83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 423: WrestleMania Or WrestleMehnia?

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson are back to tackle some of the biggest talking points in professional wrestling today. Eric weighs in on why WWE keeps returning to Las Vegas and what makes the city such a reliable hub for major events. Bischoff also breaks down the business logic behind bringing celebrities into main events, explaining why it continues to be a winning formula when done right. Plus, he shares his candid thoughts on WrestleMania becoming increasingly packed with commercials, and why that approach can both help and hurt the overall product. The conversation heats up as Eric questions whether Brock Lesnar is truly finished with wrestling, and offers some strong advice to WWE on protecting the momentum of rising star Oba Femi. And in a fun twist, Conrad draws comparisons between Danhausen and The Sandman, asking whether Danhausen's personality could be this generation's version of the hardcore icon. STEVEN SINGER JEWELER - No one does real diamond jewelry better. Experience the difference at Steven Singer Jewelers. Go online to http://IHateStevenSinger.com  today! Always fast and FREE shipping is waiting for you. DOSE - New customers can save 35% on your first month of subscription by going to http://dosedaily.co/83WEEKS  or entering 83WEEKS at checkout. BLUECHEW - Right now, when you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third for FREE with promo code 83WEEKS. Visit http://BlueChew.com  for more details and important safety information, and we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast. CHEERS - Take Cheers Restore after your last drink or before going to bed and wake up feeling at least 50% better — or your money back. For a limited time our listeners are getting 20% off their entire order at http://CheersHealth.com/ERIC . #Cheers #ad SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewithconrad.com  to learn more.

Today's episode comes to you from the Blue Chew Studio right now. When you buy two months of Blue Chew Gold, you get the third for free with promo code 83 weeks at bluechew.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric, fish off, Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm great. But I'm going to tell you, that has to be hats off to Super Dave Silva. the man behind it all putting together that open we must have the coolest open like in podcast right wrestling podcast it's got to be one of the at least in the top three right no doubt man the

nw o theme is timeless it's classic we all sort of want to tap into that vein and feel like we did 96 and 97 and 98 way back when the 83 week streak was alive but we're going to be talking about some new news on the horizon. Of course, we've got WrestleMania in the rearview. We've got real American freestyle in the rear view. We've got a couple of wrestling retirements to discuss. But the news that is coming to the forefront that's business related. I wanted to get your take on right here at the top of the show is the why of why WrestleMania relocated from New Orleans to Las Vegas. Now, of course, we all remember last year's WrestleMania in Las Vegas broke every record in WWB history.

Huge financial success. It felt like they were absolutely taking over Las Vegas. But before they did that, they had the Rock announced that, hey, WrestleMania is coming to New Orleans. New Orleans was pumped. It's hosted WrestleMania a couple of times. Everybody loves New Orleans.

And then there was an announcement. Well, plans have changed. In 2026, WrestleMania will not be in New Orleans. Instead, New Orleans will host money in the bank. And that's going to happen in September. Still a great event, but not quite WrestleMania. So they went back to back to Las Vegas, Eric.

And we have talked about this for months now about how we're going to compare 2025 to 2026. Are they going to have a down year? Well, we got our answer. The answer is, hell no, they set an incredible record, uh, absolute gate record, absolute sponsorship record. Every metric this year's WrestleMania was a huge success. But the real head scratcher all along, Eric was, hey, why did they do an about face?

and go back to Las Vegas. Well, Brandon Thurston from WrestleMania, he cracked the code. WW got a $6 million site fee for WrestleMania. This is all from Las Vegas's government agency that promotes tourism. As a reminder, that's a million dollars more than they got last year. So in 2025, WWE got a $5 million site fee. And this year, Eric, it was $6 million, but not just that. they also got $4.3 million in tax credit.

This is a unprecedented number, I think, for pro wrestling and sports entertainment. I mean, I know that this isn't something that WCW did a lot of, but do you even remember site fees being a thing in wrestling before the last? Oh, hell no. Yeah. Only site fees that I was familiar with are the ones that I had to pay to the right. It never went, it never came from the city or the state.

to us. Now, that was, that didn't come along to a long, really quite a while after I was out of WCW, but it is amazing, right? And especially if we step back and you think about all the conversations that you and I have had on this show for the last month and a half, you know, or more, you know, the internet wrestling communities, oh my gosh, WWE's going into the tank, this, that, all the chatter that we're all familiar with. And nevertheless, the, the, business of the wrestling business continues to grow. And I think a lot of those, I, for one, frankly, I was, I was a little surprised that we're surprised.

I'm disappointed of myself for not bringing up the site fee question. I wouldn't have known the answer. But certainly, I just assume that site fees are at the core of WWE's, you know, big event strategy. So, like I said, I'm a little surprised. I'm surprised because maybe it's because of the scope of it. It's roughly $10 million based on your mouth. That's a lot of money.

That's a lot of money. And maybe we assume there's site fees and we think, oh, it's a couple million here, a couple million there, four, five, whatever. But $10 million bucks, a lot of money. And you can see why WWE was probably not quite as concerned as everybody in the wrestling community. Because after all, all the metrics, as you pointed out, broke records. The only metric that didn't break records were kind of positive support on the internet. Well, in attendance.

You know, attendance was down. That is a fact. But listen, at the end of the day, what pays the bills? You can't go down to your local utility company and say, listen, I don't have the money. But a lot of people really support me. I mean, that's not it. Like, I got a lot of people in my house. You can't turn my power off.

I got a lot of people. Our match. I did. So I understand the business reasons here. I mean, this is a publicly traded company. We're trying to deliver shareholder value. And I think we all sort of new. they were getting a site fee, but I was darn curious to see, hey, what made them do the about

face? And it wasn't even just the increase from five to six. Yeah, the extra million bucks is nice. I mean, we've even talked about this. And granted, this is over 20 years ago. You know, WCW was always chasing that million dollar gate. And we're not even talking about the gate here. We're talking about we're going to write a check just to get you to come out here and host it here. Not one one million dollar gate, but like the equivalent of six of the gate. But like the equivalent of six of those with no expense and then you can still get your gate and your sponsorship and your merch and and and so a hugely financially successful event but the tax credit thing knocked my socks off because i thought to myself self how does that even work for a company like

wwe and front row brian over on twitter points out these tax credits are not actually used by tk o in w e they're actually resold to other nevada companies that have the actual tax liability Front row Brian reminds us that Nevada has no state income tax, but businesses are required to pay a gaming tax, of course, that's casinos, an insurance policy premium tax for your home, auto, etc. And your modified business tax, which is a payroll surcharge tax that Nevada companies pay their employees. So since WWE doesn't owe those taxes, they turn around and sell this $4.3 million tax credit to companies that do. and who are the prime buyers for that? Casinos like MGM and Wynn and insurance companies like State Farm and Allstate.

And they get it at a discount. So these are not selling at the full rack rate, but if these companies are going to have a huge tax bill, hey, you know what? We'd rather take a little haircut and they may get it for 75 or 80% of face value. So this is high level business. And boy, is it savvy as hell. I've actually heard of this happening with like,

defunct mortgage companies, Eric. So if a mortgage company collapses and goes out of business, but now they've got a huge tax credit, they could sell that for pennies on the dollar to another company. So when a mortgage company, and that's the only reason I'm familiar with it, because that's my industry. But when one mortgage company goes under, they could actually have a larger, more successful mortgage company that's still in business by the now defunct mortgage company just to get the tax credit. But the idea that WWE was doing this also explains why, all of the talent was staying at Park MGM, which was a huge talk to chatter over the weekend about,

why are they staying at this hotel? Why are they staying here? There's not enough security. They could have stayed XYZ. I think we may have cracked the code with a little help from Brandon Thurston and front row, Brian. This is an interesting business discussion that we don't often hear about in wrestling,

but I sure am excited about it to talk about it with you today. Yeah, I mean, to me, this is way more interesting. than, you know, discussing the finish of a match or booking strategy, right? This is the, this is the sausage-making side of it for the business of the wrestling business. And it's very cool and it's something that I'm not, you know, zero exposure to because this kind of thing didn't exist in my time. Listen to me, he sounded like father time didn't exist back in my day, but it didn't,

at least not for me. So it's a fascinating, fascinating thing. And it does explain a lot. And by the way, I did read a lot on social media. I was a little busy this weekend, obviously with Real American Preach. So I went a fantastic freaking event. Absolutely fantastic event. Can't wait for Dallas.

