83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 417: 83 WEEKS LIVE

Episode Date: March 14, 2026

Today's episode comes to you from the Blue Chew studio. Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code 83Weeks at http://BlueChew.com  On this LIVE edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson are back with the microphones hot and the conversation wide open as Easy E tackles some of the biggest headlines shaking up the wrestling business right now. First up, Eric weighs in on the questions surrounding the lift of WWE's blackout ban and what it could mean for fans, television distribution, and the company's evolving strategy in the streaming era. Is this a major shift in how WWE plans to present its premium events moving forward? Then the discussion turns to one of the most fascinating developments in sports entertainment—WWE stepping into the casino and gambling business. Eric explains why he believes this move could be a true game changer for the company and the industry as a whole, opening up entirely new revenue streams and fan engagement opportunities. The conversation also takes a serious turn as Eric shares his perspective on the OVW incident, explaining why moments like this should serve as an important teaching moment for the entire professional wrestling industry. Eric discusses responsibility, professionalism, and what the business can learn from situations that capture the spotlight for the wrong reasons. All that, plus the wrestling news update with Raj Giri and live listener questions! BUTCHER BOX - As an exclusive offer, new listeners can get their choice between organic ground beef, chicken breast or ground turkey in every box for a year, PLUS $20 off when you go to http://ButcherBox.com/weeks   MORGAN & MORGAN -  HARRY'S PLUS - Get the Harry's Plus Trial Set for only $10 at https://harrys.com/83WEEKS #Harryspod BETTER WILD - Right now, Betterwild is offering our listeners up to 40% off your order at http://betterwild.com/BISCHOFF  POLICYGENIUS - Head to http://policygenius.com/83WEEKS  to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. 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! CHIME - Chime is not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee free today. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head to http://Chime.com/83WEEKS . SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewithconrad.com  to learn more.

Today's episode comes to you from the Blue Chew Studio. Get 10% off your first month of Blue Chew Gold with the code 83 weeks at bluechew.com. Hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks. And of course, we couldn't do it without the Hall of Famer himself. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Eric Bischoff. Eric, how are you, man? Out goes. Oh, there's no crowd.

What the hell am I thinking? I'm doing great. Doing great. Had a rough week last week, last weekend, and I've had time to kind of do with it and feeling great. Looking forward to this show. We are live at 83 weeks.com. We usually come to you each and every Friday morning, but we had a little fun a few weeks in a row and we thought, hey, let's wake up and do some wrestling chatter together on a

Saturday morning. I, for one, you know, I know that this is probably not best for biz, so I don't know how often we'll do this, but I like talking about wrestling on a Saturday morning. makes me think about my childhood fandom. It was a staple for me in my household. Like I remember as a little kid when I first fell in love with wrestling, I couldn't wait to go to bed on Friday night because I knew when I woke up on Saturday morning,

there would be wrestling on TV. I feel like a lot of people probably think that way. How does a Saturday morning live feel to you, Eric? Conrad when I was a kid growing up in Detroit, my parents had one car, right? My mom didn't work outside the home. That was kind of a 60s, early 60s, especially Detroit where we live, you know, very blue collar. It was like, you know, your wife works out. Your wife has to work.

So why I was working wasn't a thing really back then. So, you know, but we only had one car. It was all we could afford. So on Saturdays, because there was five of us living in the house together, my grandmother, my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister and I. She's six, actually. So on Saturday mornings, that was the only time during the week that my mom could go grocery shopping and put the groceries to car and drive them home was on Saturday because she would drive my dad to work. My dad worked six, seven days a week. She would drive my dad to work, drop him off, go grocery shopping, go back, pick up my dad in the afternoon, and then come back home.

That was the routine, right? So on Saturday mornings, when my mom and my dad left me and my brothers, before my sister came along, left me and my brother home alone, the first thing we'd do is like raid the refrigerator. And, you know, we put scoops of ice cream in our, you know, raisin brand and all kinds of crazy stuff that we could get away with when mom and dad were home, drink all the chocolate milk and all that crazy shit. And then you said we'd watch cartoons, you know, and it started out. out with the traditional, you know, the Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner and Huckle and Jekyll and, you know, just the cartoons du jour of the early 60s, right? But as you got later in the morning, you would segue into big time wrestling on KLW from Windsor, Canada, right?

Right across the river from Detroit. It's like you could hit it with a frisbee, right? But that's where we got our, I think it was Channel 9. And that's where we got our, you know, the wrestling. And, of course, watching pro wrestling with my grandmother was my very first exposure to it. So anyway, my mom and my dad would leave. And I've got my brother who's 40 years younger than me. So, you know, I could pretty much toss them around wherever I wanted to.

So we would watch big time wrestling, right? And of course, when it was over, what do you think we did? We pretended we were wrestling. And sometimes we do it in slow motion. and sometimes it would be a little more fun than that, really. But that's my Saturday morning and introduction into professional wrestling. And I think probably a fair amount of people have something similar to that. I'm excited for us to jump into some of our wrestling conversation today.

We are live. If you've got a question for Eric, we want to hear from you. Tell us about your favorite Saturday morning routines with regards to wrestling. I feel like Eric and I are not alone. Wrestling was always a Saturday morning part of most of our lives. Let's talk about something that we've covered a few weeks ago, and it feels like maybe there's been an about face. I don't know if you saw the news yesterday, Eric,

but the word out of Las Vegas is the blackout that was put down for WrestleMania watch parties has now been lifted. A lot of people remember that last year there were tons of celebrations and bars and restaurants and, just lots of different venues doing WrestleMania watch parties. And I think that's part of, you know, the package that WWE negotiated with the municipality of Las Vegas that,

hey, we're going to bring a bunch of people in and this is going to be a big boom to the economy. And it's going to have a big economic impact. I think those are the type words they use for that sort of thing. Well, it was confirmed yesterday from Stadium Swims Instagram account. Yes, we are showing WrestleMania. The blackout has been lifted. So Circamania is back on.

on WrestleMania will be shown on their 143 foot screen. If you've never seen this, it's quite a setup. This is big news for people who are hoping to be in Las Vegas and just have a fun time and also watch WrestleMania. It's even bigger news, though, for the small business owners and the establishments who were planning to show this event.

This is a win for WWE and the city of Las Vegas and their fans. I understand, you know, that we were trying to prioritize revenue, but it feels like maybe that idea was half baked. What do you make about this band being lifted? I'm not sure. It would be interesting to know or have some insight as to the real reasons behind the band. I mean, there's, you know, the conclusions we can all,

including myself, jump to, the obvious reasons, of course. But I'm just curious if there's a larger reason or strategy at play here. Could it be an adjustment to ticket sales? Of course it could. Could it be really a reaction to an already depressed tourism market that has nothing to do with WWE? It's just Las Vegas in general and perhaps. opening this door up to encourage a little more traffic locally was, I don't want to say a compromise,

but maybe it was a decision that was agreed to and thought of best of the both parties' interest, that being the local city and marketing there and I think there's just might be more to it than the obvious. It would be interesting to know that before I could really comment on it. You know, certainly the speculation was, Hey, ticket sales are down, brother. They're down like 18%.

And of course, WWE was going back to the exact same town they were in last year. And really things have not necessarily proved in the economy here in America. So if money's a little tighter and there is a sense of sameness, I think everyone understood that, hey, you're going to see a little bit of a dip. But I imagine for WWE to change their plans because they had announced that this year's WrestleMania was going to be in New Orleans and then rescinded that.

It said, well, not so fast, my friend. going back to Las Vegas, I can only assume that WWE brass were able to negotiate an even bigger deal, a bigger rights fee, if you will, and some greater tax strategies or better rental rates. I mean, I don't think it's a secret, but a lot of times when WWE comes in to negotiate, they wind up getting maybe some free travel, certainly a free building, maybe a big tax break, but also a hefty two comma fee as well. So they're going to get paid in multiple ways to go back to Las Vegas. But I do think that the market was soft on tickets.

So as a result, they went kind of old school and did a 50 mile blackout with Johan promotions. Maybe you're not familiar with that name, but that is the standard sort of pay-per-view distributor. Like if you were going to watch at a Hooters or a bar or something like that, they wouldn't just go to direct TV and buy the pay-per-view sort of thing. They would do that through Johan promotions. Well, Johan had put the work.

out that, hey, if you're within a 50-mile radius of Las Vegas, you can't show it. That's now been lifted and things are back on. So that's great news for the local Las Vegas economy. But this is coupled with great news for wrestling fans who want to be in the building, not necessarily at a bar or a casino, but inside the stadium for WrestleMania. WrestleMania tickets are now dropping in price drastically. We had the previous cheapest ticket was 250. $54. It's now down to $177.

So they are reducing those ticket prices. Even on the secondary market, you've seen some of those starting to drop a little bit. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I know it's created some discourse online about, hey, aren't they kind of punishing their most loyal fans who paid first? Which I get.

Like, hey, tickets are on sale. I'm really excited. I'm going to be the first in line. I'm going to buy it. I would have waited a little while. Maybe I could have gotten a better deal. Now, that's not always the case.

Dynamic pricing has been a thing with WWE. So there were people in previous years, WrestleMania, who were first in line to buy, and they got a better deal. Tickets actually rose later. What do you make of this decision from WWE to reduce the ticket price? Did you remember ever doing that in WCW at any time?

Like, hey, let's, we tried it. We sold some tickets, but we're not going to meet our goals. Let's reduce. the ticket price. Do you remember doing that at all at WCWCW? No, I don't because when before I got into management I had little, it had zero visibility into how decisions to market live events had no idea how it took place, right? I didn't know if there was any metrics used who made the

decisions, how the decisions were made, whatever. But regardless of all that, the technology didn't exist back then that allowed you to look at data in real time to the extent that you can now. So it's, I'm sure there were times when probably guys like Gary Jester, Jim Barnett, or any of the local, you know, regional promoters, there was another one down there that passed away just a couple years ago. I can't remember his name right now. I feel bad about that.

But he had been a long-time promoter of WCROV. crocket promotions down in the southeast. That's who we were working with. And I'm sure that those people, those independent promoters, along with our in-house like Gary Jester, probably wished they were able to scale down tickets, but that opportunity didn't really exist the way it does today. So because of that, no, I don't remember it.

I really don't. The Blue Maney is with us here live on YouTube, and you should be too. hit that subscribe button, turn on the notifications bill. You won't miss Eric the next time he's live. But my buddy Manny says, according to Keith Haley at Greenberg's book on WrestleMania 3, the WWF had a blackout of about an 80 mile radius of the Silver Dome.

Yeah, this is not a new thing. I mean, I think a lot of people are familiar with the concept, but, you know, way back when you think about that in WrestleMania 3, that's sort of the infancy of pay-per-view. I mean, they were still doing a lot of, you know, closed circuit. So the idea being you go to a different arena and a part of the country and there's just a giant screen.

There's probably not a ring or any matches. But it's like instead of going to the movie theater, you're going to a 6,000 seat movie theater or something like that. But this is different. You know, I'm excited that now the business owners in Las Vegas, because Las Vegas tourism is down. I mean, it's taking a huge hit. They're looking for solutions. And that's the reason that Las Vegas rode a check to WWE. so I'm glad that cooler heads have prevailed and we're on the right track.

I do want to ask you about some other big news. We're going to talk about the casino game. We're also going to talk about a really fun picture that just popped up. I don't think you've seen. I don't know that you're in the loop on 2K, but I can't wait to bust your balls about that. But first, I want to brag about our friends over at Butcher Box. I just want to tell you before we get too deep into Butcher Box,

last night, I threw a bunch of stakes, and I mean a bunch on the rec tech last night. and they were absolutely fantastic. I'm so excited that it's starting to warm up, and as winter fades and your calendar starting to fill up, it can get a lot harder to eat healthy. When you're busy, what's in your fridge matters more. Butcher Box delivers whole responsibly sourced protein options.

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medium rare steak. I mean, Eric thinks he can make one better than me. That's not true. Yeah, I don't know. But butcher box, dude, it's the secret is the meat. I mean, I just want to repeat what I was saying right there because I think this gets glossed over a lot. no antibiotics, no added hormones, no additives.

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or top sirloin for a year or ground beef for life plus $20 off when you go to butcherbox.com slash weeks. That's right. Hey, Conradts, can I jump in here? Real quick. Hang on. That's right. Your choice of chicken breast or topsoiline for a year or ground beef for life plus $20 off your

first box, always with free shipping. That's butcherbox.com slash weeks. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you butcherbox.com slash weeks. Now, Eric, I know this is near and near to your heart. I'm in your wheelhouse right now, aren't I? And you were so, I mean, I jumped the gun. I'm going to jump right in the middle of your reed because I was so concerned that I wasn't going to be able to share my experience.

