83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 419: 25th Anniversary Of The Last Nitro

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

On this LIVE edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson turn back the clock to one of the most pivotal nights in wrestling history the 25th anniversary of the final episode of WCW Monday Nitro.  Joining the show is author Guy Evans, who brings deep research and insight into the financial realities and corporate decisions that led to WCW's demise. Eric and Guy break down why Eric's own deal to purchase WCW ultimately fell apart, and how the business side of wrestling sealed the company's fate.   But that's just the beginning.   Eric shares his take on how he would have booked the final Nitro, revealing creative ideas and missed opportunities from that historic night. He also reflects on the crossover appeal of the nWo, including why Dennis Rodman's involvement was such a major highlight, and drops a surprising take on why Shawn Michaels would have never fit into the faction. Plus, Eric dives into some fun "what if" scenarios, including how Ted DiBiase Jr. could have added a fascinating wrinkle to the Rhodes vs. Orton WrestleMania storyline. And if you've ever wondered what Eric considers the true "Big Four" of WCW pay-per-views, he's laying it out definitively. WHO KILLED WCW? - For a deeper dive, watch the series on the final days of World Championship Wrestling from the people who lived it.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo0wc1_Wke_7DZk1IHYsm5xsgfdeqQn6g  MORGAN & MORGAN - Morgan & Morgan is America's Largest Injury Law Firm Morgan & Morgan is giving one lucky fan the chance to win $2,000 and 2x tickets to WrestleMania 42 on April 18th & 19th in Las Vegas! To enter, all you need to do is text 'HEAT42' to 4-THE-PEOPLE (484-373-6753) and follow the prompts in your text message. For The People. For The Fans. BLUECHEW - Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code 83WEEKS at http://BlueChew.com   BUTCHER BOX - As an exclusive offer, new listeners can get their choice between chicken breast or top sirloin for a year OR ground beef for life PLUS $20 off when you go to http://ButcherBox.com/weeks   INDACLOUD - If you're 21 or older, get 35% OFF your first order @IndaCloud with code 83WEEKS at https://inda.shop/83WEEKS ! #indacloudpod JCW LUNACY - Juggalo Championship Wrestling drops BRAND NEW episodes of Lunacy every Thursday at 7pm ET exclusively on their YouTube channel http://youtube.com/@psychopathic_records check it out! POLICYGENIUS - Head to http://policygenius.com/83WEEKS  to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. HARRY'S PLUS - Get the Harry's Plus Trial Set for only $10 at https://harrys.com/83WEEKS #Harryspod CHUBBIES - Chubbies is here to keep you comfy and looking good year-round. Get 20% off with code eric at https://www.chubbiesshorts.com/eric ! #chubbiespod 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. BEYOND NITRO on Audible - USA: https://audible.com/pd/B0GT6C2N3H/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-501357&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_501357_rh_us UK: https://audible.co.uk/pd/B0GT68FGDP/?source_code=AUKFrDlWS02231890H6-BK-ACX0-501357&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_501357_rh_uk Canada: https://audible.ca/pd/B0GT6YW6BC/?source_code=AMNORWS022318003G-BK-ACX0-501357&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_501357_rh_ca Australia: https://audible.com.au/pd/B0GT72S26X/?source_code=AUDORWS022318009C-BK-ACX0-501357&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_501357_rh_au

Today's episode comes to you from the Blue Chew Studio right now when you buy two months of Bluetooth gold, you get the third month for free with the promo code 83 weeks at Bluetooth.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the Mortgage Guy, and we are live at 83 weeks.com on a very special anniversary. It was 25 years ago today that we aired the very last Monday, nitro of course none of us would have ever had a nitro to celebrate if it weren't for our host ladies and gentlemen the hall of famer mr eric vis chaff eric how are you man i am i'm doing great and so grateful for nostalgia the fact that people still care about the stuff uh it makes my life interesting it's and fun appreciate it Eric where are you right now we're in the world are you what's

going on we got to talk about what's happening this weekend yeah i'm in uh Tampa i've been here Actually, since Saturday, I had a signing in New York at the big event Saturday morning and had a great time there. So a lot of people signed all kinds of funco pops. Thank goodness for funco pops. But I did the signing and they came down at Tampa, been able to spend a couple days with my kids, my grandson, obviously, and moved down over to the TV hotel. And I'm here in Tampa and getting ready for a real American free stop. Big event coming up, man. a lot of buzz, lots of buzz all over the face about this one.

We're going to be talking a lot about Real American Freestyle this weekend and some big news about Real American Freestyle. But you know what? I thought, hey, if we're going to talk about Nitro, why not bring in the author of the greatest wrestling book of all time? If you're really interested in learning about the history of WCW, the history of wrestling on television, just how the business. actually works, the business behind the business.

I don't think anyone has done as professional or as thorough as a job is our first guest, don't you think, Eric? Nothing even remotely close has been published. The level of detail, credible information, just the interviews. I mean, look, I know I've talked a lot about guys' book and Guy in particular what a great writer is, but just, I can't. I need to share this. I, when I was in the middle of, in the eye of the hurricane, so to speak, in WCW, towards the end, right?

I suspected certain things were going on, but I could never really prove it. I couldn't put my finger on it, right? And it wasn't too long after in the reading guys book that all of a sudden those pieces that I knew were there, but I just couldn't quite identify them and connect them in a time. tangible way. All of a sudden, those details are referred to me or revealed to me to a lot of interviews that I did with people that I never even had access to. So very fascinating book, very thorough. And it really is not just about Nitro and WCW, which clearly it is, but I think it's a cautionary tale and a perfect example of what can happen as a result, the unintentional

and the consequences of big corporate media mergers and, you know, relevant that we're talking about what's going on today with AEW and Warner Brothers Discovery and, you know, Hermon, it's, it's fascinating. It is fascinating.

We want to welcome him in. Guy Evans, the author of Beyond Nitro and Grateful, both now available on Audible. We will have a link in the description for today's show. Welcome to the program, Mr. Evans. How are you, sir?

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for that introduction, guys. It's far too fine, but it's always great to be with you. So thanks for the invite. I mean, you did such a great job on the deep dive of WCW. And of course, although this was technically the episode or the anniversary of the final episode of Nitro, I guess technically by this point 25 years ago, WWE already owned the doggone thing. But Nitro is really responsible for a lot of the wrestling that you see today. You know, it forced Vince to sort of change his creative and his approach for wrestling, storytelling.

And even all these years later, of course, we know there's wrestling back on TNT and TBS. No, it's not nitro. It's dynamite. But boy, we know who the grandfather of that is. Nitro was a real trailblazer. And I can't believe it, 25 years ago today. But guy, I wanted to sort of set the record straight because anytime we talk about this anniversary of the very last nitro, inevitably, we get in.

into the he said she said and finger pointing discussion about what really happened. And one of the narratives that's been out there for a long time is that, you know, we lost just tens of millions of dollars in that final year of WCW. And you actually did a deep dive into the accounting of Turner. And I think you're uniquely qualified to sort of set the record straight about the financials of Turner and WCW. What can you tell us what you learned through all of your research? Well, there's quite a lot. I'll try to be as succinct as possible and please chime in as I go.

I suppose in any discussion like this, we always have to separate, you know, WCW, the television show from WCW, the business, right? So I think although clearly there's a very strong correlation between the perceived quality of any wrestling show and at this time, of course, we're talking about WCW's programming and its actual business, you know, the way that. that WCW functioned in a very dysfunctional corporate environment that being under a turn of broadcasting at this particular time means that the way that you measure its financial performance is not as simple as just an accounting of revenues and expenses. And so none of what I'm about to say is like a get out of jail, free card, and none of what I'm about to say is to discount the fact

as we talk about pretty much every time we've gone on here and everyone I think universally agrees, you know, by the time WCW wrapped up, obviously, it was a far cry from where it had been just a few years prior to that. And, you know, the peak of programming, obviously, at that point was long gone. And obviously, you saw the impact on a lot of the key performance indicators, if you like, the pay-per-view revenue falling off the cliff and attendance going down. And all of that stuff is documented to the actual dollar in Beyond Nitro, by the way, if you want to see the exact figures, I won't go through those now.

But I think what's important to note, Conrad, in reference to your question, is that WCW was categorized within that corporation in a box of a bunch of entities that were literally labeled as other. So it was categorized with things like CNN, the CNN Airport Network, the Atlanta Braves. And what that meant was that you could liberally move around revenues and expenses within that category. so long as in consolidation, that total figure that you're reporting for revenues and expenses is accurate and does reflect reality. And you're allowed to do that under GAAP, generally accepted accounting principles. So when people talk about, well, how is it possible that WCW was registering this revenue for pay-per-views and it was going somewhere else? Surely that would have shown up on an SEC filing or some sort of public bracket. not at all. They were liberally allowed to do that within that category, and that was part of the way that they did their books.

The other thing to understand, I think, is that there were companies within Turner, and this is something I don't know if I fully appreciated doing the first book, and I came to learn a lot more in the intervening period between the first and second books, is that there were companies within Turner that were literally designated as zero-based companies. And what that meant functionally was that by the end of a particular period of time, all of the expenses associated with those companies had to go somewhere else. That was literally their role in the corporation. So Turner Home Entertainment would be a perfect example of that. And this is a pretty sweet arrangement if you think about it, where at one time at least they were getting credited for revenues generated by WCW. But by the end of a financial quarter or a financial year, all of the expenses. that they were accruing were going on someone else's books, right? And so that brings me, I think, to my final point,

although there's certainly a lot more that we can get into, which is if you look at historically what was the role of WCW within that corporation, I would argue that above all else it functioned as programming, right? So the perception was, of course, that this was not a popular part of the portfolio, shall we say, shall we say, but, you know, Ted Turner obviously is a supporter of it. It's relatively inexpensive to produce. It obviously has a huge historical cachet with how it helps to build the superstation and so forth. So under that framing, you can almost make an argument, not that I would suggest I would be in support of this argument, but you could see the argument emerging

that does it really matter if the WCW books are not actually a strict accounting of what it is making or losing as a standalone entity because it's going to be here forever. You know, Ted wants it. Ted's not going to let anything happen to it. It's a unit of programming more than, strictly speaking, a standalone business. So if there's some discrepancies there, it's not all that important. And I think where WCW really became a victim is after you have the Turner Time Warner merger and then the AOL time Warner merger, now all of a sudden, you know, people are looking at the

books and combing through what the company's historical performance has been. without necessarily an understanding of how these figures were generated. So even if you do have the quantitative data, even if I was to show you the actual financial statements, which I have, the actual balance sheets for many years during the Nitro era, which I have, you would also need a level of qualitative understanding, meaning how did they actually generate these figures? How did they arrive at this particular outcome here?

