83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 435: Big Bad Hogan

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

It's another loaded edition of 83 Weeks as Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson break down the biggest stories making headlines across professional wrestling while revisiting some of the most pivotal moments of Eric's legendary career. The guys discuss WWE's decision to counter-program AEW in Chicago and whether the city is becoming the next major battleground in the ongoing competition between the industry's biggest promotions. Is Chicago about to become ground zero for professional wrestling? Then it's time for another installment of NW30, as Eric looks back at the iconic image of Hulk Hogan arriving dressed entirely in black on the road to one of wrestling's most influential moments. Eric also celebrates the 35th anniversary of his WCW debut at The Great American Bash 1991, reflecting on why leaving the struggling AWA felt like a fresh start and how that opportunity changed the course of his career. Next, the guys revisit one of the most unforgettable nights in WWE history the moment Vince McMahon shocked the wrestling world by naming Eric Bischoff the General Manager of Monday Night RAW 24 years ago. Eric explains why it remains one of the most surprising moments of his entire career and shares behind the scenes memories from that unforgettable debut. Plus, Eric discusses why every wrestling fan has a favorite era, what makes different generations of wrestling resonate so deeply, and responds to lingering misconceptions about his role in TNA by setting the record straight on exactly what he did and didn't have responsibility for.       THIS WEEKS SPONSORS CARGURUS - It's no wonder CarGurus is the number 1 most visited car shopping site, according to Similarweb's estimated traffic data. Buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at http://cargurus.com  BLUECHEW - When you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third FREE with promo code 83WEEKS. You will also receive an additional 10% OFF + Free overnight shipping on your first order. Visit http://BlueChew.com  for more details and important safety information CHIME - Join the millions who are already banking fee free with America's #1 Choice for Banking. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head to http://Chime.com/83WEEKS  . Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime Card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details. PODCAST HEAT - Want to grow your business with the power of podcast advertising? Reach loyal, engaged audiences through trusted host endorsements across the Podcast Heat network. Learn more at PodcastHeat.com 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. When you buy two months of Blue Chewold, you get the third for free with the promo code 83 weeks. You'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order 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 in Smokey, Milwaukee.

I looked out the window this. morning and you would not believe how thick the smoke is coming down from Canada. I guess I got like 800 wildfires going up there. So Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, I guess they're experiencing record smoke density. And it, well, I can tell you what, you can, it looks like morning fog out there. Wow. Well, of course, you're, you're in Milwaukee for Real American Freestyle. You're coming off of a pretty historic event, your first international event. And I'll admit, I'll let the schedule fumble me. I was scrolling social media and I saw where there was already results for a couple of matches and I thought, wait, it's already happening. I forget the world's a big place.

Not everybody's on my timetable here. So I was able to catch some of it. And I'll admit, I was kind of nervous for you guys, Eric, thinking, hey, how's this technology going to work all the way from over there, your first international event? Is this going to go off without a hitch? And maybe there were some that I didn't see. But as a fan, I really enjoyed the show last week. It was a powerfully good show. And to your point, I'll add a little detail to it. You know, the team that we worked with in Georgia, we didn't go over there with our full production team.

A lot of the team that we worked with are from Georgia and worked with the television network there in the country of Georgia to bring sports. So we had a good production team there, but the language barrier and the technology is what really, really put us at risk point honestly. Now we dodged all the bullets you know show went off

everybody got the signal everything was great but you know there was some real questionable moments you know prior to the show and like I said we made it you know I try not to think about the negatives too much because then you got to relive them but yeah it was challenging

but again we have a great team of people that really rallied and brought it together and we delivered, I think, probably, and I haven't had a chance to sit down and watch the show. Obviously, I watched it while I was there, and what was essentially our version of a gorilla position. So I heard and watched the whole show,

but I haven't really been able to sit down and grab a beer and watch, you know, from the comfort of my chair, because that's when you really get a feel. But everybody that I've talked to is said that is by far the best show that we've ever done. The crowd, the crowd was on. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

You know, wrestling is such a big part of the Georgian culture, much different than it is here. So these wrestlers are like soccer stars, you know, the crowd really, really got into the action. It was fun to watch. I hope everybody will check out Real American Freestyle this weekend. You're in Milwaukee for the big event. I know that you've got a monster show on Saturday and, of course, on Sunday. for launching a whole new youth initiative. I can't wait for you to talk about this and share with us what the plans are,

but the card itself this weekend, I know that they've all been, for lack of a better word, premium live events so far. This feels like a major tent pole event. This feels like a Halloween havoc or a summer slam or something like that. Talk to us about why this weekend is so special for Real American freestyle. I think for a lot of reasons.

Let's start with Ben Ascran. Ben Ascran is probably one of the most well-known I say current because he was current up until about a year ago when he almost died and had to receive a double lung transplant, which was just a little over a year ago. But Ben has, you know, he's from Milwaukee. He's, you know, he runs a lot of amateur wrestling programs throughout the state of Wisconsin. He's very well connected to the community.

In fact, he's throwing out the first pitch of Milwaukee Brewers game here, I think tomorrow night. So Ben is a very well-known kind of local celebrity as a freestyle wrestler, very well-known. And he's going to get a lot of support. But, you know, there are people that are concerned, me being one of them for obvious reasons. But it's a big moment for Ben. This is something that's really important to him. So there's a lot of support behind him for this. And then when you go, and by the way, Ben was probably, you know, arguably one of the best wrestlers in his era as a freestyle.

out. It would be really fun to watch. So there's that. And then, by the way, he's taking on Belal Mohammed from, you may recognize that name from UFC. And Belal's in a tough spot. You know, he doesn't want to take it easy on Ben. But it's tricky. It's going to be a fun, fun match to watch. Then on the flip side, you've got, you know, Armin Sarupian, who is now a 7-1. know in Real American Freestyle, really coming on strong. And he's going to be in a match with Colby Covington. And this one's going to be interesting. You know, there's not a lot of love loss between the other of these two. Kobe has been known to go off, you know, and say a few things that people riled up. We've seen how Armand responds to that. So, you know, there's tension in the air.

I don't want to overstate it, but it's there. and it's going to be a great match because there's a lot on the line for both Armin and trying to keep up his momentum as well as Colby. I'm pretty excited about the entire card as a long time UFC guy. Seeing Frankie Edgar and Clay Gweda on there gets me excited. But then you've got to really, and by the way, you can watch all of these matchups this Saturday tomorrow as you're listening to this on Fox Nation. A couple bucks when you hit that subscribe button and not only can you watch this week's

event, but you can watch all the prior ones as well. there's been a ton of these. But Sunday, it's kind of a whole new ballgame for you guys. Tell us what's happening Sunday. Yes, we're launching the Real American, we call it next gen, but it's our youth initiative. And tomorrow or Sunday is going to be our very first event. We're having preliminary matches throughout the day.

So far, I think we've got about 300 kids registered, 300 plus kids registered. Kids registered. And we're going to have 10 mats going all day long. And that will get us down to the finals. in each weight class. By the way, these are 15 and under and 8 and under are the age classes. And there's different weights in each one of those categories. But the final two competitors in each weight class and division will be competing on a real American freestyle next gen show,

which will air on Fox Nation on Sunday night. So it's a chance for these kids to get out there and wrestle on a big stage. It's not going to look exactly like real American freestyle or. premium event. But it's going to look great. It'll be probably the most exciting things that a lot of these kids have ever had a chance to do in terms of wrestling. So we're really excited for it. And it's part of just a much, much broader kind of youth initiative that Chad has been really working hard on. You can check it out at real American freestyle.com slash next dash gin or just follow the links from real American freestyle.com because you guys are going to do it again next month in

Cleveland. And there's an opportunity for you to register. If you've got a young in your life who's in amateur wrestling and they want to try test their medal they can go sign up for the august 23rd event in cleveland and what's cool is when we say the youth initiative we mean it there's age divisions eight and under twit 10 and under 12 and under 15 and under total of 47 different weight classes and fully bracketed competition this is going to be really fun for a lot of kids but man their support system their families like they've never had an opportunity to really share this and the idea that it's going to be on fox nation this feels special air. Yeah, it is. And, you know, a lot of these kids, you know, I'm learning a lot about

this because I didn't participate, you know, in youth wrestling as a kid growing up. I didn't get into wrestling, amateur wrestling, until I was about 14, 13 or 14. But, you know, these kids are so dedicated to this. It's like any, you know, youth sport, soccer, you know, whatever it may be. These kids are so passionate about it. They've got great sports systems, as you pointed out, their families, friends, so forth. It is going to be a big deal for them. And it's a big deal for us. Our investment team is really excited about this initiative and what it can mean just to

the strength and the visibility of Real American Freestyle. Everything you need to know is available at real American freestyle.com. I think this, and we talked about this in person, we were together last, Eric, as much as I enjoy Real American Freestyle, this youth initiative that you guys are calling next gen, And it may be the most exciting component of it because I don't think anything like this has ever existed before. It has not. It has not. Of course, these tournaments exist.

You know, there's all kinds of them all over the country, you know, all year round. But something like this where we bring the cameras and we let the kids, you know, compete on what we call the big stage, which is light's camera action and television. That's never happened before. So we're very excited about that. We've been doing a lot of things that have never been done before and starting to get used to it. Well, something else that's happening that feels like it's never been done before, but it really has. It's just been a few generations.

Counter programming is the word of the day with WW and AEW today. It was just announced that AAA doing their World's Collide show, of course, part of the WWE offering is going to be happening at the Allstate Arena in Chicago on September 26th. Then you say to yourself, self, why is that significant? Well, because that's the exact same day in the exact same market. that AEW is running their all-out pay-per-view.