And you've covered the stakes. I don't need to do that. However, I want to talk about the chicken because it is organic. It's everything that Mrs. B and I look for in. chicken, right? We're very, very selective about that. And that's what you get from Butcher Bucks. And they're phenomenal. I mean, they're really excellent chicken breast and chicken. I use whole chicken, and we've done chicken breast. The other one, I can't let this re-go by without talking about the bacon. Like, this bacon has changed my life. I mean, that's too big of a statement. It's not

changed it, but it's improved it immensely. I've always kind of dug bacon every once in a while, but now it's a part of the plan. It's a consistent thing because bacon is so, so good. Just had to toss that in there, man. It's good stuff. Go check it out, man. You can hear the enthusiasm in our voice. I mean, you know we're regular grillers here at the Thompson household.

We grill probably five nights a week. But when Megan hit me with, hey, this is the best steak we've had in a long time. And, you know, listen, I can be honest. I tried something pretty fancy for Valentine's Day. I went as highfalutin as I could on a cut of meat. I weigh overspent on it. She liked this one better. Butcherbox doesn't taste better, but it's also more affordable.

You're going to feel better about it. You're going to feel better eating. Go right now, butcherbox.com slash weeks. You'll be glad you did. Hey, we are live right now, and we want to hear your question. So if you got one, keep them coming. Black Sheep Genealogy has a great question here. He says, easy e.

ASMR videos win? does Eric experience ASMR. I am one of many soothed to sleep by the unique timber of his voice. Tapping on the big gold while whispering about its history would go so hard. Please hit us with your version

of the go to sleep for the three count. Your fan service is always on point. Are you a big ASMR guy? You in the loop on this? A little bit. A little bit. And am I reading, right? Did black sheep geology pay 300?

to ask me that question? He did. So you better give a good answer. Man, that must be some kind of record here. Wow. Well, thank you for that. And, you know, I do, I do use a tech every once and a while. There's a couple of apps that I have downloaded for different, you know, here's what I, here's what I believe to be true for me. I believe, you know, like everything, music creates a vibration. Vibrations can create a state in different levels of state. And I seek out music to put me in the mood I want to be in any given moment, if that makes sense. And that's kind of what we're talking about here with a different wavelength of vibration.

It can be very therapeutic, relaxing, whatever. So yeah, I'm pretty familiar, but I'm not a consistent, user. She tag back in and said, yes, she did ask the question and she's a woman. So how about that? You got a little female love. I think that stubble is doing magic here for us live today.

Maybe that's a new thing you got to do. Hey, why don't you just talk a little bit about the big gold belt and we're going to go to a one shot of you. And I want you to just lean into a little ASMR and just talk about how important the big gold belt was some of the matches or moments. Give us a couple of sentences and then we'll move on. In any sport, there are stakes, your goals. They're called championships.

And this championship, one of the most recognized by fans throughout the world, is referred to as the big gold belt. You understood the assignment and you hit a home run. Thank you very much, Mr. Bischoff. Keep those questions coming. And thank you so much for the support, Black Cheap Genealogy. That was very cool of you.

You know, we never know how many of female listeners we have. Eric and I always sort of joke. Hey, both of you. Thank you for listening. But we appreciate you jumping on with us this Saturday morning. AOTP Productions has a great question. One, you and I have not talked about, probably because we don't know how it's going to shake out,

but it is worth discussing. He wants to know, Eric, what are your thoughts on what's going on with the DBI? DiBiasey family. Maybe some of our listeners haven't been keeping up with this, but Ted DiBiase Jr. is on trial for his life, and it's set to resume on March 16th. So that's this coming Monday. He's facing 13 different counts, conspiracy, wire fraud, theft of federal funds, and money laundering. If convicted on all, he could face decades in prison up to 20 years per wire fraud count, 10 years per theft and money laundering count,

five years for conspiracy. This is the only criminal trial to date for that now infamous Mississippi welfare scandal. I guess there was like a $100 million of misappropriated funds that this all went down between like 2016 and 2020. So listen, there's going to be a lot of reports on this next week. There's been some kind of salacious stuff that I don't know needs to be discussed until we know what the final verdict is about what his relationship was with some of the other parties that were involved. But you got to know Ted DiBiase a little bit, but did you ever spend

any time with Ted DiBiase Jr? and have you been keeping up with this trial in Mississippi at all, Eric? You know, I'm aware of it and I make a point of looking for it. If I hear something is out there. I'll seek it out to get an update. Primarily because I feel for Ted, Ted DiBiase. I've never met Ted Jr., so I don't have any real connection there

other than he's a friend of mine's son. And as such, you know, I pay attention. I've seen Ted a few times over the last year or two. in person, and I don't bring it up. If he chose to, I would certainly, you know, engage in whatever kind of conversation you wanted to have, but I'm supportive of Ted because he is a friend. I don't know enough about the case to talk about, you know, anything other than just I'm aware of it.

But I do feel bad for Ted. You know, this is just this, I can't imagine. I just can't imagine, you know, going through something like this. and, you know, the fear of the what if. There's some potential very serious what ifs at the end of that question. And thinking about that and how it impacts everybody in the family is pretty overwhelming emotionally and I have a lot of empathy for Ted. Well said, I think we're all keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that, you know,

justice is served, but we also keep that family in mind. I can't imagine, you know, the stress that this has on your friend, Ted DiBiBi, Gossi Senior. And, you know, them sharing a name, I feel like senior has often gotten lumped in or confused. And it's just a mess. And thoughts and prayers are certainly with that family because I can't imagine like, I know we're always talking about the men in this scenario, but I think every guy who's

listening to this, man, think about the way you think about your mom and to know that your mom is now dealing with this and you've got that stress. I know that sounds crazy. And maybe it's because I'm a mama's boy, Eric, but I can't help but think about Ted Senior's wife and Ted Jr's mom. Like, man, I just hate this for her. That's what I mean. It's a collateral damage.

Yes. That's the part that, you know, sometimes when we hear news like this, we focus on the people, you know, the people directly involved in this case, Ted Jr. Right. We focus, you know, on the whatever, the alleged crime and the details of it and all that. We start forming opinions about it. And we don't even think about the collateral damage that's coming with this. and, you know, it's like the same thing when, you know, the Vince McMahon thing happened. My first thought, if you go back and you look at our reaction, you know, when the news broke,

it wasn't about making judgment on what happened. You know, nobody can't, really, and certainly not me. But it was like my first thought was the collateral damage at that level grandkids, you know, son, daughter, coworkers now it's a lot of collateral damage and that's a part that like you just stated it's got to think about that and have some grace yeah we need a little grace especially when guys like mark fusion who's with us here live says bishall feel sorry for wealthy criminals that stole public funds no surprise there mark go grab a cue tip on a Saturday morning that's not what he said at all we're talking about the effect on the rest of the family here that you know as far as we know

we're not involved at all. But, hey, maybe go take a nap and wake up on a better side of the bed a little later. We are alive. If you've got a question for EZE, we're here for it. I do want to ask you, and I know this is probably only interesting to me. But Eric, I know you and I talked years ago, and gosh, it may have been like freaking 10 years ago. But you and I had a conversation about once upon a time, there was an opportunity for Hulk Hogan to be on slot machines.

His likeness would have been on slot machines. and I know you got way down the rabbit hole and helping him figure out and navigate that landscape. Well, there was a new announcement this week that kind of caught me off guard. I just thought, I didn't think I'd ever see that. WWB and White House Studio, White Hat Studios, my apologies, White Hat Studios, has announced the new online casino game for real money, and it's titled WrestleMania Road to Gold. It's only available in the United States,

but it's a new online casino game for real money wagering, in regulated markets, and they've got all the fan favorites on here. You see Cody Rhodes is on there, Ria Ripley's on there, and I don't know. I just did not expect that there would be a WW4A into online gambling, but that looks like that is here. Now, I know that you haven't probably checked into this game or tried to play this game, but I know you do have a little bit of experience in the rearview mirror with the Hulk Hogan slot machine concept. Can you tell us a little bit about how that went down, what was supposed

to happen, what did happen, what the pitfalls were along the way? What can you tell us about wrestling and gambling sort of combining here? This would be a great, probably hour-long discussion on a business-related podcast because what we're talking about is a pretty complex licensing deal and made most complex by the fact that it was so intertwined with the regulatory, you know, gaming from a legal perspective of what you can do today versus what you could do with the process that you had to go through back then when I was involved in this because I was directly involved in it is a completely different landscape. You've got to start off with that. Two different challenges altogether or opportunities. So going back to Hall,

I brought the license, the Hulk Cogan license to online gaming. Now, at the time, online gaming was really only profitable for money and possible, really, in certain markets, for example, in the UK. It's everywhere, right? So what we did is we put together a licensing, you know, we were, MX Gaming was the name of our company. And we had a developer from Brazil or from Argentina, who was really, really good at what he did in terms of coding and building these machines, I would go out along with another partner of mine at the time,

go out and find certain licenses that the market, as it was defined by the online gaming partners we were in business with, they would give us the demographics. We would go out and find licenses that fit the demo that our distributors in this case were looking for. For example, now I started out with Hulk Hogan. that's what got us in the door. But David Hasselhoff was one because of David Hasselhoff to this day. Footprints is intellectual property in the UK and Germany and other markets like that. He was important to them.

So we went out and got the rights to David Hasselhoff. Chevy Chase. There were a few others. And the idea was when we would go out and get the license agreement, and then end up in a contract, a revshare contract with the distributors of those games. So we were kind of an arm's length. This feels like something that's a little more direct.

It's the same thing. It's the same principle. If you walk through a casino, and now I'm not a big gambling guy, I don't know much about the business. I'm strictly a very, very occasional participant for $100 a hand twice a year. But you walk through a thing,

casino when you look at the games, the slot machines that are there, and you look at the visual components of those games. Well, there's many, you know, that are branded, the Beverly Hillbillies machine, for example. But vast majority of them are agnostic. There's really no brand. It's just really cool visuals. The trouble that we ran into when what really stopped the train for MX gaming was because the rules kept changing so dramatically and so quickly in terms of of the regulatory issues that we as a company had to abide by that we didn't have the legal infrastructure and the ability to keep up with it. Not for the level of penetration we were going to be able to project it to the marketplace. So it was a great idea that was way ahead of its

time, hence what we're talking about right now in WWE, but it's the same principle as any other gaming platform that you'll find, like I said, in Vegas. There's a lot of branded stuff out there. And this is a perfect brand. It's a global brand. It's got a global footprint, even though it's only available in the United States. It's still a cool thing. And it's interesting to see it. What's interesting to me, I think, is WWE has at least flirted with this idea before. Now, not online. But I mean, I think we all have heard the story that once upon a time, Vince famously bought the Debbie Reynolds Hotel in Las Vegas. And the idea was there would be a WWE gambling position there in Las Vegas.

Like you could have maybe WWV themed blackjack tables or WWE themed hotel rooms or WWE themed shows. And that always felt like an intriguing idea. And we've certainly seen the UFC have a lot of success in Las Vegas. And it was once known as the fight capital of the world. I don't know if that's changing a little bit. But I think it's it's been a long time coming that WWE might be involved in gambling.

But again, we started this program. talking about, man, I used to wake up and watch cartoons and wrestling. And I mean, I had WWE sleeping bag and a WWE lunch box and a WWE action figure. I mean, it was catered to kids. And well, this feels like it's goal. It's hitting a different audience. And obviously, you know, they've maximized the revenue from, from the kids perspective a long time ago.

But now that they're into gambling, this is going to get a little bit of criticism, right or wrong for TK. is the juice worth to squeeze? What say you, Eric? Yeah, first of all, will there be pushed back? Sure, because they'll be pushed back for anything they do. There's going to be the internet wrestling culture,

and not just the internet wrestling culture, but the internet culture in general is going to want to push back on anything that they can find to push back on and have fun with it and get clicks and whatever. I definitely think it's worth it. I'm fascinated to watch because you're talking about the market. You know, what's the age group? WWE's going for here. They've got three generations of IP that will appeal to different segments of the audience.