It's not as simple as I almost call it like the lemonade stand, philosophy, right? If I went out today and bought $10 of lemons and some pots, and at the end of the day, I went through all my inventory and I walked back in my house with $6, then I could say, yeah, I lost $4 selling lemonade today, right? To try to take that same sort of line of reasoning or that same understanding and apply it to something like a mega corporation where WCW was one of 150 subsidiaries, it's just, it's not going to get you to an accurate answer relative to how successful that company was. So in closing, I would say, you know, Keith Mitchell in the book, and Beyond Nitro really has, I think, the fairest assessment that I was able to find on this whole situation,

which is, he said, you know, ultimately, there's no way of telling exactly what WCW was responsible for in terms of on the revenue side. and indeed on the expense side, to what extent things will move around. Although I will say that very specifically, if you look at those two books, there are many, many instances that are documented that I specifically spell out to the reader,

where I can show you the talk of intercompany allocations, the talk of, you know, siphoning off of revenues. I can show you specific examples where that did indeed happen. And I think the fact that WCW was such a cash flow machine, you think about the volume of the bench, you think about how much revenue it was generating on a daily basis, that provided, you know, an ample opportunity that if you were looking to shore up other divisions, if you were looking to, you know, get your hands on funds to keep the operations going, this was a perfect place to do it. So again, all of that

is not to excuse what you guys have talked about ad nauseum. And I just, I only say that as a, as a sort of stipulate, and I think sometimes when we have this discussion, it's attempting to add an interpretation on top of what we're saying. All we're saying is if you want to look at the $62 million loss, for example, you know, I can, and again, the book clearly details tens of millions of dollars, which at the very, very least to be charitable, one could say, would be questionable. And perhaps I can add a little bit more to that, but I don't want to keep going, but please. Well, Guy, I really appreciate you breaking it down. By the way, Guy is, of course, the author of the Nitro book, Beyond Nitro and Grateful,

all available on Amazon and on Audible. Eric, what are you saying? No, I was going to say, I love hearing guys' perspective because, again, he really has a much better perspective on how WCW and Turner at this point really functioned than I did or do to this day. So it's fascinating to hear. And I think I also remember a conversation I had with Dick Cheatham after

one of the more recent shows that they covered, I think was the one that Rock did, who killed WCW, whatever it was. And I talked to Dick Cheatham, you know, subsequently on the phone. And one of the things that Dick talked about was, you know, this situation wasn't just WCW. It isn't like Turner Broadcasting,

just picked out little WCW and treated them this way with regard to the accounting and the gap of principles that were used to account for WCW, there were a lot of divisions within Turner Broadcasting that operated this way. And I can't really speak to it the way Dick did because he was fluent in finance at Turner at that point. But a lot of Turner's finances corporately was very, very suspect because of this type of accounting, even though technically it was legal. it was highly, highly suspect and quite controversial, you know, with internal broadcasting.

Yes, and if I could just add quickly, Conrad, to Eric's point there, I even spent some time talking to people who were involved in the preparation of books for the Atlanta Braves, for the Atlanta Hawks. So I wanted to sort of cross-reference what I had found as it relates to WCW with some of those other divisions to find out exactly what Eric was talking about. Was this common practice? Was this just happening in isolation? And I remember talking to talking to someone from the books who said, you know, there were years where we posted a loss of $10 million, not because of basketball-related losses, but because we were in a category where expense items were being put onto our books because, you know, the television networks

were set up in a way where they were designed to be looking profitable, for example, right? And he recalled, you know, asking someone in a meeting, like, you know, we're ever going to have a year where it's going to show that this is a profitable enterprise, and the response was no, it's not meant to be. That's not its role within our corporate. Exactly. So I think that's, again, the central sort of point to understand here is it's not the same dynamic as, you know,

someone owning 100% of a wrestling company and, you know, a strict and very tight accounting of how much is going out to and how much it's coming in. There's so much involved with it, But Eric is absolutely right saying it wasn't limited to WCW. And very, very quickly, I do want to mention there was a comment by Jerry Jarrett in his autobiography. I had a conversation with him about this as well in doing the first book. And he was publicly on record saying when he looked at the finances,

when he was trying to put together a group to purchase WCW, He looked at this $60 million loss, and you can read about this in his autobiography, and he said, you know, without much effort, I was able to strike $85 million of that and put it aside. And he said, I remarked to somebody that I could take over, we could not increase income, meaning following $2,000, and we'd make $20 million a first year. And when I read that, I wasn't in possession of everything I am now, but I can tell you, having looked at this situation and having, seen a lot of the things that we've just been talking about for myself, I can see exactly what he's talking about, because there's so much there that it's, again, to be charitable about it, it's at best debatable if these items have anything to do with WCW,

and there are many other cases where literally there's just millions of dollars that are being siphoned onto its books. So, you know, I think on paper that statement almost sounds like Landish, I could 100% see what he's getting out. I guess the big thing I want to drive home is, you know, guys like Dave Meltzer have said for years, hey, WCW lost $62.3 million in the year 2000. They were on track to lose $80 million. They did a ton of cost cutting.

I mean, that's the narrative that's out there is that WCW lost $62.3 million. Guy, you've seen the data. And obviously, we know that that data has been manipulated, but you've seen some of the source material. Do you believe this is in any way? way, shape, or form even close to being representative of what WCW's true accounting looked like in the year $262 million loss?

Well, there's a footnote in Beyond Nitro where I list in bullet point form all of the elements related to the company's performance in 2000, which I think an outside observer, a dispassionate person looking at this,

if they didn't know anything about wrestling, if they were just looking at this as a company that they were interested in investing in, would raise a red flag about in question. And I think if you were to look at that, that amounts to a fairly significant portion of that apparent loss. Now, in terms of the early months of 2001, again, if I was to go back in time and I was looking at getting involved with investing in this company or purchasing this company, and I was seeing, you know, what I've subsequently seen, I would be asking things like, okay, it says here in the early months of 2001, we are operating a licensing division, which is costing us close to a million dollars a month to run,

and we're bringing in zero dollars in revenue. Can someone explain that to me? Can someone explain how are we spending twice as much on marketing our pay-per-views as we are in terms of pay-per-view revenue coming back the other way? Is that a real accounting of how much we're spending marketing these events, or is it possible that other marketing costs, relevant to the Turner Networks, for example, or other entities are still being put on our books, right? So I think there's a difference between, you know,

relying on sort of contemporaneous media reporting. And what I'm talking about really here, you know, articles that may have been published at the time that WCW was in the process of being solved where a lot of times, you know, that information is coming from people who want to create a certain perception, right? So if you put yourselves back in time and think about the perspective of the turn of people when they're looking to offload WCW, so we want to make sure it's publicly known that this is a

money-losing entity, that this is, you know, this is a division that's hemorrhaging funds. And so, you know, we've calculated using our own accounting methodology that it's losing $60 million. Now, that being repeated or being reported in a number of, the mainstream publication is in most cases, if not in all cases, based on what is being explained to them by the people who are involved in the preparation of those books. Until now, I don't think anyone's had the ability to cross-reference that with the actual books, if that makes sense, right?

So I can find for you an LA Times article, a New York Times article, or whatever, that says, this is what the company was losing, that's your proof. that's not proof, right? That is evidence of contemporaneous reporting that said that. But in order to actually ascertain if that's true, you need access to the war data and you need an understanding this is a qualitative piece of how did they arrive at these figures.

And then you present that to the reader and the reader can make up their own mind. So it's just a little bit astounding, I think, to me, that, you know, up until this point, you've never had a single look at the specific itemized revenues and expenses on WCW's books. You know, and of course this stuff is very, very difficult to get a hold of, and it took me a long time. But without that, again, you're just sort of relying on what other people

said, or what other people reported or what you heard. And there may be some truth in that, but the next step there is to actually test it against some kind of bracket, some kind of data. And what you've just done, a guy, a thorough job of doing, by the way, is explaining how a journalist who's interested in writing about this particular topic and being considered an expert on this particular subject matter, you're talking about a process that an actual journalist would go through in terms of gathering the information and doing the qualitative analysis, which, by the way, you have to have a pretty good understanding of business in general. And I think going back to your question, Conrad, is Dave Meltzer's reporting of $62.5 million

real. The answer is no. It's obviously not real. We've learned through guys' efforts, his research, years of hard work, actual interviews with people who are really part of the process, and his analysis of all that information, we're getting a good look now for the first time, because it's the first time an actual journalist has ever dug into the subject. The rest of it, it's been Gertshee Dave and his sycophiles of pimple pop and paris. sites that, you know, make up his little network, talking about things I have no understanding of. So, Conrad, let's, let's take the $62.5 million loss. For the sake of argument, let's just accept that that is 100% true, right? There's no chicanery involved in that number. This is absolutely

what happened. Well, you know, what I would say to that is, um, took, and again, you know, This is a thought exercise. I'm not saying that I believe that point of view. But what I would say to that is to what extent do we then offset that by the years in which WCW was generating revenues for which it was not credited, right? I give a specific example in the book of the year of 1994 where the company was not credited for any of the paperview revenue that it made. And this resulted in a swing of around $13 million for that particular year.

What about the cases of intercompany allocations, which again, are documented in Beyond Nitro. I was able to find records of the exact numbers in the book, but it's somewhere in the region of over $20 million, where I can clearly prove and show you and to find where that process actually took place and how it came to the detriment of WCW. And that's just what I can prove, right? There's likely much more there that just, you know, I haven't had access to and hasn't emerged yet. So, you know, I think, again, it's sort of where WCW became a victim of when new corporate owners come into play and they're looking at these historical financial statements. And keep in mind, at the very end, you know, Eric mentioned someone like a Dick Sheetum, for example, who had intimate knowledge of how all of this work. He wasn't there at the very end. You know, we know that Eric, you know, was out of this capacity as the president in September of 99, right?

So there's also that personnel element to understand here, which is when the company is going through the process of being preparing, or when they're preparing for the company up for sale, how many people in that room could actually say, well, hold on. Here's what you need to understand about how Turner worked in 1993. If we're looking at that. I think there's not to interrupt you guy, but there's another layer here too. and this is the political part of it that goes beyond what you've discovered. Politically, keep in mind, Ted was the only supporter of WCW. Ted, and you've probably read about it or heard about it, subsequent to the merger, Ted didn't realize that he was being neutralized.

He was so focused on the merger and his rule in it that he wasn't paying close attention to the amount of leverage and control that Ted was actually losing. And I think I read something that, you know, he said something similar. I'm paraphrasing it obviously. But by the time it was all over, he had painted himself into a little corner office and wasn't allowed out. And no control was of company. So with you, you look at all the executives, new ones coming in, obviously, that's always politically and culturally kind of an upheaval when you have a murder of the stature status. So you've got the cultural impact.

You've got politically, even inside of Turner, there were a lot of executives. and had been petitioning dead for a long time to pull the plug on WCW, not just because it was like rasselin and they didn't, they were embarrassed by the product, but because they wanted that beachfront real estate in time. They wanted that because as television executives and people involved in development are building your careers, that's a huge opportunity.

That beachfront property is very, very valuable for a lot of reasons. And WCW was eating up. too much of it. So there were people politically inside Turner that were more than happy to dump a lot of additional expenses under WCW's books, knowing, oh, well, the new management is going to come in and they're going to start tightening things up, say, if you want the division to go away and you have the ability to dump all kinds of expenses in it, oh, by the way, siphon out the revenue, so it doesn't look like there's an ice cube's chance that how this division could possibly survive under the new ownership,

you'd do exactly what we saw here. So it was part, you know, what do they call that game, part? Like the shell game, you know, a cowlum shell game is pretty creative, legal, but, you know, sketchy in the eyes of many. And then you've got the political and cultural desire to see that division go away, and the only guy that was willing to protect it

didn't even know he didn't have the power to do it anymore. I don't mean to interrupt, but I do want to jump in. I appreciate you spending so much time with us this morning, but I do know you're on a schedule. I think the other question that a lot of people ask when we talk about the end of WCW, number one is, hey, how much money did they really to lose? We've addressed that. And then number two, why did Eric deal fall apart?

And maybe more specifically, who is Jamie Kellner? It feels like a lot of times we don't really even mention his name. Can you tell us who Jamie Kilner was and why you've been? believe Eric Steele fell apart. Yeah, so Jamie Kalner, if you look at his background, is really a titan in the television industry and instrumental in building up the box network, founding partner in the WB network, someone who had a great deal of success prior to coming to term.

