83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 436: 25th Anniversary of WWE Invasion

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Twenty five years later, one of the most talked about PPV's in wrestling history is back under the microscope! On this special edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson celebrate the 25th anniversary of WWF InVasion the blockbuster event that promised to settle the Monday Night War once and for all. Eric shares his unique perspective on the historic crossover event, discussing what WWE got right, where the Invasion storyline missed the mark, and how the absence of many of WCW's biggest stars changed the entire direction of the angle. The guys revisit the dream matches, the atmosphere surrounding the pay per view, and the unforgettable main event that ended with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin shocking the wrestling world by aligning with The Alliance.     THIS WEEKS SPONSORS 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 LARINECO - Larineco is better-for-you chewing gum that uses the same mineral your teeth are made of to support daily enamel health. Right now, Larineco is offering our listeners up to 50% off at BuyLarine.com/83Weeks CASH APP - Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/j5ojws30  #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Savings provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast  for full disclosures. 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.savewitheric.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 promo code 83 weeks. It'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order at bluechew.com. Hey, it's Conrad, the Mortgage Guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks, and I can't believe it's real, but it's been 25 years since the invasion. Remember when we were kids and we'd go to the grocery store with our mom, and we dropped off in front of the newsstand and see all the new wrestling magazines. There's the WWF magazine. There's the WCW magazine.

But then there's Pro Wrestling Illustrated. Then there's inside wrestling. Then there's the wrestler. And that's where we could get these fantasy matchups. What would happen if Hulk Hogan wrestled Rick Flair? What have happened if Stone Cold Steve Austin squared off against Goldberg? What would happen if Sting wrestled the Undertaker? These felt like hypothetical never could possibly happen dream matches.

And then the WWF bought WCW in March of 2001. Well, fast forward a few months and all of a sudden, WCW guys show up on Nitro or show up on raw. Holy cow, it's going to happen. The invasion was here. And with that, the WWF throughout their newfound tradition, no more fully loaded in July. We were used to June as King of the Ring, August is Somerslam, but July was fully loaded. Sable and I will never forget if you're picking up what I'm putting down.

But then all of a sudden, we get the most successful. successful pay-per-view in WWB history, not named WrestleMania, the invasion crushed. And it was all based on our hopes and dreams. And then they never reached that point again. I don't know if this was a dream come true or our worst nightmare, but in hindsight, it still feels like the biggest missed opportunity. I wanted to see Goldberg. I wanted to see Sting.

I wanted to see Rick Flair. I wanted to see the NWO. I wanted to see Eric Bischoff. Let's have Eric and Vince go at it. not Shane and Vince. I get it to the Victor go, the spoils, but man, it was a missed opportunity. And we're going to revisit it 25 years later.

Buckle up, boys and girls. And stay tuned. A brand new episode with Easy E and I is coming your way this Monday. That's right. 83 weeks is moving to a Monday drop. And we'll be with you each and every Monday starting this coming Monday at 83 weeks.com. But for now, man, let's listen to what could have been. the invasion from 2001, 25 years ago this week, where does the time go?

It was every wrestling fan's dream. I'll never forget going to the grocery store with my mom when I was a kid. They always had that newsstand section, so I was never disappointed that mom made me go unload the groceries. I meant I got to check out all the latest and greatest wrestling magazines. And inevitably, at least one of those magazines every single month or so it felt, had some sort of fantasy booking on the outside. what if this guy wrestled this guy whether it was stone cold versus goldberg whether it was sting versus the undertaker even in the 80s what if it was Hulk Hogan versus rick flair and then it

finally came to be we were going to see it and it happened uh of course the big invasion paper view happened in july of 2001 so eric if we had a baby the day of that pay per view that dude would be 22 years old now he could legally drink a beer with us where does the time go man. But you know, you grow up all your life when you're a kid and you're a younger adult and you hear your parents or older friends, family members and they all lament the fact that time young man, you won't believe how when you get to be my age, how fast time goes by. And you nod your head and of course be respectful. But in your mind, you just don't, there's no context. There's no relationship to that. You just nod your head and be polite and, you know, kind of feel a