That's happening at the Now Arena, which is in the suburbs of Chicago. And technically the Allstate Arena is the old Rosemont Horizon. And I know some people would say that's also the suburbs, but Chicago is a big place. There's another suburb. Hoffman Estates, Now Arena, the home of the original OG All-In with Cody and the Bucks from 2018, before AEW even existed. Now these shows are happening not just on the same day, but in the same town. I don't know, Eric, this gets me fired up.

As a wrestling fan, I just know there's going to be a lot of badass performances that day on both shows as a result of this. Yeah, you know, it's getting to the point now. It's even like with Real American Freestyle, when we sit down and start scheduling these things out, you know, obviously you kind of want to work around certain big events that, you know, could impact you. But anymore, you can't. You know, you're surrounded by competition. You're surrounded by things being available now, but especially with, you know, streaming because now there's no limitations.

And it's challenging, I'm sure, for fans as well as it is for producers. But all in all, like you said, man, you're just going to get a ton of great wrestling that weekend. I'm curious, what are the times that they head to head or are they staggered throughout the day? I don't know that they've announced the times. I imagine their head to head as a reminder. I know it's not deep on your radar, but that is a huge college football day. there are so many banger football matchups.

Like, you're going to be competing for a lot of eyeballs. Like, I don't even know how I would make it work at my home here. I'm fortunate. My wife let me, I convinced her. All right,

I'll say it. I conned her into the frame team from Samsung. So it looks like, it looks like a painting. You don't know that it's a TV, but I only use it during football season because I can have one game here and another game there, but the rest of the year it's a painting.

She picked out everybody's happy. But I've never been able to pitch two TVs in the living room before, but I pulled it off. Don't tell anybody. But even that day, it's like, how can I watch AEW and WWE? And there's like eight great football games that day. People are going to be competing and have to make some choices. And I do wonder if this is specific by WWE.

And I know that you're making a great point because you've lived it with real American freestyle. You've kind of just got to go where the buildings are available. And if you're AAA, you don't want to just stay West Coast or near the border. You want to go to a guaranteed success huge wrestling town. Well, Chicago's number one. that checks all the boxes. But if they're on YouTube for free,

and I don't think they've announced that yet, but typically I've watched all the AAA shows on YouTube for free. And AEW is on a pay-per-view. Now, that gets interesting. It feels like the counter-programming that led to the creation of the Royal Rumble. I'm all for this. I know there's some tribalism fans out there who hate this and say, oh, they don't want AEW to succeed.

Dude, I'm not a wrestler, but I imagine if I'm a performer, I'm going out there with a chip on my shoulder like Jerry Lee Lewis, like follow that. Like this as a fan, it's going to be a great day, don't you think? I agree. So let me get this straight. So when Worlds Collide is available on YouTube and an AEW's pay-per-view, right?

Correct. I believe so. That's going to be interesting. I'm also thinking about the live attendance. I would think that AEW would have an advantage in their footprint here and the relationship with the market and so forth. It started here. We all know that.

and we all recognize that Chicago is a big market for AEW. That said, there's a significant Hispanic, and there's a significant Hispanic population in all major cities, but Chicago might be one of the, on a per capita basis, might be more dense than anywhere. 29.8% Eric, I don't mean to cut you off, but there's 2.2 million Hispanic people in the Chicago area.

That's 29.8% of the total population. that portion of the audience is likely going to be very excited about the live event. Yes. In terms of how many people watch on YouTube, I don't follow YouTube analytics closely enough to have any feel for it whatsoever. But I would imagine ticket sales are going to be pretty exciting for that event. And they should hold up well for AEW because they do have an established base here. We know that AEW always over delivers on pay-per-view.

I mean, they've just sitting banger after banger. I mean, I think this may be the best run we've seen from any company as far as consecutive, phenomenal pay-per-views. And they've got a real challenge coming up next week because it does feel like there's not as much buzz about this particular AEW pay-per-view, because people are sort of looking forward to the next one, which is all in. Now, this show in particular we're talking about in September. This will be a month after the Wembley show. So in years past, Eric, we would see where they would do, you know, all in and Wembley,

and then they would do all out like six or seven days later here in Chicago. this time they're doing it a month out. I think that's a great pivot, but I also can't wait for the crowds, because I know the AEW diehards, to your point, they're going to buy a ticket, they're going to be there,

they're going to be loud, but the environment in Chicago, where this may be the most heavily attended Hispanic population show we've seen in Chicago maybe ever, certainly in a long, long time. Like I know Kurt Bauer and his MLW promotion,

they've ran Chicago and really heavily targeted the Hispanic and the Lucha Libre. fandom and they've done really, really well there. This is obviously another level when you're running a former host of WrestleMania, the old Rosemont Horizon Allstate Arena. I got to feel like both crowds are going to be white hot that night. It's going to be a fun show. It's going to be a fun night for a fan.

Yeah, I'm excited to see what the turnout looks like. It'll tell us a lot about the study of Chicago. Let's talk a little bit about the way things have changed with WWB, specifically an interview that C.M. Pump did with Stephanie McMahon. he was pointing out that once upon a time maybe with the old regime and remember he's talking about this Eric to Stephanie McPan and he references the old regime aka politely your dad Stephanie I love that maybe fans didn't get the opportunity to see some of their favorites and developmental succeed on the main roster because something would happen here's the example

there's nxte talent that come up and they get thrown on raw and it's like sink or swim and they think one little mistake and it's like the end of the world, but it's often not. I think it used to be, I think a lot of that's left over from the old regime. I remember people getting fired because their punches sucked. And when we would all be down there in Kentucky like, oh my God,

you almost didn't want to get called up. You're just like, what happened? This was a great talent. They got sent up and they're gone two weeks later. We thought for sure they were going to make it. The turnover was a lot worse. I think it's a lot better now.

The system's a lot more accommodating. I think there's people in position. of power that actually want to see people succeed. Now, I know he's taking some veiled shots at Vince there, but I think we all can acknowledge that Vince was quirky. He had what he liked and he had what he didn't like. And you've been honest about saying, hey, a lot of people may have liked Raven.

It wasn't your cup of tea. You didn't really dig that sort of presentation. You also weren't a big fan of the Dungeon of Doom. And I don't know that a lot of people would disagree with you there. But I am curious, is there a talent that you remember in the old regime to use Punk's language when you saw him come through and you thought, hey, this guy's going to make it. And for whatever reason, Vince just didn't see it.

Maybe he cut bait too early. But what I always go to, and maybe you don't even remember this cat on WWE programming, but I know you do in WCW with Sean O'Hare. I felt like, hey, Sean O'Hare, and this guy's can't miss. He's going to make it. And for whatever reason, it didn't work. Do you remember identifying any talent that you felt strongly about? But for whatever reason, it was just oil and water with Vince, baby.

Not really. Not really. And again, you know, when I was. talent there, I'd show up, keep my head down, keep my nose in my script, my format, made sure I knew what I was going to be doing that night. And, you know, work with myself, I guess, in my own head to try to figure out a way to deliver as best I could. And I didn't really, you know, I sat off by myself most of the time. I didn't really communicate with very many people and I did that intentionally just because I didn't want to get sucked into the drama of it all

because it's it's treacherous you can be standing there having a conversation with somebody talking about the weather and depending on you know the time of day and what that person may have talked about with somebody else or or to Vince himself perhaps or to an agent all of a sudden it looks like I'm part of that so I I stayed well clear of any potentially political situations, including, you know, talking to talent, especially young talent and giving them any kind of feedback or guidance when it came to what they should be doing. And look, you know, as I was listening to read those quotes, I can see it. I mean, Vince was unique. And we can criticize them. I certainly didn't enjoy working for them. I couldn't make it

work. The chemistry was just never going to be there. But other people have me. made it work and have done extremely well. One of the hardest parts of that four-month experiment for me was trying to get a read on Vince McMahon. And it was not a pleasant experience in any way to perform. But at the same time, I recognize as unique as Vince was, as difficult as he was, in many respects, he still had a good eye. He wasn't right all the time.

Nobody's right all the time. but if he saw something that he liked in somebody, he would push it and push it and push it until it worked. Or until after giving it sufficient time, it didn't work. But he would also make very quick judgments. And perhaps that's because he saw or didn't see something that he was looking for. It could be the way someone carries himself backstage. It could be the way they carried himself on the ring entrance. If you don't have the basics, if it doesn't look like the lights are on and people

or home, there's a good chance you'll get shut down before you really get started. So it's not pleasant. I'm not justifying it. It's a tough spot to be in. But that's kind of what happens when you're talent. There's always somebody making a subjective opinion that has an objective, you know, impact on your life. Well, when you're making a big decision, I do think you need the full picture.

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car today with car gurus at car gurus.com go to car gurus.com to car gurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-S.com Car Gurus.com. Eric, we are having a blast talking about all things NWO this year. This is the 30-year anniversary. It was actually 30 years ago this week. It was September, I'm sorry, July 15th, 1996, when we finally saw Holcogne on Nitro. Now, we all remember the turn, but the next night on Nitro, we didn't see Hulk Hogan. But a week later, We do. Now, remember, this is the summer of 96 and Eric and his crew are down at Universal or they're at Disney. And they're actually shooting television outside. And this, I believe, Eric, is when I first turned in, tuned into wrestling for the very first time again. I stopped

watching in late 92. I think in the last episode I may have seen would have been Hulk Hogan's return to Raw in January of 93. But I'll, I'll never forget. I'm in my parents living room. We're in Guntersville, Alabama, the same time I live again now, flipping through the channel. and I see Hulk Hogan standing there with what looks like Vinnie Vegas and the diamond stud. I say that because I missed Razor Ramon and Diesel. I'm totally oblivious to that. I see Hulk Hogan there dressed in all black

and I stopped dead in my tracks and wonder, where's the yellow and red? What's going on? And why is he with these two guys? Those guys are bad guys. I remember them from WCW. I'm like they were huge stars in WCW, but that was my last recognition of them.