He comes in as the CEO in the first week of March of 2001, and there's some stories in the Nitro book about people's initial impressions of him, including a famous meeting where he was introduced to a lot of the employees there. And, you know, at first he makes a statement to the media that, Turner is a great company. We're not going to do anything crazy. If anything, we're just going to tweak things. I'm kind of paraphrasing, but we know what happened just a couple of short weeks later

with canceling the WCW programming. Now, one of the key findings that came out of the Nitro book was based on conversation I had with Brian Bedal, who talked about a provision that was inherent to that Fusian deal, whereby if WCW was going to get cancelled from the Turner Airwaves, Fusian would have the right to program a time slot for a certain number of years into the future. And the way he described that to me was essentially saying, look, we had to have some kind of downside protection here.

If things went awry, if there was some kind of change in personnel, and we've invested all of this time and money into WCW and someone pulls the plug. And again, you can read his exact quote in the book, but he said something along the lines of, you know, that was something that Jamie was not willing to commit. So I think if you put yourself in the shoes of a Jamie calendar at that particular time, you're coming into a new job. You're aware that there's pre-existing efforts to rebrand the networks, TNT and TBS.

This is predated your involvement, and this is ongoing. And these people are coming to you saying, we want to take TNT as the drama network, PBS as a comedy network, and we don't think wrestling fits into this. You're being told that this division is on pace to lose, you know, $80 million in the year 2001. And then at the same time,

there's a condition inherent to this deal that you're not thrilled about either. Not a defense whatsoever of the decision that was made is, again, we're here on the 25th anniversary, and we all wish it didn't happen. But you could kind of see what the thought process would be, in addition to his own personal, you know, feelings towards the programming as well. So that was Jamie Kellner.

That was his role. And, you know, we all wish it went a different way. So the other big thing that everybody talks about at this point is, hey, what did Vince really pay for the thing? And there's been lots of different reports out there. We know that Eric had put together a deal for tens of millions of dollars. I know Jerry Jarrett has claimed that he put in $70 million offer. Ultimately, it's a fraction of that.

gets a deal done with Vince. What is the real number and what was the structure as far as you know about what Vince paid for WCW? And then what was sort of the connective tissue between the Turner office and Vince's office that really allowed this to happen, at least in the minds of a lot of people? Yeah. So if you look at the most recent book Beyond Nitro, I really go into a lot of detail about the actual deal structure because I think a shorthand a lot of times when we talk about

the subject, we say, well, they sold the company for pennies on the dollar. It was a few million bucks, you know, $2.5 million in cash, and then a little over $1.7 million and some other costs and so on and so forth. If you actually look at the agreement was entered into, and I quote from that in the book, you'll see that there is an additional element pertaining to an advertising commitment for $20.6 million over the period of three years. And so if you were to look at it, strictly speaking, you would say, well, the total financial outlay here on the part of the WWS is actually a figure, if I could just round up the arguments saying, you know, somewhere in the region of $25 million. So, you know, about 10 times out of the $2.5 million cash portion. And so I think

when people hear that, and this is something that's been vaguely alluded to over the years, and it's been touched on in terms of that being a portion of the deal that involves, some deferred compensation. And again, I want to differentiate between the purely cash part of that transaction and what this was, because of course the WWF had decisions over where to spend advertising dollars, and this was the agreement that they reached. But I think when people hear this and consider it, it does raise a number of questions, namely being that perhaps there was an understanding that even in its shattered state

and even with all of the conditions that had changed, perhaps there was the potential to take these WTOW assets and really capitalize on them to the degree where perhaps they were worth a little bit more than we were initially, let's believe. I took all of this to Stu Snyder. You talk about the connective tissue. He worked at Turner. You know, Eric knows him very well.

I only know him from interviewing him several times. I took this to Sue Snyder. He was the point person for the acquisition, right? At this point, he's the president and CEO of the WWF. You look at the Who Kill WTW series, you'll see there's all kinds of talk about his, you know, prior relationship with Brad Siegel, of both Brad and Sue, you know, address that in the show. But I took this to him and I said, hey, this seems pretty significant to me if we're saying that the total outlay here was closer to 25 million and not just, you know, two, three, four million.

And again, he's quoted in the book and essentially he says, yeah, I do think it is significant. And people can kind of connect the dots from there. and there's all kinds of accounting reasons why AOL would have structured the deal in that particular way, which the book goes into, we probably don't have time before. But I do think it's a very, very interesting wrinkle that adds a lot of context to the nature of that sale and how the deal was actually structured. Let's talk about the actual last day. I think there's a story out there about Keith Mitchell and that very last Nitro broadcast. Can you tell us about this?

Yeah, and I'll sort of use that as an entree, I suppose, to mention, you know, the WCW production people. These are, in many cases, people I've been privileged to get to know quite well since doing that first book. And, you know, this date that we're talking about March 26, this was really, for many of those people, as Eric knows much better than I. But it was a major turning point, you know, in their professional lives and their personal lives. And so, you know, I would hope that all those people today, I'm sure there's going to be some sadness. but also remember, you know, what a remarkable job they did. And, you know, I don't think it's a coincidence that we're still talking about this stuff 25 years later. I think that's a testament to just how amazing, you know, Nitro was and WCW was at its peak.

On the subject of Keith Mitchell, you know, again, in beyond Nitro, had a chance to speak with him, legendary producer with world class, WCW, TNA, A-EW, 40-plus years in the business. he talked about at the very end of Nitro, that that last Nitro, where you have the simulcast where WWF essentially was controlling the final portion of the show, that he was kind of in a one-man race to prevent them putting a commercial for WrestleMania on the air

because it had been made clear to him that the last 30 seconds of Nitro's time slot is going to be devoted to a WrestleMania commercial. So he was actually trying to counter at the show early. unfortunately they beat him to the punch and that's kind of like an unfortunate trivia note I suppose is the last thing we saw on the turner airw waves during a WCWCW block was a commercial for WrestleMania so he was he tried valiantly but unfortunately I think they beat him to the bunch I don't know why that's a great story it does tickle me to know that even though the war was technically over Vincent bought the thing Keith Mitchell is a soldier to the very end like no we're not running in the WrestleMania commercial. He's from Texas. That's how they are.

Let's talk a little bit about Scott Lansing, the WCW cameraman. I know he had some details about that final day. What can you tell us about that guy? Yes. It was quite interesting to hear from Scott, who actually recorded a lot of that footage, well, all of the footage that you saw in the final,

I guess they peppered it throughout the series, the Who Kill WCW series, they really featured it in that final episode. That behind the scenes stuff that had never been seen before at that last day, Scott was responsible for that. And he remembered, you know, we think about as viewers, right, Shane McMan showing up at the end of the show. And he remembered Shane being there hours before showtime.

And there's a story in the book, him describing what that scene was like. And you can just imagine the ring is there. There's wrestlers in the middle of the ring who are going through what they're doing that night. production people on the outskirts. And the way he described it, he said, all of a sudden, here comes Shane McMahon. And the thing that stuck with me,

and I think it's in the book, is he said, Shane was visibly jubilant about being there, and basically did, like, I guess, a circle around the ring and put his arms up in the air and, you know, was enjoying the fact that this was happening. And that was something I personally never heard before,

and Scott talks about how you can kind of feel the reaction to that and the visceral feeling from everyone around the ring and in the surrounding areas. So kind of a wild scene to think about is Shane showing up and that interaction with WCW people. Yeah, I've never heard he did a victory laugh. Have you heard that before, Aaron? No, but it's really interesting. I'm listening to this and I'll be cognizant of guys' time here. But, you know, for me personally, when I got the phone, phone call from Brian Bindal that feels dead I was in a beach in Hawaii with my kids that's when it

all happened that's when it died to me that was the last nitro that was the last five minutes of programming that was my relationship with WCW guide when I hung up that phone call so for me um not being a part of the last event I didn't to me it wasn't a big deal it was anti-climatic it had already been determined the fight was over and I was already moving on by the time this show aired in my mind as best I could. I mean, make it sound like I didn't care. That's not the case. But psychologically, I guess I had already moved on. So I haven't thought much about this scene and the way I described it and hearing from the cameraman.

But knowing the players that I know, you know, Bruce Pritchard, who's seen there in that shop, we all know. And now knowing Vince, the way I've gotten an obfess over the years, years in Shane, I could see how this was their D-Day moment. This is them storming the beach. In other words, for me, this story had already ended on a beach in Hawaii way before the show. But for the people on the WWE side, for sure, this is stepping into the enemy's territory and taking their flag. And I could see how this was a really big moment to them. and the exact opposite for a lot of people who just didn't want to go to WWE

because there were some of those were afraid that they just wouldn't even get the opportunity and were job scared as they probably should have been. Just such a mix of emotions all wrapped around that one scene as you described. It's pretty interesting. Guy, I do want to ask you, as we're wrapping up our visit with you here, I appreciate all the time this morning. You know, when you look back, you've done more. research on WCW than probably anybody else.

So I'm curious to ask, you know, as a wrestling fan, some of us talk about the legacy of Nitro or WCW as a whole. What do you think the legacy of WCW truly is, Guy? I think some of the things that you mentioned earlier, Conrad, about, you know, forcing WWF to change the way they did business and really bringing wrestling out of the serious lull at that particular time, making wrestling pool, which is no easy feat. and I would argue, you know, probably hasn't happened since the time period that we're talking about. I think for me, you know, we've talked a lot about the business aspect.

We talk about deals and accounting and revenues and expenses and all this kind of stuff. But I think what we shouldn't forget is just how influential those television programs were and the fact that so many of us have fun memories at that time. We remember who we were with, friends and family. It was a communal thing. There's a lot of positivity wrapped up in that, which I think I've been happy to see. as time has gone on, that has been recognized more and more. I think in the immediate aftermath of WCW closing down,

there was a lot of negativity, a lot of people associated with it, obviously had a bad taste in their mouth, and why wouldn't they, about the way that things ended up? But I think enough time has passed now where we can look at something like, just I'll pick something that comes to mind because it was making the rounds last week on social media. Think about something like Dennis Rodman walking out with, you know, Hogan and Eric and the NWO at the United Center,

and just how pitch perfect that scene was, right? Just how, for the excitement level, the pure spectacle of it all, the fireworks, Michael Buffer, the crowd losing their mind, the timing, the fact that this was being produced live, right? And it was almost like, you could, you know, us amateurs, we could try to do something like about a thousand times and we'd never be able to get it that right. I don't think we should take the granted just how great the company was at its peak and the moments that he gave us. And in terms of the legacy, that's what I try to remember at this

point. I try to go back and, you know, watch some of those high points. And it brings forth the level of excitement that I, I would argue, we haven't really seen, seen since. Well said, check out all the guys' books at guy Evansbooks.com. You're going to absolutely love it, guy Evansbooks.com. Nitro is incredible. Beyond nitro is hard to beat. And if you're an easy e fan. It doesn't get any better than grateful. All these books are now available on Audible as well. Go pick up a copy right now at guy Evansbook.com. Guy, thanks for all the time this morning, man. You are the preeminent nitro expert and we appreciate you making time for us on this special anniversary today. Thank you guys. It was an honor. Really appreciate it.