sorry for people that feel that way. And here I am talking to you about something that happened 22 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. It's really fascinating. It is fascinating. And I'm excited for us to talk about, you know, what did happen, what could have happened, what you would have done differently. We started a guess with your attempt to purchase WCW. You wrote in your book that you reached out to Brad Siegel to purchase WCW, even when Vince Russo was in charge. And Siegel told you that AOL time, would never sell the company. A man,

in less than a month of that conversation, he calls you back and says, Hey, Eric, were you serious about that? I mean, this, this all happened very,

very quickly. I know it's been a long time now, but is that the greatest, what if for you of all? Like, what if you would have gotten a hold of WCW? I think it probably, it has to be,

right? Because that, who knows? Look, it could have been a disaster. It also could have been one of the greatest things that happened to me and my family and to WCW fan. So we'll never know.

And I guess because of that, I honestly don't think about that much. But I think in this particular episode, we're going to be thinking or I'm going to be thinking about a lot of things that I never really have given much thought to. And that's what will make the show fun. So did you think it was something that you could run without AOL, Tom Warner? like the the attractiveness of the whole opportunity was the size of the network whether it was tb s or t and t and that there was a relationship or a contract in place if you purchase the thing because just to add context what i'm saying here this is not the the typical wrestling

setup like tony con as we understand it has a contract with timeowner but tony owns a w Vince McMahon and shareholders own WWE and they have a contract with USA and a contract with Fox. WCW, of course, is owned by Ted Turner. So it's, it's all a part of this television company. I guess the question is with without a well, without Time Warner, is there any interest in doing anything with the WCW brand? I mean, all of a sudden, that's a totally different conversation, right?

Yeah, a totally different conversation. of totally different circumstances. I had, and we just discussed this in the past, but when, and you're right, you know, I had spoken to Brad and said, man, if I were you, Brad, I would sell this thing while it still has value. And of course, Brad Siegel kind of chuckled. And he said, Eric, this is Turner. You know, we don't, we don't sell things.

We buy things. Okay, Brad. Carry on. And shortly thereafter, Brad called. Hey, well, maybe you may be. you think you could. And we did, I did. We were able to, with Brian Bidall and his partner, Steve Greenberg,

Fusion Media is able to put together. When I say we, it's in terms of putting together the $67 million, I think Brian and C put in $5 million of their own money and seed money. Just when you're going out, you're pitching an investment like that. Traditional investors, even VC, you know, types, they want to know that you've got skin in the game, that you're not just trying to build this business using other people's money. They want to know that you've got some of your own in,

in a meaningful amount as well. And that's where Steve and Brian put in $5 million of their own, just to add credibility to the business opportunity. But because of the time period, to answer your question, just trying to give it context. Yeah. To, in order to make that deal happen for that acquisition with Turner during those early discussions, it was important, it was critical that we were able to close that deal fairly quickly.

We didn't have a year or two to try to figure it out. We had to move quickly. We had to get the money quickly. I had to have everything in place pretty quickly because that's what Turner wanted. We didn't want it to go out on the open market necessarily. So we move very quickly. Now, prior to moving forward to that deal after a letter of intent was signed and everything else, I did have conversations with FX, which at the time was a part of the Fox portfolio.

It was run by Peter Legerre and Kevin Riley. And I had had some initial conversations. The hookup or the catch in those conversations is Bradson. Segal wanted to include in whatever transaction we put together with FX and Fox, Brad Siegel wanted to include second run rights for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was a part of the deal that Brad wanted. That deal was never going to happen, or if it would have happened or could have happened, it would have taken a year and a half to negotiate.

That's a complex deal. with a lot of third parties involved. It's not just like selling a car on eBay. No, it's very complex. So even though we had an initial conversation, it wasn't going to work out. So to be specific to your question, Turner was the only option we had

because of the time constraints, that was the only logical play. And it was a part of the deal. And we wouldn't have done the deal without the rights to nitral, on Monday nights, Thursday on TBS. We would not have done the deal without it. I know we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about this, but I am curious.