And I think a lot of people forget this show. This is a historic show. I want to put it on everybody's radar. You're in Orlando at the Disney MGM Studios. It's Nitro July 15th, 1996. And here's what we got. Rick and Scott Steiner against Fire and Ice. Dean Malenko versus Billy Kidman.

How ahead of its time is that one. The tag champs, Harlem Heat against Rough and Ready, which is hilarious. Rough and Ready, by the way, is Dick Slater and Mike Enos. Kevin Green's going to come out and demand Mongo. And now he's taking his shirt off. We're seeing a Ray Mysterio highlight package. We just saw him debut at the bash at the beach,

and now, man, he's taking the world by storm. We've got Medusa in action defending the women's title. Now we're going to start our number two. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are putting up white sheets all over the WCW letters to make them say NWO, but we haven't yet seen Hulk Cogan. Then it's Aaron Anderson and Ming. We get a promo with Gene Euklein talking to Mongo and Deborah. here running down Kevin Green again.

How about this match? Just stuck in here on what feels like a random nitro. Eddie Guerrero versus Chris Minois on Nitro. They get some time, nine and a half minutes. And then it's time for the main event. It's Lex Lugar versus Big Bubba, Jimmy Hart's in the corner. All of a sudden, here comes Hall, Nash, and Hogan. They put the beat down on Lugar, lay waste to everyone.

And Mainjean gets in the ring. And this is the first time we're going to hear from Keel Hulk Hogan. He's decked head to toe in all black. It's the first time that we've seen him on TV as a bad guy since what? Maybe 81? I mean, it feels like a lifetime. And I'll never forget. It got me as a wrestling fan.

A lapsed fan. I'm not actively watching, but I stopped dead in my tracks and thought, wait, what is this? Before I knew it, I was down the rabbit hole. I was all in for the August show and I was ready to go. Talk to me about this first night. You remember the NWO making their TV debut.

and you've got Hogan out here in all black, trying his hand at being a bad guy. I know that he did the promo in the ring at Bash at the Beach, but respectfully, a lot more people are going to see this on Nitro. Yes, it was a successful pay-per-view. Yes, it'll live forever on VHS. But, man, TV and prime time on Turner, millions of people are going to see this. Was he nervous about being able to cut a heel promo? Because I know that there was some, I don't know, challenges from how does he transition

from, well, let me tell you something, Maine, Gene, into this new version. Talk to me about that day. Yeah, I mean, he was excited to turn. I think after the, after, you know, he turned Hill at Bash at the Beach, I think, you know, from what I can remember was a minute ago, but for the most part, he was pretty calm. He got very comfortable in the role and was looking forward to this night that we're talking about. So there was no, there was no second guessing or, or, you know,

or anything like that. He was excited and looking forward to it. And look, he was going to have to find his voice. And we all knew that going in. It's not like, you know, we're going to be able to unplug the Hulk Hogan Babyface soundtrack and plug in the NWO soundtrack and he'll just automatically kind of pick up the rhythm and the cadence and the vibe. That came with time and it came a lot with a lot of help from Scott and Kevin. They pretty much took lead on the type of promos when, you know,

You know, it was the three of them together. And Hulk was happy to take that lead. So it was more of an ongoing evolution of that character as opposed to, okay, you were a baby face over here. Now today you're going to be healed, so they'll be healed. He knew what he had to do. And he went with his gut. And for the most part, his gut was pretty much on the money.

He's going to talk about meeting Sting 10 years ago when he was a skinny bodybuilder shaking in his boots in Venice Beach. He's going to talk about Randy Savage blaming him for his divorce, but it's not his fault. He couldn't rise to the occasion. And now all the trash starts coming in. The plastic bottles start coming in. And right before we hit the old, we got to go. We're out of time. He's going to throw down a challenge. He wants the giant at Hogw Wild. He wants the WCW world title. So this is really what I wanted to get to is not just the transition of Hulk trying to, if you're watching with us on YouTube, by the way, at 83 weeks.com,

you'll see the NWO logo is not plastered everywhere. Hogan is still. Hogan is still. figuring out, hey, what is this bad guy look? He doesn't have the black stubble just yet. We don't have the white trim everywhere. We don't have the NWO everywhere. We're still getting there. But I wanted to ask you specifically about the title because at this point, the giant had been the world title holder. He's got the big gold belt around his waist and he's been a heel, but he's very clearly WCW because he's been a part of the dungeon of doom. And this isn't necessarily new. as a reminder, Halloween Havoc in 95, it was Hogan in the black, if you will,

against the son of Andre. And that's when famously, the giant fell off the top of the building and then still won the world title in his first match. But I digress. I wanted to ask, when you know you're launching this new storyline, the hostile takeover, if you will, did you immediately know once we get Hogan bad,

we're going to put the title on him? Or did that evolve once you've done the turn? And now we, then we thought, okay, we did it. Now, where do we go? Talk to me about how you laid out the plan too. We're going to take it off of the giant and we're going to put it on Hogan. He's going to spray paint it.

Did that all happen as it evolved or did you have all of that in mind right up front? Kevin Sullivan would have been able to probably add much more detail and credibility to this response because I wasn't directly involved in those conversations. They would come to me with a plan and I would either have some input or, sign off on it, whatever the case may be. I think we all understood, generally speaking, that Hulk was going to end up with the title. The idea was to put the title on the biggest heel we had and create the chase amongst as many of the WCW baby faces as we could muster. I mean, that's the basic formula. So, of course, we went into it generally knowing that,

But in terms of specifically how and when and who and whose idea was to spray paint the belt, that I couldn't tell you. I'm pretty sure I'd be right if I told you that that spray painting the belt was a spontaneous move. I don't know that it was, I don't think it was actually planned. I think it just kind of happened. And of course, it stuck in more ways than one. It was a phenomenal time to be a fan.

I mean, it hooked me right back in. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And one of the things that I think made it unique is usually, you know, heels called out baby faces, baby faces called out heels. But here Hulk Hogan is saying he wants to take the title off the giant. He wants the giant at Hog Wild. And he'll beat up all of WCW right now. And baby faces and heels alike come out.

It's an interesting dynamic because it feels like since as long as I've been watching wrestling, there's good guys versus bad guys, as Vince used to say. and now all of a sudden, here's this new outfit. He's basically saying, F all y'all, y'all, this was what made the NWO so cool to me. It's also what made it very difficult. I think we've talked about this before. But, I mean, I think on May 27, when 1996, when Scott Hall came down,

May 27th, 1996, I don't remember because it was my birthday. But when Scott Hall came down, I remember it was either that night or the following week when Sting approached me. And Sting and I would often have, very productive, you know, conversations if we saw things differently. But it was always super constructive and with the idea in mind as let's come up with a better idea or a solution, right? So it wasn't taking extra care to make sure no one conjures up in her own mind that it was

an adversarial type of conversation because it wasn't. But I remember Sting coming to me in a very honest way, saying, how do we, how do we sell for them? How do we, how do we get the, the crowd behind us? if they're behind them. So it did create a lot of confusion. Now, in the long run, that was good confusion, right? It created controversy, which, you know, we know how that goes.

Now that went. It doesn't always work, but sometimes. But it did change the psychology. When guys were laying out matches and they see that they're working with the NWO and you're seeing how the crowd is working reacting to the NWO, and they see how the, the, the, the wrestlers represented in this case, it was only the three of them, right? But we see how they're engaging the audience, as you just described. All of that kind of throws the psychology of what typically goes into a match completely out the door.

You're, you're winging it at that point because you've never been in that. You've never done that before. We're asking baby faces to react to the NWO in a way that was very, very difficult for many of them. Let's switch gears here a little bit and let's talk about some other wrestling history as we troll through this week in wrestling history. I can't believe this is real, but it's been 35 years since EZE made his debut in WCW. It was Great American Bash 1991 and you might be thinking to yourself, self, is that the really bad pay-per-view? Yes, it is. It's the one that WCW fans would want to forget.

It was supposed to be Lex Lugar versus the nature boy Rick Claire, the world title. Rick leaves, takes the belt with him, goes north. Now we're going to have Barry Windham versus Leg Slugger, and we're going to take a belt from Dusty's basement, slap a trophy plate over the top and pretend like it's the WCW World Title and its business as usual. And now there's a pipsqueak, third string announcer trying to make his debut. Little did we know who's going to take over, just like the NWO a few years later. You're making your debut here and you're scaring Missy Hyatt in the shower. This is kind of fun, man, to think back of 35 years since you made your debut in WCW.

Is it even possible for you to imagine what it felt like in 1991? I mean, that's so long ago and so many businesses and so many miles and so many towns and stories and business failures, business successes. I mean, this has to feel like when you see that, like, was that even me? Is that a different person? Well, it's hard for me to visually recognize myself because I don't look like that anymore. But it's not hard for me to remember how I was feeling.