Big names coming in, Gable Stevenson, you may have seen. Hosspot, may have, signed with R.A.F. A lot of big stuff going on. But went from there to Boston to Lori and I, went to watch Montana, our daughter, uh, competing in the Boston Marathon. She finally qualified after five or six years of trying. Wow. And got into the Boston Marathon, had a great time, almost beat her personal best,

but she'll go back and do it again next year and spent the day walking around Boston's, but I did get to catch up on, on just a few things that I'm excited to talk about. Yeah, I can't wait for us to break it down. There's a lot to talk about today. We're excited that you guys are joining us, uh, hit the, subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell if you haven't already. It's 83 weeks.com. By the way, over at ringclassics.com, you can be a part of our live studio audience. We're actually recording on a Thursday morning and you can be part of the fun. Check us out at

at ringclassics.com. So other news I wanted to hit you with, and this is certainly business related, and we don't talk about politics, but I don't think it's a secret. There is a war conflict going on with America and Iran right now. And right in the middle of all this, there's a lot of discussion about, is WWE still going to do WrestleMania in Saudi Arabia next year if there's a freaking war going on? Well, we got our answer. Eric, as you and I are getting ready to record this morning,

it comes out that WWB, they're not concerned about next April. They're going to Saudi Arabia in June. The Night of the Champions is back in Saudi. It's happening on Saturday, June 27th. Of course, a lot of people are surprised by this. I mean, here we are with a war. happening in Iran right now.

And the Formula One races that were supposed to happen this month in the month of April, 2026, they were canceled due to all of this. But WWE's going in June. I don't know if it's risky. I'm sure it's not because they have all the information. You know, I think sometimes people online, you know, they have a knee-jerk reaction.

And I get it. I understand it. I mean, there's a lot of headline news and there's a lot of really scary stuff going on. And I don't think this is something that WWE would take lightly. I mean, clearly they've done the research. They've got the intel. They've got the right security and protocol and all of that.

I'm sure they've crossed the T's and dotted their eyes. But I have to admit, it still sort of caught me by surprise that, hey, we're not concerned about next year. Hell, we're going in two months, Eric. What did you think of this? I think it reflects the fact that both the Saudi government and obviously our own government with a lot of support from Israeli intelligence

suggests it's not going to be a problem in June. And they were, being WWE, TKL, were comfortable making that commitment and that announcement based on what they knew. They wouldn't have made this decision or the announcement without pretty good intel insight. And clearly they have access.

So I'm, I think that, you know, I read that as a positive, I mean, for the world, for the whole situation, if these countries are confident enough to make this kind of a commitment, an decision, and an announcement based on what they know, I'm pretty comfortable with it, too. So let's hope for the best. I'm not saying this to be funny. I'm legitimately asking the question. I think Saudi does these events with WWE, and they pay these huge rights fees.

I believe they do this primarily to promote tourism. But I'm curious, how many people are going to say, man, I love WWE and I've always wanted to see Night of the Champions. I'm going to fly from America to Saudi in two months to go see this. I'm wondering as much as I would think WWE would want to pull out of this. It feels like Saudi may actually be the ones who want to pull out of this because this doesn't feel like there's going to be a huge surge in travel plans to go there, the timing just seems way off that I'm,

I'm wondering, is there a game of chicken going on behind the scenes? Because I'm not sure that, I'm not sure that Saudi ever got their full value out of WWB. Like I'm sure that, you know, there is a, a longer tail and a bigger picture in mind.

But the timing of this particular event, this feels like there's even less upside for Saudi on this one. Am I wrong on that? I don't think it's right or wrong. I think there's maybe a little different perspective. First of all, I'd be curious. I don't know if anybody knows, but I would be curious over the past, let's say, five years,

how many Americans went from the United States to Saudi to watch a WWE event? I suggested probably none. Oh, there's some. Or very, very small, limited. number. So I don't think when we say the Saudi is interested at WWE for tourism, it's necessarily that it's going to draw bodies from around the world to visit Saudi for a wrestling event. I think it's to present the Saudi culture to the broader audience, to the American culture,

to create a sense of welcome, safety, interest, because it wasn't that long ago that the idea, for me, I'm 70 years old, it wasn't that long ago, that for me, the idea of going to Saudi on vacation was like, what? You're going to swing by in Afghanistan, hang out for a little while you're at it? You know, it was different. You know, obviously I'm not comparing the two,

but there was a sense of you're just not going to be welcome there. So why do it? I think what Saudi's been doing with Liv Golf, with the F1, a lot of other events that they have regularly in Saudi, that's designed to bring eyes, eyeballs, not necessarily with the body's intact, but eyeballs from around the world just to expose the Saudi culture. And I think to that extent, if I'm right about that, as opposed to more of a direct transactional relationship.

Then I think the WWE relationship has been very, very fruitful. And I could see why Saudi, particularly right now, because you want to ease that tension. You want to get the word out that it's okay to come here now. And again, based on whatever information I would assume they're working off of, they feel very confident that they're going to be in that position, Saudi now. So why not try to mend the fences, so to speak, in the marketplace, ASAP?

I'm glad you brought up LiveGolf because that is exactly where I was heading with this. I don't know if you saw this, but about a week ago, there was a report out that it looked like the Saudis were going to be shutting down LiveGov. I guess there's an unsustainable financial loss. You know, they're reportedly losing more than a billion dollars over the last four years. They've been unable to secure significant revenue ratings or or viewership. And you even see headlines like golf week six days ago. The headline is live golf outlived its usefulness to Saudi Arabia.

I mean, even this morning, you know, as, as we're going live here, Bloomberg.com says live golf shows money can buy stars, but not fans. And I think a lot of people just assume that there's just this infinite money that's going to continue to flow out of Saudi Arabia. And while that may have appeared to be true for a while, them having some hesitation on the future of live golf proves that, hey, they are looking for a return. They're expecting a return.

And it doesn't seem possible for live golf. So they may throw the baby out with the bathwater. Well, what's really interesting is I'm shocked that they haven't been able to figure it up. The reason they haven't up until this point was the same reason they had such a challenge. If you remember, finding a television network. If you don't have a massive platform to showcase your event and to bring eyeballs from around the world to it, you've got nothing.

You've got a half of a business. And live golf. And I haven't been following it, obviously, and I'm aware of the headlines, which is why I brought it up in this conversation, really. To my knowledge, they stumbled out of the blocks when it came to finding television, and they never really found their, footing. Yeah, if you'll recall, they were on CW. No disrespect to CW, but that's not probably what a lot of people would have imagined. But I think people didn't want to touch this property because of the association with

Saudi Arabia. Whether it's fair or not, that appears to be the reality. And even the Wall Street Journal was reporting that LivGoff actually lost $600 million in 2024. So I'm saying, I'm bringing this up because I'm wondering if Saudi Arabia had any hesitation, about bringing WWE in in June, considering everything that's going on and what the optics are to the world at large,

whether it's a real threat or not, but the optics are, I'm not sure that they'll get a return on this. And I wonder, are they playing a game of chicken? I guess we'll find out. I guess what I'm saying is I know that the Saudi business means a lot to WWE shareholders.

And now with them sort of blinking on live golf, I've got my fingers crossed and they can keep that money flowing because it does feel like if Saudi said, hey, you know what, given the timing, maybe we don't do night of champions. I would hope that WWE would consider a little bit of grace. And I know the last thing you can do on Wall Street is have a down quarter, but you don't want to be short-sighted. I think you've got to see the bigger picture. And again, I don't pretend to know all the details.

But I was really surprised that not just that WWE felt comfortable going, but that Saudi still felt comfortable writing the check knowing that hey, maybe this isn't the best time. We'll see, but I'll tell you what we all need to be seeing is Mother's Day is going to be here before you know it. And I want you to know that I hate Steven Singer, but you know what I love? Moms, I want you to think about this. Before morning, coffee and chaos, before the day even really starts, there's mom. The one who wakes up at sunrise, packs all the lunches, drives the carpools,

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Steven Singer Jewelers. That's I hate Stevensinger.com. So Eric, for the past month or so, the entire internet wrestling community has been a bunch of, was about WrestleMania, specifically celebrity involvement. Even more specifically, Pat McAfee. It felt like it was a 20-year story waiting to be told with Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes. They were going to be the night one main event of WrestleMania.

And all of a sudden, we've got Pat McAfee here. We've got Jelly Roll here. Pat McAfee comes out and guarantees that if Randy Orton loses at WrestleMania, you'll never see me in wrestling again. And then a report comes out. Well, you're going to see him next month. He's doing a mixed tag. He's going to be tagging with Randy to take on Cody and jelly roll.

And then we saw the actual match and that's not what happened. Randy did bring back the punt after the bell. He did throw some live rounds at Cody and break his orbital bone. And it is a gnarly black eye. Something about those WWE champions and black eyes in Las Vegas at WrestleMania. Brother. But also, too, Pat McAfee's out of here. He's posting, hey, I'm done with the wrestling business.

Started in 2017. I'm completely done. No more me in wrestling. And there's a report that Pat McAfee dropped out of the angle. I guess he saw the backlash online and decided, nah, this isn't fun for me anymore. I'm out of here. So now even Jelly Roll, who was supposed to be in a mixed tag match, tagging with Cody Rhodes at Backlash in Tampa on May 9th.

he's posted on YouTube, hey, Pat, maybe it's time we go back to what we do. I don't know what I was expecting here, but it wasn't exactly this. I want your take on this and I want you to think back to your WCW days or perhaps even T&A days. Do you remember there being celebrities where, hey, it seemed like a good idea on paper and everyone was excited about it. But once you revealed it and an execution, somewhere along the way, the celebrity said, Hey, I know we talked about this, but I'm not having as much fun as I thought. I think I'm going to take a pass. We saw it happen last year at WrestleMania with Travis Scott.