Do you recall how you guys arrived at a $67 million number? I mean, that's the number we kept hearing. Do you know how you landed on that number? No, because I wasn't part of the team that put the valuation or the, you know, the details of the money raised together. keep in mind of that $67 million that we raised, some of that was operating capital. So the actual purchase price,

I couldn't tell you. That's a Brian Bedal question, but we raised a total of $67 million, but keep in mind, we have a lot of operating costs and expenses. Right. So let's talk a little bit about another name that doesn't get talked about a ton,

but we have heard the name, Stu Snyder, and the role perhaps he played in the WWF, purchase of WCW. Do you know what went on there? I don't. And that's one of the, it's one of the most interesting facets of all of this, which by the way, I didn't really know about until I read Guy, Guy Evans book. Yeah. On Nitro, the incredible rising inevitable wall of Ted Turner's WCW. It's a fantastic book. And, and I did so much research. And one of the people that that guy Evans interviewed I believe he interviewed sue Snyder himself um I think

that's one of the sketchiest aspects I said most interesting I didn't want to say sketchy but I think it's sketchy as fuck I uh I think for ad free shows dot com one day I got to uh I got to get Stu on the record to talk about all this I actually um became acquainted with Stu Snyder this year. So cross your fingers. How does you become acquainted with Stu Snyder? I'll tell you all fair. I can't wait. Yeah, yeah.

I'm looking forward to that conversation, you know, when there's slides camera action. Yeah, let's give it some backdrop. Now, this is all, you know, my interpretation and what I absorbed from reading Guy of his book, but Stu Snyder, for people that have not heard that name before, was an executive in Turner Broadcasting, I believe Stu was the head of Turner Home Video. It was either Turner Home Video or Turner International. In either case, he was Turner Exec, not affiliated directly with WCW.

But somehow he found himself in the middle of negotiating this deal with WWE for the acquisition of WCW after the fusion. deal and opportunity fell apart. Then the conversations became between Turner and WWE. How and why Stu Snyder found himself in that brokerage position with regard to WCW and negotiating with WWE is a fascinating question to me. It doesn't make any sense on the surface. Now, there may have been really valid reasons for it that I just can't imagine.

but to have a guy that's, you know, basically oversees your home video division, all of a sudden brokering a deal for wrestling, for the sale of a property like that. And as odd as that may be, at least it is to me, what's even weirder is immediately thereafter, Stu Snyder finds himself in the employee of WWE.

Pretty cushy job, too. Yeah, do you think? I don't know. Conrad, you know, you and I think a lot of like. You're, you're a brilliant guy. You're smarter than I am and you think you, you think and people talk about three dimensional thought processes. You've got a fourth, maybe even a fifth year that a lot of people don't have.

But on this surface, isn't that kind of. Cookie? Well, it's worth mentioning too. All student take just any job with WWE. How's, how's president sound? You would have come in or be president and the C.O. Yeah. Does that be sense to you?

He's going to actually be the guy. I think you had a little, a little of it maybe backwards. He was a fraternity brother with a guy inside the Turner organization. Stu is the guy who actually makes this deal happen on the WWF side. Now, he did eventually go work for Turner. He was there for like nine years. But that didn't happen until,

of seven, but Stu is, is captaining the ship of the WWF at the time and sees an opportunity to, or maybe his old college buddy saw an opportunity and said, hey, my frat brother here, he runs the biggest rival. Why don't I just see if maybe they want to do a deal? And to hear Jerry McDivitt tell it, as he told it at a live show with Bruce and I in Pittsburgh years ago, the same money that Turner had to pay WWE to sell. the lawsuit about the the likeness of razor Ramon and Kevin Nash they just turned around and wrote a check back to just buy the all of all of WCW so it's a fascinating story I can't

wait to talk about it in long form sometime uh but yeah we're gonna have some fun with that I want to make sure I got this I want to make sure I got this straight Connor because this will drive me that shit all day long if I don't get it clear so you're saying Stu Snyder was president of WWF prior to the acquisition? He was president in 2000 or 2001. When did you leave? When was he? Because I remember Stu Snyder and Turner the day I got there in 1991.