Because, again, to briefly reiterate, I've been working for Vern for, I'm going to say six months, could have been a little more, could have been a little less, quite a while, without a paycheck. And I was only making $600 a week when I was getting paid. and that was like we could barely keep our nose above the water line at that point. So when I stopped being paid, it got really ugly, really fast. And I was kind of stuck in a spot where I knew that if I stepped away from the AWA,

and I could have easily picked up right where I left off as a sales manager for the food, for the food processor I was working for, I could have picked up the food. phone call, talked to my mentor, Irv Man, Ms. Irv, and said, hey, I'm back, and I'd have been working the next day. So I made the conscious decision not to do what I probably could have done, maybe at the time should have done. I decided to stick it out and just whatever comes, comes, and I'll deal with it. And it was a very difficult decision. So when I finally got hired and actually, you know, they flew me down to Atlanta. I did the audition.

We've all heard that story. I think a couple hours later, Jim Hurd called me into his office, offered me a job. And my initial contract at WCW as an announcer was 70,000 a year. And I would fly in on Sunday, work on Monday, sometimes Tuesday, and I'd fly home. And at that point, that 70,000 might as well have been. 700,000 because that's how it felt to me. And to go from the AWA, not put the financial relief aside, which was a pretty big damn deal when you've got two little kids and a wife at home and, you know, it was bad. Let's let it go with that. But I've gone from the AWA, which,

you know, basically, barely had enough equipment to produce a show in the, equipment that they did have, what I'm talking about post-production, live production, whatever, was so bottom of the barrel. To go from that to, oh, my offices are at the CNN center? What? And even though the production facility, the post-production facility in WCW is, was pretty small and unimpressive compared to what we all see today, but at that time, for me, I never thought I'd see such a thing or have an opportunity to work in a location like that or with facilities like that. I was so overwhelmed with just positive stuff that I remember most of it pretty vividly. I remember getting to the building.

You know, I remember talking to Dusty. Dusty was, you know, Dusty kind of took me under his wing and I don't want to overstate this. But, you know, I don't want to say mentor, but he kept an eye out for me. And he tried to smart me up as best he could. And, you know, Dusty was my boss. So, you know, developing that relationship with Dusty was a big part of that first, that first event. I do want to ask you, when you think back on that, that day, you know, you've never really been in this environment before. It's a whole new cast of characters, all new people.

Obviously, you gravitated to Dusty. Is there anyone that you didn't click with that you just remember thinking, oh, I'm going to have to navigate this, but I don't think they like me and I know I don't like them. No, I didn't get that from anybody. Most everybody was, especially the people that I work with, like Keith Mitchell and Tony Chabani and, you know, all of the staff and the post-Brick Leathers, the entire staff in production couldn't have been nicer. I get along with all of them, I think with wrestlers, you know, it's probably no different

than any other group of people that you kind of get introduced to you. some people you'll naturally gravitate towards for whatever reason, just chemistry, and other people you'll subconsciously or in some cases consciously decide, you know, best just work around that person. But beyond just little nuances, pretty much got along with everybody initially. But again, I came there and knew, again, I'd only been in the business a few years at that point, but I also knew, you know, coming in from the outside and not really knowing anybody other than Larry's Obisco, I had to be a little careful and, you know, not bang my drum too loudly, you know, when I showed up.

I think that's great advice. I do want to ask, though, you famously told us here on the program that when Jim Hurd hired you, one of his initiatives was, hey, go make Jim Ross and Tony Chivani's life miserable. And I'm curious, you mentioned Chivani. Was J.R receptive to you at first or did he feel threatened? No, he didn't feel threatened. I wouldn't have threatened anybody at that point. No, he didn't feel threatened at all.

J.R. was professional. He had no warm and fuzzies from J.R. But that's J.R. But he was professional. He communicated professionally, you know, made sure I was in the loop on the things I needed to be in the loop on. So I didn't get any. feeling like Jim didn't want me to be there. Not at all. I didn't feel like he was going to, you know, invite me over for steak and a beer, but I was good with that. Tony was,

Tony was very matter of fact initially. Again, not rude, not disrespectful in any way, but he was very precise in the way he communicated with me, which suggested to me that he was just, a little tentative, either because of my role or just because he didn't know what I was about. But that didn't last long. You know, once I started hanging out with Dusty and going to and from shows with him and things like that when we drove, I think Tony got more comfortable with me and we got a long flight. I do want to ask you just a little bit about, you know, when you think back on WCW in 1991,

I know guys like Tony Kahn, they look at that year and they think, man, there's a lot of great wrestling and a lot of people look at WCW 91 and go, the roster was great, but it just felt so dysfunctional. Like some of the storylines and some of the angles, they feel like, hey, that roster with different leadership, it could have been totally different. You were coming from a rather dysfunctional AWA,

the dying days. I mean, there's literally no money. You just mentioned not getting paid for several months. Were you at least familiar enough with the business to know, hey, this is disorganized. The paychecks are clearing, but this is disorganized. Could you identify that was a leadership challenge in 91, or was that not evident right away? You know, I was, again, because of my proximity to Dusty and others, not just Dusty,

it became apparent to me that there was just a lot of friction between creative and management, which probably happens all the time. But again, this was all new to me, right? I never worked for a corporation before. So I didn't understand the dynamics of a corporation and the political structure and hierarchy that comes with it. All this shit was new to me, right? But it was pretty apparent to me early on that there was tension between creative and the office. I wasn't involved in those conversations.

I couldn't give you any detail. I can't tell you any stories. but it was just a constant level of frustration with between, I should say, Dusty and, in some cases, Jim and Tony, and management. That was kind of an ongoing thing. There was a, what did I notice? Again, you have to keep in mind, this won't make sense to a lot of people right now because they won't be able to put themselves in my shoes. But the level of dysfunction that I came from made even. the most dysfunctional day in WCW look pretty impressive.

So it wasn't, I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what they were doing wrong, if that makes sense. And I wasn't involved. You know, my job was to make whatever it is I was watching sound as exciting as I could for as many people that would watch, right? So I didn't allow myself to go, hey, why are they doing this instead of that? and there was no arm share booking, you know, on my, my part. It was just how can I make my part of this thing as good as it can be?

And that's really all the thought I gave it. But clearly there was a lot of dysfunction. Communication sucked. Yeah. Power struggles, all kinds of it. I love hearing that prior to this, and that does make sense, given what little I know about your prior work history, that you hadn't really worked for a corporation at this point.

And you didn't really understand all that. all the political landmines that may exist. But it's not too terribly long before, boy, you demonstrate that you're a fast learner. And it's not long before you see yourself moving up the ranks. How quickly into your WCW tenure do you think you started to first formulate, hey,

what if some of those ideas started bubbling to the top? Maybe you didn't take action yet, but you recognize that there was an opportunity or maybe one coming. I didn't see it coming, first of all. And I really, what I did notice is after I had been in WCW for a while, because I started to engage in conversations with different people.

You know, Bob Doe from the live event side of the business. And, you know, Sharon Sedello from the marketing side. And, you know, I was starting to get invited to, you know, some of these meetings. And if I wasn't in a meeting that I got invited to, we would end up in a conversation over lunch, for example. So I started to get a feel for what was working and what was now. not working inside of WCW.

And again, keep in mind, this is the specific time we're talking about right now is Bill Watts, right? Bill Watts was my boss at this point. He had been in charge long enough for me to see not only what was going right and what was going wrong in some of the different departments, but I was watching his approach to it. And I was on my way out the door. I was leaving. I told my wife I was going to resign. Probably had a year left or six, whatever. I had left on my contract.

I was like, screw it. I was planning on going out to L.A. and taking my shots there in television. And had made a couple steps to make that happen. When Bill got fired, spontaneous combustion, nobody saw it coming. Bill got fired. Bill Shaw stepped in, probably because no one else wanted it. And it was career suicide.

It's kind of like the hot potato. you know, so here, you take over WCW and six months later, you're going to be fired. So, you know, I don't think there was a long line of people standing outside of Ted Turner's door dying to take advantage or dying to take control of WCW. Let's put it that way. But, and I was one of them. I was out the door. So when Bill Shaw held a company meeting shortly after, maybe the next day of Bill Watts getting fired and he said, basically, you know, we've had this company in the hands of wrestlers. since day one, and we're not going to do that anymore.

We're going to hire an executive producer that's going to treat this television show like a television show. And when Bill said that, I went, well, that's a move. I like that move. I wonder what's going to happen next. And then I thought, you know what? Why don't I just throw my name, put it in the hat? I had a feel, you know, one of the things that I'm grateful for in the AWA

is because they were so small, And because they had such a limited budget, I could literally learn anything I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn about production. So I sat in with Joe Chupac, Polish Joe. How you doing, Polish Joe? He was our post-production manager. And he did all the editing. He did everything.

We only had one guy. It was Joe. So when I wanted to learn how to edit, when I wanted to learn the mechanics of post-production, I had a front row seat. So when I was done at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, instead of going home, Joe was usually editing, you know, late at night. I'd sit in with Joe and just have them show me how it all comes together. So I had a sense of post-production, right? Not skills. I couldn't edit a show by myself. That wasn't the point. I wanted to understand the process.

And I did the same thing with live events. I went to Vernon and said, hey, Vern, if I get a network station down in Mason City, Iowa, could I run a show there? He said, sure, you go, get the TV, you can run a show. I went and got the TV, and then I ran a show. It was kind of fun. I was thinking about it the other day. Manny Fernandez was on the card in Wahoo and, you know, the Midnight Rockers, you know, it was kind of a big deal for me. I never promoted an event before like that. So I got to do that. Again, was I good at it? No, but I was exposed to it. I understood the process, or at least more than I did before I got started. I ended up on camera, not because I wanted to.