Now, this year at Pat McAfee, did something like this ever happen with you in WCW? Not, no, not as you described. No, nothing even close. Nothing even close. And I'm just trying to imagine what that must be like for, you know, Bruce and Paul, everybody, you know, that has to do with talent, certainly at this level, Nick Conn and probably are to a degree. So that's a pretty, you know, rarefied error that you're up there, you know, talking about, talking with these people about your issues. So it's obviously very, very important,

but I think what it seems to me like, and again, outside looking in, just taking the information, kind of piece it all together in a way that I would think it makes sense from my perspective, is that it got everybody excited on paper. It got the right people excited on paper. And there was enough. We talked about it on the show. And it probably paid dividends, by the way. We talked about the benefit of inserting McAfee vis-a-vis the W.W.E. ESPN

relationship and maximizing that opportunity and being able to bring former non-WWBFN W.W.E fans into the ESPN universe, so to speak, and hopefully some of them will stick. That's the theory beyond doing any of that kind of stuff. Simple. But as you said, you get excited about it. It looks good at the paper. You get out there in front of the crowd, and it's just not going the way in your mind as a talent that doesn't really know the wrestling audience because they're a very unique audience. And there's a lot of parallels between a wrestling fan in the arena and a boxing fan or an MMA fan or there's, you know, we like, you know, let's contact. Mano on a minor. It's a older sport, right? All that good

stuff. And then if the showbiz involved, even better because now it becomes entertaining. It's checking a bunch of boxes. shoot, I forgot where I was going with that point. It'll come back to me in the middle of another conversation. Well, we're talking about the celebrity involvement in getting cold. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you.

Thank you. What I was about to say, what I was trying to say is that if you don't really have a direct connection and you can anticipate with a high degree of, you know, maybe 70, 80% accuracy, you can anticipate how the audience is going to react to something while it's still on paper. Right. That's the talent. That's what makes people really, really good at that job is they have enough of an understanding of the audience and what they react to based on a lot of reps, a lot of repetitions. We've seen a lot of it. We're working with the same formulas. We can anticipate if we're halfway good at our job, how the crowd's going to react. Well, the problem comes in when you get people who are outside of that process, meaning the, day-to-day creative process. You get somebody with influence from outside of that process who has the ability to kind of get things over the top, either because they can and they do or just because of who they

are, it kind of happens. You start making decisions not based on how you think the audience is going to react or the people in the creative room probably more going, pretty risky. In fact, I think we talked about how risky it was on this show a couple of weeks ago. Very, very risky. If it doesn't work, it's going to be ugly. Well, they were right. It didn't work.

And it was ugly. And if you're Pat McAfee or a jelly roll, you don't want that smoke. You don't want, not that kind. You know, now it's hurting your brand. Now you're not as cool as you were before you stepped into the right. That's the danger and that's the real risk. because it'll impact who's going to step up next. I don't think there's any, you know,

risk of celebrities not wanting to get involved. I'm not suggesting that for a second. They're all business people. I was going to say horse, but that was too grass. But, you know, it's transactional business. You're going to do what you've got to do.

But anyway, I'm about, sorry. Hey, I do want to talk to you. You know, we're talking a little bit about, um,

the involvement of celebrities. And one of the things that's come out in the last, I don't know, four or five days, I guess was a recording of where we actually heard from Mark Shapiro, who was doing a talk, I guess, at Alabama, at the University of Alabama. And he basically said something like, you know,

we've got the opportunity to interact and work with all these different celebrities, you know, whether it's the Pat McAfee's or the jelly rolls or they're Mark War, or there it is, having Hollywood tie-ins, celebs and stars like Logan Paul, Pat McAfee, Mark Wahlberg showing up and doing their thing and Tyrese Halliburton, getting into the ring with Jalen Brunson, that's not new. It's just on a larger scale now. We're spending a lot more money to market the brand and content. And when you do that, you're going to win some folks over, but you're also going to lose some folks away. And I don't know that he was being recorded. I

don't know that he knew he was being recorded, but the optics of that, I could see how that would rub some wrestling fans the wrong way. But just to be honest, this is how you grow a business. You have to attract new fans in order to grow. And I understand that. But what he's saying without saying it is, hey, we're okay if our longest supporting, most ardent, most loyal fans, if it's not the product that they want anymore, we're okay with that because we're trying to grow. I could see how if you're one of those fans who's feeling like this, you read this statement, you hear it and you think,

I feel taken for granted. I do think it creates an opportunity for Challenger brands to tee off on this and sort of wave the flag. And I know that maybe would have been something that you would have done once upon a time. But you certainly understood, hey, we're trying to court attention for ourselves. And you did that masterfully with. Dennis Rodman. Is it a slippery slope? A, to think this way, but B, to say it out loud in front of

people? Well, you did a very good job of reading into the comments. And I don't know, Mark Shapiro. I'm not sure if I didn't see another picture up real quick. I'd recognize him. Just to never cross paths with him. I've seen him very little on the news. But what he said was absolutely true. Yes. From a television producer's perspective, from a content producer's

perspective, what he said is absolutely its physics. Yes. So to go to, but what he's really saying or what he, you know, someone could interpret him as saying is, I don't give a hook about you. You know, that

I think we're taking that a little bit too far. I think if I'm going to be really honest about it, I'm looking at this executive, and he is a seasoned, there are very few people with his resume and entertainment general anywhere. Very well-respected guy. He was talking to the business community,

as executives like him often do. And even when you're talking to the audience in general, I think most rational people wouldn't take offense to that. I think the only people that are going to take offense to that are those who love to take offense to anything that comes out of WWE, especially if it's right on the edge, and they can make a big deal on it and talk about how bad WWE is

and, you know, virtue signal their hearts out, get all kinds of responses and thumbs up. And, yeah, you go, guys. you know, that's what all that is. Those are the people that are going to get upset about that comment. Anybody else that's rational or is in the business community is going to go, yeah, he's right. Every sport goes through that. Every genre goes through that.

It's always part of the equation. It was part of the equation with WCW. You know, when we wanted to do certain things, the pushback was always. And I appreciated the pushback, by the way. I want to make it sound like I'm putting it down or speaking to a really simple. about it. But whenever I wanted to push into an area that had never been done before, that was always the pushback. It was exactly what we were talking about. Older guys, more seasoned veterans in the creative worlds who had experience and kind of had to read or

thought they did on the wrestling audience. So they would always be the ones that would push back. And that's, you're going to get some of that. But damn, I think for the most part, he was just talking to the average audience and people aren't going to react to it. Yeah, listen, the reason I bring it up to you is because I think you're uniquely qualified to talk about this, because all these years later, we're celebrating Dennis Rodman's involvement in the NWO and what a moment in time it was. I mean, I still don't know how you pulled that off. I mean, he is fresh off of the NBA finals where he played at the power forward position against Carl Malone in the NBA finals. and now they're in a WCW ring on pay-per-view.

Now, I know some old-time wrestlers probably had a problem with him being in the main event. Hell, Ted DiBi-Inty. I don't know if you saw it, but Ted DiBiosti just two weeks ago was being critical of the decision to put Dennis Rodman in the Wrestling Hall of Fame, which I thought was laughable. It's the WWB Hall of Fame where Drew Carey is also in the Hall of Fame. Dennis Rodman actually main-evented pay-per-views. So whatever we think about it, Dennis Rodman had an impact that was meaningful to WCWW. and wrestling as a whole in 1997. That can't be denied.

However, that's what we celebrate. What we often gloss over is something that you were gut and quartered for the following year when you had the opportunity to associate WCW and specifically Hulk Cogan and the NWO with Jay Leno in the Tonight Show. And that's really glossed over. But you had Jay Leno main eventing a pay-per-view against your world champion, Hulk Hogan, and you had Hulk Hogan, the biggest box office, in the history of the business selling, you know, some sort of arm bar or something from

Jay Leno. And that became the headline and everybody was dunking on it and it's killing the business and blah, blah, blah. And all these years later, nobody talks about it. Nobody remembers it. It's not important. We still love the NWO. We just talked about how cool the opening song was on this show.

People still support their NWO merch. It's always in the top 10. It didn't have a long-term negative effect. So that's kind of the messaging I wanted to share. is, hey, whatever you think, their fault about the Pat McAfee thing, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, nobody's going to talk about it super negatively because they don't really with Jay Leno either. We focus on the positives.

We look back to froze-colored glasses. We remember the Dennis Rodmans and their involvement. And we sort of look past the Jay Leno's. But make no mistake in that era, the Tonight Show opportunity was a huge opportunity. And one, you couldn't thumb your nose at if you were WCW. No, Conrad, in here, you know, you. I'm glad you pointed this one out because it's a perfect example. What I was trying to dabble my way through earlier is you're going to make a decision to hopefully a strategy of a tactic, whatever, to grow your business.