Right. I mean, it's like me when I go to an autograph signing and I see this 45 or 50 year old guy come up with his son or daughter and say, hey, you know, I watched you when I was in college on Nitro and I'm looking at this. guy who looks as old as I am. I was like, well, because he almost is, right? There are so, and now we're talking about the Roddy Piper, the Randy Savage, obviously the Hulk Cohen, the Rick Flair, you know, there's so, so much IP that still,

as you know, I mean, it's nostalgia. That's where I think the value of WWE's brands are for this initiative, because I think they're really targeting, 35 to 49 year olds, maybe even a little older is who they're really targeting. So it'll be fun to see which, what IP they use to target that. Well,

I know what we're all targeting and that's WrestleMania. And I can't believe this is real. But today we're excited to announce and introduce a new sponsor here on the program. Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm. They've been fighting for the people for over 35 years, and they've recovered over $30 billion for their clients. And now, not only are they one of our new sponsors,

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Now, in addition to the two tickets to WrestleMania, they're also going to give this lucky winner $2,000 to help cover their travel expenses to Las Vegas. All you've got to do is text Heat 4-2 to the number for the people. That's Heat 4-84-373-673 and follow the prompts. Don't miss out on your chance to watch WrestleMania 40. live. Just text heat 42 to for the people. There's no purchase necessary. Open to legal residence of the 48 contiguous United States in D.C. who were 18 and over. Sweepstakes end March 29th, 2026. This is a paid advertisement. Eric, there was a, I want to call it a tragic

situation that happened in wrestling earlier this week. I want to get your take on. But before I do, I want to hit some of our, uh, our questions that are coming in. Hey, about a nice compliment. from our great close personal friend, Ephron, who says, Real American Freestyle 06 looked amazing. Congrats. Of course, I can't believe this is real. We're two weeks away from 07.

It feels like you're on a healthy clip with these real American freestyle events, man. Congrats. Thank you. Yeah, we're once a month. We're coming at you and we're scheduling out now. We're probably into the third quarter. So we'll be able to announce dates and all that way in advance,

which is going to make everything, you know, even better than it already is. And effort, thank you, man. Our F-O-6 was great. I won't brag about the amount of media coverage or how the fact that we were out-trending other sports at that same night. It's amazing. The growth that we're experiencing right now is amazing,

and I'm grateful for every second of it. We're getting lots of fun questions that are coming in, but we do have one about Real American Freestyle I want to hit, because just recently we had an opportunity for you to rip a pack here on the show, which was kind of fun. Real American Freestyle Trading Cards are a thing. When I went to try to pick up a pack last week, I could even find it on the website.

I think they were sold out, which was kind of cool. But PJ Taints is with us here live. And a few minutes ago, he wanted to know, I wanted to buy some real American freestyle trading cards, but 30 bucks for a single pack is super steep. Is it just because of the current deal with who's making them?

Can we expect cheaper packs? the future. I'll admit, I haven't seen one for sale at all because when I checked it, like they were sold out. Is that the secondary market or what is going on with real American freestyle trading cards? Do you have an update for us? Yeah, not a very close update because I'm really not involved in that part of our business directly, like hands on day to day. But what I do know is that it's been an extremely successful launch and defined not by me necessarily because I'm not familiar with this market specifically. But, you know, we've got some very influential people that are in that business that are

on our board, one in particular that many fans will know, Jeremy Padua. And Jeremy's been very helpful in helping us to navigate and guide our strategy in terms of releasing and pricing and so forth. And I think what you're seeing is reflection of the secondary market. which is a reflection of the way we've entered the market and how we plan and grow the market. So I know it's a category that while I'm not directly involved in is generating a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, not only internally and the people that are hands-on involved in it, but our funding partners and people who are very knowledgeable of this business,

they're really excited about it. So, hey, if everybody else is happy, so am I. Go check it out. It's shop. dot real American freestyle.com. It looks like the first edition is completely sold out, but second edition is available now for pre-order. This is kind of cool.

They've got 26 relic cards total and one one-of-one matchworn singlet relic per athlete. That's kind of cool. So there's 25 athletes and they're all going to have a one-of-one card with the singlet in there. That's kind of neat. I haven't had a chance to hold them in my hand. I am going to be at Real American Freestyle in Tampa. I hope you'll make plans to join us at real American Freestyle.com. Eric, I do want to talk about one of the bigger pieces of news that have happened, I guess we'll call it the second half of the week here. A little bit of controversy and a little bit of tragic news. Of course, I'm talking about Dallas from OVW. He was an OVW referee who was

in the middle of a live, I guess, television taping and disaster struck. He took a ref bump that did not go according to plan. I don't know that everybody knew that at the time. He suffered a concussion and a brain bleed. And as we're speaking now, he is in the hospital, seemingly in good spirits. He's going to, he made a statement online and, and obviously is going to be taking a little bit of a break. But there's been a lot of discourse about proper safety. protocol in wrestling because Dallas was having a seizure on the mat.

And Dallas, I believe, has requested that the video be removed. So we're not going to show the video, but it is out there on social if you want to get it. But at his request, hey, we're not going to show it either. But this does bring about a discussion about, you know, what should happen when something happens that's off script and is potentially dangerous and harmful. And I know once upon a time, you know, we as fans knew, or we grew to learn that when a referee would throw up the big X, that that means, hey, something, something happened.

And then they sort of turned that into a storytelling device. And now maybe people aren't exactly sure, like, hey, he's selling or is he really hurt? Now, you've been at a lot of live wrestling events. Sometimes you may or may not have been in the guerrilla position, but we all understand that a lot of times there's a referee with an IFB in his ear, and then someone is communicating instructions to him either from the guerrilla position, or in the truck.

That's the way it happens at bigger presentations. I don't pretend to know what's happening in OVW, but I do know what's brought about a discussion about when should we stop the story, so to speak. I know that sounds silly, but I think Chris Nowinski has been pretty forthright and saying, hey, it's okay if you don't finish a match every now and again to just look out for performer safety.

We don't have to continue the story. We can we can just stop the match. I know, I know you probably haven't seen the footage, but this is. Oh, I have. Okay. So talk to me a little bit about, you know, not necessarily, because I know everybody's jumping on and they're, they're clowning on OVW and they're clowning on Al Snow and they're specifically saying,

oh, don't book the wrestlers involved. If folks weren't trained and they didn't have a plan and they didn't have a discussion, that's, that's, first of all, I'm glad Dallas is okay, seemingly on the men. That's most important. But I'm hoping this can become a teachable moment for not just, OWW, but the entire wrestling world at large. And we can institute maybe some best practices here. How does all this shake you?

And what would your response be at this point, Eric? My response to what or who? Well, the react, I mean, how this happened, the incident. I mean, you saw the video and we do have the OVW statement in Dallas is. We'll go ahead and show those now. But, no, I mean, I'll give you my reaction to it, I guess, is what you're looking for. Um, everybody fucked up. Yeah.

There's that simple. And there's really only one thing that should have happened in that situation. And that would be to shut the show down and make sure this young man wasn't in a situation worse that he obviously was. Because that could have been true too. That's the first thing that comes to my mind. And if there's any discussion outside of that, I probably wouldn't be able to spend a lot of time listening to it. It's just potentially life or death.

I think where everybody fucked up is in what's unique about the situation, it's usually the referee who's in a position to talk to the truck. If a talent gets hurt, here you've reversed a situation. Referees are generally kind of trained for that or at least have thought through how they would react to that situation because it's possible as a referee that you're going to be faced with that sometimes. I'm sure if there's any basic wrestling training schools out there, that's probably something that either is or should be in the curriculum. That said, now we've reversed the situation and you've got wrestlers who probably have not considered,

what if the referee has a heart attack or has a seizure or brain bleed? Oh, how should I react to that? That thought process has probably never occurred in 80% of the people that are going to wrestle in OVW or anywhere else on the independent scene. I'm not picking on OBW. You've got such an inexperienced, most cases, somewhat trained, some cases well trained, in some cases horribly trained, wrestlers out there on the independency in situations that many of them have never encountered before. So they're not going to react properly.

They don't think through it. But the real issue here is why wasn't, if this was being produced for television, number one, was it live or is it tape? That matters a little bit. and very little because the director who's ever in control, ultimately in control, should have shut that down. And that's assuming there's not somebody at ringside or in a guerrilla position, a senior person that is also watching what's going on that's been around long enough to recognize it as I did when I saw that spot and as most people did, which is why it's such a hard thing to watch, It's because what that referee Dallas was doing had nothing that resembled selling. That was pretty obviously a seizure, and that's not 2020 hindsight.

It's why I only watched it halfway through once. I'm not going to watch it again. Somebody should have been another that recognized that no, who's not part of the show? The talent, they're too caught up in their own shit. They're inexperienced. They've probably never even imagined being in a situation like this. There's pressure on them, a unrealistic pressure that they're probably putting on themselves.

They don't want to screw up by stopping and falling for something that is part of the show. They're not going to want to take that risk, right? So it's such an unusual, but unfortunately it's not unusual. It's probably pretty common. But it would have been, would have been resolved much quicker in a much better way if somebody would have just stopped the match. I totally agree. I guess that's my question.

It feels like, you know, we almost never see matches get stopped on TV. I'm talking about WW and AW and for better or worse, a lot of independents operate sort of monkey see monkey do. You see the exact same thing happening on independence that you see on the mainstream. you see some of those guys sort of emulating what's happening on TV and hey this is what they do in AEW or this is what they do in WW. But do you think we're at a point where it makes sense not just on those major promotions, the multi-billion dollar promotions,

but even on an independent that we have someone inside of the guardrail at ringside who can have some sort of authority. I know that exists in boxing. A doctor can stop a boxing fight. A doctor can stop, you know, an MMA fight. And they usually do that through. state athletic commissions. And I know as a rule, professional wrestling folk, they do not like state

athletic commissions. I do want to say in my opinion, this is one of those where, boy, somebody from the, from, from, from, uh, state athletic commission could have made a really big difference here. But I understand that sometimes, you know, in the interest of story, you know, people don't really know, you know, what, what's real and what's not. I get that. But I think we need to, we need to have some better safety protocols. and I think part of that may be let's start considering some sort of third party inside the guardrail

who can just shut the thing down when they need to because I don't I don't pretend to know what their what their rig is and I hear what you're saying about hey the director but do we know that technologically they even have that in OWW like I don't know I mean that's that's that's the other issue but there had to be somebody overseeing what was happening that somebody should have had the authority authority and the ability to shut that show down and should have made that decision, whoever that was, whether there's a director, somebody on the creative team, I don't care, whoever was in charge, whoever gets fired if this thing goes bad, not using this event as an example of somebody shouldn't be getting fired, but whoever is accountable for overseeing that event should have been close enough to the ring and had enough experience and the ability to shut that thing down 15 seconds after we started seeing what was happening. Perhaps, you know, it's not just another solution maybe.

It's not necessarily someone who is a representative from a state athletic commission, but some sort of senior seasoned wrestling person. Like, I don't know that Al Snow was or wasn't there. I know people are having a lot of fun dunking on him online right now because he famously said, someone will die in an AEW ring one day. I guarantee it. I'm sure he regrets saying that now. But I feel confident.

I don't know how that well, but I feel confident if he's inside the guardrail. He's shutting that thing down. But I do think we need to set a precedent. I hope this becomes a teachable moment. Most of all, I'm glad that Dallas is okay. We do have a statement from OVW that I think is probably fair that we read.

Let me go ahead and pull this up here. Last night during rise, referee Dallas Edwards, a member of our OVW family experienced a medical emergency during the broadcast. OVW takes the health and well-being of all of our performers extremely seriously. And as a company, we're all distraught to see an injury to one of our own. Dallas is alert and doing much better. Ask everyone to keep him in your thoughts and prayers and respect his and his family's privacy at this time. We'll provide an update as soon as it is available. But in the meantime, we wish Dallas is speedy recovery and we can't wait until,

he's back with our OVW family very soon. Dallas actually posted a statement as well that I think, you know, this is fair. We need to go ahead and share his thoughts as well. Dallas wrote, Hey guys, I know everyone seems to know about the scary incident last night at OVW. I've been evaluated and I have a concussion as well as a subdural hematoma, parentheses brain bleed.

That being said, I have made the decision to take some needed time away to get my life and health back in good spirits. I appreciate all the support everyone has been offering. but as far as money goes, I'm grateful to be in a position that I can manage an accident like this. In lieu of donations, I instead implore all of my fellow workers to get some sort of training in assisting another's life. Being in this position before, it's very important to be educated in all scenarios related to injury, illness, or condition in the ring, especially when we're performing. I'm not mad at anyone or anything other than the situation as a whole,

and that I've been sitting for about 24 hours straight in a hospital. as far as updates go, I'm getting a CT scan in the morning, and if that goes well, I'll be home. Thank you to everyone who's reached out or stopped by. It means more than you know, love Dally.