In fact, I didn't want to. But I ended up on camera out of necessity and learned how to do that, learned how to do play by play. So I had the ability. And oh, by the way, my core job in AWA was working with television general managers or program directors and selling our show into their television network on a barter basis, which, you know, I learned a lot about how to sell television in that respect. So my point in saying all this is just that I had just enough experience across a lot of

different segments of the pro wrestling business. Not that I was necessarily an expert in any one of them, but because of my background, I had more general experience than most of the people that were in their positions. So when Bill said, we're going to hire an executive producer, I, I've never been an executive producer before, but I'm going to throw my name in a hat because I understand this business and I understand the basics of it enough that I might do a better job

than somebody coming in cold off the street that didn't understand the nuances and the basics of professional wrestling because that's the tricky thing about it. And I don't mean to get off track answering this question, but it's an interesting point is when people who have a vast amount of experience producing television,

or feature films, take your pick. Look at wrestling and the product, especially, you know, the way we've been producing it over the last 10 or 15 years. It's a very complex format. It looks easy. It looks. It's just guys out there punching and kicking each other. Somebody decides who's going to win, who's going to lose.

Yeah, okay, great. We can do that. Hell, I've done NFL games. I can do that until it's time to do that. and then they learn and experience the nuances and the unique challenges, especially when it comes to creative because the wrestling audience has their own sensibilities when it comes to antagonists and protagonists and how you develop them and how they get where they're going and all that good stuff.

Pro wrestling, as we know, at sports entertainment, is a very unique hybrid form of entertainment, and it takes a fair amount of experience to be able to produce something that you're relatively certain your audience is going to enjoy. I love hearing you talk about wrestling, and I can do it, I can do it for hours. And if you'd like to do it for hours, you've got to try blue chew gold. When you take a blue chew, get ready to meet your new dick. He's confident.

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but there was another big anniversary. And I don't know if you've had it circled on your calendar, but I think you should. September 14th, or I don't know why I keep saying that. July 14th is your debut in WCW. the very next day is your debut in WWE July 15th. Now this of course was the year after WCW folded. I'll never forget watching at home on TV and right before they went to commercial, it's like there was a tease.

And I thought to myself, self, did I just see what I think I saw? And then sure enough, here comes Vince McMahon standing on the stage welcoming you. It felt like it was not supposed to happen, that it was never going to happen. And then it finally did.

You and Vince McMahon. at the same place at the same time. This is like four years removed from you challenging him to a fight and promising to knock him out. Now you're hugging each other on stage. A real wrestling history moment. I mean, it's got to be one of the most shocking moments of your entire career.

Like as far as the fan reaction and when everybody was talking about it, obviously Hulk Hogan turning heel is near the top of the list. But as far as you as an on-screen character, is this number one? Is it on the list? Where do you rank this all time for you? It's number one and there's no number two. It's, yeah, in terms of it being shocking. You know, I still still working with Steve Austin was the most fun I've ever had.

Being the, you know, the fake minister, probably as a performer was the most exciting performance I've ever been able to deliver. But in terms of a shocking moment and the crowd's reaction to it, nothing. comes close to this. Nothing. How quickly did it come together? Can you remind us? You mean from the first phone call to here? Yes. Probably 10 days. It happened fast. May Vince call me. We had a short conversation. I don't think the conversation lasted more than five minutes. I knew halfway through the conversation that he was going to offer me a job and I'd already made up my mind what I was going to do if he did. So it went by really fast. I'm not, you know me now, on a personal level.

I don't chat on the phone. I don't make small talk. I kind of get in, get out, take care of business, move on. And that's kind of what that conversation was. Now, Vince did set it up. You know, he kind of disarmed me, so to speak. Not that I was tentative to take his call in any way, shape, or form. But, you know, Vince said something to me that really kind of just lowered the guard,

so to speak. And we talked a little bit about it. He gave me his idea. And I said, great, I'm in. Let's do it. Here's my attorney. Let's get her done. And probably a day or two later, I got a call from Stephanie or a text.

I remember what it was, but she reached out to me. And, you know, at the time, my hair, you know, I wasn't dying my hair. But I also wanted to make sure that nobody had an expectation of me dying my hair. But it didn't come up, right? So I called, I reached out to Stephanie. I think I texted her. She reached out to Stephanie. He said, hey, you know, just want you to want you to know, because it probably hadn't

seen me in a year. You know, my hair's, you know, kind of platinum, look a little bit like a hubcap on a 63 Buick. Do you want me to dye it or not? And I was hoping she was going to say, no, because I didn't want to. But of course, she said yes, and I had to go get my hair died. So, but other than that, all that took place over the course of a couple days. And the next thing I knew, I'm sitting in the back of a limo in New Jersey. It was a major moment. I'll never forget it. I mean,

it felt like a wrestling fan's dream come true. Of course, we would have liked to have seen a supercard with WCW versus WWE. And I know they did the invasion angle a year prior. We've beat all that up to death before. But let's talk about that day in particular. Are you nervous going to the building? Were you concerned about,

I wonder if I'm going to run into this person? I wonder how that person's going to react. talk me through just your mentality going in that day. It wasn't, well, here goes nothing. Chat me up. I mean, to the point of worrying about how people were going to react to me, people that I've worked with in the past, I think people make a lot more of that than actually existed.

Sure, there were people that were there in WWE that I knew probably wouldn't be that thrilled to see me, but so what? I mean, no, I wasn't, I wasn't nervous about it. I was nervous, but not about that. I was nervous about my performance. There was a lot, you know, riding on it. And there was a pretty high expectation of what I was going to be able to deliver. And I wanted to make sure I over delivered it and not underdelivered it,

which is the way I approached it. So I was really concerned about that. And it got a little more. hectic towards the end of the afternoon because again at my suggestion I flew myself into New York I didn't go through WWE travel because I didn't want my name showing up on anybody's computer right it would have ruined the surprise so I booked my own flight I booked my own hotel at the I think it was a Marriott right across the street from Kennedy and or LaGuardia one of the other and I booked my

hotel and I sat in my room I didn't even leave my room. I got to my room about 9 o'clock the night before and I sat in my room until the limo came to get me to take me to the building because I didn't want people to see me. And again, ruin the surprise. Now, during about 1 o'clock, maybe 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I think they were going to pick me up about 5. There was a knock on my door. Somebody slipped a big envelope underneath the door and it was my format it was basically my script for the night and i'm always you know if i went out there just to say hello to milwaukee i would be nervous just or excited take your pick i you know i i i hit full of adrenaline okay and it's not necessarily fear or anxiety as much as it is

excitement but i was pretty well jacked up on adrenaline throughout the after looking forward to this and then I hit the script and it's like 15 pages. I'm going to what? I already knew the expectation was for me to deliver the script word for word. That was made clear to me. So it wasn't like I could just take a look at the script and figure out what works and figure out what doesn't work and just kind of put it into my own work. That shit wasn't going to fly. So I had to memorize that script. I say 50. I'm probably exaggerated, but it was a lot. I don't know how long it was, but it was a lot.

So I just got to work. I didn't have time to be nervous after that or excited or filled with the journal because I had to really memorize that script. And it was hard because there was a lot of it. And I didn't have a lot of time. Was it fun? Was it more fun for you to be at a wrestling show and not have all that pressure on you? I mean, for years prior to this, there were so many responsibilities.

And I'm not being disrespectful to any talent. But now you get to show up and I hate the way this sounds, but quote unquote, just be talent. And you've had to wear multiple hats before that. You're on camera, but you're also running the show and dictating to people. And I know you're delegating a lot of that, but to just come in and not have that pressure on you, this has to be a whole new world, right? Yeah, because, you know, the WCW experience, obviously we all know how it ended and it didn't end well.

A lot of that, for me personally, the scar tissue came from. what I'm going to call a betrayal. In a sense, it was a betrayal. At least that's the way I interpreted it between myself, WCW, but myself and corporate. I really felt like they hung us out to dry. I fought it every way that I possibly could. We all know how it ended.

So for me to come to WWE when all I had to do was be a performer, And that was part of the calculation when I was talking to Vince on the phone. Because I asked him, you know, what are the expectations? And it was made clear to me, just coming in as a talent, not as a writer, not as a consultant, not as just you're coming in as a talent. Well, to me, that's like, so you're going to pay me how much to show up and have fun on national television every Monday night? Yeah, sign me up.

You know, that's kind of the attitude I had. Let's talk a little bit about some of your highlights as a character and on-screen character. You're going to introduce the World Heavyweight Championship and just hand it to Triple H. This is all the part of ushering in that ruthless aggression era. You're going to preside over a lot of those famous raw roulette episodes. You introduce the elimination chamber concept. You're going to have some feuds on camera with Stone Cold Steve Austin, with Mick Foley, with Eugene, numerous other superstolence. I still think you're probably one of the more memorable and beloved authority figures in

WWE history. When you think about all your time in wrestling, where it is being the authority figure rank? Like obviously rotting the wave of the NWO in 96, 97, 98, that's got to be number one. But just being the GM of Raw, where does that rank for you? Right towards the top. I mean, there are two different things, really. Yes. and if I acknowledge that, you know, there's the business side of my career.