There's always a risk in that. A financial risk, you know, there's a potential market risk. Market may not react the way you think they're going to react, right? You never really know. There's always a risk. And certainly bringing in someone like Jay Leno. was in this context probably one of my bigger risks,

much more than Dennis Rodman or Carmel. Kevin Green or any of the other ones, because this guy was, you know, a middle-aged comedian. At least they were athletes. There was some cover. You know what I mean? You could hide behind something,

at least. They're professional athletes. Whereas with Jay, he's a comedian and not in the greatest shape to begin with. But the opportunity, That was the risk. How was the wrestling audience going to react to Jay Leno? Some of them are going to say, I can't stand this stuff anymore.

Dave Nelson was right. This is more shit, whatever. And then, you know, quit watching for two weeks and then come back or whatever. But you always took into consideration if, boy, if I do something out, what's the upside? Upside is a network television advertisers. First thing I always thought about was not the viewers, not the ticket sales, not the pay-per-view buy rates necessarily. But it was what are advertisers going? and do. How is this going to affect our relationship with advertisers? And stepping into the

network universe, so to speak, took us up a lot, right, in terms of our CPM. So we're starting to be able to get attention from people that we couldn't get attention from before when it came to advertising and sponsorship. That all being said, you knew you were going to lose some of those hardcore wrestling fans. Then it's just math, okay? Which weighs more? Which do I need more? Oh, I really need this you know, national advertising platform. I need to be perceived like a bigger media player in the media business to make the kind of money we need to make. So yeah, if I lose a few, sorry, see ya. To get some over here, that's a business decision.

And I'll make it all day long. Well, another decision you need to make all day long is about our friends at dose. You know, this is something that a lot of people have been paying more attention to. The rising liver health crisis here in America. it's really kind of unavoidable for the average American, but some people are hesitating when they're hearing they may need to take something for their cholesterol that they're really not comfortable taking for the rest of their lives.

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I look forward to it. and I'm on about an 18 hour fast, 18 to 20 hour fast every day. So I don't take you into anything until probably about 1 o'clock, noon or 1 o'clock, depending on the day. And that's the first thing that I take. I take my shot of dose. It's in a refrigerator, nice little shot glass, and it really, really is delicious. But that's not the reason I do it.

I do it because of the ingredients that are in it. I won't walk this through the long list of great ingredients, but there are a couple key ones in there that are really important to me. And Lori, because she's such a, I mean, this is her passion. Nutrition, particularly holistic nutrition, is her passion. And she does so much research. So when those came to the house, the first thing Lori does is go, hold on, you're not taking anything until I get to work.

And she literally goes into like research mode. She's got different kinds of programs and software that she can look at a manufacturer or ingredient or process and rate it based on, you know, the rating system that she believes in. Anyway, she goes through everything that we do, right? It sources it to make sure that it's what it says it is or you can expect the results that are advertised, how bioavailable it is, how easy is it to get into your system. Sometimes you get a lot of nutraceuticals, vitamins, whatever.

You can meet two fistfuls of them, but only about 20% actually. gets into your your metabolism. The rest of it just passes through, right? So some things are more bioavailable and absorb more effectively, efficiently. So that's what Lori did. She went through the whole research gimmick. She goes, take yours and then I'm going to have wine. She loves it too.

Check it out. It's dosedaily.c.c.0.c.org. And use that promo code 83 weeks. Eric, let's talk a little bit more about WrestleMania, specifically the way WrestleMania was different than this year. I know you were busy on Saturday night with Real American Freestyle, and we've still got to talk about that before the end of the show a little bit, but I wanted to talk a little bit about night one because it feels like there was some frustration creatively with

Pat McAfee's involvement in the main event, but then the actual show itself, fans started to post all kinds of graphics and reports about how long the entrances were, how long the matches were, and more importantly, how long the ads were. It did feel like the flow for this show was not nearly what it had been in years past. And of course, once upon a time, you actually bought WrestleMania as a pay-per-view. So if there was a commercial, it was for the next pay-per-view or a WW video game or something like that. Now, ESPN is looking to get a return on their investment. And there were tons of ads.

And there's a growing narrative in the IWC right now, but it's not just message board chatter anymore, Eric. It's getting picked up by my major shows, the Dan Lebitard show, the Ariel Hawani show. And the argument is a lot of what's wrong with the WWB and the UFC comes back to the parent company, TKO, because they're trying to extract as much value out of these properties as they can. And hey, that's their job. They have a, you know, an obligation to shareholders. So I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but I am saying that is the perception that it starts to feel like this, is at the expense of the fan's enjoyment.

Like if you take a look at WrestleMania specifically, the commercials on night one is what everybody was talking about. And I think some fans are feeling like, hey, I paid $20 to sign up for this ESPN app. Or if you were in the stadium. I want to draw a comparison here. Like, I was a season ticket holder with my dad for Alabama football games for like two decades.

And the most frustrating thing for us as a fan who got up early, paid for a ticket, drove and paid for parking. stood in line at the bathroom, paid for the $9 hot dog and all this jazz. And now we're out here sweating our ass off or perhaps sitting in the rain. We would see these guys in white hats standing on the field and all the action just comes to a standstill. We understood what was happening was what's called the TV timeout. The teams are ready to play, but we got some bills to pay on CBS.

So we got to just wait until they're finished with their commercial break before the action can resume. Well, at WrestleMania this year, the average ticket price was like, 600 bucks and you had those gaps in between where they're just playing commercials. So there's a growing sentiment here and it's one thing when it's just the IWC, but when it gets mainstream coverage like Levitard and Ariel Hawani and things like that, it makes me wonder, have we tipped the scales too far the other way? Do they need to strike the right balance? Where is the perfect fit here? Or is this just the new way of life and fans have to adapt

there. It's going to be one or the other. And I don't, it's, it's a really interesting conundrum because if you think about WrestleMania, it's only been recently last couple of years, the commercials were even the thing. I mean, we never ran unless it was like you said earlier, unless we're promoting a next pay-per-view, we'd have a 30-second, you know, video spot built into that or one minute, whatever it would be. But there was no, No, third-party advertiser, commercials, and anything that I ever produced that I can recall. Now, television, of course. But television, the audience for television is used to three and four and five-minute matches.

They were used to 12-minute segments, right? That's the formula. We've all kind of adapted to it consciously and subconsciously. We expect that kind of presentation and storytelling in television. but we've been taught and trained for generations to expect longer-form storytelling in the ring on WrestleMania, in particular, WrestleMania, where story is everything historically. It's all about the story. Yes, the matches are great.

I don't mean to minimize that. But if I had to rank WWE's emphasis on certain aspects of the product, I would say story would be number one in ring, would be a shadow number two, right? Now we're taking the long-form storytelling that WrestleMania in particular pay-per-view in general has conditioned the audience to expect. Now we're going to drop it over here in this cookie cutter. We're going to chop it up into a bunch of smaller pieces,

and we're going to give it to them. And I don't like it because it's different. It's this is where you get to. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to grow. We're going to make some more money. We're going to get more eyeballs. We're going to grow the brand. But there's a certain aspect of the audience.

Now they're going to bitch. Let's say there's 10 of them. All 10 of them are we going to bitch. Eight of them will say they're going to leave and never watch again. Two of those will actually mean it. The others will be back in two. weeks. So it's not like this massive hit, but it can be death by a thousand cuts. You're not careful. So it's, this is going to be, what do they do? Does, does

WWE and ESPN adopt to commercial breaks and the audience eventually will adopt with them and still retain 90% of the original audience? Or will, that create a drop off to steep a drop off to make sense. I don't know. Find out. We will find out. It's going to be interesting. You know, there's certainly, and I hate that this is the way it's being framed,

but it's, it almost feels like it's becoming an anti-TKO sentiment amongst hardcore wrestling fans. Like it certainly felt like, based on, you know, reading between the lines, they were going to head to some sort of team TKO versus team WWE. angle. That doesn't appear to be the case. Now that Pat McAfee's out of here, but we've got three years in a row now where if you believe the things that you read and hear online, it feels like Ari Emanuel and the very top of TKL Brass have sort of overruled Triple H is creative at the very top of the rest of the many of main events like three years in a row. And I think that, you know,

fans concerning themselves with that, okay, maybe that's just fun insider booking stuff. We like to talk about these sort of things. It's whatever. and even all the ads on the canvas. I know that a lot of people were upset by that and annoyed that there's a slim gym logo on a table or the canvas has ads. If I'm honest, I never really cared because that's been such a thing in boxing in UFC for so long.

I didn't notice the difference. But I will admit, Saturday night watching WrestleMania versus the prior Sunday night watching AEW's pay-per-view dynasty, the way those shows flowed was totally different. And there was so much downtime in between matches,

is it felt like it was difficult to get that momentum and keep it going. It did affect my enjoyment of night one. And I'm not being critical of any of the hardworking guys and gals in the ring. I'm just saying the actual production was fantastic. The work in the ring was off the charts. I thought everyone, you know, played their part very, very well. But the flow, it felt like, okay, well, I'm going to go take the dogs out and check the mail, and I'll come back and make a snack.