Man, what a cool cat to have that approach and put that statement out with a picture with the thumbs up. I think we're all pulling for Dallas Edwards. You know, it feels like it wasn't that long ago. We had a horse of a different color with the whole stew strategy with his hospitalization and things got a little too real,

But in consecutive years now, we've had some ugliness inside the squared circle. One certainly by accident, one intentional. I hope that there becomes some new best practice that is instituted across the board. But I can't say exactly what that is outside of let's put someone inside the guardrail, Eric. Yeah, well, the market will eventually determine what those processes are and who that person is because of the litigation that's going to come out of it. You know, when you have, and this is not just in this situation, but it's not until it hits somebody's pocketbook.

Does it become kind of an issue that everybody needs to be concerned with, right? Even down to the independent promoter level, you know, an independent promoter, you know, they have rent a cop. I don't mean that to sound disparaging. They have security people who are taking their job seriously. But is there a paramedic? Maybe you should put a paramedic on your security team for the sole purpose of just keeping an eye out for this type of thing. In other words, you're going to have to figure out affordable ways to make some choices and decisions to at least make an effort and to be able to demonstrate that you've made an effort that you've got, you know, safety in mind when you're having a professional wrestling event. at least for no other reason than when you get sued because you will as an independent promoter.

It's just a matter of time. It's not if it's when. If you've got any money for people to sue you for, and when something in injury or fight or something happens at one of your events, you're going to have some lawyer come knocking on your door. At least if you've demonstrated that you made an attempt, perhaps that's something that could work in your favor down the room. wrote, but it's going to happen. So I think once somebody, a couple people, you know,

get sued and makes headlines and everybody decides, oh, we need a process because we can't afford to get sued anymore. Well, thoughts and prayers with Dallas. I hope his CT scan goes really, really great. And I hope he is able to continue to pursue his dreams, whether they're in wrestling or out of wrestling. I know he's been around working GCW and OVW. And he's clearly just a wrestling fan like us and we're all pulling for him. I do want to take a break here and brag about our friends over at Harry's. I don't know if you're in the loop on this, but hey, have you priced Razors recently?

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Drugstore blades are just going to clog so fast. But maybe the best thing about Harry's Plus is how affordable it is. You see, Harries owns their own world-class blade factory in Germany. So there's no outsourcing. That means there's no middlemen. And because they are controlling the entire process from steel to shelf. They keep the cost low. I mean, why would you go pay $30 for refills when Harries gives you better blades at a fraction of that? By the way, if you don't love your shave, Harries will make it right. No questions asked. You get a risk-free trial and that means zero downside to giving it a shot. As a reminder, this is Harry's heaviest razor yet. It's made from metal. I'm talking about Harry's Plus. It's never plastic. It's designed to fit comfortably

in your hand. And a heavier handle just means more control and a more luxe feel. Let's just be honest. By the way, Harry's doesn't just make razors. They've got a full line of all your grooming essentials, everything from shave gel to deodorant, body wash. So stock up right now. All of this can come delivered straight to your door. You go ahead and set up your preferred schedule and you'll never run out of blades again. And right now for a limited time, our listeners can get the Harry's Plus trial set for only 10 bucks at harries.com slash 83 weeks.

This set includes the all new Harry's Plus razor, one refined five-blade cartridge, a two-ounce foaming shave gel, and a travel cover to protect your blades on the go. Just head on over to harries.com slash 83 weeks to claim this offer. After you purchase, they're going to ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. It's time for the wrestling news update with Raj Geary.

All right, my favorite part of the show every week. We get the latest and greatest from Raj. Raj, what's going on, man? Welcome to the show. How are you? Hey, guys. Good morning. How are you guys?

Man, we're excited to be on with you. It feels like there's a lot of news going around. I don't know that, Eric, you've even seen this, but AEW launched a streaming service. It's called My AEW. Raj, what can you tell us about this? Yeah, it's, you know, kind of, kind of, kind of, seems similar to the WWE network in a lot of ways, where the streaming service is it launched last Monday. It'll have live and on-demand events, but it's for fans outside the U.S. and Canada. So it kind of seems like a response to Triller and their ongoing problems. Triller has been hosting and providing AEW pay-per-views for a while now, so internationally. So this seems like a backup for them so fans can order the pay-per-views and video. or watch them as part of a subscription service.

In the US, you can get the app, but all you get with it is watching the watch AEW Fast channel. And that's it for now. So if you want to order a pay-per-view, you can't do it through the service. You still got to go through your normal provider. So nothing really changes as far as the US goes Canada. You can purchase pay-per-views, individual paperbees on there.

But yeah, that's about it. But yeah, AEW now has their own streaming service. And, you know, it's, with you know, the ongoing media changes and the environment that we're in, it's always good to have your own backup in, you know, just in case the worst ever happens. I mean, I don't think that's why they launched this. I think it's more for international fans because it's a thriller, but still, it is, it is nice to have. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I've seen some channel online where people are saying, oh, this is the backup plan, you know, if and when AEW loses TV, but

I didn't see it that way. I think the world knows that Triller has had just a disastrous financial couple of years. And if I had to guess, AEW is probably owed well into the seven figures from Triller. I don't know that for sure, but it does feel like a major departure. And I know for sure that AEW was largely dependent on Triller for those international pay-per-views.

There were certain pockets where you couldn't buy the pay-per-view through ppv.com or certainly you couldn't do it through HBO Max. I mean, there's parts of the world that don't even have HBO Max. So if you're really trying to service the entire globe, you do need a solution. And if your solution looks like it's on the brink of bankruptcy and on the verge of going away for good, you don't want to leave those international fans without a way to watch your programming. Eric, what do you make of my AEW.com? Makes sense to me.

would have been, would have made even more sense, I think, when they launched to be able to have control of their destiny. And I think if you go back to somewhere around 2019 on an 83 weeks broadcast, we talked about the possibility of AEW the first time. It kind of made the news about the possibility of the TNT-TBS relationship. and I think I recall saying that if I were Tony, because you asked me, my response, was something to the effect of, yeah, that's not a bad opportunity, but I would be thinking more about a streaming platform, not because it would have, in the short term, provided the kind of revenue, that the agreement, whatever it really is in real life,

but even that, it would have been the return on the investment immediately, but a short-term return on the investment, I don't think is part of Tony's strategy's, Tony Khan strategy. He's got enough money to have a long-term strategy. And personally, what I meant back then and what I'm saying now is that he'd have been better served to own as much of his audience by own, I mean, have access to and be able to market directly

to vis-a-vis an OTT or streaming platform. If he would have started that five years ago, six years ago, is leverage in conversations that are going to be coming up at some point in terms of a renegotiation or pitching his show somewhere else. When you can come to that meeting with a briefcase full of hundreds of thousands, if not in some case, millions of subscribers to your product, you've got a different level of conversation happening as opposed to coming in, having been essentially canceled from your previous network,

ostensibly for lack of performance, and it didn't make financial sense. Now you're going to try to take that product who's basically been fired and apply for another job somewhere. You better have a freaking story. And I think had they own their own streaming platform four, five, six years ago, they'd be having different conversations and would frankly just have more leverage. I do want to ask you about ticket sales, Raj.

You know, we're going to talk about WrestleMania ticket sales, but I saw last night, I believe, that AEW has announced, or at least MJF announced, hey, tickets are sold out for AEW Revolution this weekend. When I take a look over at Russellticks,

it looked like they had about 375 tickets available yesterday. So it's reasonable, but those are now completely clean. But they only set it up for 11,9006. I feel like I've seen like 16,000 there before. Do you think the optics rush of announcing a sellout is critical or important for AW or should they have released more tickets and opened up more tickets? Actually, let me ask you that, Eric.

Like if you were in this seat and you see, hey, our original setup or configuration we've got is scaled for 11,906, we sell those clean. And I don't know if MJF did this on his own or what, but he announces with a stamp on social media, hey, sold out. That feels like that scares away potential fans from wanting to come buy more tickets. It doesn't stand the reason they could still open up a few more tickets. It feels like they could squeeze a few more in, but from a marketing perspective, where's the right balance, Eric?

We want the perception and the announcement and the PR of announcing a sellout versus, hey, we'd like to sell a couple thousand more tickets if we could. I kind of answer it the same way. As I did, I guess, in the conversation about the long-term strategy to own your own streaming platform and the benefits that it provides. In the short term now, Tony doesn't want the publicity of a sellout and that perception that it creates potentially. He actually needs it. I see. The couple thousand tickets, or thousand or two hundred, or two hundred.

or whatever you may sell by squeezing in a few more tickets to nudge your bottom line somehow is spit compared to where Tony's at, meaning who cares about that? That's not going to change the trajectory. What could change the trajectory, especially if you're able to get some consistency, the data point that comes with marketing, promoting, advertising, spreading the word that you're selling out venues. Right. That implies growth.

That implies success, right? That has far more value to Tony right now in the situation that he's in than the revenue a thousand extra tickets could possibly provide. So let's talk about WrestleMania tickets. This is what everybody's been talking about, Raj. And I know you've been monitoring this situation. Russell ticks right now shows 37,520 tickets distributed did for the Saturday, WrestleMania.

Sunday is a little better, 38,470. Of course, last year, it feels like we were like 60,000. Now, there's still a bit of a runway. I mean, we were about a month away. What do you expect, Raj? We've seen ticket prices be reduced.

We've also seen the blackout be lifted. What is your realistic expectation for the number of tickets sold? And is there anything WWE can do to get closer to where they were last year from a capacity standpoint. Yeah. Well, it is a, it is a tough deal running a stadium two years in row. It's much, you know, it's one thing running an arena two years in a row. That's a lot easier to do.

I mean, you know, both companies do it all the time. But running a stadium, not only is it two years in a row, but it's at a time when Vegas tourism is down. They were down 8% last year. And not only that, but doing it at inflated ticket prices, even more expensive last year, which people were complaining about saying that the tickets were way too expensive. Now, something we've discussed on this show before that, you know, if you're selling out your tickets, that means your tickets are not necessarily priced too high, right? If they're going selling out quick, if you don't sell those tickets, you know, brokers will pick those up and sell them at a higher price. So you want to, you want to basically get to the point where he's selling out a few days in advance.

And so that means your tickets are priced just right. right. But in this case, they're moving a lot slower than last year. They're way below pace. They seem to be stuck at that 37, 38,000 level for weeks now. And we'll see with this Cody, Randy Orton angle that they did on Smackdown Fest starts picking things up, or if fans are now conditioned to know, to wait, you know, towards when the event is close and then buy tickets, because that's when they're going to be the cheapest. You know, you hit with, With pricing, you hit that point of diminishing returns where you keep going higher and higher and higher with ticket prices until now you're not getting your automatic sellouts and you're starting to see empty seats in the crowd. And that's when you start scaling tickets down.

I think WWE has hit that pricing point where they need to start bringing their tickets down. Definitely for future events. It has just gotten too high for the normal fan. But yeah, you know, again, two years in a row in a stadium, when All-In did that in 2023, 24, they went from 72,000 to 44,000-ish, so it was like a 37% drop. WrestleMania won't have that kind of drop by the end. It'll be, it'll probably be 45 to 50 at least unless they, you know, really paper the crowd. So, yeah, I mean, they have dropped tickets.

The ticket prices have gone from like $250. I believe it was $254 for night to, night one was $228. Now both nights, the cheapest tickets are $177. So they're bringing the prices down. We'll see what happens. But yeah, definitely a lot of things working against them this year. Eric, what's your prediction on the final number of ticket sales? Like when the final tallies are done, I'm not saying what WWE announces.

but what wrestle ticks maybe announces because I know sometimes there's an entertainment number that gets announced. Do you think they'll get close to 60,000, 50,000? I mean, I feel confident they're going to beat 40,000. But where do you think the final number lands on night one or night two, Eric? I have no idea. I don't follow the ticket sales and patterns well enough to take a guess. Raj, what did you say they're at right now? How much are they down right now?

So I think at this point last year, they were at like $46,000, but right now they're at 37 for night one and $38,000 for night. Is this? Do you have that number? I think it's down. I want to say, yeah, $37,000, percentage-wise. Gosh, I want to say that's like 30%? I want to say, let me double check my math on that. I'm guessing while you're figuring that out, I'm guessing. wherever they're at right now, they'll be able to reduce that deficit or percentage year over year loss to probably about half of what it is now.