Really? Am I confused? I'm not sure. I know he was running, I mean, even if you pull up all Stu's LinkedIn, he's got his timeline up there. I'm going to have to do that.

That'll keep me from going bad shit. By the way, somebody just asked, uh, where they can get the book and that's available on Amazon. Let me see who. Oh, there it is. Aaron Sheen.

Aaron, uh, go to Amazon. WCW Nitro, The Incredible Rides. You'll find it. It is a fascinating book, probably the most detailed book you'll ever find on WCW. Of course, Guy Evans had a second act in the wrestling book section.

And that's grateful also available on Amazon. The Eric Bischoff story sort of picks up where he left off after controversy creates cash. uh so listen let's talk a little bit about you know the way this thing all shakes out we understand it's going to essentially become i mean when you really think about what you were buying if you remove the television deal from the equation it doesn't nearly have the same value to you but there is the tape library and i know neither you nor are in that business uh but boy that has become a valuable property and just to add

context, WWE made a bunch of money on this long before the network was even a thing. Because remember now, they made this purchase in 2001. Think about all those DVDs, rise and fall at WCW, the best moments of Nitro, blah,

blah, blah. So they crank out all that stuff for years and years and years. But on some level, the real value, the long-term value of WCW and this is sale without the TV, it's got to be the tape library, right?

It's not the rings. It's, not a handful of title belts or whatever it is. It's the tape library. And the folks you were working with, uh, who had made their money, essentially doing a licensing deal or,

or purchasing old tape libraries of old, of old sports games and then selling it to ESPN. They saw that maybe before a lot of other people. Still, I think most people assume or no, WWE got this deal of a lifetime just for the tape library. What would you value that WCW tape library at today in $2023, knowing what we know now? Oh, God, I don't know. Because I'm not in that business. So I have, I have no idea, but I can, I can only imagine it's a

multiple of what it was valued at at the time of the acquisition. Because keep in mind, you know, streaming wasn't a thing, right? The only thing was DVD sales. And, WCW, even during our peak, made very, very little money on home video. Whoever was in charge of it. It was one of those, it was, it's one of the downsides of being a part of a big conglomerant like Turner Broadcasting, or at least it was for WCW at the time, where you're really totally dependent, not 100%.

You're about 80% dependent on, in our case, the Turner Home Video Division, because they had all of the rights exclusively, and they were the ones that theoretically, at least on paper, were out shopping at. Unfortunately, for WCW, you know, we were at the very bottom of the bag that people would bring in to display their products. You know, so when we had somebody from return home video sales

while making calls, the last thing that they're going to, you know, they're going to pitch things that are part of the MGM film library, you know, whatever is the hottest is the things that they're going to try hardest to sell because that's where you're going to make the largest amount of your money. And in the eyes of a lot of, you know, Turner executives, WCW, first of all, they didn't want to pull it out of the bag. Somebody would have asked about, hey, I understand you guys carry WCW. Do you have any DVDs, you know, for WCW?

Then, you know, the salesperson would probably be excited to talk about WCW. But unless asked, it was the last thing any of the sales team at Turner wanted to talk about, whether it was ad sales or home video. that changed about 97, but by that time, you know, we'd already missed a great deal of opportunity because you've got to have your deals in place, your production, your inventory, your distribution, you're going to have all of that in place before you start making any money. So we never really made, we made nickels, dimes off of our home video products. So we, I say we, I don't think that Fusion had a lot of, didn't put a lot of,

of value in it. You know, college sports is a little bit different than professional wrestling. I think it's a little easier for a mainstream media person and the media entrepreneurs to see the potential value in legacy mainstream sports. But I don't think anybody really saw on the horizon any real value in professional wrestling legacy content. So I don't think they put too high value on it. it's amazing how this is something that doesn't get talked about because I think when a lot of people hear what you just said Eric about well you know I wouldn't these turn her home video executives will go out and make a pitch we were the last thing they would pitch we were at the bottom of the bag I think a lot of people hear that to listen to this program and they say I would