And clearly, you know, taking WCW from a $25 million a year company, it was losing $10 million a year, depending on whose accounting you want to believe, $300 million year company spitting off about $85 million. Again, depending on who's accounting you want to believe, I suggest you read Guy Evans book for a clear picture on that message. but that for me professionally kind of tough to be but being talent

in WWE I don't even know how long I was there a couple years, three years, four years was probably the most fun I've had in television because again it was zero stress zero stress just show up, be on time, do a good job keep your head down and go home, come back

next week. So it was fun. You know, I got to know Bruce and and started developing, you know, other relationships within WWE, people that I'd never worked with before. And of course, I still had, you know, relationships with people who I did work with in WCW. So for me, it was just so easy. You know, the hardest part of it was just the flight to him from Phoenix every Sunday night. Of course, you joined the pirate ship here in July of 2002 and you would wrap it up when you were fired in December of 05. So about three and a half years there. But a lot of fun,

a lot of big memories. And I know when people talk about you as a television character, they often point to that run and talk about how great you were. Speaking of great, so is Chime. They are America's number one choice for banking. And here's something my younger self would have really benefited from. Chime is changing the way people bank.

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Advertized annual percentage yield with time plus status only. Otherwise, 1.000% APY apply. No men balance required. Time card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See time.com for details and applicable terms. Eric, I want to talk a little bit about nostalgia and the way fans sort of view it and maybe fall in love with it and fall out of love with it. And what made me think about this was an interview Chris Jericho did recently.

And he talked about how he thinks fans are going to miss him when he's done with wrestling. And on the surface, I think some people would say, well, that sounds awfully arrogant. But then you hear his example and you're like, man, I think he's spot on. Chris said, I think it's like a great rock and roll band, you know. I mean, the Rolling Stones just put out a new album and it's amazing. But the Stones have had like 60 years and some of the areas you like, some of the areas you like, some of the areas you wish they would have just gone away. Some of the areas you wish they would have done more.

But you're still glad that they're here. I think what I'm done, people will be sad that I'm not around anymore. I feel like this is spot on. Like a guy like John Cena, who I know a lot of the quote unquote smart fans really took for granted for a long time. you know, we're going to miss him now. And I know that that happened with Hulk Hogan and I know that it's happened with a lot of people

in these more featured positions. And maybe it comes from just being over exposed and not used as a special attraction. I'm not really sure. But I think Chris is on to something here where, you know, you do get like some sameness. I've even seen it with with people who watch WWU today.

They're tired of the same old shit. And they often lump in the bloodline storyline or Cody with that. But when it goes away for a bit and then it comes back, everybody celebrates and oh my God, I'm so glad they're back, but you were the ones clamoring for them to leave in the first place. This is just, I don't even think it's unique to wrestling. I think it's just, is it just our human brains the way it works? Like, hey, we want something new. Hey, who is this guy? We don't want that. We want established ours. Oh, my God, same old shit. We want something new. Is it always just a grasses greener type deal for us,

Eric? I think in social media, yeah. I mean, that's the nature of social media. You hit it right on the head when you said it's not just wrestling. It's not. It's, you know, how many times have you heard people say it? I believe it to be true. Social media is not real life.

Right. And reacting to it like it is real life is a mistake. It's a mistake business-wise. It's a mistake on a personal level. If you let yourself get wild up and manipulated and angry and depressed or whatever, by stupid stuff you see in social media, you should probably get away from social media because it's having a negative effect.

on you and your life. But that's the way it is. But I do, I agree with you. And, and, and, Chris here, what I'm, I guess, seeing, at least in my own mind over the last few years, especially doing this show with you, is there is a strong relationship with certain eras in wrestling, right? People will remember, you know, the launch of the attitude era, or the launch of the NWO era. Or in Chris's case, they're going to remember, they still know now, they know that this stuff all existed, but they're going to go back and start looking at some early Chris Jericho stuff. And they're going to look in WCW. And then they're going to do the same thing with some of the great WCW, excuse me, WWE stuff that Chris did in WWE. And he did some phenomenal, where

his body of work is amazing to me. Now, the last year or so has the, the audience kind of gotten Jericho fatigue? You know, I don't know. It seems like that might be the case. As it often is with especially older established talent that kind of camps out at the top of the card, so to speak, people do get tired of it. And they tend to forget about or not count, you know, some of the previous great stuff that's been done. But once someone like Chris or Hulk or, you know, Riffler will never walk away

from the business, but Randy Orton or John Cena, you just pick, anytime those guys leave and they've been gone for a while, you're not seeing them every week on television. So what do you do when you're reflecting back on some of the previous work? And that's where people will fall in love all over again. It's just, it's more of a social media phenomenon than it is anything else, I think. it's interesting the way our brains work that way though like i know that there's a lot of uh smack talk about the rock you know his most recent box office release was not gang busters at the box office but that's been going around a lot lately and immediately there's this oh he's going to show up on w wg again i hate that blah blah blah but we both know if the rock shows up on freaking smack down

the night the building's going to melt like the building will blow up and everybody will be excited Oh, my God, he's back. And again, that's the artificial nature and just the negative nature of social media. They want to tear you down so they can watch other people agree with them about their negative comments. It makes those people that post that stuff. It makes them feel more relevant than they probably are able to feel doing anything else in their lives. Let's talk about some relevancy with WWE, possibly in Japan. AJ Stiles has a podcast now.

It's called Phenominally Retro. It's combining gaming and wrestling. So if you're a gamer, and we all know AJ loves his games, you'll enjoy that, but he also sneaks some wrestling conversation in there. And I love from hearing him, more of a new age guy.

I think he influenced a lot of the guys who we see on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays today. But he talks a little bit about the influence that WWE could have, in Japan. I would love WWE to find a way to be in Japan, kind of like the way AAA is. We're not changing what they're doing. We're not changing the culture. We're just putting

our spin on it. It's not them coming to WWE, but WWE has purchased a company in Japan. And now we have Japan. We have Mexico. I don't want them to come to Raw or Smackdown. I want them to be a WWE whatever in Japan. It's endless the things we can do. I believe

that with the help of WWE, we would be able to revive Japanese wrestling to where it was I would love to see it back where it's been at the Tokyo Dome. I'm talking about not like a WrestleMania over there. I'm just saying it's the company selling out the Tokyo Dome like it did in the early 90s. That's what I would want to see. And obviously they've had massive success with the AAA partnership in Mexico. What do you think?

Could this work? I know once upon a time they had like an NXT UK thing. That was, as punk would say under the old regime and it was a disaster. It was not successful. But man, it does feel like the triple. play venture has been successful. Could it work in Japan too, Eric? I think so.

I mean, I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't work in Japan. Look, we know that, you know, wrestling does have a tremendous legacy in Japan. You know, I was there in the early 90s and the mid-90s and the late 90s that AJ is referencing when New Japan Pro Wrestling was filling, you know, selling out the Tokyo Dome for the big New Year's Eve shows. that was the highlight, I think, of the New Japan Pro Wrestling Company. And that is a special feeling. You know, it's when you walk into an arena, when you step into an arena, no, I never walked down the aisle.

I never got into the ring in those big 80,000 seed or 70,000 seats, sellouts, whatever they were. So I can't say I experienced it, but I was on the floor. and I know what that energy felt like to me. It would have only magnified if I was in the ring or coming down the ramp, so to speak, and being the center of attention at that point. But the energy was really special. And the way the Japanese public treated wrestling was different.

They took it more seriously. They were far more respectful. The Japanese people, at least in my experience during that period of time, that was the height of New Japan, were very very, very, very respectful. So it was just such as culturally, you know, the audience treated wrestling different and the wrestlers differently.

Even the newspapers, you know, covered pro wrestling like it was baseball. Front page, Tokyo Sports Times, big headlines, you know, day after the Tokyo Dome show. But obviously I could read it, right? But I was with Sunny, and Sunny could read it to me. You know, they covered it, but they covered it with respect,

and they covered it like it was a real sport. So, you know, that was very, very cool. So those people didn't all just evaporate. They're still out there. Some of them might be a little old in the tooth, and some of them were just kids back then. But that audience is still there, and I think it's much like, you know,

we proved here in the United States. You know, how many times has wrestling been kind of bouncing around the bottom of the bucket, so to speak, from a popularity point of view, you know, going back to WWE during the steroid trials. Business was horrible back then for everybody, including WCW. And there was all kinds of talk within the television industry that wrestling is just going to go away as things like American Gladiators, which was relatively new at the time, are beginning to emerge. Everybody thought, now wrestling's, that's yesterday's news, that should have died 20 years ago,

and they're finally on their way out the door. The ratings were bouncing off the bottom, so to speak. Merchandise really wasn't here. No big toy manufacturer licensing deals. It was just the business was flat until we figured out a way to make it exciting again. Fast forward, you know, year 1998, 1999, holy crap, here we go again. And we'll probably see similar patterns, maybe not to that extreme, but we'll probably see similar patterns in the future. and I think the same is probably true for Japan.

If you build it, I know this is corny as hell, but if you build it, the audience will come. It's just up to you to build something that's compelling enough to re-engage them. That's the tricky part. It's got to be authentic too. I mean, I know he's my buddy, but Jeremy Borash, I think, has done such a phenomenal job with AAA,

because I don't know that everybody knows this, but he was tight with Dorian. I mean, you remember, we've all hung out together. he was tied up with Dorian, the guy who his family owns, or player did, uh, for years and years and years. I mean, so I knew that he was very, very familiar. I don't know that everybody knows this, but Borash is married to a Latina. And so he, he, he gets that culture and he gets that promotion and he understands their

characters. And I don't think no disrespect to the undertaker, but I don't think the undertaker had that knowledge of that promotion that same way. So if someone's thinking, well, if the undertaker could do this in Mexico, we'll just ship Brock Lesnar over to Japan, that's not the way this is going to be successful. I think Borash has been, and I know it feels like I'm campaigning for my boy, but he was the secret sauce there. You've got to have a borash type person, I think, involved for this Japan initiative

to succeed, don't you think? 100%. 100%. And what Jeremy was able, is able to bring to the equation is an understanding slash respect for the culture. Yes. And the same has to be, the same would have to be true. Japan. The Japan, Japanese culture is very, it's very different than the U.S. culture.