Thank you guys. Good to see you again, man. Eric, what a great story it was, too, to hear that Keith Mitchell is doing everything he can to make sure that we're not getting a, a WrestleMania commercial on turn programming. That's such a Texas thing to do. And I love it. I love it too, but I will tell you,

we're going to do a commercial for WrestleMania right now because we're excited to introduce a new sponsor here on the show. Of course, I'm talking about Morgan and Morgan. They are America's largest injury law firm. Yeah, they've been fighting for the people for over 35 years, and they've recovered over $30 billion for their clients. Now, not only is more,

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who are 18 and older. The sweepstakes ends March 29th, 2026. This is a paid advertisement. Eric, there's been a lot of WrestleMania news and chatter this week. We're going to talk about it all. I want to remind you that we are indeed live on a random Thursday morning. It's random to the rest of the world, but boy, it is a special anniversary if you're a wrestling fan. 25 years ago today, the very last Nitro.

And I don't think it can be debated. It's the most influential wrestling show of all time. Some people may take issue with that and they say Monday Night Raw, okay. Well, if that's 1A, the Nitro is 1B. But let's not forget, Nitro kicked Raw's apps. Not once, not twice, but 83 weeks in a row. And if you've got a question with the man who did that, well, you can ask it right now. We're live on YouTube.

If you're listening after the fact, you missed us. Go right now to 83week.com, hit the subscribe button, turn on your notifications bell. Don't make this mistake again. Don't miss us the next time we're live. By the way, I also want to pay some bills right fast. We appreciate Guy Evans giving us so much time, but you're going to have more time and your lady's going to be happy with you. With blue chew gold, this is not your grandpa's little blue pill.

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Eric, I don't know that you saw, but there was an announcement since we hooked up that your great close personal friend once in a time. Dennis Rodman is taking his spot in the WWE Hall of Fame. And of course, when they make this announcement, they make this announcement with Dennis wearing an NWO T-shirt. And immediately, WWE starts selling a bunch of Dennis Rodman merch. And a lot of that merch,

if you were a fan way back when, you're like, hey, wait a minute. That's an old WCW shirt. I love that they're leaning into the nostalgia. It's not lost on me that this WrestleMania is 25 years after. WrestleMania 17. And, hey, we're still celebrating WCW. even in a W.W.E level. That's kind of cool, isn't it?

It is, and I'm happy for Dennis. Dennis, you know, I see Dennis occasionally, and he still talks so fondly about his time in WCW and working with Hulk. And I think it's one of his highlights. I'm sure there's basketball highlights in there somewhere, but I know that his experience in WCW and working with Hulk was right at the top.

Well, I think a lot of people are looking forward to this because they just know that that means once again, Eric Bischoff's going to be in Las Vegas inducting Dennis Rodman into the Hall of Fame. I mean, who else would induct? No, no, no, no, no. I've been invited to do so, but I've got a conflict with Real American Freestyle as much as I'd love to be able to be a part of it. Just can't make it happen, unfortunately.

Well, that's weird. I mean, hey, Hulkser can't do it. If you're not going to do it, inducting Rodman they're going to get DDP do you know um I you know I think I know but I'm not I'm not going to say because I'm not sure number one even if I was it's not my my position they're going to roll it out promote it do what they need to do on your schedule and I certainly don't want to get ahead of that no that's fair hey we are live here and you can ask Eric anything you want black cheap genealogy it was with us last time we

were live bringing a big time question here and Eric I think it's a special question for you. I'm even going to let you read this one, Eric. If you've got your spec on, read this question and give us an answer here from Black Cape Genie Allen. Oh, wow. It said Eric's father served with my grandfather in the Army during the Korean War. Service life was among those partially destroyed in the National Personal Records Fire in 1973, but fragments remain.

I'm reconstructing his service file. Does Eric happen to have a picture of his father in uniform? does he recall any stories of his service? Wow, an interesting question and thank you so much for sending it. I do have a picture of my father in uniform. It's the only one that I have and will figure out a way for me to get it to you somehow. But yes, I do have one picture. Now, I think my father did serve during the time of the Korean War,

but the only memories of my I have of my father talking about his service was during a point in time when he was stationed in Germany. So who knows, but happy to help you dig into that and share any information I'm able to come up with. But thank you. Thank you very, very much for that. Yeah, shout out to Black Sheep Genealogy. Man, she's throwing down some serious doll hairs to get to the bottom of this. I know last week she suggested that maybe you were somehow related to Mike Rotundo and some other folks. I thought, hey, this is an interesting rabbit hole.

We're going down here. Shout out to you, Black Jeep genealogy. A wrestling historian, he's always bringing the great questions and he wants to know, Eric, do you know why the final nitro wasn't held at Club Lavila? If you don't recall, what's your best guest for the relocation to the boardwalk resort? It is interesting, Eric, because so many people get that detail wrong, you know. For years and years and years and years, We got the spring break nitro.

It became a staple. People absolutely loved it. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. My parents have been vacationing in Panama City my entire life. So the idea that they were at a building I knew of was amazing to me. Club LaVila was a really big deal once upon a time. But that final nitro is in Panama City, but it's not at the famous night club. It's at the boardwalk resort.

You can see the posters for that last event. They say that clearly. If you actually watch the program, it does look different. but for whatever reason people still always say, oh, it was that club of villa. Do you know why the last show was at Boardwalk Resort? No, I certainly wasn't there. It wasn't a part of the conversations of the process. So I have no idea if I had to guess.

Usually when there's a change like that, it's either security or cost or some combination of both. So could have been a cost issue or just ease. of the complex nature of what they were going to be doing, you know, from the original plan, obviously, you know, the dual transmission wasn't a part of it. I don't know if that kind of complicated things to the extent that the location no longer worked well. It could have been any number of things like that. Do you remember how the whole club La Vela relationship came to be with WCW in the first place? Is that a Zane-Bresslaw deal or somebody else?

I don't know if that would have been Zane. It could have been Zane, although that's not, Zane's relationship to his role of decks, the most valuable portion of Zane's role of decks was with building managers, you know, arena management, ownership, things like that at a very high level. Zane didn't really work very closely with nightclubs. If you knew Zane, you would know why. He was not a nightclub guy. Sports book, yes, nightclub no.

So I'm not sure if that was Zane or not. And it was probably just a function of, I mean, look, my track record with regard to feigning pay-per-views and trying to take advantage of unique situations to give our pay-per-views unique personalities. I've talked about that a lot, so I won't go into that. And I think spring break, the club Libya, in particular, is probably more of a function of, all right, everybody, I want to, we want to theme spring break. We want to do a night show, and we want to make it a,

party. Let's start looking for some spots. And it could have been at all hands on that. It could have been David Brockett. There's the kind of thing David would do, at least initially do some of the research and then hands it off to somebody else to follow up on. It could have been any number of ways. Do you remember having any negative feedback about Club Lavila? I know as a fan, hey, we love the way it looked. But I also know, hey, there's a lot of alcohol. I mean, I think even the poster for the last nitro said, you know, whatever the ticket price was and then it was five hours or whatever it was and then it was unlimited beer. I don't know that always had that promotion, but I do know that, hey, it's spring break. People, you know, take it to the head a lot in those scenarios.

And boy, things can get sideways. Did you, do you remember any fallout from any of the club of a wheelchair? No, I mean, look, it was a pain and he ass for, for, a production point of view, like if you're, you know, you're daffer, you're hauling cable, you're setting up lights and rigging and having to work in a very small environment that isn't designed for people to work in the way we're working in them. So it's just physically hard. Work spaces are much smaller. That's the production side of it. On the talent side, even more so less dressing facilities i mean there's already not enough room most of the time when

you've got 80 or 100 wrestlers showing up for you know a big paper view or whatever 60 or 80 of them and you've got supporting staff and friends and family and all of a sudden backstage turns into a small city in and of itself well now go to a nightclub and and work with what you've got to work with there so even the talent it would um sturgis same thing, which is really tough working environment for talent and production. Now, from the talent side of it, it was a pain in the ass, but it was also kind of fun because the crowd is right there. And keep in mind, wrestlers, you know, they're performers. The closer they can get to the crowd, feel the action, feel the energy, feel them reacting or selling or whatever, the better

for talent. So for talent, everybody was in a little. tighter, a little closer. Everybody was in a somewhat altered state of mind to varying degrees, which encouraged, you know, alternative behavior, which was a lot of fun. It made for great television because the crowd was really anxious to be a part of the show. And that was the whole reason we did it there. That was the vibe we were looking for. We wanted to bring that spring break kind of bringing it to the head, as you pointed out

early here, however you said it. we wanted that energy on the show and we got it. So was it a pain me? Yeah. But keep that outside, guys look fun, look forward to doing it because it was fun. And, you know,

the after party had benefits. Oh my gosh. You can't just leave us hanging like that, but I guess we can use our imagination. There you know, I do want to ask, you know, listen,

it's silly, but I know that it had to be discussed. Do you remember whether there guys who were lobbying or campaigning? I want to take a bump into the pool. No, I want to take a bump in the pool. Like we saw guys like Kevin Nash just do a cannonball. But we also know that Rick Flair loved to get thrown in the pool. Do you remember, hey, who's taking a pool spot?

It had to be discussed every show, right? It was discussed. And I just remember there being a lot of positive vibes and guys offering. And ideas coming at me every five. minutes that somehow involved in a spot. And again, that's a performer in them. That's something, you have an opportunity to do something really cool that they don't get a chance to do. You know, maybe ever.

So, yeah, there was a lot of that. But it was all positive and fun. Why don't you think anybody has recreated a spring break five show? Like, I don't think WW or TNA or AEW. I know at different times, some of them have called the show spring break. But I mean, they haven't done one outdoors by a pool. they haven't gone full tilt like Nitro did, but fans seemingly love it.

Why don't you think they've anybody's followed too? Is it just a production nightmare piece of it? I think it's a production costs and expense, and it's also, the risk is pretty high. I mean, the chances of something going wrong are really, really high.

It's a live show. You're outdoors. You're in this weird kind of confined area where a lot of your production capabilities and protocols have already been compromised. You're just doing what you need to do to get through this episode. So you're taking short touch. You're doing things so much differently than you normally do them that the risk goes up each time you compromise or do something differently.

And then you've got the litigious nature of people. Somebody gets hurt and they got the right lawyer. and they want to make enough noise, you're going to get sued. And it just creates so many opportunities for something negative to happen that I think in today's kind of, you know, risk adverse culture and business world we live in. It's just not worth risk. I like you're talking about as you make those changes, you know, you get that risk. Well, let me tell you where there's no risk, butcher box.

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How great is that top sirloin from Butcherbox, by the way, Eric? I am so impressed with everything that I'm getting from Butcherbox, but I've got to talk about the bacon. I know I touched on it last week. People, you've got to hear me out on the bacon. I don't claim to be a bacon connoisseur. It's never been my thing. I've never been obsessed about bacon before.

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Do not think, do not think for a second that you've had great bacon until you've tried the bacon at Butcherbox. It is life-changing. Go check it out. Butcherbox.com use their promo code 83 weeks. Eric, we are live. Lots of folks wanting to celebrate 25 years of Nitro. We're going to get to a lot of different questions. But I guess first, you and I should address the elephant in the room. Last Thursday, we recorded an episode that dropped on Friday. And last Thursday, you and I talked about the odds of Ted DiBiasey Jr. being. acquitted. I pointed out that last Thursday, the person that the government called Ted

Jr.'s co-conspirator received 32 years in prison just based on his state-level sentencing. I don't think he's even been sentenced federally yet. And Ted's, Ted Jr.'s brother Brett, took a plea deal for five years in prison. It felt like these were insurmountable odds. And you and I were both like, geez, man, nobody wants to throw the towel in, but maybe we should have looked at a plea deal. This could be ugly. Boy, were we wrong. Ted Jr. was acquitted. Not once, not twice, but on all 13 charges. He's a free man. And AOTV Productions is with us here live and he says Ted DiBiase Jr. was acquitted on all charges. Many think he's the one talking to Randy and will help him at WrestleMania. What do you think? Now, as a reminder, way back when 2008 to 2011 or

something like that. There was a faction in WWV called Legacy. And you had the son of Dusty Rhodes, Cody. You had the son of Bob Orton Jr., Randy. And you had the son of Ted DiBiase, Ted DiBiore Jr. Hmm. Two-thirds of that group are now main of inning when I believe will be night one of WrestleMania.