have pitched it blah blah blah something worth mentioning that I don't think it's talked about enough and I'm not trying to turn this into a controversial conversation I'm just just being honest. A lot of those media reps, a lot of those salespeople, they were women. And that doesn't get talked about a lot, but I bought a ton of media in my life, radio, television, billboards, things like that. A lot of times, I would say well over 50% of the time, the majority of the time, those are female salespeople. Female salespeople sometimes have an easier time getting past the gatekeeper, getting the

decision maker. I don't know why that is. I just know that's the way it works. And I imagine that if you were a female salesperson, it would probably be near the bottom of the list of things that you would have confidence in selling, professional wrestling. I understand it might be hot and blah, blah, blah. But it's also something that at least in my household,

it's always been, okay, I guess we have to watch wrestling. Never have I ever had a circumstance where the lady in my life said, oh honey can we watch wrestling tonight it's a totally different thing so people have the most confidence in selling what they believe and what they like and what they enjoy and what that's what their comfort level is going to be so i do think having perhaps a largely female sales force is going to be something that affects the way wrestling is presented and at the same time we know that this attitude has always existed in wrestling and obviously everyone listening to this has heard this type of conversation oh you still watch that stuff So if you were a male salesperson, then it's like, man, did this guy ever grow up? How does he not grow out of that? The rest is for kit. A lot of decision makers may have that attitude. So it's not this thing that you're loud and proud and out front with.

Now, a lot of folks who are listening to this, we think differently. We understand, hey, that's closed-minded thinking. Some of us have wrestling t-shirts and hell, I know a guy who walks around with a belt and hangs out in bow jangles for fun. Like, I get that there are super fans. However, I just know that's not the norm. And it's not something in a business conversation that you probably lead with. I don't want to say that shame is the right word,

but it's not going to be the mantel piece. Does that make sense, Eric? Well, it makes absolute sense. I never really thought about it like that. My experience, I'll be curious to see what you think about this. Long before I got into professional wrestling or I went to work for Burt. I was a sales manager for a food processor. No, I didn't sell meat door to door out of the back of a truck,

but it made for a good promo. Thanks, Hall. People still think that's true, by the way. I was a sales manager for this food processor. And I had a team of between 12 and 16 sales reps. And a lot of these sales reps came from other. other industries. I had sales, I hired salespeople from, that previously worked at sales at IBM, you know, and Cargill. Cargo is a big food manufacturer. So I hired a lot of salespeople from

different areas of business and with different levels of experience. Some of them very, very seasoned and successful. Some of them brand new. And I trained them. I trained all of them specifically to what our product and service, more than anything of the service was. And one of the things I learned, and I had a mentor, his name was Irv Mann. And Irv was one of those just, you saw the movie Tin Man, right? I did. That was Irv Man. He was just clothes.

I don't want to just close, you know. He taught me so much and taught me how to close and taught me how to sell. And really, he was a phenomenal mentor. But Irv Man said something to me early on when he finally made me a sales manager because I was very successful there as a salesperson. And even though I was the youngest person in the company at the time, Irv would never hire anybody younger than 50 years old. He just didn't believe, he just didn't believe in it.

