunting except with a stop by Pity City. Booker T says that this old-time story that I'll admit I've never heard about Brian Knob's beating up Matt Damon in the bar is a true story. I guess there's an age-old story that Brian Knob's of the nasty boys once beat up Matt Damon in a Boston bar. And a lot of people have considered it an urban legend over the years. Hell, I never even heard it. But Booker T has vows for its authenticity.

I guess the story's been shared. over the years, but I had no idea that this was real. But Booker says, my brother Stevie was there. And he confirmed that Brian Knob's did beat up Matt Damon that day. And he also qualifies it and says, respectfully, Matt Damon wasn't Matt Damon now. He was a young kid. I guess got Mouthey with Brian Knobbs.

And well, we know what happened from there. I reckon. Have you heard this story before? I have not. It's a fascinating story. that wouldn't surprise me. You know, I've seen Brian in action. You get a couple 12, 18, 20 beers of them.

He'll fight anybody or used to. I can see it. It's a bizarre story, though, and I've never heard it before. Let's talk about Cody Rhodes. He has officially announced on ESPN earlier this week that his next contract with WWE will be his last wrestling contract. Quote, I don't have an end date like I used to. I do know whatever the next deal is that I signed with

WWE, I ain't going nowhere. That next deal will be the last. Wrestling's so unique in terms of it's hard to determine your time, especially in 2026 with the level of athlete that you can grow to be. Look at what Brock is doing currently at this level. He's in peak form. Roman, older, but peak form. punk punk i think is the best he's ever been so age is really not what it used to be in the industry

and i guess this is basically clearing it up that he said once upon a time he was going to retire at the age 40 now he says well maybe that's not necessarily the case but his next contract will be his last one i think his next contract runs through the end of next year maybe so if he adds another five-year deal and that's just a guess he'd be like, what, 47 maybe, 46 when he's, when he's wrapping it up. What do you think about Cody sort of calling a shot saying, this isn't the last contract, but the next one is? I think it's great.

I think he'd have a plan, you know, plan your work, work you plan. And the amount of money that Cody's been making and will continue to make over the next six or seven years, financially, there'll be no reason for him to ever put on a pair of boots again, unless by his dad. dad and like Rick Flair and like Hulk Hogan and like so many others, he just has that need to get back out in front of that crowd and tap that vein again, which wouldn't surprise me. Because Cody's such a passionate performer and individual. He's very, very committed. So I could see Cody being one of those guys that probably wants to retire at some point and then find himself back in the ring doing something. But I think it's great. Again, it's it's a privilege. And Cody's aware of that because things can happen so fast. But Cody's such a smart man, very, very smart guy.

And I think it's a great idea for him to have a plan and to execute it. You retire at 47 years old with enough money for your family and their family's family to be comfortable for the rest of their lives. That's a good time. And you still have so much time. You're still, you know, you're young enough. you can retire you're young enough to pursue something else that you're passionate about. So good for him. Love to hear it.

I'm super pumped for him. I am curious what he's going to do on the other side. You know, I know once in a time he had aspirations of not even going into wrestling and doing the Hollywood thing. And we've seen he's had opportunities like this new street fighter movie. And I'm sure there's others. But I kind of feel like wrestling's in his blood and he's going to work behind the scenes in wrestling. You would assume with WWE or who knows.

but it would be hard for me to imagine he's just out of the industry completely. Maybe he's finished within ring competition. I don't know that he'll ever get it all the way out of his blood. I don't think it's possible for him. No, I don't disagree. Well, something that I can't get out of my blood is helping people save money at savewithconrad.com. I don't know if you've seen, but all of a sudden it looks like interest rates have broken a barrier. They're lower than they've been since 2022.

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where there's no commercials you'll get the shows early and ad free with no commercials so if you're looking to enjoy our content commercial free or maybe join us three or four times a year for one heck of a weekend you can do that by making plans at ringclassics.com Eric, I had a blast talking about your success with Real American Freestyle, talking about the changing landscape of the television industry and how it could affect wrestling. What's next for AJ Styles and Cody Rhodes? And we've got elimination chamber tomorrow.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say, I'm really curious about what's going to happen with these whole COVID WrestleMania boots on Sunday. We're going to have a lot to catch up on next week. Yeah, like I said, I'm going to dig into Jeremy Paddowar's depth of knowledge in the collectible market and see where he thinks some of Hulk Hogan's merchandise is going to go and what the limit may be. Well, we're going to be talking about it next week here on the program,

and I hope you guys will make plans to join us on Fox Nation. Real American Freestyle is coming your way tomorrow night. Go sign up for Fox Nation right now. All the details are available at real American Freestyle.com. And if you're in the Tampa area, tickets are on sale now. Eric's going to be there. I'm going to be there. There may even be some other wrestling luminaries there.

Tampa is a hub for probably. wrestling and it's going to be like a home game for you and mrs b and garrett and way jay this is going to be fun a month from now isn't it yeah looking forward to tampa and also i just realized here i heard about this last night nick neman dulf ziegler aka is going to uh to be with us tomorrow so if you're a fan of nick nemouth uh want to check him out while he's checking us out fox nation's a place to be check it out fox nation for real american freestyle tomorrow and we'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.