Obviously, in some ways, they're similar, but in many ways, they're not. And if you're going to jump in, in my opinion, if I was going to jump in and start doing business in Japan, I would have my son, Eona, whoever that would be really there to help navigate the business relationships, but I'd also have somebody there, a Jeremy Borash, that is familiar with the Japanese culture and understanding, because you can offend a culture without even trying, without even being aware you're doing it. And just what people react to is differently. And you have to get a feel for that. It's kind of what I said earlier when I talked about, you know, people that are really successful in other forms of television, kind of stepping in and thinking that wrestling

is really easy. I think the point I'm trying to make there, and it applies here as well, is in order to be successful in sports entertainment, particularly in various cultures that are different than the United States, you have to reasonably predict how an audience is going to react. And you can't reasonably predict that if you don't understand what makes the culture tick. So I think it's critically important. And I'm sure. sure they understand that. I wanted to put this on your radar. I don't know if you saw, but WWE is selling the jet that you rode on back in 2019

quite a bit. The 2008 model is for sale for $10.5 million. It was just refurbed in late 2023. And they say the new buyer, of course, going to have to take those WWE logos off. But how many pounds of sushi do you think you had on this plane, Eric? A lot. you know who had more than I did is Paul Heyman oh yeah I didn't know Paul loved sushi but Paul loves sushi so yeah or we ate sushi me it was just raw fish no rice but yeah we ate a lot

we ate a lot of rough fish for breakfast I might at 730 in the morning is uh do you have happy memories of that jet is it a trigger for you what what do you remember um not a trigger at all and I mean we didn't party on the way back. You know, Bruce and I and a couple of other guys would sit at the back and tell jokes and, you know, do JR impressions. There was a lot of that going around. And, you know, that was fun.

But, you know, I guess the one impression I had, the reason I would never buy that plane, aside from the fact that I don't have $10.5 million, is the, when we'd get on that plane, the tension was so thick you could cut it with a chainsaw. it was just such a tense couple hours because you didn't know. Is Vince going to call you up to the front of the plane and ask you what's going to happen in segment five? Because, you know, you've been working on this ship for three days and it's changed 16 times. So you think you've got all the information, right? But you're not sure.

And the last thing you want to do is we put on the spot on the plane. So there was just a tremendous amount of real, negative tension. And until everybody got up in the air and realized, okay, nobody's going to get called up to the front to explain shit. Wait until we get to the building. And then you could relax a little bit. But yeah, those flights out were tense.

Flights back, we're fine because, you know, everybody's in kind of a celebratory mood. For the most part, less something really shitty happened. But for the most part, everybody's in a pretty celebratory mood and kind of high-fiving each other on the way home. Want to grow your business with the power. of podcast advertising, reach loyal, engaged audiences through trusted host endorsements across the podcast heat network. To learn more about advertising opportunities, email Dave at podcastheat.com or visit our website at podcastheat.com. Last but certainly not least, I know that

this has to be on your radar. We've got a live studio audience from Ring Classics. And boy, everybody's talking about dark side of the ring. They just wrapped up part three of the TNA and Jeff Jarrett saga. Next week will be all about Necro Butchurcher and Samoa Joe and a whole host of other episodes. But the T&A episodes created a whole online discourse about Dixie Carter, about yourself, about Hulk Cogan.

I know you participated, but I don't think you've had a chance to see it yet. But like wrestling historian, who's asking in parentheses sarcasm, Hey, Mr. Bischoff, why did you kill TNA? I haven't seen your timeline. Has your timeline been flooded on social media with TNA chatter this week? I've known to some, but I honestly, I just don't have the bandwidth for it. So I haven't read much of it. I've read a little bit of it.

I've seen some of the comments. But yeah, whatever. I don't know what revisionist story. People are out there peddling right now. But have that. Have fun with it. You know, if it makes you feel better about yourself, whether you're a social media wrestling expert or whatever.

Have fun. Go ahead. I do want to ask. I don't know if you saw, but your great close personal friend Vince Rousseau. Where's my rim shot button? That's around here somewhere. He just released a book and it's all about TNA.

It's called Total Non-Stop Agony. And of course he put you and Hulk Hogan on the outside. I'm sure you got an advanced copy of that since you're on the cover of the book, right? No, I haven't seen it. I'm sure. Well, interesting. No, I haven't seen it. I knew he was writing a book or a book came out, but it's all I know.

We will probably address some of the things he wrote in the book. Some of this stuff has dripped out this week. And I know you're busy with Real American Freestyle. I want to tackle it when we can give it more time. But I just wanted you to sort of be on the record because I think you've said it on the show before. Maybe you did. If you had it to do over again,

do you regret your T&A experiment? I know that in the dock you make it clear that, and I think the timeline is important here, you had a hugely successful fish off Herbie entertainment. you're putting more than a dozen shows on cable TV, signing deals left and right, have a whole production office. But your pal, the real life Terry Belaya, he was going through a tough time. A lot of legal woes, some family trouble, uh, divorce.

I mean, he was being put through the paces. You make it clear, hey, uh, went to help Hulk. With the benefit of hindsight, a lot of people have used your time in T&A to sort of paint a picture of you. And I know that you were all in. and all invested in WCW. I don't know that you had the time or bandwidth or capacity to do that in TNA. If you had it to do over again, would you,

would you even do the TNA experiment or would you change your approach? Or as they said in that silly movie years ago, no regrets. It's a hard one to answer because you have to take all things into consideration and including, you know, knowing 10 years later how people are going to rewrite the story to suit their own narrative. And now, you know, it'd be nice to avoid that. But I also got to work with my son and get my son an opportunity that was important to him.

Always be grateful for that. That would not have happened had I not gone to work with T&A. So for that, I know it sounds selfish, right? But it's the name of the game, I guess. I would be grateful for that. And for that almost alone, yeah, I'd do that again because it meant a lot to my son. My relationship with Hulk was important to me and the trust that he had in me and to be able to help him in that regard. Yeah, if the situation was exactly the same today, I would probably make a very similar choice.

I didn't need the money. I didn't want to be involved with wrestling. I clearly did not want to be involved with T&A, not to disparage it in any way, shape, or form, but it's just I've been to that mountain, and I've been to the top of that mountain, and T&A wasn't even in the picture in terms of, you know, its potential. So there was no, it's not like I missed the wrestling business. So I went there because of Hulk, because he asked me as a friend to come in and kind of keep an eye on his creative, because Vince Rousseau was involved,

and we all know what happened the last time those two worked together back then. So I said, sure. Now, do I regret it? No. Are there things that I would do differently? Of course, I think most people, if they're honest with themselves and others, would agree that it's kind of hard to go through life without saying, man, if I had to do that all over again, I do it differently.

So do I have some of those? Sure. But for the most part, yeah, I'm satisfied with the way it turns. turned out. But I do want to make something clear because, you know, I know there was quotes around the wide-eye-kill TNA, but it's very easy for guys like Vince Rousseau. We know his track record. If his mouth is moving, he's lying. What makes a guy like Rousseau dangerous is he believes his own lies. That's where the pathological thing comes in. He believes his own shit. Facts, information doesn't matter to a guy like Rousseau, right? Let me make one thing really clear.

I had zero, zero operational control of TNA. I couldn't hire anybody. I couldn't fire anybody. I couldn't give anybody a raise. I couldn't find anybody. Nor did I freaking want to. I wanted nothing to do with the operation of TNA. So much so that I made it clear in my agreement

that I'm not going to be involved in any, other than the creative I had agreed to do and oversee. And Dixie was fine with that because she didn't want me involved either. Trust me, either did Dean Broadhead. He didn't anybody. They wanted to run T&A the way they wanted to run TNA. And I was more than happy to let them have that. So when we talk about the decisions Eric made, or in this case, which is really chicken shit,

by the way, to all of a sudden be putting a heat on Holcogen when he's not here to defend himself, Come on, guys. But to suggest that either Hulk or I had the ability to kill that company is hilarious. I'd like to know the basis for that, not enough to torture myself to, you know, read Vince Rousseau's bullshit because I've heard it all before. It's all been out there before. It's just regurgitating it, taking another dump on it, polishing it up so it feels like a different pile of shit,

and putting it out there for the people. that love eating it. That's what this is. And there's a limit to what I can engage in. And I'm just not going to roll around in the mud with the shit. It's not important enough to me to do that. When it came to an unceremonious end, your tenure in T&A, I think there was some litigation going back and forth.

Do I have it right that when it all finished, they owed you well into the six figures? Yeah. Yes. And this is another thing. I saw Karen Jarrett made a comment about something I said, evidently I said in the in the special, where I made a reference the fact that I thought Dixie basically had a good heart,

which by the way, I do believe. She was in a horrible situation. She put herself in that situation, but she was in a horrible spot. So I just got grace for that. And honestly, for me to carry around 10 years of baggage, I mean, you know how I feel about that stuff. What I talk about with a bare heart, dude, just be grateful for the opportunity you got.