And when he hired me, I was maybe all of 26. So I was, I guess, an experience. or something. But we became very close and our families became close and friends. So he mentored me a lot. One of the things he said is Eric, some of the greatest salespeople I know are some of the laziest people in the world. And that kind of confused me because I know it's hard work and you know it's hard work. Anybody that's been in sales professionally for any length of time knows it is a grind like any other grind. And I asked him, I said, why do you feel that? I mean, that doesn't make any sense. Why are we hiring lazy people? He said, because lazy people

figure out the quickest way to make the most amount of money. Yes. And they'll move on to the next deal. That kind of made sense to me. It's a path of least resistance. So if you're a sales rep male or female, yeah, representative from Turner Broadcasting and you're out there pounding the pavement,

so to speak, selling your Turner Broadcasting System Library, are you going to reach in a bag and try to sell the toughest thing to sell? Are you going to reach in a bag and sell the easiest? thing to sell. That was a big part of it too. And again, keep in mind, and this is where the context of timing gets a little, you have to pay close attention to it, especially if you're listening to me because I'm generally confused about it. But up until 1996, the culture within Turner broadcasting as a whole was anti-wrestling. People hated it. Our peers in Turner at just

about every level, we're embarrassed to one degree or another, that WCW was a part of the Turner Broadcasting portfolio. So you not only have a situation, as you described, where the individual out there, particularly if it's a female that doesn't get wrestling, never watch wrestling, can't understand why people do. Yeah, there's going to be a natural reluctance to pull that out of your bag. Combine that with the fact that culturally with internal broadcasting, nobody would have blamed you for not wanting to pull it out of the bag.

Everybody would have sympathized with you. So we were fighting kind of a cultural issue as well as the issue that you just talked about. And the Irv Man Factor, you know, it's just a lot harder to sell at that time. They're different now. At that time, wrestling was kind of looked down upon by mainstream entertainment media. It was just to tell yourself. It's still looked down upon. I mean, it just is.

You know, we, uh, my wife and I have settled into a new place, uh, that in Pensacola. And right around the corner from us is, this restaurant. that's been given all these fabulous reviews and and everybody's hyped it up to us. Oh, you got to go there. So we went and a huge weight. It was worth it. It was fantastic. Had a great time.

And then a pal came to town and he said, Hey, man, we've been here. We haven't had any good seafood work. And we go, okay, I got a place. We'll go over there.

And you know what? We'll sit at the bar and, and we'll have them turn on TV because it was at EW or if it was, uh, WWE, but there's nobody at the bar. bar literally he and I are the only two people and this older lady who was the bartender there

i said hey uh had it on a random golf channel replay can we switch it to whatever it was box or tbs or whatever it was and she goes yeah so she turns it on and then says oh i'm not doing that and changes it right back and i'm like wait what what was that yeah i'm not showing that here what i'm not we're not watching wrestling that that still exists um and there was a subsequent conversation and it was fine but that still exists i want to hear about the subsequent i want to hear about the subsequent conversation bro you just glossed right over that how did that go uh we watched wrestling oh no man i want deeds come on what the deal is it's like you know um i'm in an awkward spot because the person i was having

dinner with is a person who you and I work with, uh, on our podcast business. And he, you know, this was a, an awkward spot that here I am in business with this person. This is how they make their living as well. We're going to, we're going to watch that. And, and we did. But it was, it was one of those things where it's like, if this is offensive to anyone, uh, if anyone comes up and is offended, I'm going to have to change the channel.

And I was like, no, I understand. And so after there was this big interaction back. and forth, the other bartender, also a lady, comes over and says, I just can't believe y'all still watch this stuff. Both of these women are in their 50s, by the way. And then a few minutes later, one of the staff members, either a bus boy or server or somebody like that, is hustling by the bar, comes to a dead stop and he says, oh, I remember what it was now.

He goes, oh, my God, AW Dynamite. He was so excited. And I said, well, don't get too excited, brother, because if any of the end up, anybody complains, we're going to have to change the channel. So it went the total opposite direction of where she was expecting. She thought having some random replay of a golf tournament two months before was perhaps more of what this crowd would want to see when in fact, there was no crowd. There's no one here.

It's a Wednesday night. Now that makes sense. Because why I was like, why would the bar be empty on a Friday night? It's a Wednesday night. But dude, I had multiple people go by and say, wow, AWW's on TV. It's like, it's not this niche thing that people imagine it is, but it is not the, the apple of the eye of a certain segment of Americans. And those typically would be buyers or certainly sellers in the, in the ad market.