Through dynamic pricing, programming, I would imagine pretty soon, because of the lower price tickets, they're going to start advertising very strongly in the Southern California market, trying to attract that L.A. audience, because it's really a drive, even at $4 or $5. gallon of gas. It's not local, but for Vegas, it's kind of local traffic. And that's probably will spend the majority of their money advertising and promoting to try to sell the balance of those lower price tickets to a market that traditionally isn't going to fly in, isn't, you know, going to stay at a nice hotel. They're just coming in for a weekend of fun and affordable.

that is that kind of probably 18, not 18, say 21 to, you know, 35-year-old audiences, what they're going to be looking for in Southern California. Yeah, and just to confirm, that's 20% down from the pace from last year. Yeah, that's not much, considering you've got a 8% drop overall on tourism to begin with just to kind of create a starting point that's really not that bad. I think they'll take it down to probably 10 or 12 percent, less year over year from where it currently is at 20. Raj, let's talk a little bit about NXT.

We don't spend nearly enough time talking about NXT, but there's a report out that I guess NXT PLEs are not going to be on peacock. What's going on? Yeah, so WWE had signed their peacock deal back in January, 2021 that commenced of March of that year, which was a five-year deal. So that five-year deal expired just last week with the Vengeance State PLE. And with the deal, it included all WWU main roster shows.

Obviously, they got out of that deal early to go to ESPN last fall, but the NXT PLEs remain. So now that entire Peacock deal is done, they have a separate deal for Saturday night's main event. So Saturday night's main event is still on Peacock, so WW still has a relationship with PCAC, but NXT is kind of without a home right now. And it looks like, I mean, we'll see, but the next show will be on YouTube,

which is the first time that NXT or main roster PLE will be on YouTube. They do have their AAA shows, major shows, on YouTube, but not main roster or NXT. So I don't know if that's a sign of, you know, again, how much people are willing to pay for these. or if they're just in negotiating phase and it's going to take a little while before they sign a new deal. But right now it's going to be free for all on YouTube. Let's talk just a little bit about a report from ESPN.

I don't know if this is real or not, but is it true that WWB maybe had some heartburn about ESPN reviewing their shows with a letter grade? Like this is an A show, this is a B show. This is a C show. What's real and what's not here, Ron. Well, I think. The one thing that people are really jumping on is that when the WWE ESPN deal started, executives Matt Penny and John Lasker, they had said that the editorial unit, you know, the ESPN News, would be separate from WWE and they'd cover it the same.

Now, this particular piece that Andreas Hale, who's a great writer, great reporter, he would write, it just graded the PLE. So it was an opinion piece that he wrote. And the very first piece he wrote was for Russell Palozo, which was the first show under the WW ESPN deal. And he gave it a C. And I commend him for, you know, for giving his true opinion, even knowing, you know, that deal going into effect. He didn't back down. But, you know, you're seeing this more and more with the politicians and companies trying to bully the news media a little bit.

you know at the end of the day this was an opinion piece grading shows it wasn't a major story or something that got pulled and it's something really that ESPN has kind of done for a while i mean you know it's like 10 years ago they suspended bill simmons their top podcaster for comments he made about roger goddell uh you know after a domestic not and roger goddell wasn't involved in the domestic abuse scandal but whether he knew about it or not and Bill Simmons got suspended for a few weeks, and the relationship with ESPN got strained, and ESPN didn't pick them up. So the kind of thing where, you know, commentary and stuff on ESPN partners is nothing new, but it's still not a good luck. It's awkward.

You know, when you go, you talk about a cultural kind of square peg and a round hole. You've got a sports culture at ESPN and very political. sports culture. They've leaned in heavily to the political parts of sports, so much so that it's, it's an issue with a large part of the sporting audience. That said, WWE knowingly went into this deal. I mean, you kind of know, right? These are really, really smart people that know what's going on in the world that were part of that decision. So, you know, I can see, though, how uncomfortable it is because we're we're creating this this scripted action form of entertainment

and you've got people from a sports culture assessing it or or or rating it in this case and I can see how it's like no I don't want that so I get both sides of it but it's you know you look you're doing business with, you know, in ESPN, you're going to end up in a, you're going to end up banging head somewhere along the line, whether it be politically or in a case like this, just creatively or from a marketing support and marketing partner perspective, this is not good marketing partner behavior, right? It stings a little, so I understand it. Raj, I know it's not something that we had necessarily planned to talk about,

but one of the big conversations over the last week was Logan Paul challenging NFL players to a boxing match. And it looked like he was getting pretty far down the road. And then he got a phone call where he just happened to be wearing a prime jersey. And he just happened to answer on stream and express his frustration that WWE would not allow him to box. And I think the internet immediately jumped all over him. and I thought to myself, self, are we setting up a spectacle for WrestleMania? Because that's what it feels like to me. Do you think we're going to see Logan Paul in some sort of boxing spectacle at

WrestleMania or was this just a misfire? I don't. I truly believe that WWE doesn't want him to box, whether that call was real or not. I don't think it was. But I do think he was playing off of what really happened. But at the same time, I think it would be good for WWE to let him do that just because of the amount of attention that brings on one of their talents. So, you know, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea. It just makes Logan a bigger star, gets him in the name, it gets him in the news more, gets that publicity. And, but it looks like they put the kibosh on that.

You know, he's a regular character now on WWE television. So, I mean, by all accounts, it looks like he's probably doing something with Seth Rawlins. you know, he's been involved in that storyline. So we'll see. But, you know, if he did fight an NFL player, it would have to be a big name. WWE doesn't go for the, you know, lesser names with their celebrities, wrestling. You know, they're not going to go for some linebacker that no one's ever heard of. Or, I mean, that only football fans know.

So, you know, unless he could get like Tom Brady, you know, in there, I just don't see them doing that. Do you think perhaps given that TCO is involved in launching a new boxing league and you've got Logan Paul in WWE who's now going to be boxing, do you think that there could be some concern about just the messaging and the optics in terms of credibility for the new league that they're launching, the boxing initiative? I mean, I can see that be, it's confusing, right? because you've got one group of owners that are controlling one scripted entertainment property. And over here we're launching a new boxing league.

And of course, credibility and legitimacy is core value there. I can see them going, good idea, not right now. That to me is as much of a reason not to do it is probably any reason someone could possibly convince me make sense. to do it. You know, Eric, you're saying that. I'm like, wow, you know, that actually would be a great idea for TKO boxing to have that Logan Paul fight on one of their shows because I feel like they need something to really get this brand going.

I can see what you're saying about wanting to disassociate from pro wrestling and not have that entertainment side, makes with the boxing side, but you want something to kick off that brand, you know, in a big way. If you're looking at gambling and the massive opportunities that exist in gaming, which clearly they're very well aware of, another reason why you wouldn't want to kind of cross-promote necessarily. It is going to be interesting. Yeah, but the biggest boxing fights.

Oh, I'm sorry, I was just going to say right now, the biggest boxing fights, you got Gina Carrano and Ronda Rousey coming up in MMA. It's these big names from the pet. you know, Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul. So yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I think Logan Paul being in boxing would definitely get a ton of attention. Oh, I sure would. It sure would.

Not to correct you, Raj, but Levi-on-Bel is a running back, and he was a like three-time pro bowler, I think. So he is, I know he's not Tom Brady, but he's not exactly a no-name. No, no, and I wasn't referring to Levi-on-Bel. Sure. Well, either way, I do want to ask you one more, thing before we get you out of here. You know, it feels like two months ago, man, everybody was talking about Jericho's in the rumble. Jericho's in the elimination chamber. Nobody said

shit with a mouthful in weeks. And then we see Chris Jericho at a movie premiere. I think he's a part of the new Margo's got money troubles. So we saw some photographs of him on the red carpet there. And nobody has said anything, which makes me think he's probably going to pop up sooner rather than later. Do you think we'll see him at WrestleMania? Will it be the Monday after to WrestleMania or do you think our suspicions have changed and he's not going to be in WW? What's next? And when do you think we'll see him, Roach?

Well, his contract is frozen right now with AEW and that's a practice that WW has done forever. AEW does it. Especially when someone gets injured on your show and then you freeze our contract. I always thought that's the S. With Jericho, you know, if it's an agreed upon

time off, I just don't feel like your time should be added on to your contract. But anyway, it all depends on how that situation gets worked out because it's not like Jericho's been back in AEW to work off the remaining time in this contract. So just how that works. But I do think the next time we see Jericho in a wrestling thing, it will be with WWE. Obviously, WrestleMania would be big. But with these contracts, it's hard to tell.

He's still on the AEW roster page. He is on the AEW roster page. I don't have any inside information, but I'd be willing to bet a dollar in a friendly bet that his contract is not frozen. And I think we see Jericho sometime in the spring. I'm going to go ahead and guess the month of April.

Now, when to be determined, but what a great twist it would be, Eric, if Jericho wound up returning to AEW after everyone expected him to go somewhere else, it could be a, I don't think that's going to happen. But I know you personally love the idea of

tease at teas. it, Teza, swerve. What do you hope is next for Jericho, Erico, Eric. What I hope is next for Jericho is whatever Chris really would like to have happened. I know that sounds like a bullshit answer, but from, you know, creatively, I just, what happens in AEW? Where does he go?

Yeah, he's back. Two weeks later. What is it? Tell me what's next, as all accused to say, where do we go from? from here. And if there's no really interesting, compelling, fresh where we go from here, honestly, I just could care less as a fan. But if that's what Chris wants, because financially it makes sense and he's cool with ending his career that way, then that's awesome. Personally, as what's left of me as a fan, just because I think about the business.

is just part of it so much that I think the fan part is just kind of atrophied away over time. But what's left to me as a fan wouldn't much rather see him end up at WWE because that's a story. It's a, it's the end of a journey. It's an amazing journey. And AW was a part of that journey. But ending up telling your story on the biggest stage in front of the biggest audience, Danhausen is a perfect. example. Dan Houser here, Dan Housen there.

Chris Jericho here, Chris Jericho ending his career there. It's kind of obvious. But again, what Chris is, from my perspective, man, whatever the dude wants, he's earned it. Either way, he's earned it. I think we all agree on that. Raj, tell everybody how that can keep up with you, weekend, week out. I just keep following me at the Raj Gerea on Twitter and as always guys thanks for having me on no thank you man and hey thanks for our great sponsor better while they're helping eric and i take

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It's a T-R-E-A-T to them, and they go bananas for. it. They love it. So the idea that I give them something that they love, but I know most of all their gut loves. They're feeling better. They have a better quality of life. I've never seen my dog ginger so happy. It all happened thanks to BetterWild. BetterWild is committed to helping your dogs with science back, veterinary, and approved solutions you can feel great about. And right now, BetterWild is offering our listeners up to 40% off your order at betterwild.com slash fish off. That's betterwild.com slash fish off for up to 40% off your order. better wild.com slash bischoff.

Eric, I do have some fun 2K stuff I want to hit you with, but I want to remind everybody, we are indeed live. So we're taking your questions here. And I want to go ahead and hit some of those now. Trigger Cheese says there were VHS tapes that WCW release with highlights of WC stars WCW career and KFabe interviews with talent discussing them. Did you and Sullivan produce these? Were you ever active in the, in the video?

cassette business. I know that that was a vertical for WCW, but I know that Tony Chivani was hands-on with Coliseum Home Video, for instance, in WWE. Were you ever involved in the VHS side of WCW or did other folks handle that? No, early on in my time in WCW, that was really handled by Sharon Sadella because the video cassette business and the distribution of video cassettes wasn't handled by WCW directly. It was a part of Turner Home Entertainment, which had home video distribution deals set up around the world. So on paper, that kind of made sense.