And I'm going to start a load of laundry. and I won't miss anything before and it just takes you out of it. And that's hard. I think a lot of people look for wrestling, especially a night like WrestleMania to be there escape. Now, there is something that I don't think people are talking about and I'm not suggesting that this is what it is

because this is paywalled content, so it is a little different. But there is a way to make these commercials a part of the show. Like whenever I host the Super Bowl party, Eric, half of the people are there to watch the game, the other half are really excited about the commercials. They're non-football fans, but they all know that there's this cachet of a Super Bowl commercial

because you're going to get really creative ads that can be fun. I just don't think we have enough of that yet. And if we're going to continue this model of we're going to have long gaps in between segments of the wrestling content, I hope that we can get more Super Bowl-like commercials. I'm not saying that the advertisers go spend a gargantia with some, but find a way to integrate those. commercials to where they're more enjoyable for the wrestling audience.

And I know that's a, that's a big ask. And I think it's not as big ask as you think with, with AI and just what little I've seen, even within the last three weeks of what's possible, uh, with AI and how quick and inexpensive it can be. If you saw the, um, on real American freestyle, uh, if you saw the, uh, surprise announcement we had for hubs out to make. out where the wolf, where he comes out and, you know, sheds his wolf skin and becomes, you know, hams, that AI, we worked with the company that produced that. And that happened within 24 hours,

48, and was really inexpensive. And it looked fantastic. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. What I'm saying is, I think it'll be easier for advertisers to experiment. have fun, do some super creative, maybe semi-edgy fun stuff specifically for the WWB audience, that demo, right? You can do it affordably, have it be entertaining and be, as you pointed out, but started all this, a part of the show without it being cost prohibitive because I think the technology and the people that are doing it, it's going to be very affordable very soon, my opinion.

Well, I still have hope for it. I know that it's great for the wrestling business. And I know there's a lot of wrestling fans who are frustrated by this. I just want to, you know, take the other side of the coin for a minute and say, hey, let's be positive. I'm hearing that guys are signing bigger contracts than ever before and making more money than ever before and having to work fewer dates and take less bumps. And if that means we do have to adjust the way we enjoy WrestleMania, I'll get used to it.

It's not exactly what we originally. had and hoped for and loved, but it does feel like progress a little bit. And I would love to see the commercials. I don't know. Let's make them instead of something we dread. Let's find a way to make them something we look forward to. All right, guys, listen up. If you're a lady or your fella or that person who sends you that egg plant emoji at 2 a.m.

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and we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring today's podcast. It's time for the wrestling news update with Raj Geary. All right, let's welcome a minute of the program. Raj Geary joining us one of my favorite segments each and every week. We've been talking a little bit about WrestleMania on ESPN, and I think you've got some numbers for us today, don't you, Raj? Yeah, as far as the ratings, when I think a lot of people were interested because it's the first time you had WrestleMania airing live on television.

on a major platform. You've had the kickoff show in the past on USA and things like that. But as far as having big matches, and really on like two, they had that Oba family versus Brock match, which arguably is one of the top two or three matches of the weekend, maybe even top one in some people's opinion. But the numbers were out. So, WrestleMania Saturday aired on ESPN 2,

which is a much weaker platform than ESPN. In primetime, last year, it averaged about 300,000 viewers while ESPN averaged about 2 million. So you can tell the big difference there. So on ESPN2, it averaged 1.616 million viewers with a 0.62 18 to 49 rating. And it's important to note these don't include the viewers on the app. This is just on linear what it did on cable. So a lot of people who were planning to watch the whole show are obviously going to watch on the app since you don't want to have to switch over for no reason.

But for just on ESPN2, 0.62, 18 to 49. In that demo, it beat everything on television that day in the demo, except the NBA playoffs on ABC, which obviously is broadcast in prime time, and the NHL Flyers versus Penguins playoff game on ESPN, which also aired in prime time. So ESPN2 beating everything else for that day. As far as on Sunday, it did 1.822 million viewers with a .65, 18 to 49 rating. So that beat everything on television except the NBA playoffs in primetime on NBC.

So, you know, I think the biggest thing on whether this is a success or not for ESPN is how many of those people converted to subscribers for the app and watched the rest of the show on the app. And those numbers, we won't know. unless they release it, we're probably never going to know that. But on television itself, it did really well. My prediction before the ratings came out, I thought it would do about $1 million on ESPN2 and closer to $2 million on ESPN. It blew my prediction away for ESPN2, but it was a little lower for ESPN.

So it showed between ESPN 2 and ESPN, there wasn't a huge difference, only about 5% in 18 to 49. So it showed that people that wanted to watch that show, whether it was ESPN or ESPN2, they were going to find it. So with ESPN2. So a lot of different ways to look at it. Now, Raj, we're not probably likely to ever get the information about how many people signed up for this. They don't normally report those sort of adoption rates and numbers for apps and things like that, do they? Not really.

They'll post stuff like a record number of new. signups, but they won't usually won't give an exact number. You barely see that with streaming. So, um, yeah, so I don't think we'll ever get an exact number of how many new signups there were over the weekend. I'm curious, Eric, does that number meet or exceed your expectations or how does that number strike you? The idea that, you know, you had 1.68 million people watching ESPN2 for this.

And I'll admit, it sounded low until Raj pointed out exactly what I did. if you already had, if you were already a WrestleMania or WWV fan, you probably just fired up the ESPN Unlimited app and watched the entire show through there. I didn't start one on YouTube TV watching ESPN2 and then switch over to the app. I just loaded the app and watched it all the way through. So your hardcore is probably did like Raj and I did and watched it that way. But you did expose potentially your product and your audience to or to a new audience,

your product. 1.68 million. Is that about what you were expecting? High or lower? What do you think, Eric? I don't know that I had any expectations. I frankly didn't really think about it much. But hearing those numbers, for me, again, not knowing everybody's goals,

your 5x, the daily average for that network on Saturday, and your 6x, the daily average on Sunday, That's kind of like a home run. Well, bottom of the ninth World Series, knock it out of the park. Just that stat. Now you look at the demo. That's good for the here and now. That's a good, solid day at the demo farm for ESPN.

And they're making money on that today. That's not down the road. That's not a customer acquisition. That's money today. And the bragging rights, because that's part of it. is being able to create those pitch decks that can say 18 out of the last 26 weeks, we were ranked in the top. It's all just blah, blah, blah, blah, bullshit.

But it works and people use it. So you want to stack as many wins as you can find so you can keep pitching your product. So from that perspective, I think to me this would seem like a major win for ESPN, which takes us right back to the Pat McAfee discussion of the last couple of weeks. Yeah. Why? We know why. We wanted to bump up ESPN.

We wanted to bump up. We wanted to get the numbers that we're talking about right here. It worked. It didn't work as well as the wrestling audience wanted it to work, or probably a lot of the people in the business wanted it to work. But from a just purely dollars and cents perspective, it worked. Well, let's talk about how well it did work. I think you've got some numbers for,

some records, Raj. Talk to us about what a success WrestleMania was. I'm sure you've got more specifics than Eric and I do. Yeah, and just to point out also that those WrestleMania numbers were out of prime time.

They were in the afternoon, which is traditionally lower rated on television than primetime. Now you have out of home viewing in prime time. So a real sport, NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs, you know, things like the UFC,

those things are going to be, they're much higher now on Nielsen because you include those out of home viewing like bars and things like that. Now, as far as the rest of WrestleMania, it did set a lot of records. It clearly with the gate, it was not, it didn't

beat last year, so it'd be the second biggest WrestleMania of all time, but the second biggest pro wrestling gate in history. So just behind last year. As far as the rest, the W.W.E announced 106,072 tickets purchased from all

50 states and over 69 countries. they specifically said tickets purchased and not distributed. So you would think that it doesn't include comps, but we'll see if there are additional numbers that come out, and there should be in the coming months. You know, you guys were talking about the commercials earlier. They had a record 32 marketing partners.

So not only did you have the ESPN ads, you had WWE's own marketing partners. And so especially for night one, You know, the night two, the matches were longer, and you could say they delivered more, but it definitely felt it on night one a lot more where it was, it did kind of weigh down on the night. We talked about the ESPN and ESPN two numbers, which was the first. You know, they also announced that it set a new digital record. It was up 18% from last year in terms of views on social media platforms with $1.3 billion.

And the paid experience sales at Fanatics were also at all time high. So kind of one of those things, ultra successful event when you look at it outside of a vacuum. But when you're just doing just taking sales compared to last year, that was the one area they were down. But everything else was just a gigantic success. What's interesting too is the attendance number. you know, this is the number that everyone was fixated on and fascinated with. And we've always known for years and years that WWB, well, they fudge the numbers a little bit and they're counting bodies in the building and maybe they round up here and there.

Who cares in the end? But WWE did announce, I think it was 106,072 between both nights. Do we have any idea what the timetable would be for some sort of turnstile report? I know the IWC eats that sort of thing up about how many people were actually there. I know some of that is going to be public record because of the site fee that they receive. What can you tell us about, you know, when we'll have more details about the specifics on the gate and the specifics on the attendance? Is that something we'll get at the next quarterly earnings call or will it be before that? With the turnstile, we should get, I don't know if Vegas does turnstile or just their own number of tickets distributed.