Now, storyline was there is an opportunity here, and he has gotten a lot of publicity for himself, but it's been 13 years since he's wrestled with WWE, and I think he's only done a handful appearances in the space since. And I'm not saying this is the way it ought to be, but I will say he's had to defend himself against a major lawsuit for like half a decade. So I can only imagine that his attorney's bill,

if it's not a million dollars, it's within spitting distance. I mean, I would not be surprised if it was $700 to over a million dollars in attorney's feet. And unfortunately, the way the system is here in America, even if you're found not guilty, it doesn't mean the government is going to pay for your attorney's bills. He's got to find a way to pay this back now. And forever and ever,

anytime you do a Google search on Ted DiBiase Jr., this is what's going to pop up. So it does feel like, hey, congrats you won, but now what? And a lot of wrestling fans think, hey, hmm, far as far as story goes, Is there something here? What do you expect, Eric?

Well, I don't know what I expect. It's an interesting thing to think about, you know, if we look at it from the devious perspective, let's assume that he'd be excited about that opportunity. But if you're looking, you know, if you're Paul or Nick or whoever else is Bruce, whoever else is involved creatively, other than the controversy that now comes with,

Ted Jr. Does he really bring any value? Set the controversy off the side. You could argue that that could be a benefit. You could argue that. I'm not sure I agree with it. But controversy can create cash. So we'll put it in a maybe column. So aside from that, would anybody care? Would the story itself as a standalone story by bringing Ted into this

after being away from so long and resurrecting the legacy to help showcase this particular feud. Does that have merit? I guess it could. It doesn't feel like it does right now or that it was a big enough thing back then to kind of just allow the audience to get really and re-engage very quickly because they have such vivid or fond memories of it. I don't think it's that kind of a faction. So if it's not, there's really not that much of a story,

eh, I can't see it. But if they can come up with a way to build a good story on it and not be afraid of the publicity that would come with this, or at least be prepared for it, could happen. It's something to talk about. It's going to get ink, just whether it's good ink or patting. I don't know enough about, you know, the charges or the fraud or anything that. But I did want to ask you, and I'm sorry I wasn't paying closer attention.

Did he, was he found guilty on state charges or federal charges? Said DiBiase Jr.? Yeah. He's guilty of nothing, not guilty on every single charge. I know, but was he charged federally or was he charged with a state correct? I believe these were states. Okay. Okay. Well, let's, we'll find out. I don't know. What would you do, Conrad? You like controversy?

Well, listen, I know a friend of mine used to say controversy creates cash. It does feel like, you know, any potential job opportunities that Ted DiBiossi Jr. is going to have. They're always going to do a background check or a Google search. And this is attached to him from now on. Even though he beat it, his name is still attached to it forever and ever. Amen. And he's got no left than a half a million dollar return. bill that he's going to have to tackle. He's going to have to fight and figure that out. So it does feel like, hey, what's the quickest path to getting on the other side of this

financial devastation that has come your way? And is there a way to take some of the reputational harm that's a negative and turn it into a positive? And it might not be the craziest idea to see him do something in WWE. You know, do you think really,

no, do you think, I mean, let's say he's got to, I agree with you, it's probably closer to a million than it is half a million. Let's use half a million to be really conservative. Even if there's this opportunity at WrestleMania, it's not going to pay him anywhere close to a number that's going to give him any real relief. Well, I'm not suggesting that there's a one-time payoff. I'm also not advocating that it would happen at WrestleMania.

Like, I'm not trying to be that guy. But does anybody really believe that Cody is going to wrestle Randy one time at WrestleMania and that's the end of the story? No, that's the beginning of the story. They're going to have a series of matches. There may be a big time trilogy of pay-per-view matches. By the way, I haven't asked Cody. I haven't talked to Bruce.

I have no inside information. I've just been watching wrestling long enough to know. They're going to have subsequent follow-up. The story will continue in May and SummerSlam or whatever. There will be other beats to this story. and when the time is right, I don't know why you wouldn't try to slide Ted DiBiase Jr.

You know, it's going to immediately get some press. There's immediately going to be opportunities for him to do media and collectibles and podcasts and headlines. Like PMZ would cover that. The New York Post would recover that. Like there's going to be a lot of press for this

no matter when he shows up. I don't know that you have to have it. So let's have fun with this. So what would you? And again, I'm asking you, I'm not challenging you. Don't get me wrong.

because I don't know what I would do, but would you, you're Paul, Vec, come out in here, Ted Jr., I got an idea for you. You're going to be a heel. He's done all the stuff that's going on. You beat the rap. People think you're guilty.

We're going to lean into that. Or would you have a conversation that sounded something like, you know, we're going to figure out a way to use this. Unfortunately, is it to make you a baby face. I mean, what do you do with that kind of history? Because you're playing off the history one way or the other.

What do you play off of the baby face story or the heel story? I think everyone would assume, like I don't know that you've seen it. And I think this is unfair. But immediately upon the news that Ted DiBiase Jr. was acquitted, I saw a lot of comments saying, oh, just because you're acquitted doesn't mean you're not guilty. Yeah, actually, that's exactly what it means. And I know that that is your opinion and you've read about it and you don't like it and I get it. But I'm saying jury of his peers decided that he was not guilty, not once, not twice, but 13 times.

So as long as we live in America, this is the system we've got, kind of got to go with it now. But I'm saying if people are already sort of predisposed Derek to thinking, hey, Ted DiBiosti Jr. is a bad guy. I think you absolutely lean into that at first. And then maybe in time it can be revealed that, hey, you know, in the end, end when it came to nut cutting time, he did the right thing. I think that is an easier sell than to tell Ted DiBiase Jr., hey, everybody thinks you're a turd anyway, so just come in and be a turd. I don't know that that's something he can do because I do know that he still, I don't, I couldn't say I do know.

But what's fun of time, he had a non-profit ministry. So it would be hard for him to go out and portray a heel character unless ultimately there was some redemption art in the story. So I just feel like they've got to figure that out. But, you know, listen, necessity is the mother of invention. And we've got to invent a way to get some two comma money coming in pretty quickly here to cover some legal bills. I like the redemption angle you're talking about there at the end because I think you

didn't look at almost any situation. And I'll just speak for myself as a talent, even if it's on the writing side of it, trading side of it. I just get extra motivated at a redemption story. Talent generally, it's a lot easier for them to lean into a story like this where you may start out as a heel and leaning into what everybody's opinion is only for the audience to eventually find out through your redemption, but they were wrong. And they learned a little bit about something along the way. That's a story that's fun to tell and as a producer, it's kind of easy to sell. So I hope somebody approaches it from that angle.

Eric, we're live here and we're getting some great feedback. I want to read you a quote from Jeff S. 23, but first, I want to brag about my friends over at Enda Cloud. You know what's better than having more plans actually enjoying the ones you already said yes to? That in between feeling is real. Things are starting to move again, but you don't have to rush to keep up. That's where IndyCloud fits in. Indicloud is your fully legal online cannabis dispensary for gummies, exotic flour, premium pre-rolls,

in zero-sugar THC SOTES. This is a clean, alcohol-free way to unwind without overdoing it. Everything available is federally legal hemp THC, D-EA certified lab tested, and shipped discreetly to your door. as routines return and life cars pick up speed your unwind should help you stay balanced not burn out you know march always feels like a reset for me the days are longer the calendar is like Eric are you okay yeah hold up everybody all right we're live here at 83 weeks the days are longer the calendar's filling up suddenly there's momentum again in the past

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And don't forget to fill out the quick survey and let them know that you heard about us on this show. And of course, enjoy responsibly. And we want to thank Indicloud for supporting an easier transition. to spring. So, hey, listen, we had a great visit with Guy Evans earlier, and Jeff is with us here. And he says, I'm joining late CPA here designated over 20 plus years and frankly what Guy explains in terms of intercompany accounting and cost objects within the books are not questionable, nor is it gap, but it is a business practice based on interfunctional allocations between profit

centers and service divisions. And isn't it wild, Eric, that before God put that book out, and I think it was either 2017 or 2018, for like 16 or 17 years, everyone just kept spewing the same thing. WCW was going to lose $80 million. WCW lost $62 million. And only when one guy says, hey, you know what,

maybe we should make some calls about that. Have we seen any documentation on this? can we take a look at this? That's when the truth comes out. This is, I don't know, surprising, disappointing. Was it relief to you? How did you feel when Guy finally started a sort of correct the record in the narrative about WCW accounting?

Vindication. Because I, you know, I've been arguing a lot of these issues from the very beginning with you on this podcast, when we first started doing it together and talking about intercompany allocations and me pointing out to you, you know, what a moron your friend, Dave Meltzer is and how, you know, unrealistic his approach to reporting is and all that. I've been talking about it for a long time, and I meant it when I said it with the guy on the phone or on the show. It's like the book and what Guy worked so hard to uncover for the very first time was vindication for a lot of the feelings that I had because some of them, as I said with Guy on a show today, I couldn't really prove him. I couldn't draw a direct line between this action and this person. I suspected there were people and actions that were taking place, but I couldn't put my finger on it until I had.

after I read guy's book and I didn't have to put my finger on it. Guy put his finger on it through these interviews. And it all became so clear and so much of it, like I say, validated what I've been talking about and dipsets like Dave Meltzer have been thrown shade at for 27 years. So yeah, vindication is a good word. I like that. Vindication. Well, we are indeed live here with Eric Bischoff.

If you've got a question for him, certainly want to hear it. Acost 517 has a fun question for you, Eric. I think you're going to kick out of this one. Who would be four guys from WCW that you would want with you in a bar fight? So let's just go ahead and say Haku, we know that one. Do you want Ming or Haku, right? Who are the other three?

Ernest Miller? Hmm. For sure. For sure. Ernest Miller. who'd be on you probably Rick Steiner yeah

definitely Rick and I need somebody with hands Booker Tee buddy that's a badass group right there yeah I don't know that I'd want to mess with that that might be right behind him

cheering them on think about that as like a Survivor Series group you know we used to have these Survivor series teams imagine that. Rick Steiner standing next to Bookerty. That in and of itself is enough to be scary. Then you sprinkle in Haku and Ernest Miller.

Goodness gracious. You look at that for some there that we just talked about. You got, you know, Rick Steiner, okay, so he's just going to take it down and grind you and just pull you apart. There's nothing you're going to be able to do about that. So you got the ground game covered. You got Ernest Miller with some phenomenal cakes. He's a 260-pound guy that kicks like 160-pounder, fast, flexible,

get you from all kinds of different angles, and it's cool to look at. So the visual now, you've got Rick Sanner, he's going to take you down and grind you. You've got Ernest Miller. He's going to jump up in the air, spin around twice, kicking between the eyes, making you a flying across the room. And you got poor routine. He's going to talk to you while he's kicking your ass. He's going to, he's going to bring it.