But most of their direction and influence and mandate wasn't based on really the wrestling market as it was on just what some salesperson who thought they could. help sell WCW tapes needed to see, right? So we didn't have the direct control and influence creatively over it. We basically took their request and produced them for them was the relationship. This I'm not familiar with at all. We got to hit some more fun questions here because we got some really great ones. But first, I wanted to hit one from Twitter that stuck out to me like a sore thumb this

past week. And I sent it to Dave Silva. A fellow wrote, I went to multiple Disney. GM tapings and always had the backstage access. I met Davy, Austin, Foley, Flair, Steamboat, Sherry, almost everybody from the 93 and 94 eras. Eric Bischoff was super nice. Here he's covering the WWF logo on my WrestleMania 8 shirt. I thought this was hilarious. Of course, WrestleMania 8 was 1992. There you see a very young Eric Bischoff with Rob Bloom here. And you're glad to take a picture with him, but covering up the logo, I don't know.

know, man. This is a great picture of blast from the past. Did you see this picture? What do you think of this? That's awesome. I didn't see it, but certainly getting a look at it now. It's always kind of frightening when I see a picture of myself, you know, from back then. It's like, who is that guy? You know, quick, quick little thing when I, when I do autograph signings and conventions or whatever, and people bring their own stuff. And I spend the entire day signing pictures of myself from 1996, right? It's like, you start feeling really old after you spent 10 hours looking at yourself from 35 years ago. But that picture is really cool. I dig it. Thank you, Rob. Black Sheep Genealogy has an interesting question.

I mean, she kind of blew my mind with this. Question for those lurking in the chat. Does anyone know if Eric has ever brought up his ancestry in previous episodes, or if a photograph of him exists with Mike Rotunda and DDP? She's actually suggesting here in subsequent chats here live today, Eric. that you guys are somehow distant cousins. Have you heard about this? No.

No. Do you think there's any chance you're somehow a distant cousin to DDP? Well, his last name is Falkenberg, birth name, which is fairly German. My last name is Bischoff,

which is fairly German. So, in the sense that we've, both from a genealogical perspective came from probably a very relatively small and defined region of the world. I guess statistically anything is possible. I just find that interesting, the idea that you guys may somehow be related. Hey, something else I found interesting. I got tagged in this a few times. I don't know if you saw it. Have you seen what's going on with EZ and W.

2K 26, Eric. No, I really haven't. I'm not a video game guy. I usually am not even aware of these things until the royalty checks show up. And I go, where'd that come from? Well, I love the idea that they,

you know, they put some of your creations on the cover and they made you a playable character. And I guess, and I'll admit, I haven't played the game yet. But the way it's been explained to me is in order to level up and move forward and progress in the game, it requires that you have to pick up some,

wins. And folks have decided, hey, that means we should beat up Eric Bischoff. This got so out of hand that 2K actually had to put out a statement where they said, if a match is completed faster than 60 seconds, players will receive completion RP, but not additional win bonuses. I can't believe this is real, but this is the exact statement from 2K. Eric, you know, you're thinking Eric Bischoff tap out, but let's give 4 EZE a breather. That's the statement right there. That is an email that goes out,

a statement that goes out to all the game owners or potential people who follow the game. They're saying, will you stop beating up Eric Bischoff? So here's the truth. I'd love to have that frame, just exactly the way we're looking at it here, because while I don't, you know,

hold on to memorabilia, you know, accolades, that kind of thing. It's just never been my thing. But that's what I would probably hang my office because what it really demonstrates is how much freaking heat I still have. I mean, come on. When everybody wants to take down easy E, it's the heat. It's the magic.

And yes, it still resonates to this very day. I love it. It's awesome. We are live right now on YouTube. So apologies for not knowing the. answer, but I believe I sent some pictures, some screen grabs of your likeness in the 2K game. And it gives you every individual fighter or character or rating. I don't know if you've seen this, Eric, but yours is a 58.

And so that's what yours looks like. And I love the breakdown here. If you're watching with us on YouTube, it's 83 weeks.com. And it says crowd reaction, boo. Personality traits, egotistical, class. striker, hayback, bully, and low blow. So you're known to be a bully who does low blows and you're an egotistical striker who we like to boo. They gave you on, it used to be like one to nobody was ever a one, but the lower the overall rating is Eric, the worst they are

to play with like the least competitive they are. So like the best fighter, the best character in the game may be a 99. Well, they made a super Sina, as I understand it, this year, and he's the only 100 in the history of the game franchise, as far as I know. So 99 is the maximum, and you got a 58. And the reason people are beating you up so quickly is because you're the easiest to beat up. I want to submit to you, Eric, that the Monday Night Wars are still somehow not fucking over, because this, let's just review, just randomly here, 18-year-old state. Stephanie McMahon, 18 year old Stephanie McMahon is a 67. He's slim boys better than grown ass Eric Bischoff, who's doing kickboxing

tournaments on ESPN. This is real? I can't believe this is real, Eric, but I hate to say it this way. An 18 year old girl? What? Got a 67, and Eric has a 58. Eric, talk to me. Yeah, but I said I still have heat.

That's what I was talking about, dude. You thought I was talking about the audience. Oh, my God. How great is this? I absolutely love it. And by the way, yeah, take a look at this. I can't believe this is real. Look at that.

If Stephanie is going to be, or going to wrestle Eric Bischoff in a wrestling match, WWE and our friends at 2K I'm friends with those guys shout out to Bryce and everybody over there they think that she is like 20% better than Eric Bischoff what are we doing my god my god

we are live we want to hear from you all in the family kind of just keeping it all in the family um I do want to ask I don't know if you've uh if you've seen this but have you've seen this but have you seen some of the video footage of when they recreate

Nitro for the Monday Night War era and the NWO comes out. Have you seen that at all? No. Let's take a little clip here. I think you'll dig this. Look at that, dude. How fun is that? It's amazing. It's just amazing. I want you to go out of your way to see the video

and watch the video, Eric. I'll send you a link. But it's remarkable to have these guys walk out on Nitro. have recreated now that was a little funny they have you pick up scott hall and you're doing squats with him i'm not sure that that we can show the footage on youtube without it getting a strike but the idea that hollywood hogan and the whole nw o it's coming out on nitro and that is a key selling point of the new 2k 26 i don't know man pretty damn cool to me made me happy me too yeah that's awesome it's fun i'm going to check this

stuff out. I know it's out there and I just, you know, I'm outside the demo just a bit. So I never really, uh, spend much time seeking this stuff out. I'm going to take a look at it. It's pretty cool. A wrestling historian always brings good questions and we are live and we're looking for your questions. Hit us for one here live. He says when you were running WCW, did you deal with any potential scandals backstage that could have gone public and hurt the company's image like with the WWF? Of course, I think he's referencing their way back when they had a ring boy scandal and certainly they had you know the steroid scandal there's been more than a few in the history of wwee do you remember there being something where you were like oh shit we don't need

to let this get out we don't have to say what it is but was there something that threw up the flag way back when for you and you thought this could be disastrous for us not really i mean there were a lot of you know stupid lawsuits the missy hyatt lawsuit and you know different things that you know people would do and they'd speak to talk to the paper to try to create leverage um they were always a nuisance and you never wanted to see those things and and and some more aggravating than others but there was never you know what i would consider a scandal um that potentially could have you know revealed anything that would have been that would have hurt the company in anyway well you know i know that you were tasked with taking care of wcW

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quotes from the top companies and see how much you can save. that's policy genius.com slash 83 weeks. And we're live right now on YouTube and we're looking for your comments and your questions. We certainly need those. I also want to ask you about an interview that happened. Cody Rhodes recently sat down with Chris Van Bleak this week and there was a conversation about Roman Reigns and whether or not there was some sort of professional rivalry was sort of the undertone. And Cody even reveals that he thinks that.

that the creators and the folks who are working on this street parter movie that both he and Roman worked on made it a specific point to make sure that these two never interacted on the set, that they never crossed each other. And he says that their relationship feels strange. Quote, we had one day on set and the way the set was, and he could probably reiterate this, I think they thought we were going to fight or have an issue,

because they were very cognizant on the radios of stepping out with Kyle, Akuma, will be coming on. they will be very cognizant that we would not cross paths, and we did because I had to tell him the direction of one of the trailers. That was our only moment, and it was very awkward. That's a crazy relationship. I have nothing but admiration for what he's done and accomplished, but I don't know what it is.

I don't even like talking about it because I don't know what it is. It's just a very strange relationship. Now, a lot of internet conspiracy theories have sort of ran with this and wondered, hey, do they hate each other? Do they have real heat? What's going on? There's even other people who are speculating that the rematch, match three will never happen

because these guys are crossed with each other. That's the internet narrative. I have always felt like, hey, that builds a better rivalry. I mean, we've been led to believe through the years that Triple H and Rock were not always the best of friends. It was a competition. It was competitive.

Is the closest thing like this that you experienced in WCW, Paul Cogan and Randy Savage or is it something else? No. I mean, Hogan is the one that brought Savage in. And there was, there was healthy competition during, during that time.

I can't speak to what things were like in WWF when they were both there. But in WCW, I mean, Hulk was really, when I say aggressive, very committed to bringing Randy into WCW because he just saw the place. potential.

And while he was there, you know, at the very end, their relationship hit that rocky point, but I think that was after WCW, at least my involvement there. So now, during the time, that wasn't an issue. Who would have been, you know, there was a moment in time when the relationship between Scott Steiner and DDP was a little stressful, but that was short-lived, took care of itself. So I would have to say no. I never, not that I was aware of, you know, there's always, you know, at some level, a professional, you know, jealousy, competition, envy, politics, you know, that's all very much a part of the culture throughout wrestling.

But it never really manifests itself into an issue that I can remember for more than a week. we we solicited some some questions online once upon a time for an ask eric anything and we did get a question that you and i have have maybe briefly discussed but we never spent any great time on it delusional a e w fan over on twitter wanted to know as big as that goldberg hogan on monday nitro was was there ever any plans to circle back to a rematch at any point after i feel like that's a natural follow-up question like it does feel like when that goes down on july 6 1998 it's a It's just probably the high point of WCW for a lot of folks. And when they think back with the benefit of hindsight, it does feel like it's natural that they would be on a collision course for a big pay-per-view, whether it's a Halloween havoc or a Starcade or a Super Brawl or something like that. Why don't you think we ever got a big-time Goldberg-Hogan rematch on paper view, Eric? Oh, God, only knows.

You know, I can't remember what our creative plans. options were at that time. Keep in mind that the Hogan Goldberg match wasn't a plan. It wasn't part of a long-term plan. It happened over the course of about three weeks or less. And let's say a month to be to be generous. It was spontaneous. Nobody had ever considered it or thrown it up at a creative meeting or discussed it. I never had the conversation with Hulk until the day he called me on the phone while I was in Los Angeles on business, driving down the marina del ray and uh he called me saying i got an idea this is what i want to do so since it wasn't kind of a pre-planned event there wasn't what you would normally have which is

and after this is over here's a couple options that process never happened it was simply a phone call here's what i'd like to do let's rearrange whatever it was we were going to do and do that um and as a result, I don't think there probably was a lot of specific what if scenarios for a rematch. There was more of a general acknowledgement that the magnitude of the match and the finish of the match would avail itself as an opportunity when needed, if that makes sense. It's just weird to me when you look back on it. I don't think Hogan and Goldberg ever even shared a ring on a pay-per-view, not in a tag match, not in a multi-man match.

Every time they were in the ring together and they never faced each other in a singles match again, it was always on Nitro, which I just thought was interesting. Well, it is kind of, you know, for people who

look at the tradition, and look at the WWE wrestling model back then, okay, we're talking about 30 years ago, what the wrestling business model looked like back then. Certainly, WWE's a good portion of their revenue, I would say probably 40%, at any given point,

35, 40% of their revenue was directly or indirectly related to pay-per-view, maybe more. I don't know, but at least 30 or 35%. For WCW, that wasn't the case. WCW, the business model was completely different because Ted Turner Broadfax. Outcasting looked at WCW as a television ad sales revenue opportunity and ratings platform first, and they viewed it as a revenue generating division second. So the goals were different as a part of a television company. The emphasis was placed on television ratings, not on pay-per-view revenue.

And I know that sounds bizarre to people who have never been in the business before or who have been in the business and don't fully comprehend the difference between being a part of a television company, an entity, and being a producer of live events. There were two different business models. My restrictions, my goals, my opportunities, my challenges were all different in many respects

than they were WWFs. The obvious one here, and it's why we're still talking about it after all these years, Why would you put Hulk Hogan and Goldberg on TV and never put it on pay-per-view? For the very reason, I just told you, focus was on ratings. Go back at that time, WWE was putting some pressure on WCW in 98. We're still really healthy. We were printing money.

We were blowing up forecasts in a good way. But there was pressure, and we needed to keep TV where we wanted to keep TV, which was WCW and Nitro being number one in the category. That was our primary goal. Revenue on pay-per-view is nice, but not the primary goal. And that's not me. That was senior management internal broadcasting giving me direction. Well, let's just pause the pay-per-view chatter for a minute.