But I believe it's just their own tickets distributed and not turnstile. The turnstile is other stadiums. But we should have that within the next couple of months. Now, usually, as far as the gate goes, TKO with the next earnings, we'll probably specify what that is. You know, the one thing with TKO, they don't fudge the numbers as much as the Vince-era did. I mean, you would be way off, whereas, you know, they basically announced 51,000 around 51,000 for night one, 55,000 for night two.

And those weren't far off from the final wrestle takes numbers that were released earlier in the day. So it doesn't seem like they are inflating the numbers too much. But within the next couple of months, we'll have all those numbers. But if I were to guess, I would think that this probably did in the neighborhood of 55 million between the two nights. Last year did 66 million. It could be a little bit higher, but that's kind of what I would be expecting. It's funny. I'm smiling while you're talking about that because back in the day,

promoters, it was a pretty tight little, pretty legitimate business most of the time, right? It was a network of people that really managed these buildings. Many of them work very closely together, particularly up in the Northeast. And I know Zane Breslov had a lot of relationships with some of those promoters in Northeast and building managers. And it's the building managers back in the day. This is before Internet, before the availability of all this information online. The building managers, if they were tight with Vince Sr. or later on Vince Jr., they knew that the more people that, you know, the press said were there,

better. So it was a little spiff for doing business with us. Thank you very much, Vince Senior or Vince Jr. or Jim Crockett or whoever. It was the building managers historically that really had the most influence on the overinflation. And I'm sure at some points in time, you know, there was a direct influence or attempted direct influence over some of that information. I know in WCW, you, we always hoped that, you know, we'd see good ticket information. But honestly, I didn't really, you know, Zane focused on it. Gary Jester, to a lesser degree, focused on it. For me, I was focused on the television property, and I figured the rest of it would take care of itself. And it did. So I never paid as close attention to the ticket sales and the shady business

behind the scenes, but it definitely did exist. More so, to my point, and to Raj's point, more so than it does today. I just don't think there's enough latitude anymore to get away with much BS. Well, there's never BS for Rajir. We appreciate you jumping on with the news every week. Is there anything else that's pressing we need to cover this week, Raj? And if not, how can fans keep up with you weekend, week out? Yeah, I think you guys got it all. But yeah, just follow me on Twitter at DeRaj Gary. And thanks again, guys. Always look forward to this. That is a blast, man. Look forward to having you next week. Thanks so much for jumping in this week. And we've got lots more WrestleMania talk. We're going to talk about

the Sandman. We're going to talk about Brock Lesnar and a whole lot more. Stay tuned. J.C.W. Lunacy, new episodes every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. For over 25 years, JCW has delivered the very best in pro wrestling entertainment,

bringing fans deep storytelling drama, gut-busting comedy, and an unbelievable in-ring action. From wild characters to unforgettable rivalries. Don't miss a single moment. Tune in every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. J.C.W. Lunacy.

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Anytime I needed help with anything or had any questions, he'd answer right away and help me learn a lot. too. I would gladly recommend anybody. Y'all are a big help. And if I ever go to buy a house again, I'd go with you all again. My name is Jacob Simmel, and I got into my first time with the team at save atconrad.com. In a lesson number 2129, equal housing lender. Save with Conrad.com.

I'm excited for us to talk a little bit about WrestleMania, but the big news coming out of WrestleMania, it wasn't the fabulous main event of night two. It was Roman Raines and C.M. Pong. I thought they absolutely started. oldest show. Going into the weekend, I predicted it would be Jacob Batu and Drew McIntyre, who would have the best match of the weekend. I don't think he could be debated. Roman Raines and C.M. Punk had one of the all-time great classic WrestleMania main events. And I know once upon a time, C.M. Punk was not your favorite guy. And I know it's water under the bridge now,

let bygones be bygones. You guys buried the hatchet on all that long ago. But this was a dream of see and punks. And when he main evented night one of WrestleMania last year, all the goal post movers said, oh, it doesn't count. It was night one. He's never going to main event WrestleMania night two. And he did. And even though he lost, nobody was talking about that. They were talking about what a great story. And it was a clean finish in an era where everybody has 12 finishes that get kicked out of and four run-ins and three ref pumps, a clean finish. that was a great story and a great match. It delivered.

It was truly a worthwhile WrestleMania main event. I know Night 1 you were watching Real American Freestyle, but you had to love what Punk and Roman did on night too, right? And the buildup up to it, you know, the promos were so different. I questioned them a little bit as being a little too risky,

but they worked in that, especially the one, it seems like such a little bit. little thing, but that's what great TV or entertainment is. When Roman was riding in the car and somebody said, hey, react to this and caught him reacting to something that punk was saying on the phone, it was so believable. It just allowed me to buy into that story. And then, as you just described, they both brought the story to life in the ring.

So it was phenomenal. And nothing but respect for both of them, really. It's just incredible performance, not just in the match, but everything leading up to it. What everybody was talking about when the night was over, though, was Brock Lesnar. He opened the show on ESPN2. That first hour, as we've talked about, was totally free on ESPN2, a simulcast, not just on the app, but you could actually watch it here in America on ESPN2. So they gathered a great audience with a bona fide sports icon like Brock Lesnar,

who obviously did well in the NCAA. as a collegiate wrestler and then became a heavyweight champion of the UFC and we know what he's done in WWE. But what nobody expected him to do on WrestleMania was do the J.OB for Obafemi in under five minutes and then take off the boots, take off the gloves, throw up the X, hug Paul Heyman, wave, break down a little bit, become emotional, and walk out of the ring for what a lot of fans feel like may be the last time.

Now I'm not saying that that is or isn't the last time. That's what I actually want to discuss with you today, Eric, because now in this world of WWE Unreal, the reality show version of WWE that airs on Netflix, I think a lot of people are wondering, is this the 2026 version of what we saw with Seth Rawlins injury last year? Because almost everybody and their brother has sort of circled SummerSlam in Minneapolis,

the first two-night summer slam in another NFL stadium in Brock's hometown, Minneapolis. They kind of thought that's where he would finish. And if you've been paying attention to WWE creative last July, Gunther beat Goldberg and retired him. And then in December he did it to John Sina. And then, of course, in January, he did it to AJ Stiles. Allegedly there were discussions about Ray Mysterio or Chris Jericho being his next victim

at WrestleMania. He wrestled Seth Rollins instead. Bronbreaker got involved. No one retired. But John Cena sort of accidentally stoke the flame on this. Maybe it wasn't accidental. But he didn't interview towards the end of the year last year. Maybe in November, where he talked about the fact that he knew Brock was going to be retiring next year in Minneapolis. So now everybody's just sort of assumed, oh, well, it'll be against Schoonter. But how do you get fans engaged in that if you've already sort of spoiled it unless you're blurring the lines of what's real and what's not? I for one hope this is story.

because if Brock would have announced before the match, hey, my match with Oba is going to be my last match. All of the focus would have been on that. Instead, it was on Oba and his big victory. And now Oba's a made man. But I hope that it leads to Gunther and Brock in Minneapolis. And I hope that we get to see Paul Heyman coax him out of retirement. And we see that happen in Minneapolis.

But it's also not lost on me that where is WrestleMania? next year, Eric, it's in Saudi Arabia. So I'm, I'm curious. Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Where does Brock's contract fall within this timeline that we're looking at right now? I don't know, but what I freestored with Jeff Jarrett is that he may have actually been negotiating very publicly. All we've ever heard is that he was a master chess player when it came to getting his way and getting more money out of Vince McMahon. Let's not forget, it wasn't that long ago when he would just randomly show up at a UFC event and all of a sudden Vince would open up the checkbook in a major way. We've seen footage of the guerrilla position where Brock would be in a spat with Vince

and just throw the belt at him. We heard that when Vince stepped down and made the announcement in Nashville that he was retiring, Brock left the freaking building. And so it feels like he's become a master chess player. and if you really are going to position me to lose my last match, then you're going to have to back up the brink truck to do it in my hometown. If this is going to be a record-breaking SummerSlam, So will my payday.

And you know Saudi's going to want him next year too. Like this feels like we're either seeing Brock being the most masterful chess player in the history of pro wrestling negotiations, like a page on a Hulk Hogan's book. Or this is one of the more creative storylines we've seen in WWW in a while and I can't wait for it or it really is just a retirement. Which of these three do you think it is, Eric? I'm a victim of my own, um, positive view of things.

I think my, I'd say fun. I think it's a fun idea to explore that this is a creative strategy and we are on a path to something, whether that be something, SummerSlam or Saudi or somehow both. But if you just step back, forget what we know right now other than, you got Brock, who's got quite the history. And let's just say his timing is impeccable, right? I'm sure it didn't happen by accident.