He's going to like Muhammad Ali. It's going to have a poetry or rhythm to it, and he's going to be smiling. He's got that big Booker Key smile. He always looks happy. He'd be really happy because he'd be, you know, singing your song while he's whipping your ass. It'd just be such a funny. And then maybe I can just be back in the corner looking for something to eat

once it was all done. I love that. My gosh, that feels like a cast of characters like right out of like juggalo championship wrestling to me. I haven't seen that, but it's a fun, it's a fun casting, you know,

a bunch of misfits. but you all fit together really nice. Yes, they do. Let's take a look. J.C.W. J.C.W. Lunacy. New episodes every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. For over 25 years, J.C.W. has delivered the very best in pro wrestling entertainment,

bringing fans deep storytelling drama, gut-busting comics, and an unbelievable in-ring action. From wild characters to unforgettable rivalries. Don't miss a. single mode. Tune in every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. J.C.W. Lunacy. Real quick, I want to do a little housekeeping here.

KS. 6 and 86 is with us here live. And he says, Conrad, sorry for the question on the other video. Printing shop, not florist. Exclusive supply contracts would be good for WCW. But Mike Graham implied that Eric was a silent partner, thus stealing money from WCW. We actually answered that on last week's show. And then Eric and I thought better of it.

And we flipped it out. You know, we don't want to pile on or speak ill of the dead. Mike Graham's not here to defend himself. But those are faceless claims. And the reason you've only ever heard Mike Graham say those is because they're untrue. So we'll move on from there. But I just want you to know it's not true. That's the reason you haven't even heard those allegations from anybody else at any point in wrestling history.

AOTV productions is with us here live. And he wants to know, Eric, what do you think about the time? Tom Brady criticizing WWE, I don't know if you've seen this, Eric, but Tom Brady and a host of other NFL legends were paid a mint by Saudi Arabia to go play a flag football game. In order to drum up some attention, Tom Brady started calling out Logan Paul and saying that WWE was cute, but the NFL is real and it's real athletes. And so it created this whole separate dialogue.

Dronk wound up challenging Logan and saying, you know, I'll beat the shit out of him, blah, blah, blah. and then they had a little skirmish. As a reminder, Tom Brady is a minority owner in the Las Vegas Raiders, where WrestleMania takes place. To me, it feels like an opportunity. Let's promote flag football.

Let's promote WrestleMania. I would not be surprised if we saw Grok return for WrestleMania. He was at the COVID-Resslemania at the PC and Tampa. But Tom Brady just stepping inside of WW being at WWRing at WrestleMania, that would be a big deal. That's where I think this is headed with, say you. Oh, 100%. You know, there's a lot of connective tissue there.

You know, wrong, triple H, wrong, obviously Brady, Logan's in there. I mean, you have these seemingly disparate characters, but if you saw them together in a room, you could almost predict what they're talking about, right? Which is what we're talking about right here. It's just too easy.

And it would be too much fun. and that's probably what this is. It's just a way to get, I mean, in a way, what Tom, what Brady did was like, cheap, right? You know you're going to get a reaction. It's not that creative. All he's going to do is call out wrestling and every wrestling fan's going to react or have a comment about that.

So it's an easy little, you know, scene one, act one kind of first step in a way is just to get that conversation going and then get Brock involved and get Logan involved. It's going to be time and you probably have a Paul of Beck, Tom Brady face off at some point. I don't know. It's too easy to have fun with, which is why it's probably going to happen because it's just too easy to have fun with. Instagram and wrestling historian has a great question.

He says, Mr. Bischoff after he left WCW in July 2000, about when did you come back to the company to begin the buyout process? So you leave Bash at the Beach 2000 with the Hulkster and a version of the Big Gold Belt. Russo goes into business for himself. It causes an ugly scene. It's going to become a lawsuit between Hogan and Turner at that point.

You're sort of on the outskirts of WCW at that very moment. But we know that you get reengaged on the whole takeover opportunity. What is the timeline there? So, you know, we leave Bash at the Beach in July. for 2000 and then when are we trying to put this deal together what's that looked like so bash at the beach was july 2000 and that's when that that's where russo went into business for himself yes sir okay so i would have gone away immediately after that and then what's the next big milestone put together that's everybody goes out of business in march so you've got July of 2000 is when

the hogan walkout happens march of 2001 it's all that's all that's going to be going to be going to business in march so over. Yeah, so probably late summer is when I got a call from Brad saying, I think it was probably pretty short, pretty soon after I left in July. I remember the conversation with Brad. I remember where I was standing when I was having the conversations when we had a rather big house in Cape Creek, Arizona, and I was standing in a certain part of it. So I remember the conversation. I think it probably was. probably would have been August, perhaps, with that asking me if I was still serious about trying to find somebody to buy the company.

I think. got another question here. This one comes to us from Eric Maddie 2893. He says, Eric, do you still filter things through the different than with project you're a part of today? So one of the Eric Bischoffisms that we've all learned here on 83 weeks is sometimes in business. your product can be better than or it's less than or you could try to be different than do you apply that to your non-wrestling project pairing absolutely it's it's i do that and i look at everything i do if it even if it feels like i'm selling something whether i'm convincing my wife where i want to go for a vacation or you know whatever i think of how i want to present information in terms of a three-act structure. What's the beginning?

What's the middle? What's the end? And almost everything that I do, other than just casual conversation, I think of everything in three-act plays. And I do kind of look at life through the lens of better than, better than less than different than. And I lean heavily into different as much as I can. It's one of the things that's, I mean,

there's a lot of things that's driving in real American freestyle, but one of the reasons I was so convinced early on that I had something to contribute to it was because it was easy for me to look at the product and automatically know how to present it different than anybody else has ever presented it. And that's like 50% of the way there for me. I know I can do something that's unique enough and different enough that it will get the attention of the audience I'm looking for,

that's halfway there. Now you've got to deliver something. You've got to deliver on that expectation or that curiosity. But the hardest part is getting their attention. And yeah, I can talk oddly about that. We got another question here from Theo Beardman, Theo G. Beardman. He says, Eric, if WWE doesn't buy WCW, what do you think the wrestling landscape looks like today?

Is it more competitive? Because it doesn't feel like T&A and AEW would have had the brand recognition that WCW has. That is interesting. If WCW never closes and it continues, do you think Jeff feels compelled to build TNA or does he just ride the gravy train of WCW? I think Jeff and people like Jeff, including myself, would probably look. I mean, the opportunities define what. what you're going to do and how you're going to do it, right?

And I look, if, if WWE never bought WCW, what is the landscape look like, for sure you're going to see TNA, for sure you're going to see Jeff, for sure you're going to see Tony Conn. I don't think anything really changes in that regard. The timeline, perhaps, perhaps the audience would have demanded an alternative sooner than they really did. You know, that pent-up audience demand really didn't start manifesting, at least from my perspective, until about 2017, 2018. By the time Tony Con and AEW came out in August or whatever it was of 2019, that was kind of like, we need something different. So Tony actually came along and it could not have been a better time to introduce the alternative brand kind of concept.

what would have happened to that timeline, those 20 years? So with that demand kind of revealed its ugly ads sooner, instead of it taking until 2017, 2018, would we have seen that maybe 2006, 2008? Perhaps. Probably a discussion to be had for that you might be able to convince me that that would be true. Well, I'm going to hope that I can convince you that you need to give yourself The best gift of all, I'm talking about peace of mind, policy genius can help.

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That's policygenius.com slash 83 weeks. Eric, there's a lot of big news going around this week. Somebody that you spent a little bit of time with. We spent a lot of time talking about him last year. Whether you called him Psycho Sid or Sid Justice or Sid Vicious, now we can all call him WWE Hall of Famer. It was announced online by WWE and then later, Gunner actually made it official.

He wrote, it's official. My father, Psycho Sid Vicious, is going into the WWE Hall of Fame. the master and the ruler of the world is finally getting his flowers. Proud to be his son and carry that legacy forward. The Hall of Fame just got a whole lot more vicious. This guy to me is the prototype of what a pro wrestler should be and looked like. I mean, just a huge man superimposing. He had pumpkins for shoulders.

His facials, the visuals were just outstanding. He may have made it not one but two WrestleMania's, one for the title versus the Undertaker and another versus the immortal Hulk Cogan. But that's on one side. On the other side, man, what a nemesis he was for Sting and later trying to recreate the whole Goldberg thing. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about it over the last year. I kind of forgot he wasn't in the WWE Hall of Fame, but well deserved.

Don't you think, Eric? I was so happy. You know, I met Gunner, but he was most. have been very, very small. I barely remember it. But I'm really happy for Sid's family, especially his sons. And for Sid.

I liked Sid. You know, I, Sid had a unique, I think, reputation even amongst his peers, wrestlers in a locker room. Some people got along with him really well,

but there were others that resented him. And probably because they were jealous. us, you know, Sid was just, he was a physical specimen. And of course, it was enhanced. We all know that. Let's not be stupid about it.

But still, amongst a lot of guys who were enhanced at the time, Sid was special. And he just, and not only just its sheer physical size, but like from the neck up, he, not only was a prototype from the neck down, he just looked like he was car. on a granite. He was perfect. He was the perfect prototype of a professional wrestler. And I think because of that,

some things came a lot easier for Sid than they would have for, you know, other guys, you know, that didn't have those gifts, so to speak. Some people really resent that. But I think the part that none of them could figure out is it really wasn't

that important to Sid. I mean, wrestling was important to him. He liked to make money. He liked to be out there performing. But it wasn't his life the way it was for a lot of other people who, you know, sacrificed a ton. Sid wouldn't make those sacrifices because he wanted, you know, the jury goes, oh, he just want to play softball. No, he wanted to be with his friends and family. and that was a priority for Sid

and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I kind of admire it. It makes me respect him even more is he wasn't going to compromise friends and family to, you know, chase wrestling around the world. I like it.

I had nothing but respect to him. I enjoyed working with him. The first time I did business with him, I had my own plane at the time and I would give me an excuse. I'd find myself, anywhere kind of frame of mind. So when it was time to negotiate with Sid, I flew to his home and spent an afternoon

with him, getting to know him because I never really had talked to him before and just hung out. It was out. And he was just a down-to-earth guy that I knew I'd enjoy working with that I did. The other announcement, we've touched on two of the three so far since we most recently spoke. Dennis Rodman's been added to the Hall of Fame, Sid Vicious, and now this morning, News Brown, as best I can tell, you never spent any time with Bad News Brown, or do I have that wrong? Did you ever meet Bad News Island or Bad News Brown? I may have met him, but I don't remember it.

So it would have been in passing, not in a working environment. Well, what a class that's shaping up to be. I guess it's going to be co-headliner, Stephanie McMahon and AJ Styles, Demolition, Dennis Rodman, Sid and Bad News Brown. pretty solid looking class this year for WrestleMania in Hall of Fame. Mark Miro recently sat down with Chris Van Bleet, and they discussed whether or not Stable should be in the WWE Hall of Fame. Mark said, oh, absolutely, the women's division.

They didn't really have a women's division, so she brought eyes to channels, the ratings, and everything were very high because of her. So he continues to go down the rabbit hole and basically singing Stable's praise. I agree. I think Sable should be in the WWB Hall of Fame. I guess the bigger question is,

do you think she's not because she's a private person now? Brock and her don't want her in the spotlight. That's a family decision. Or is there something else to play? Why isn't Sable already in the Hall of Fame, Eric, if you had to guess? I don't know Sable very well.

What I do remember of her, because I do get to know her a little bit when she was married to Mark Meryl. I would visit, you know, I would go over to Mark's house. We'd watch pay-per-view fights, for example. A bunch of us would get together. So I did interact with a little bit at that level. And then, of course, some are at the buildings.