I just mean in terms of a rematch. Like, for instance, it feels like there's always money in the rematch. And I don't, I don't pretend. to know that Hulk Hogan felt that way, but I kind of think you did because when we introduced Paul White on WCW, we positioned him as, hey, the son of Andre. And then I know that, you know, although Goldberg beats Hogan for the belt in July of 98, in the fall of 98 is when we bring in the warrior. And so we have an opportunity for Hogan to have another pay-per-view rematch with the ultimate

warrior. It does feel like when Hogan knew something was money, he was more inclined to say, hey, let's run it back. Let's do it again. And that's logical. I think that makes a ton of sense. But it's hard for me to wrap my head around while Hogan would go right to Warrior in the fall of 98 as opposed to saying, hey, let's do something with Goldberg. And I understand if Goldberg is still really whitehunt with the undefeated street, why he may say, now's not the right time for me to get my win back. I'm not pretending he thought that way, but I'm just saying that could have been the natural storyline on camera. Hollywood Hogan character wants revenge for his

lost. The idea that there was never a one-on-one rematch feels like, I don't know, it's uncharacteristic for Hogan. Am I all facing saying that? No, it's a really interesting observation. And, you know, when I apply what I know of Hulk the person and his tendencies at that time, it's an intriguing thing to think about. Number one, and I've said this before, I think Bill,

Bill would acknowledge it, even though sometimes he forgets who to acknowledge. Hulk really protected Bill. And I don't mean in the locker room, you know, politically, that was a small part of it. But when Hulk really started paying attention to Bill shortly thereafter, Henry Holmes, Hulk's attorney, Henry didn't represent anybody else at that time. Huck didn't want his attorney representing anybody else in WCW. He wanted his attorney. He didn't want to share him for a variety of reasons that actually make good sense.

He made an exception for Bill and not only permitted it, encouraged it, which I, even at the time, I went, ooh, this is going to be a problem. because I dealt with Henry Holtz. I knew what that was, I knew what I was in for. And then, you know, Barry Bloom tagged in there and he only exacerbated it, which is what managers generally do. It's all they're good at. Because Hulk was so protective of Bill from the get-goat, not only, like I say, creatively, but even tactically,

it makes sense to me that Hulk wouldn't have wanted to take it away from Bill right away. Now, normally, that concern would not be a concern. Fairness. But in this case, it could very well have been the issue. Here's another one.

Hulk was very susceptible to bright, shiny objects. You could get him really excited about something that he felt good about. He could be focused over here on one thing and really excited about this, but the right, bright, shiny object that he believed could generate an opportunity, more interesting one, a more fun one. Obviously, Hulk had history with Warrior. Yes, forget about the personality issues and drama, the quality of the, blah, blah, blah, that.

They're in Hulk's mind, and he was right more often than he was wrong, by the way, even though when he was wrong, it was, you know, drew a lot of attention. But his, Hulk's instincts were generally pretty good. He relied too heavily on past performance, thinking that it would automatically equate and too much time had gone by. The audience had shifted. Everything else had shifted. So he was a little overreliant on, you know, facts from the past, recent past.

But generally his instincts were good. and I think probably another thing that could have happened, in addition to Hulk being protective, could have been where you're becoming available. And while this looks like so much more fun and we could recreate what we created before, and that'll let Bill get some steam on them

and hold on to that belt so that when we come to it, it makes more money. That could easily have been the process, thought process. Hard to know. PJ Taint says with us here live. Appreciate him being. a member for 18 months here at 83 weeks.com and he says, I know things were tough between Brooke

and Hogan. Have you spoken to her or Linda since and how is Nick doing? The family is still in my thoughts. Yeah, man, it doesn't feel real. Hulks are been gone for like eight months now. When is the last time you spoke to Brooke or Linda and how is Nick doing? Nick is doing great. I had lunch with Nick. Oh, must have been about six weeks ago. I was in Tampa. I'd been business and really it was the first opportunity I had to sit down and talk to Nick when there wasn't, you know, 100 people around. Nick, I'm so proud of Nick. He has really got a head on his shoulders. He's much more mature in ways that I didn't really, you know, hadn't seen before. He's, you know, he's still dealing with a lot. He's actually, you know, in many ways,

he's dealing with complicated issues and licensing and deals that were halfway executed. And there's just a lot of stress that comes along with the Halkhogan trademark business. And that's all falling on Nick's lap. And, you know, Nick, he didn't have a lot. He was around it a lot. And he learned, I think Nick learned kind of vicariously through HALP just because of proximity. But, you know, Nick is now in a situation where he's dealing with issues of people. and, you know, levels of complexity that he's not dealt with before, but he's handling it really,

really well. Very proud of them. Brooke, I have not talked to. I would love to sit down with Brooke at some point and have that opportunity, but I haven't. And Linda, last time I saw Linda was at Nick's wedding a couple years ago, and she was in classic Linda farm, life of the party, smile from year to year, it looked like she was having fun. I left early because, you know, there was a pattern there,

and I knew that if I got out by 10, 10, 30, I wouldn't be there to be, you know, indirectly involved in any drama. So Garrett and I went to the wedding together, and we both got out around 10, 10, 10.30. And what I saw, she was, she was having a ball. Well, they're having a ball over at J.C.W.2. Let's check out Juggalo Championship Wrestling. J.C.W. Lunacy. New episodes every Thursday night at 7.

p.m. on YouTube. For over 25 years, JCW has delivered the very best in pro wrestling entertainment, bringing fans deep storytelling drama, gut-busting comedy, and unbelievable in-ring action. From wild characters to unforgettable rivalries, don't miss a single moment. Tune in every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube, J.C.W. Lunacy.

Let's do another question here. We've got an interesting one from Leeland Patterson. He says, does Eric think the new car smell has worn off with Triple H creative? Everybody was so happy Vince left so Triple H can do no wrong. Now people are actually paying attention and realizing it's not good. I have seen just an awful lot of, I don't know, apathetic wrestling fans who aren't thrilled with WWE creative.

Now, some of them sometimes change course. I know when the Danhausen debut happened, people said, oh, it's the worst thing since Shockmaster. And now he gets a monster pop, you know, a week later and it's continued. So we're happy for Danhausen. But this is an interesting question, one that a lot of people are talking about. You think the new car smell on Triple H creative has run on has, has worn off for

for WWE fans for internet wrestling community fans, possibly. Or yeah, I would say for internet wrestling fans possibly. I think for. The WWE fans, the general audience, probably not because it's not what they think about. It's the only people that think about and talk about that are people who are hardcore fans who kind of live in the Reddit, internet kind of internet wrestling community, you know, bubble and enjoy, they get their dopamine hit discussing things that they don't really understand. understand, but know enough about to feel like they do. And they feed off of each other. They

argue with each other. That's a dopamine hit. They put each other over. That's a dopamine hit. And they get to live in that comfortable little bubble of semi-knowledgeable, you know, discourse. That's how they get their nut. That's what it is. And Triple H and some of the creative right now, in addition to some of the economic, you know, things that we're reading and we just automatically connect the dots to Triple H, you know, because that's how the internet wrestling fan thinks. Yeah, they're probably going, hey, it's kind of bored. Yeah, nothing big is happening.

There's no giant moment. Well, giant moments don't happen, you know, all the time where they don't feel like giant moments. But I think if you look at the performance of the product, the ticket sales in general, excluding, you know, the discourse about Las Vegas and, you know, as we talked about earlier in the show with Raj, you know, two stadium shows back to back. What happened the last time AEW tried that? What was the percentage of lost then? Probably much more than the percentage of loss than we're seeing now.

It's just not the best idea if you're chasing, you know, public relations, ticket sales, you know, kind of goals. But if you're looking to generate the most amount of revenue, that probably was still the best decision at WWE could have made. Regardless of all that, whatever we see out there in the ether as a particular data point, people will embrace to either affirm or confirm their bias or use it to support their bias against something.

It's the nature of the community. I think business-wise, not at all. I don't think there's any luster off at all. You're going to go through cycles. Some things are going to be more popular from a storyline perspective than other things. You see it often in network series. A character that they thought was going to be a prominent character gets written off the show. Why?

Because it just didn't click as much. Same thing happens here. Only it's 52 weeks a year. So it's out in front of us all year round. We got another question from an ask Eric anything. Was Medusa ever considered for the NWO? Checks all the boxes. Former WCW.

Went to WWF, became champ. Didn't do much after WCW debut. Could have joined the NWO and revitalized WCW's women's division. She could fight as well, if not better than some of the guys in the NWO. Seems like a slam dunk. Yeah,

with the benefit of hindsight, she does sort of qualify and check the boxes. Could you have seen her with the benefit of hindsight using her almost in like a China role, you know, what, what China would later become for DX? She could have been that for the NWO. What do you think of that? Certainly in many respects, in some respects,

she would have been a good casting if you think of it in that respect. If you think of the NWO as a movie, the picture of the NWO cast as a movie poster, does, you know, did Medusa have that kind of vibe? Did she feel like visually should fit into the group? Because that's kind of like it is called television, right? So the vision part of it has to matter a little bit. And she definitely checked that box.

Attitude-wise, could she have, could her character have kind of been NW-O-ish? Certainly. And she could have, because he was capable of, you know, interesting physicality and believable physicality, particularly for women at that point in time, could she have been of use in the match in terms of storytelling and finishes and things like that? Absolutely.

As far as the dominating the women's division, there wasn't a fucking women's division, knucklehead. That's why there was nowhere to go with her. There weren't a lot of women in wrestling that lived in the United States. Certainly we wanted to put on television. Were there a handful? Yes.

but can you build a division around a handful of women, only in your mind if you've never done it for a living. So there was no option to make her the queen of a women's division or to invigorate a woman's division that practically, for all intents of purposes, couldn't exist. So get off that shit. Sorry, I'm just having fun. K.S. Dixon 86 has a great question.

He's never going to ask a question again, right? I'm just running him off. Oh, I don't think so. I just have it fun. Come on. KS. Dixon 86 brings up a great question. I think we're probably going to want to play a clip for this next week.

But I think he got a couple of facts here wrong. At least want to tee it up because it is worth discussing and we'll do it more. I love me. I love when people point out when I'm wrong. In a Mike Graham interview, he basically said you set Buff's mom up as a florist and ordered WCW's flower needs from her. her any truth to this. Why was this said with a negative tone, but it sounds like a good business

strategy to me. I don't know that Buff's mom was a florist. I don't think that this is real. I think he's getting a couple of facts confused based on the clip I saw. Do you remember Buff's mom ever being a florist? No. This is the dumbest freaking thing. I think I've ever heard on this show in the seven years we've been doing it. Please go get help, dude. Read a freaking book. Do something. saying if you're consuming this kind of tripe, Google a shit, if you're consuming this kind of tripe to get your dopamine hit, you need professional help. Get up. Yeah, it's too late for Mr. Graham to get the help.

And I hate that we're talking about somebody who's no longer. I'm talking about Mr. Graham. I'm talking about the idiot that posed the question. Well, but here's what I'm saying. The idiot that posed the question is misremembering an interview with Mike Graham. He sat down with our buddy, Sean Oliver, who does a fabulous podcast, click this with Kevin Nash. And basically Mike Graham has some negative allegations. He throws your way. We will play the clip next week and let you respond to it. But I at least want to get Mr. Graham's claims factually

correct. So K.S. Dixon is not totally off base. There was some sort of a component of what Mr. Graham said about Buff and his mom and a business opportunity with WCW, but it wasn't as a florist. We'll talk about it next week. He KS. Dixon also says, I can't wait to debate a dead guy. That'll be fun.