You got Paul Heyman in there. He's pretty wicked smart. You got Saudi over here, and everybody on this side of the equation know, that they're going to want to see the Brock Ova match. If there's a definitive match, let's say there's two or three, whatever. This may just been, you know, number one. There could be a story that could come right out of unreal that pisses Brock off enough to get him back conceivably

and, you know, without losing face because he said he was going to retire. That's all you need. All you need is he, Brock needs just enough motivation that the audience gets behind to convince the audience that damn right Brock I know you said you want to retire but damn I get back in here and do it one more time once you get the audience on your side

and then make the decision you want if he jumped back in it too soon and they haven't built up enough reason why that the audience is willing to accept then you're going to get a little bit of that hey he said he was going to retire and he didn't he's just like everybody else you don't want that you want the crowd

behind you and this has the potential So just generating a just titanic amount of cash over the next year and a half. So that's where my heart is. That's what I would like to see happen. Meltzer reported based on people in WWE, they believe he's not retiring yet, although he is retiring at some point probably this year. I don't know that anyone knows.

This might be one of those things where everyone is being kept quiet like the Seth Rollins thing. I know a couple of people have mentioned it. That's the belief. So we'll see. I'm not saying this is for sure because I don't know if anyone knows for sure, but there's a couple of things. So it's got everybody talking.

It's got everybody guessing. And maybe that's one of the things I love most about wrestling. So we'll keep our fingers crossed and stay tuned to see how it goes. But I do want to ask you if this really is the end for Brock Lesner. I know that it's been discussed that once upon a time there was at least a preliminary discussion about Brock Lesnar in WCW. We know by the time he actually debuted in WWE, WCW was no more,

but I'm sure he was on a lot of people's radar if you were watching college wrestling, you had to see, hey, this guy looks like a pro wrestler. I wanted to ask you with the benefit of hindsight all these years later, what do you think his place in wrestling history will be? Because he's such a unique performer.

I'm not going to compare him to Hulk Hogan, but he may be as close as we had in terms of as soon as he starts, and I know it wasn't immediate for Hogan, but it didn't take long. But almost as soon as Brock burst onto the scene in WWV, he was almost immediately in the main events in a world champ and at the tippy top of the card.

And he stayed there pretty much the entire run. Now I know he quote, unquote, only main evented five WrestleMania, which is a ton by the way, but I'm saying compared to Roman who's done 11, I know other people will say, well, that's not as many.

But every time Brock came through the curtain, it had a big fight feel, it felt special. It certainly after his, UFC run. He was not running a crazy house show schedule. If Brock was on the card, it was a big damn deal. And I'm, I'm curious where that leaves him in wrestling history, because whenever we have some of these discussions about the now tired Mount Rushmore of wrestling, his name is almost never on the list. But even when you go back to guys like, not just Obafemi, but guys like Cody Rhodes.

And before that, even Eddie Guerrero, way back when, he helped. make so many guys and had a positive impact on the business. And I think you could argue behind the scenes help raise the pay scale of what was possible. What will his legacy be in wrestling? Do you think, Eric? He's kind of in a category all his own. You know, he, you can't really compare him to Undertaker because Undertaker is such a

larger than life character. Okay, we both got that. You got both, they both have. that. Impact in the business, not trying to say who was more, but definitely they both have that. All the prerequisites you would have. But Brock was never, never really connected as a character. He connected as an athlete. He connected as a person. But he was simple. He was, you know, black boots, black tights, didn't like to cut a long promo. You know, he had Paul there for that. you know, to my knowledge, and I don't want to suggest that I know Brock at all.

I mean, I do, but not at a personal level. So I don't know how he feels about certain things, but my impression has always been, based on people that I know who he's worked with, and I hear stories about him, is he was just to get in, get out, get it done, move along. You know, he wasn't a showbiz kind of character like The Undertaker was, or John Cena was, or a lot of other, you know, Hulk Hogan, as you mentioned, or even Rick Flair. These guys were over-the-top characters. Brock is an imposing, intimidating, larger-than-life character,

as opposed to when you saw Halk Hogan in the street, you felt comfortable enough as a fan to go running up to him, shake his hand, and ask for his autograph. You see a guy like Brock, you're not so sure you really want to interrupt him, right? That's the aura that he'd drive to run with him intentionally. I'm right at. So you can't really compare them in that regard. I do want to ask you about who Brock wrestled in what may be his last match, Obafimi. I don't know if you've seen it, but some people have started to draw Goldberg

comparisons. Now, on the surface, I get while some people would say that's a bit of a head scratcher, but as a reminder, you know, these are a lot of quick wins, a lot of dominance, a lot of aura. Like, he does have some intangible qualities. And we've seen, I'm not saying we need to go on an undefeated streak or anything like that necessarily. But I am saying, I think we all agree, Obafemi is not just a cookie cutter wrestler. He's not your average. I mean, he requires that they're doing a special presentation for him. And you have seen what to do and what not to do with a lot of performers.

So you speak with a lot of experience in this area. What would you like to see for Obafemi? Like what is going to guarantee him the greatest success moving forward? and are there pitfalls you've learned through the years that you would try to avoid? First of all, it's just reps. And I don't think I've ever met Oba. So I certainly don't know him. But assuming some of the same general characteristics that you'd usually see backstage,

he's relatively new in the business. He hasn't found his footing yet as a performer. He's still very green. He's impressive as hell. and I can't even imagine where he's going to be in another couple of years. But I think the key to answer your question really is to move them along slowly. Do not go too fast. In WWEs, they excel at that.

Look at the way they've handled Bronner. He had a miss, you know, got hurt before WrestleMania. The original plan was he was going to be in WrestleMania based on what I've heard or read. True or not, doesn't matter. They really manage him, break him very, very slowly and carefully. so that the audience started wanting to see them, as opposed to shoving a new character down their throat. That's what happens.

When you move someone into the process too quickly before the audience has had a chance to buy into the math, so to speak, buy into the character, then you get a subtle resistance. Sometimes it's more than subtle. So I think in Obos case, WWE's case, because they already do this, so well, they'll take him very, very slowly,

keep his character simple. That would be my advice. Don't gimmick him up until he gets really, really comfortable with who he is. Much like Brock is a person as opposed to a character, you know, an animation type character. Always in the same category. Keep him that way. Don't let him fall in my take.

Don't let him fall in a trap of kind of a half-ass gimmick. Either go with a gimmick, highly risky, not necessary. He has already a gimmick. He's a freak of nature. He's so big and so powerful. I mean, he looks like something that you would generate out of AI, hoping to create an imposing professional wrestling character. That's what would come out of your computer and obo would. So just keep it simple, man, and give him time.

And I'm sure that they will. They know better than I do. You know, it's hard to even imagine it now because he's so dominant and so over like Rover. but it wasn't that long ago that fans were not into Roman rains. And every time he came through the curtain as a baby face, the booze were so damn loud that Kevin Duhin and company had to actually turn the volume down. They were too much too soon with Roman. And eventually we got there and the worm turned and now he's got more

WrestleMania events than anybody. But I think you're spot on. They should take their time with Oba. But it is interesting, you know, when you see a character like this come along, because I think in another, if anybody else no sold an F5 and things like that, there would be all this criticism online about, oh my God, I can't believe blah, blah, blah. But when Oba does it, somehow we're all into it and we're with it. And I think that's something you've got to be careful with.

I think you're spot on. Let's take our time. Let's see how we can go. And I also want to make sure that we mentioned there is a big opportunity here with Oba because it wasn't that long ago. I mean, I think it was five years ago. WWE had him do a tryout around WrestleMania time, as a matter of fact, I think it was April of 2021,

where he was a part of the, I guess you would call it a tryout in Las Vegas. And he was one of the first NIL athletes to commit to WWE. And now, just five short years later, here he is feeding and perhaps retiring Rock Lesnar at WrestleMania. Wow, that's a, that's,

I know it five years sounds like a long time, but it's not. Think about it. A guy like Steve Austin didn't get that opportunity until he'd been in the business for 12 or 15 years. Same with Eddie Guerrero. Same with so many people. You know, I don't know about Rick Flair, but, you know, Hulk probably had a much quicker path. And obviously so did Rock and Bill Goldberg.

But you look at a lot of the top names that we, you know, look at as legends and guys that we really look up to in terms of what they accomplished in the business. and most of them have been in the business for 10, 12, 15 years before they get a really big opportunity. It's only been five. That's pretty impressive. Well, cheers to Obafemi. And if this is really retirement, cheers to Brock Lesnar. Hey, speaking of cheers, me and my buddy Cassio, we had some adult beverages on Monday.

And I got to tell you, Cassio was not feeling at Pete Cassio on Tuesday morning. It's a shame that I didn't remember to pack any cheers. I want you guys to actually check cheers out if you haven't already. I think a lot of guys my age, we still enjoy alcohol, but the next day, boy, it makes us maybe regret what we did the night before. And it does feel like even if you drink less, you can still feel worse the next day. I don't know if that's just an age thing or what,

but that's at least been my experience. And I know some of that is because we're not getting the same sleep score. We're not getting the same quality of sleep. I want you to go check out Restore after alcohol. This is Cheers Restore. It's a game changer product. Eric and I have used this product before and we will continue to, especially if you have,

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And after you purchase, they're going to ask you how you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. I'm going to make sure I send that to Cassio. Hey, I do want to go ahead and put something else on your radar. And I know this is something that we probably, you'd never imagine, we'd be talking about. But over the weekend, Game Changer Wrestling presented the biggest indie show of the year. It's called Joey Janella Spring Break.