So I always just always come off to me as a very, very private person. Like even when she would come to WCW shows with Mark, really on, like when I was just an announcer, before I got into management, I would see her and she was just always very quiet, shy, I would say, always kind of kept to herself out of the way. You almost wouldn't even notice she was there. So I think it could be personal. It could be just, I don't want that. I get that.

Not everybody has the need to relive the spotlight. Some people do. Some people can't live without it, by the way. We know some of those people. But some people would prefer never to go back. And that's who she reminds me of someone that just was like, and they're done that. We're here on the 25th anniversary of the last nitro.

We're live. If you got a question for it, keep them coming. Here's a great one. Kevin Ackman 87 wants to know. How would you have booked the last nitro if you were still in charge, Eric? Now, this is interesting. Let's pretend for a minute that we're hitting the reset button. and this is going to be the final time anybody sees nitro.

We're going to pretend much like we did once upon a time in the year 2000. None of the storylines matter. It's a day one celebration or I guess last day celebration of WCW. All of your resources are available to you. Scott Hall is available. Hulk Hogan is available. This is your sort of farewell to WCW in the audience. you want to send them home happy with one last nitro.

I would assume there's going to be some star power. I would assume that there's going to be some strong interviews. There's probably going to be a title match maybe. Certainly there's going to be some lucha. What would be some things if you had everything at your disposal for one last show? What would be important for you on a last micro? It's, you know, just sit here and book, what if matches till tomorrow morning. But I think the way I would approach it before I started thinking about matches is what do I want it to be remembered as?

What do I want to, when it's over and done, if people describe the show to somebody, how did that show make them feel? How did you enjoy the matches? But when a show is over, how did the show in its entirety make you feel? and hopefully they would the audience would have felt closer to the brand so what I would try to do is theme the show to I don't want to say be nostalgic but throughout from the very beginning throughout all 12 episodes or 12 segments that's what it was I would try to find a way to connect a current storyline or wrestling talent to some kind of theme or time, it could be as obvious or not as using somebody's finishing a match. That is an homage to

Kelly Blanchard, for example. So some little connective tissue throughout each one of the matches that brought you back from an iconic moment and or match and or promo memory of something that's significant happened throughout WCW's window. that's what I would work backwards from.

I do like that what we did get was a world title change with Booker T and Scott Steiner. That was fun. But maybe I think what most fans remember most on the very first Nitro and on the very last Nitro. And pretty much any time in between, hey, we need to pop a number. What should we do? Why don't we let Rick Claire Russell sting? I like that those are the bookends on Nitro. from the first match to the last one.

Yeah, and I was thinking about that, because you could get so lost in booking matches, I want to make sure I got the idea of the theme out, that to me would be more important. But once you get past that, and you start looking for those matchups or those wrestlers that you want to feature in the show, somehow you would have to,

again, this is where you can get too much fun for me. Let's say you decided you're going to have flare, and staying on the very last night drill. Well, maybe just to get the thoughts on going, a thought-starred idea is go back to the very first match and lay the last match out exactly, move for move, beat-to-beat, the way you laid out the first match.

So I literally have a mirror image, not only book-ending the wrestling talent, but you're actually booking, book-ending the match itself. I think that would be fun. I love the idea that we got one last sort of spring break nitro, but I do wish it was a different environment. I wish we had a different feel for that last show. There's a million ways we can sort of fantasy book that very last nitro, but that's what we're here doing today.

We're reliving the memories, the good, the bad, the ugly of Monday Nitro on the 25 year anniversary of the very last episode of Monday Nitro. And I got to tell you, it makes me nostalgic for the way things you. used to be. Like, do you remember how affordable razors used to be? Now all of a sudden it's like $30 per refills. Not anymore. Not with Harry's Plus. Harry's Plus is much better than your old razor. I'm going to dole too fast. It's not going to irritate the neck. That's been my experience. And I got to tell you, my first impression was, hey, this is a weighted metal handle. This is high quality. It turns out, I'm not wrong. This is Harry's heaviest handle ever. It gives you more

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You get a two-ounce foaming shave gel and you get a travel cover to protect your blades on the go. Just go right now to Harries.com slash 83 weeks to claim the offer. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about. bottom, please support our show and tell them we sent you. And Eric, we are alive here and we've got a great question from Travis Liller. He's been with us a minute. And what a great question it is. I saw this question on X this morning and thought it would be perfect to ask, Eric,

what would you consider the big four of WCW pay-per-views? I assume Halloween Havoc and Starcater on it. As a reminder, when people talk about the big four on the WWE side of things, they always list the Royal Rumble. they list WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series. And we know King of the Ring and in your house, now they're all something new every month. But what were the big four for WCW, at least in your mind, Eric?

Yeah, I mean, Havoc for sure, StarCade for sure. I would say three, and it was a close, it was almost number two, would have been Bash at Beach. it's kind of starting in 94 it started to take on meeting yes it got more important every year and ended up no no from a revenue point of view i'd have to go back to look but it was a it was a good month for us we'd be like july and then from that point on what was our February pay-per-view generally super brawl yeah yeah that's probably that would be number four i expect that super brawl it's It's funny, though, because

Bash at the Beach slipped up on me, but you're exactly right. I mean, it set a record, you know, in 1997. I think it's still your, your second most purchased, or maybe it was 98. Either way, the tag match with the NBA guys, that was 98. That is the most, besides Arcade 97, I think it's the most purchased pay-per-view. So Halloween Havoc, Starcade, Fast at the Beach, Super Brawl, Final Answer, great answer, fun stuff, there's your big four. Hey, you know, I want to point this up before I forget.

I mentioned to you this once before, but since we're talking about nitro and the last nitro and all of that, another little tidbit trivia, if you will, baby. WCW Nitro is still, to this moment, holds the record of the highest rated original. content in Turner broadcasting history. Is that fascinating? Yeah. To this day.

Of Turner, original content, not the movie that somebody else made for them necessarily, but of stuff that they actually produced, which obviously I produced it. And there was a lot of movies and TV shows that fall into that category. But WCW and I show is still to this

day holds the record. of the highest rated original production in Turner history. By the way, we should mention, and I think this is worth mentioning, that last episode of Nitro, I believe it got a 3.0 rating. So that would be just over 3 million people who were watching the show. So while, and listen, there's a lot of other people in the, here online, who will point to us and our show and say, oh, they're grifters. well you heard from guy

Evans today maybe there are grifters online who've been telling you false information that's never been verified for years and years and making people pay for it

our show is free and and Eric lived it and that last show where everybody's tap dancing saying oh so glad it's over three million people watch it and and here's And for those, and I can be one of them, right?

So I'm not being too critical here. But there are people that will hear you make the comment and go, yeah, but those were, you know, those are different ratings. The world has changed. People watch television, all the shit that they've been reading for years. They get to repeat it. They sound like they know what they're talking about. But if the last show that we ever did, would you say did a free rating? Okay.

the very first nitro that we did did at 2.5 and Turner executives were dancing. Yes. So even within the context of the specific television time that we're talking about here, our very last nitro, the one where we literally were bouncing off the bottom of the lake now, we're fishing for carp. We're looking for the suckerfish now. even then our ratings were higher than Monday Night Rawls were back in 1995

but we were going head to head with them so it's just it's the way the picture is framed isn't it's amazing it is amazing it's interesting that we're we're talking about this all these years later and people are going to forever debate and discuss you know what the real impact of WCW and Nitro and the Monday Night Wars we're all about. We think Guy Evans book tells the story. I want to encourage everybody again. Go check him out at guy Evansbooks.com.

You get not only the Nitro book, but beyond Nitro. And there's so much context in there and so much detail in there that we think it's worth discussing. Something that I've always wondered, though, Eric, and I really feel like it's, I know it's not sexy and it's not interesting. And a lot of people would say, hey, who cares about that? I understand that. Because it doesn't necessarily, it's not a sexy.

headline. It's not cool. But I've often wondered, isn't one of the biggest differentiators between the WWF and WCW back then is that the WWF had their own sales department and sales team. So the people who were monetizing the WWF, their full-time job was to support attention and try to land deals, telling everyone how wonderful and how incredible the WWF was. Where? Whereas on WCW side of things, you had Turner Corporate, hey, if you don't want to watch wrestling, no problem. I've got all these other shows I can sell you. And so I feel like if you, the WWE salespeople, hey, they got one shot.

They got one thing they're selling and they're here to sell it to you as the greatest thing ever. But if you're a salesperson on the other side and it's a part of a larger television network, now I've got all of these different shows and I'm naturally going to be predisposed to selling the ones that are easier to sell. that either that can command higher CPMs or maybe I personally just don't like wrestling or I'm not going to let my kids watch wrestling and I don't have to sell that. I can sell all these other things. The WWE salespeople could only sell WWE. Like having your own dedicated sales and promotions team that wasn't part of a larger network, but they're for you and you only. Like that's, that's an underrated piece of this equation, don't you think?

it's you know Vince would and look Vince would often you know piss and wine be a little bitch talking about a big bad billionaire Ted

is beating up on his poor little family run business remember that but he was the sympathetic baby face and big bad billionaire Ted trying to spend all of his billions of dollars

they own their own network poor little me I'm fighting for my life down here and that was a picture at that point in time that Vince really wanted to tell.

And it worked for him. But first of all, it wasn't true at all. And I forgot where I was really wanted to make a point there. And I forgot where I was. Shoot, I had it. I lost it.

Vince was crying wolf about he's battling the big bad billionaire. But meanwhile, he had his own sales and promotions. No, that's where it was. That's where it was. No, that was one of the biggest advantages of WWE had.

Now, Vince was right. there were certain advantages, thank you for catching me up, there were certain advantages to being a part of your network, not going to lie, but there were also massive disadvantages and you just brought up one of them. Because what you were referring to in one of our cases, for example, is ad sales. Now, theoretically, we got a percentage of those ad sales as the producer, theoretically, but we were still nonetheless dependent upon that salesperson

who's sitting in a room full of executives and representing Turner's broadcast palette to these advertisers trying to get as much of their business as you can. That's what that salesperson's job was. Well, the problem with wrestling, and this isn't so even if it wasn't a situation where he or she just didn't like wrestling, they just don't know how to sell it.

It's not a comedy. It's not sports. It's not drama. It's on a documentary. Eh, leave it in the bag. Because otherwise, I don't know how to sell it.

Because everything you sell generally falls into one of those categories in television, right? What audience are you looking for? But wrestling just didn't fit any of the normal categories. So if they were, were to pull it out of the bag and somebody asked the question about it, they wouldn't know how to answer it. So they just leave it in the bag. And that was true not only with ad sales, it was true, for example, with our international distribution. Theoretically, Turner International,

who's got salespeople all over the world, and they're out knocking on doors, selling Turner product every single day. You think any of them are trying to sell wrestling? Nobody tried to sell wrestling. So we took it in-house and did it ourselves. I made trips over to France, TF1, did a network deal over there, did the same thing in Sweden, same thing in Germany. We took control of international, even though we were paying Turner International Commission in intercompany allocation to handle that for us, we had to take it in because they weren't doing it. Production is the last place. I couldn't go outside of Turner Broadcasting to hire any freelancers for any camera positions, any production positions.

Had to only hire for me in-house. Well, that was not bad, except for during, you know, baseball playoffs, NBA, NFL, and all of the sports producers, guys that I normally have available to me for my show or often are booked doing other things. Now, I'm forced to work with whatever is left over from a production perspective, and generally it was the bottom of the tier. and that shows up on camera, right? So there's a million reasons why having a dedicated sales force,

a dedicated team, regardless of what the discipline is, is a much, much bigger advantage in a long run than the so-called synergy of being able to, you know, depend on other divisions for your staffing. I've got a question about the Harlem Heat. We've got one for Sean Michaels. We're also going to talk about Real American Freestyle. We're live with Eric Bischoff at 83 Weeks.com. If you've got a question for him, hit us up.