KS. He was bitter when he was alive. He's probably no less bitter dead. But whatever, we'll have as much fun with it as we can possibly have. Don't forget the Fusion episode. It's important to see B.H. Of course, that's Bishop Hervey Entertainment Avenues or Eric's WCW stories and roster plans like New Japan,

Cruiserweight tag belts, and then inserting our choices. That does sound like fun. Maybe we should do that sometime. We are live here on YouTube. If you've got a question for Eric, we want you to keep those coming. Wing Chun News 4152 says, Eric, do you have a favorite Hulk Hogan match? Obviously, you spend a lot of time with him and I know it's probably hard to separate your time in WCW from him.

but if you were going to sit down and show your grandson, Way J, one Hulk Hogan match and say, hey, this was Daddy's friend. What match do you think you'd show young way, Jay? Well, it wasn't as much of an match as it was an angle, but obviously the batch of the beach finish in July 96, because it was such a pivotal point. It changed literally, you know,

everybody does it, everybody changes the wrestling landscape now as a, marketing or branding slogan, but at that moment really did significantly change the way the wrestling business model would exist into the future. So that one for sure. I mean, within WCW tenure, I would probably go to the Goldberg match in Atlanta just because of the emotion that it created and how much I would be able to share the reasons why that emotion was created and why the reaction was what it was and Hulk's significance in that moment and Bill's significance in that moment to try to really get into a conversation about the psychology

of it all and how they both came together in that moment and the story behind that because I think it's you know it illustrates some of the best storytelling and some of the respects. Not all. It's not the best story ever told, but it was a really interesting opportunity in the way that story came together. So probably that one. Great follow-up question here. Man, I love that our timing worked out. Andy Stowe, 40-50 forces. What's up, guys? A question I always wondered, was Randy Savage ever considered to be the third man? That could have worked well with his WWE history, and it would have reignited the Hogan feud too. Now, that's fascinating. In this alternate timeline,

this alternate universe. What if it's the macho man standing with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash saying these fans can stick it brother and turning heel. Now I know it may not have had the exact same impact as far as Randy had been a heel on a mainstream level before, but it does immediately give a new flavor to the Hogan Savage rivalry. And it does start to feel like WWF and WCW. What do you think?

How successful would the NWO angle have been if Savage is? the guy talking to Maine Jean that night with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. Not even close. Not even close. There's just no, from my perspective, and I think it's just looking back and the facts, Hogan turning was such a monster move that it brought back people who had given up watching wrestling a long time ago. Hulk Hogan's a bad guy, boom, they're back. They sampled the product because of the magnitude of the news outside of the wrestling community as it existed at that time, right?

It was such a big move that people who had long left any contact with the wrestling community heard about it and went, what? Sampled the product and stuck with it because it was that damn good. nobody else would have had that impact. Not Randy, not Rick Flair, nobody. There was only one person at that time that could have turned in such a way to get the attention of people who had given up on the sport a long time ago and get them to be fans again. As much as I love Randy, as valuable as Randy was,

Randy in that role would probably have only achieved 10 or 20% of what the NWO ultimately went on to become. And that's not a reflection on Randy necessarily as a performer as it is on Randy's position in the eyes of wrestling and non-wrestling fans at that point in time. I would argue, Eric, and I think wrestling historian who's with us here live would agree, Savage would have probably been a better pick, at least from my perspective, than Sting as a backup plan. Now, obviously, there's no beating Hogan. Hogan's easily the A-1, but I know Sting had always been sort of the perennial baby face of WCW and from a shock and all factor, the swerve, oh yeah, that's a big one. I get that.

But given the invasion undertone of it, hey, we're here from the other place, I don't know. I think the Savage thing, if Hogan doesn't work. work. Could you, would you co-sign that Savage would be a better backup plan than Sting? Or do you still prefer Sting? And if so, why?

If, if, this is a big freaking if, I could have convinced Randy to really shed all of the little elements of the macho man and just be savage.

Literally and figuratively as a character. Like no more fucking French. Ooh, because it looks cool. Randy was a little bit like DDP when it comes to gimmick, when it came to his gimmicks. And there was just certain things he really believed were necessary as a part of his character, that he really had a hard time letting go. That he didn't appear that he really wanted to let go of.

And there was never really an occasion for me to ask him to, because I was betting on, come out you, man, right? And all this characteristics. But if we were going to be for the NWL, that shit wouldn't have worked. Now, you saw, go back and look at Randy Savage as a part of the NWO, and you'll see exactly what I mean. Now, you can argue, well, Eric, you were running the company. Shouldn't have you sat down and told him, yeah, I probably, I probably,

could have and arguably should have. I don't think I recognized at that time how much the fact that Randy would have, because I knew he would have a hard time letting go with that character or those elements of his character. He wanted to retain some association with what made got the character over the first place and he tried different ways of doing it. If I would have realized how important it was at the time, I probably would have talked to him about it, even when he was literally in the end of the end of,

but certainly if he was going to be in that Hulk Hogan spot, he would have had to really embrace an entirely different persona to the savage character. And I just don't think he would have been comfortable doing it. I think Randy was willing to take chances, certainly willing to take chances. He was pretty fearless in a lot of ways. But what it came to his character, we all know kind of how paranoid he was. All of a sudden now we're asking him to let go of. a part of his identity.

There's a reason I avoided that conversation, Ben, and I don't think it would have been well received had I attempted it for Savage to take the Hobart spot. Andy Stowe has a great follow-up question. He says, my thought with that question is, Randy says, quote,

Hogan held me down in the WWF and then he ran away. I followed him and he held me down again. Now I'm with my friends and we're taking over. I don't know. It is interesting. What do you guys think? Could Randy Savage, the macho man, have been a better plan B than Sting? Maybe you don't need a plan B with our sponsor, Chime, though. Chime is changing the way people bank. It's fee free and it's smarter banking built for you. Not like old school banks that charge you overdrafts and monthly fees. No, built for you,

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Head on over to chime.com slash 83 weeks. That's chime.com slash 83 weeks. chime.com slash 83 weeks. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank, and my pay line of credit provided by the Bank or Stride Bank N.A. My pay eligibility requirements apply and credit limit ranges $20 to $500. Option.

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Tim wants to know how much money was spent on pyrotechnics a month during WCW days when weekly TV was added. That's something we've never really talked about. But what do you think the pyro budget was for a nitro or a thunder? Do you recall? It's got to be crazy. I have a sense of what it would be today because I just had that conversation with James Antaveral, head of our production for Real American Freestyle. Oh, by the way, we're going to have some borrow in Tampa.

Yeah, we're taking it up in Natchezer 2. Yeah, Kiley Confrichment. Probably 30 grand an episode. The overall budget was primarily. probably at that time, though not today's dollars. Today's dollars, the budget would probably be upwards of 600 grand, 700 grand an episode. Back then it was probably, just call it three if you included talent, shit. So, you know, 10% of the budget to Pyro typically.

We got a fun question here from Blumaney, and he says, serious question. Has Eric ever seen a UFO? has been a curiosity of mine since I was a kid. Yes. When I was in about my kid living in Detroit, I was probably in the sixth grade or fifth grade. So we're talking 1965 or 66. My brother and I shared a room up in the attic of a 750 square foot house.

And I was, for whatever reason, I woke up in the middle of the night and I was looking out the window out over our neighbor's house and saw what I believe then and still believe to this day. I'm sure there could have been another explanation. But what appeared to me then, I can visualize it like it was, you know, last night. It just shaped object that was moving around slightly. But I watched it for seven, eight, ten minutes. And I was wide awake. You know, I didn't need a bunch of cookies before I went to bed and had a sugar hallucination or any of that kind of shit. And I just remember watching it, you go, this is, that's a UFO. That's what they look like.

And it just hovered and moved. And it lasted, you know, like I said, it was seven, maybe eight, ten minutes. And then finally it just moved off. And that was it. And I never really told anybody about it. Probably is the only time I've ever really talked about it or mentioned it. learn something new every day here on 83 weeks. Primus versus unicorns that wants to know.

We know that Vince and Warrior used to butt heads. Did Warrior ever do that with you, Eric? Did you ever butt heads with Warrior? No, you know, we didn't work long enough together to butt heads. After that train wreck of a live promo, in my mind, there really wasn't much of a go forward plan. so I didn't really invest enough emotion or intention in the relationship to create an opportunity for a conflict. I was just wanting to write them off as quickly as I could.

Black Sheep Genealogy wants to know. Does Eric have any memories of Lanny Pafo? I miss him. He was such a warm and charming man. Very, very few interactions in WCW. I actually got to know Lanny and spent time with with Lanny five years ago, six years ago. We ended up at a couple conventions together and, you know, just started making small talk. And within, you know, minutes, found him to be very, first of all, just a very warm and engaging guy, very friendly and open and in remarkably candid in a positive way. And had a great conversation with him. I saw him again, a month or two later and hung out with him.

again and enjoyed his company. Didn't really talk about wrestling at all. He was interesting. He was a nice guy. And the last time I heard from him was when he was moving down to South America. And I think he got married. And I think we may have exchanged a texture too. And that was the last time I really had any contact with him.

But I've got very positive memories of him. He loved his brother and he loved his dad, his mother. He's very loyal to his family. I think it's probably one of the reasons that, you know, I kind of formed up to him so quickly. It was evident in the way you talked about them. Really interesting question here from a women's hoop circle jerk. What a statement that is. I've always had the dumbest question for about 28 years now.

It's about the Reebok sneakers you wore and as a sneaker head has always stood out to me. From the summer of 98 through January of 99, you almost exclusively wore Reebok sneakers on TV. It starts around the Jay Leno feud where you wear the Reebok shrouds with the zipper over the laces. You wear the same sneakers on the Tonight Show skits as well as your appearance on the actual Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Hogan is wearing the Reebok Answer DMX on the Tonight Show. You have the same pair on throughout most of the feud with the Warrior in the fall. So this pair makes it into about four months of television. By the end of 98 and end of January of 99, you switch to Reebok Answer 3s when you're working with Rick Claire's assistant after losing the

WCW presidency to flare. Is there any reason why this specific shoe or brand made so many TV appearances? That's interesting. Was there ever a discussion about a Reebok sponsorship with Hogan or WCW because I can totally see some company and respectfully

Reebok was clearly number two behind Nike at that point saying, hey, I know we don't have Jordan, but we have other athletes like we've got Shaq and Shaq has been on some WCW stuff. Maybe we should have a Hogan shoe deal. Was there ever a WCW? partnership or advertising schedule or opportunity discussed with Reebok, whether it's WCW or Hogan,

or did you and Harry just really like the shoes and that's it? It was something in between of that. No formal discussion that I was a part of at least with Reebok or representatives of Reebok. This is vague shit now, so don't hold me to this. But I seem to remember somebody that worked with Reebok that put these shoes out there as kind of a sample, like part of a presentation. Like they wanted to present it to executives at Reebok as a potential licensing deal, which is why we ended up getting those shoes and then were encouraged to wear them on television to assist in whoever it was that was trying to get Reebok interested enough in this idea that we would engage. That's what I think I recall. But more details than that, I just don't have.

Well, that'll do it for us here this morning. We were live on a Saturday morning. This was a lot of fun. Be sure to hit that subscribe button. Turn on the notifications bell so you won't mess EasyE the next time we're live. And by the way, can we just ask, take it easy on Easy E and 2K 26? And if you have a heart for others, would you do us a favor and play as Eric and go beat the snot on a Stephanie McMahon? and it's bullshit, as my dad would say,

what they're doing, Eric Bischoff and WCW. Eric, you tease it at the top of the show. I want to give you a moment. I asked last week and you didn't want to, but is there anything you want to share with the audience? You said last week was tough. It wasn't the right time.

I want to at least give you an opportunity if you want to share, and if you don't understand that too. No, I don't know. It's okay. And I've been able to kind of manage, manage it, but I lost my dog, Nikki. I can't say it was, expected because she was dealing with complications from Cushing's disease.

So we watched her health get progressively worse over the last six months. So I was somewhat prepared but still hopeful that we would be able to find any intervention, surgical or otherwise. She had a tumor, non-cancerous, we think, that grew on her tumor, which caused her adrenal glands to pump out massive quantities of cortisol, which created all kinds of complications. So I had taken her up to a surgeon in Billings because she had gotten so bad that I'm hoping that I could get the surgery on her adrenal gland. And while she was there, she was in such bad shape. The vet basically suggested that I take another alternative. So

I was kind of prepared, but not at my, I should say, kind of prepared, but more hopeful than prepared, as it turns out. And it was really tough because I had such a unique relationship with her, but I'm good because it was a gift. It was a blessing. And whenever I start feeling like I'm feeling right now, I just remind myself that it was a gift. And I learned a lot from her. and it was a blessing so there's nothing to be sad about. I'm not quite there yet, but I've been closer. I know Eric that you were grateful to have Nikki in your life.

She's on the cover of Eric's book called Grateful. And dogs are a big part of our lives. They're members of our families. And I know that she was such a special part of Eric's life, not just a family member, but a best friend. One of my best friends lives in the middle of nowhere. It's like he's walking around. around in a postcard. But as he wandered around by himself, he was never really by himself.

There were four pauls tagging along. We're going to miss you, Nikki. They're people you love them. Even your four-legged people. See you next week right here on 83 weeks.