And on that show, the Sandman had his final match, his very last match, the ECW icon. He wrestled for you in WCW as hardcore hack, and then he made one of the most dynamic returns to ECW ever. The building shook when Inner Sandman played. And there you go.

If you're watching with us over at 83 Weeks.com, you'll see Sandman's iconic entrance from one night stand 2005. And Eric, I know you didn't ever go to the ECW arena when ECW was running, but you did get to see the Sandman do his famous entrance one last time for ECW faithful at the Hammerstein Ballroom. That was quite a moment. And I wonder, it made me think as we're reflecting on his career, could a guy like Sandman even make it today?

It feels like today people would be so focused. on the work rate and the match quality, and they'd be picking it apart. But wrestling doesn't always have to be that. Every now and again, it can just be fun. And as fun as an in-ring performer as Sandman was, what you wanted to see with the Sandman was the stuff that happened before the bell.

You wanted to see that entrance and drinking beer and smoking a cigarette and it just felt like a part of something. And I know, again, you didn't experience it at the arena, but you had to at Hammerstein and you had to think, Man, this is something else, right? It was his character. Sandman, it was him. He was that character.

He turned the volume up on it, but there was so much of him in that character that there's a very little separation. And it's authentic. That's what I'm struggling with. He was so authentic. Absolutely. I think it not only could work today, it should be working today. somebody should be doing it in a way that's very deliberate and by design as opposed to by default and not consistent.

But that character, that blue collar, yeah, I'm not going to fight pretty, but I'm going to probably win in a long run. And if I don't, well, buy you a beer and we'll do it again next week. That kind of attitude, which is a lot of middle America, either have that kind of belief or wish they did or would like to convince, convince, themselves they do. But that just kind of Rocky Balboa type character will always work because it's so easy to identify with for such a large segment of the audience. I think Sandman did it better than other than Steve Austin. That was Steve Austin's character. But other than Steve, I think in terms of authenticity in staying true to who he really was with the volume turned up and having fun with who he really was, I think Sandman was one of the best. You know, what's interesting,

is as I was asking myself this internally, Eric, this morning, like, hey, who could a guy like sandman even work today? Like, would that character hit? Like, could something like that exist in wrestling the day or has it just changed so much that, you know, the fans would, would turn it away and say, oh, this isn't for us. And I'm going to make a wacky comparison here, Eric, but I think, and hear me out, I think the WWE's modern Sandman is Danhausen. Because I don't, know that anybody really was like, I can't wait to see the Sandman's match. They wanted to see what happened with Sandman,

not necessarily the match, but all the other stuff. It was just fun. And I think that's what Danhausen's doing in WWB. Like, I know he can wrestle and he's a great wrestler and a nice guy and all that good stuff, but the fun aspect of the character where it's not even really primarily wrestling, it's the other stuff,

the out of the ring stuff. I don't know. Am I off face here? What do you think? I think in general, I get it. why you would say that. But I think Dan Housen's character is, I mean, that hits you along, you know, one specific

neural pathway to get your dopamine hit because it's funny, it's entertaining, it's whimsical, it's almost childlike, and you don't feel bad about yourself because you're entertained by it. Because it's done so well. That's a credit to the performer, right? he's found that sweet spot where the audience accepts that it's not serious, has fun with it not being serious, and they don't feel guilty because of it. That's a sweet spot. I think Sandman, like Steve Austin, tap into something completely different, a different

neural pathway. It's that neural pathway that suggests, therefore, the grace of God go I, meaning, gosh, I wish that could be me. I wish I could be that guy, go in and clear out a bar where the, Q stick. I wish I could be Stone Cold Steve Austin and get somebody in the head and jump up on a bar and drink a beer. I wish I could be that guy. That's an

aspirational type of a character. But I think there are two different neural pathways that hit two different parts of your dopamine bank. Well, let's talk about another dopamine bank. I know a lot of people had a lot of fun with Rick Flair's interview with Ariel Hawani this week.

He had some crazy quotes in there. They're out there if you want to find them. But one of the things he pointed out was something and you and I have talked about briefly here in the past. But Rick is stating on Area Hawani show, quote, Tony Kahn is one of the greatest people I've ever met in my life. And you know what?

I wouldn't be surprised because he has the money to do it. If he doesn't buy WWE one day, the Kahn family's got more money than God. The $9 billion price on WWE is nothing to shot Kahn. I mean, listen, I know he's putting over his friend and he's having some fun with this conversation. But this is an interesting take, especially from the nature boy.

What do you make of this? It's Rick. He's under contract. He's getting paid. He's having fun. It's Rick. You know, there's not much else to say.

It doesn't surprise me that Rick said that. Well, something else that won't surprise you is that the entire, wrestling world is now doing a deep dive on the Hulk Hogan documentary. It's a four-part series on Netflix called Real American, and it's available now. They just dropped it on the 22nd. Eric and I are going to be doing a deep dive and a review on this, and we're going to do it live this coming Monday, just before Monday Night Raw.

We want you to join us right here at 83 weeks.com. It's coming your way Monday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Central, and we'll be done by the time raw starts, you won't miss anything. But we're going to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of this four-part series. I've had a chance to finish it. I thought they did a fantastic job. I learned a lot. And there were some great nuggets and some great talking points.

We want you to get up to speed, give you the weekend to go ahead and review all four episodes, and then jump on with Eric and I live before Monday Night Raw, this Monday at 6 p.m. Eastern right here on YouTube for free at 83 weeks.com. Hit that subscribe button and turn on. on the notifications bell, you don't want to miss it. Eric, I know that you were interviewed for this and you participated in this. How long did y'all work on this and how excited are you to actually dig into this one? I'm curious.

You know, you gave me a little bit of a insight because I haven't seen it yet, which got my attention in a big way. I, you know, I'm, I don't know, excited. I'm curious. I'm curious to see. how they treated Holt's story. Is it balanced? It's an honest, fair.

Are we getting a balance of perspectives? That's what I'm most curious about. And I'm curious to see how I'm going to feel when I'm done watching it. Because it's all that really matters is, you know, the last 60 seconds when you're engaged in a television series or a movie or whatever is, you know, that feeling that you get up. and walk away with, as you're putting your popcorn in the garbage can walking out of the theater, how do you feel about that movie? If you walk away feeling good, then you'll forget about some of the things earlier in the movie that maybe you didn't really enjoy. Or you questioned or didn't understand why they did that, or parts of the script, whatever. You forget all about that if you walk

out feeling good. So I'm just looking forward to seeing how I feel when it's done. It's an emotional watch. I look forward to hearing what you thought about it. And I'm looking forward to the next Real American Freestyle. I can't believe it, but it's coming up May 30th. And what an announcement you made this past weekend. Gable Stephson, the former gold medalist, he actually tried his hand at pro wrestling and he's getting back to his roots, putting dudes on their back.

He's in the main event. Gable Stephson is now a part of Real American Freestyle. Also on that card, you'll see Chris Weidman, an unbelievable UFC performance. who actually has a win over Anderson Silva, taken on Colby Covington, Kennedy Blades, who's been a favorite of ours here on the show since the very beginning of Real American Freestyle.

You've got to see her to believe her. She's also on the card. It feels like an absolutely stacked card that you've already announced for the May 30th event. It's going down in Dallas. Tickets are on sale now at real American freestyle.com. But you can also watch this past weekend's Real American Freestyle and the one in Dallas,

if you go right now and sign up for the Fox Nation app, just a few bucks a month and you're going to get all the archives plus the next event you guys have uh have decided to start cooking with gas over there eric it feels like they're rapid fire and each event is building more and more momentum this is probably one of the more exciting times of your entire career right now don't you think it definitely is and i think i don't know that uh i can check on on this before i say it but i'm going to say it anyway i think real american and freestyle is the fastest growing combat sport in the world right now. We are growing by leaps and bounds.

Some of the things that we're going to be announcing in the next couple of weeks and months are going to be transformative for the wrestling community in a lot of ways at a lot of different levels. New television shows coming out. We'll talk about all of it once we get it kind of nailed down. And the details are nailed down. and the network has an opportunity to chime in. But the growth that we're experiencing is we're a unicorn. It just doesn't happen.

And it's happening. It has fun as hell. Go check it out. Real American Freestyle.com. Dallas, you're up next, May 30th and on June 13th, like two weeks later,

here we go, St. Louis. Tickets on sale now for both of those events, R.A.F. 09 and R.A.F. 10 on deck. Go grab your tickets at Real American Freestyle. and don't forget to check out all the archives on the Fox Nation app. Eric, this was a lot of fun today. I had a blast catching up talking about WrestleMania, talking about Brock Lesnar,

and I'm excited for next week. It feels like every week there's some new major wrinkle or some new major piece of business. I'm sure this week will be no exception. Make plans to join us next week. Hit the subscribe button, tell a friend about 83 weeks with Eric Fishaw.