Right now, I want to brag about our friends over at Chubbies. I can be honest, I'm down here at the beach right now. I'm wearing Chubbies right now. And I'm going to keep rocking them for the rest of the day. These are classic line swim trunks that you can wear and receive compliments like out in real life. It's like really stretchy fabric, but it dries super quick. They've got this built-in boxer brief lines. It's really comfy and supportive.

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It's just that we go, oh, my gosh, where's, oh, okay, it's chubbies. we get it. Thankfully. Hey, Acos 517 is here with us live and he's got a great question. He wants to know, hey, what were Booker and Stevie Ray like to deal with his talent?

Were they easy going pains in the ass? They seem like there's some cool dudes in real life. I never had any issues with them. You know, it's not like everything was always easy, but they would, they would express their opinion and when they were really committed, it was obvious that when they were passionate,

about things, but it was always really done professionally. It never crossed any kind of weird line where they're trying to intimidate anybody around him or anything like that. They were always passionate but professional. And usually when they felt strongly about something, there's a good reason for it. So it wasn't hard to listen to them or make the time to listen to them. It's not like they, you know, possibly bitch and moaned about things that really don't matter just to get attention because there are people like that.

They weren't in that category at all. They came to you with an idea or suggestion or question. There was a good reason for it. Caesar Gonzalez 866 says, hello Eric Bishop. I hope he reads my question. Hi, Eric. I just wonder if Eric ever thought of Rick Claire joining the NWO with Hogan or to replace him as leader of the NWO.

I just thought it would be lit. Hey, there's no bad ideas in a brainstorming session. Do you remember it ever being discussed? Maybe Rick Claire joining the NWF? No. No. Bad casting, that actually is, you know, I've always heard that saying there's a bad idea. Actually, there is, and this is one of them.

Not that I'm not grateful for it. I am, because it's fun. But it would be an example of bad casting. And I, you know, I know people can have fun with that kind of idea, just bounce out around, you know, maybe over. over a beer or something. But from a storytelling perspective, it just wouldn't work.

Rick would have hated it. I don't think there's any scenario in the world where anybody could have pitched this idea to Rick. And he would have gone, wow, that's great. I can't wait to do that. It would have been an uphill battle for a lot of reasons. So no, never got pitched.

He's with us here live. And he says, Eric, Hansi being 2020, imagine you somehow got a hold of Sean Michaels instead of Xbox. You think the NWO would have lasted longer. That's interesting. If Sean Michaels were in the Waltman spot,

does the NWO look any differently? Does things change at all for WWV or WCW? Well, without, you know, I'll keep the snarky, you know, obvious comments out of the equation, you know, you know,

I'll say it because, you know, Sean has talked about it openly, and I've said it before, but just to summarize it, I wouldn't have ever taken a risk on Sean Michaels. back then. I mean,

I had enough to deal with already, and Sean's reputation preceded him. So I was not interested in hearing from Sean Michaels in any way, shape, or form. So,

let's change that reality and think for a minute about me being open-minded to it and Sean being willing to jump over. What would that have looked like? I don't know, man.

The thing about X-Py, is, just like Rick Flair would be an example of bad casting in the NWO, Xbox might have been one of the better examples of casting for the NWO. I mean, his role, if you go back and you look at, what's the name of that movie? And I just saw it advertise. It's like it's an 80s movie about a bunch of kids, teenage boys. I'll think of it. But it's a classic movie.

And one of the characters in it reminds me so much of the Xbox character inside of the NWU. Because they all, you know, Scott, you know, he was the big brother, right? He was the big scary one. You know, or Kevin. Scott was more of the, he's a badass, but he's more of a shit disturber. And then you got Xbox over here who just. he was kind of like the guy that made him both laugh because he was just a troublemaker.

Not as much as a shit-disturber as a troublemaker. It's just that combination of personalities worked so well that I honestly don't think Sean could have done as good a job in that particular spot as Xbox did. Not that he wasn't arguably a better worker. John would probably tell you that. I may not disagree. I may not agree with that, but whatever.

Take that part of it out of it. There was just something unique about Sean Walman in that role in that time that I don't think Sean Michaels could have improved upon. Let me ask you. He said, you know, you weren't really interested in working with Sean Michaels at any point. I hear you, loud and clear, kind of filed away. It's banked. In May and June of 96, where we're seeing Scott Hall and Kevin Nash,

view in WCW, it was not in the car to you to bring John Michaels, loud and clear. Now let's fast forward to Survivor Series 1997. And now the screw job is going the other way. John thinks he's winning and he's not. Vince screws him. Brett stays in the WWE. John is pissed. He's been double crossed.

He wants out of there. He punches Vince. He's given his release. Now he's available. and he just punched out Vince. Is he too irresistible at that point? If the screw job goes the other way, do you feel compelled to bring Sean in then

just because it's such a huge story in wrestling? I would have still had, that's a fun one. Man, this is a fun one. So would I be more interested then? Yes, than I would have been early on. Partially because this opportunity, and this would be very opportunistic on my part, as an executive,

but I would have looked at this and, okay, he's too scary for me two years ago, just too unpredictable, he had too many options. He just got thrown out on his ass. This guy may be easier to work with than that guy. This guy was not partying too hard, full of himself, didn't care.

This guy just got fired. in a very public way, and it's probably going to be a little easier to work with, at least initially, than he would have been. So for that reason, just to assess where he was on his, where his maturity level was at that point, where his head was at, I would have definitely been interested. And depending on what I read in that room, based on my conversations with him, would determine whether or not I'd take the risk, but I would be inclined to, take that risk because of the moment. David Williams had a great question. He wants to know, Eric, what's one belief you had early on that gave you the confidence

to take risk that others were afraid to take? That's interesting. You know, you were able to take big risks and bet on yourself and maybe others weren't. Is there one belief you would point back to and say, hey, as long as this or if that, what was your self-speak? What was your internal talk? What was your mantra? to lift your shirt, grab your balls, and go forth, young man.

We're live at 83 weeks.com. I'm not sure exactly what's going on with Eric Bischoff's connection, but as a reminder, he is on hand in Tampa right now for Real American Freestyle. Real American Freestyle.com is where you can go to see the entire card and what a card they're going to be presenting this weekend. Yes, you probably saw there was a big skirmish. There was a big to do. There was a do.

at the last Real American Freestyle. They're running it back and there's going to be a rematch. And it's happening this Saturday in Tampa. Real American Freestyle.com is where you should go to grab those tickets. Of course, you can watch on the Fox Nation app. Not only can you see this weekend's event, but you can see all of the archives. That's real American freestyle.com. And man, they've got like a who's who.

You've heard us bragging about Kennedy Blades. She's in action for the Middleweight. championship. You've heard me talk about the heavyweight champ. Wyatt Hendrickson, he's here. Beau Bassett is one of Eric's favorite. He's on the card as well. But some other names you may recognize. Dylan Danis, the guy who went toe to toe with Logan Paul a few years ago, the king of Smacktalk. He's on the card. And so is Colby Covington. Real American Freestyle 2000 or Real American Freestyle 07 is happening this weekend at Real American Freestyle.com. They're in Tampa. It's a loaded card. And Eric, you've got to be super pumped for this. And as we were

recording this morning, it's everywhere. The news you guys broke yesterday. Gable Steven is now a part of Real American Freestyle. He's just signed a multi-match deal with Real American Freestyle. You know him from winning the freaking gold medal and then trying his hand at Pro Rasteland for a bit. He's dabbled in a little boxing. And now he's coming to claim the grown for real American freestyle. There's a lot of excitement around real American freestyle. Eric, tell us about it.

There is so much going on. Shout out to Chad Bronson and Izzy Martinez, my two partners, bringing some of these great matches to life so much, so fast. And this is funny thing about Gable is, and this is hard for me to believe I'm going to say this, but it was about one year ago, maybe to the week. that I got my first call from Hall

checking to see if I'd be interested in coming down to Tampa to meet with Chad and Izzy, my now partners, and talk about, you know, launching this amateur wrestling league. It's like a year ago, almost exactly. And within a year, actually slightly less, we've taken this idea that really was something that was bounced around a kitchen table at Chad's house, just riffing ideas and getting ourselves excited about it. That was like a year ago.

And now when our seventh event, we're getting an incredible amount of traction and support from the MMA community, from the amateur wrestling community, obviously, our TV partner, fans. I mean, it's, it's been really a fun, fun, very rapid ride. So just grateful for it. And I can, not going to take any of it for granted. But man, what a great team to be on. and what an exciting thing to be a part of. See the rematch and an absolutely loaded card this weekend, real American freestyle.com is where you can grab those tickets. And of course, you can do what I'm doing and watch on the Fox Nation app anywhere in the country. not only can you get the current show,

but you get all the archives. There's a lot of great stuff happening. Tickets on sale now, real American freestyle.com. Ryan is actually with us and he says, if you're at the real American freestyle zone, is it okay for me to say hello? So, Eric,

if somebody sees you at a real American freestyle event, they can come introduce themselves and say hello, of course, right? Well, I hope so. I hope so. I know, you know, I've got to be careful about this because I've, been told I've got a pretty intimidating, wrestling bitch face.

So sometimes I'm thinking, you know, and I'm not paying attention. And if I happen to look like I'm, you know, just off with the world or something, no, just come on over and smack me and say hello. You know, that's why I'm walking around. I want to meet people. And I like to read the room.

I like to see what people are having fun doing. I like the fan zone. It's a real opportunity for me to see the direct connection between some of our wrestlers, our athletes and their audience. It kind of shows you a little bit about the athletes and also gives me ideas about how to help produce them or promote them or shoot them a little bit differently. So yeah, come on over and say hello, man.

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who I just met. It was a great experience. We want to be your mortgage advisor for life. Get a quick quote. Keep more of your own money. Start saving some cash today at save withconrad.com. Eric, this was a great time. I love that we got to catch up on the 25th anniversary of the last nitro. And we've got a great question to send us home with.

Trigatee wants to know. Eric, if you won the war, would you have hired Vince McMahon? Probably. Probably. And it was interesting, the very first phone, because the first time I talked to Vince, when he called me to discuss coming to work with him, one of the very first things he said to me, other than hello, was, about paraphrasing this, but essentially he said something that sounded like, hey, Eric, I would have liked to think that had the roles been reversed and you would have come out on top, that you would have come out on top, that you. you'd at least be interested in hearing what I had to say. Well, that's a hell of a way to say hello. It was a very respectful, a very generous way of breaking the ice. And I guess I'd like to think I would have been a, you know, I think I would have.

It's not like I'd like to think of myself as being a big enough man to do that. I would have seen the opportunity, much like Vince did. And yeah, the opportunity would have been too hard to resist. Well, that'll do it for us, boys. and girls, we greatly appreciate you guys tuning in to celebrate 25 years since the last Nitro. Let us know in the comments below, what were your favorite moments in Nitro? We'll talk about some of those more iconic moments next week here on the program. We're going to keep the celebration going because there was so much great stuff in WCW

and specifically Nitro. Let us know in the comments below. And don't forget to check out real American freestyle this Friday or in Tampa. It's a home game basically for EasyE. what a loaded card, a Hoos 2, and it's all going down in Tampa. You can watch anywhere here in the country on Fox Nation. The tickets are on sale now at real American Freestyle.com. And we will see you next week right here on 83 weeks. With Eric Fish, y'all.