And take advantage of all the things that it has provided you and let it go. And that's kind of where I'm at. I didn't use my participation in that special to get revenge or set the record straight. And I'm certainly not going to do that with Vince Rousseau because he's just not worth my time. And we've all heard it before. It's nothing new here, just a different version of it. but it's unfortunate. It's,

I'm just like with that. Yeah, I agree. I think it is unfortunate because I think there's some misunderstandings. Like when you're, you're making it clear here that you weren't in control operationally, you know,

there's been a report that within a year of you and the hawkster coming in the TNA, TNA went from profitable to unprofitable, but that was, according to who? Dean Broadhead. Okay. But again, my point was those decisions were not necessarily decisions that you and Holkster could approve. To be clear, you weren't approving hiring or firing or negotiating salaries.

Like those decisions were handled by Dixie Carter. She's the one who signed off on those decisions. And so it feels a little bit like the old, you know, Crockett Dusty stuff when Dusty wanted to do a stadium tour and he wanted to get a bunch of musical acts and we'll combine country music and pro wrestling and we'll run in the Redskinned stadium. nobody told them no. So when the show wasn't profitable, and after you've done a dozen of those, there's a bill at the end. Now, if they'd rent smaller arenas

and not booked the Country Music Act, maybe they would have been profitable. But when you're contending with the weather and large venues and production and country music, maybe it's not as profitable as it could have been or should have been. But in the end, was that Dusty's fault? Or did the Crockets have the responsibility to say, hey, that's a good idea.

Can't afford to do that. Got to pick something. Yeah, it's interesting. Dean Broadhead was a CFO, I believe. So if anybody should have thrown a flag on any of the expenditures that somehow took T&A from profitable to unprofitable, those decisions had nothing to do with Hulk Hogan. It didn't have anything to do with me.

Not only could we not influence those decisions, we weren't even aware of them. But people are trying to create, rewrite this whole narrative around T&A because they got an opportunity to do so on vice to all of a sudden and kind of rewrite their story and resurrect their reputations at the expense of people, one of them who are dead and one of them is dead and the others, of course, in case me to a degree, and it's total bullshit. It is total bullshit. And it should be so obvious. It probably is to anybody other than that lower form of life that lives for this kind of garbage on social media.

I want to encourage you to watch it. I know you're a little busy this week. So you got kind of a full plate this weekend. But I think some people will listen to what you just said and think that you're specifically trying to call out Jeff and Karen when you haven't even seen what they said. So you're not really responding to. No, I'm staying away from it. Look, I saw one comment that you're, and look, I didn't experience with. Jeff and Karen experience with anybody with the Carter's.

I just didn't have the same experience. All I'm saying, and the only reference I made to Karen specifically, I don't think I was even implying Jeff, but to Karen, because she did make a comment about how I made a reference to how good of a heart Dixie Carter had. That was in the context of a broader comment that I made, and it's one that I would make right here, right now, and defend to the degree that I felt I had to defend it,

which is I'm not carrying around baggage, especially somebody else's. It's not my shit. I ain't carried it. And the fact that I don't participate along with you, Karen, or anybody else that expects me to just go full board, Brett Hart and just blame everybody and point fingers and piss and moan, I'm not doing it.

And I'm hoping that there's enough people out there that will realize that I had zero spending authority. Nobody asked my opinion about business decisions. Nobody ran anything by me first and said, hey, would you do this if you were us? Never happened, ever, in any way, shape, or form. Now, did I advocate for taking the show on the road live? absolutely I did. Did my voice carry a certain amount of weight with it? Yes, it did.

But that was at the point where T&A was learning. It didn't matter who you broke. Remember, they brought in Kevin Nash, they brought in Sting, they brought in Booker T, they brought in all these people before Holcogen and Eric Kishoff ever arrived. We had nothing to do with that. Right? And I kept often on a regular basis, I would say something.

I try to make it funny so it wasn't, you know, didn't sting when I said it to the right people. But it's like I used to say this a lot. You could take the Undertaker, put them in a helicopter, fly over a ring somewhere outside, and drop them down into the center of the ring from a helicopter and have them clear the ring and become the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. You know how much difference it would make six weeks? later, zero. Because any show, a wrestling show, live action shot inside of a soundstage is destined to die. I believed it then. I believe it now. You can't, you can't produce any kind of sports entertainment show regardless of the talent if you don't have a credible audience.

people that actually bought a ticket and are actually emotionally invested. That's the only way you're going to build a wrestling company for television. Now, if you want to just run a small little local independent, yeah, you can do all kinds of things and be profitable and make money. But if you want to be in the television business in prime time, you've got to be credible. You have to be a credible product. So yes, I did talk often to anybody that would listen that it was important that we take the show out and put it on the road.

And I would say it today. There's no, would not hesitate given the same situation is either invest in yourself or you're going to slowly die. You can't build this brand in this company, T&A, inside of it. have a soundstage. You can if you don't want to grow any further, then you can do it. You can maintain that. But if you want to generate the kind of revenue that everybody wanted to generate in T&A, then you've got to make a commitment to do it. You can't do it on a budget. Obviously, you have to have to have a budget, but you have to be able to invest in the product. And they couldn't and they wouldn't. Is what it is.

Yeah, I think that's really always going to be the difference of opinion. I think on some level, Jeff was probably content to be, you know, a smaller, profitable organization, you know, much like his dad. I mean, no doubt his dad was a real innovator in wrestling, one of the first promoters who really understood how to present wrestling on television, but he used it as a way to sell tickets to live events. And his dad became a multimillionaire through wrestling. So that's what he knew and it worked.

But when Dixie Carter decides, hey, we want to compete with Vince, we want to compete with WWB. And now you're turning the notch up a few, turning the volume up a few notches. And it is going to require a more substantial investment. And you're probably almost without exception, going to lose money before you make money if you ever make money. But if you just want to have a nice wrestling company and make a profit and not necessarily

compete, but be a profitable business. I think it was possible to do, but just not, you're not going to be able to compete with WWE and be profitable. I don't think. Well, and there's another big component to this is Spike TV. Yes.

You know, they had a lot to say about what their expectations were. And I did see recently Kevin Kay came out and made a couple comments about why they pulled a plug on TNA. And it's because T&A wanted way more money than Spike was going to be able to provide to them. It was a financial thing. And there was no way to grow the TNA financial pie unless you took the show. on the road. It's a catch 22. You know, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Could T&A have existed without Spike TV as a small, weekly, you know, or even on a smaller network, but not, you know, Spike TV, Biacom, prime time, that's valuable real estate.

They're not content to be a little old wrestling company, you know, makes, make some money on, you know, a little bit of money annually. We're very profitable. annually. Spike TV didn't care about that. What Spike TV cared about is maximizing their prime time real estate opportunity. So there was also pressure on TMA to grow that audience. And you can't do what anybody says. You cannot grow that audience in the soundstage. It is so artificial. You talked about authenticity a little while ago with regard to Jeremy Borish and AAA. There's a level of authenticity that has to exist in that. product for people at home to really invest in it as a television property.

And again, you're never going to achieve that in a soundstage. Nobody. Steven Spielberg could come in and direct that show and you're not going to grow it in a sound stage. I love talking wrestling with you, Eric. I hope you have a phenomenal weekend at Real American Freestyle. I hope everybody will be sure to check out Real American Freestyle tomorrow night. It's on Fox Nation.

It is a banger of a card. This is about as PLE as it gets. You can subscribe for a couple of bucks, get that Fox Nation app anywhere you enjoy apps, and you're hooked up with not only this weekend's event, but all of the archives event, but Eric, while we've been recording, a tweet came out,

and I think hell may have frozen over. I think you may actually agree with Vince Russo on something. And I know considering the context of our conversation today, that feels far-fetched, I want to show you this, we came out since we've been recording. It made me laugh out loud. Had to block Meltzer today. Couldn't take him for a second more. I don't know why that tickles me, but it did. I had to show you. Yeah. Well, I, I didn't, I don't block people generally unless

it really, you know, step over a line. Um, I just ignore him. Uh, and, and Dave, I've not, you know, muted or anything just because his shit's so hilarious to me now. And it's just funny. it's so out of touch that I think he must be working. I actually think he's working us because he couldn't possibly be that out of touch in order to make some of the comments that he's made. It's impossible to be that out of touch. So therefore it must be a work. I love me some Dave Meltzer.

I know we're going to agree to disagree there. But have you seen the discourse about the Mercedes Monet paper view match? Have you seen that? No. So a couple of weeks ago, a fantastic match. You would have loved the story against a young competitor named My World. I'll tell you her story some other time, but you would love it.

I mean, it's a Cinderella type story. Phenomenal match. Meltzer and the buddy I watched it with both thought it was maybe the match of the night. And that's a show that had an incredible main event with Swarves Strickland and Will Osprey, which I sent you a link to. But I mentioned all of that to say, Meltzer was in the building and had one perception of the match. And then he was told, hey, you need to watch it on TV.

because it came off much differently. So he gave all of the matches star ratings except for that one. And he said, I'll go back and watch it on TV and then give it another rating. That was weeks ago, he's still not done it. And earlier today, when people are like, hey, are we going to get that rating? He's like, no, I was up all night watching so and so. Now Mercedes Monet is like, what's it going to take for you to just watch the match, bro? But the idea that we're all these weeks later and people are still hung up on his rating

and he's still kicking the can of, oh, I've just been too busy. It's 25 minutes. and he rated every other match on the show except that one. I don't know. I feel bad for Dave because it's like that's kind of an easy fixable thing. And by not doing it, he loses a little bit of credibility. Does he have any laughter to people just like me kind of read him

because he's crazy enough to be somewhat entertaining? I think he's being sincere, but it comes off. But if he's, if he's sincere, he's more socially divergent than I thought it would be, but whatever. well whatever is not what we're doing tomorrow we're all getting together real american freestyle

dot com check it out on fox nation and we'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with there kishov