And just to give another example of salespeople in that world being, for lack of a better word, lazy, I appreciate that you use the word. I might have picked a different one, but I think that a lot of people just, they become order takers, the path of least resistance. So whenever someone was coming into my office to sell me advertising, they would always want to pitch whatever the new was hottest thing was. I'll never forget when Walking Dead first got hot. They wanted to come in and tell me why I needed to advertise for mortgages during Walking Dead. And I said, well, why would I, why would I want to advertise inside a walking dead? Well, because everybody's watching it.

Yeah, but not everybody is my customer. You've got a lot of teenagers and kids. And I needed a target, you know, when people talk about, because we have this conversation a lot in wrestling, but I don't think a lot of our listeners really understand when they say, oh, the rating in the demo, man, you realize how Lucy Goosey those words are? Because if we're talking about the demo, you know how many times somebody ever pitched me anything in media and said, we're 17th in the demo? Never.

They would always come in and say, we're number one in the demo. Now, if you had to drill down, you might find out, well, the demo is women 18 to 34 who were single and have cats who go to sleep at 9 o'clock at night. That's our number one in the demo. There's a difference between number one and the demo, you know, adults 12 plus and all adults and women and men and this age group and that subset and who were who were streaming. Everyone always positions themselves as big number one. But as an advertiser, I knew even back then, I don't need everybody to hear about this opportunity for the mortgage. I need a certain section, a certain demographic, if you will, to understand what my offering is. I'm saying all that to say, the people who were buying that, and more importantly, the people who were selling that, that being wrestling, they believed that wrestling was as niche as it gets.

and I think that's the reason that there was some apprehension inside the Turner organization because, well, everyone watches CNN. Who doesn't love baseball? Everyone loves baseball. It's America's pastime. Meanwhile, there's this stuff that your son watches when he's five to 12 years old and then he grows out of it. I think that was probably the attitude. Like, this is such a silly niche thing.

It's like, okay your kid ages out of Barney and he gets into Hulk COVID that's the way I believe it was probably presented a lot of times Eric yeah you know what's interesting about you and I'm going back to your story and I'm going to make a couple assumptions here but I bet money I'm right on a couple of them I would imagine knowing where you were or where you are where your home is in Pensacola Florida if you found a nice little restaurant something suggests to me that the people around you, your neighbors, your community are fairly upscale, wealthy people that you would typically see sitting in the lounge of a private country club. Am I correct, sir?

Well, here's the thing on that. You know, I live on the beach there. So there's a new set of neighbors every seven days. So this is a vacation town. People are in town to spend money. But yeah, to rent a house on the beach or a condo on the beach there. That's a pretty, it's a good size investment. So it's an affluent transient environment. You've got a lot of people coming out, but I would bet that those people have a lot of money. And the type of people, if you want to create a demo here for this conversation,

probably 45 to 65, probably in the mid to high six figure, category, well-to-do people that you would expect to see at a lounge in a country club. Fair. All right. So that bartender in that restaurant, it was probably a nice upscale restaurant. That bartender is used to serving the type of people that you would typically see at a country club. Yes. And she, and in her mind, she's thinking, well, my customers will never want to watch wrestling.

right what she doesn't know is something that you and i and dave green and a lot of us that are involved in your little podcast your big podcast empire is once you get to know who your audience is from my own experience i've i like to make random calls you know once a month or so to have free shows family members just to surprise them and get to know them and all that you know i can't tell you how many times that i've talked to people oh yeah i'm i'm a i'm a lawyer and i I argue cases before the Supreme Court. Oh, I'm a rocket scientist and I'm experimenting with a new launch in Southern California.

I mean, the amazing thing that I've experienced is being a part of your team is that, and I've been in the business, I had been in the business for 32 years before I ever stepped in front of a microphone for a podcast. Even I was shocked at the amount of people that no one would ever suspect watch professional wrestling.

And I was waiting for you as you're telling your story instead of the, you know, somebody coming out from the back and going, hey, ATW Dynamite, I was expecting guys come in with their polos and their trophy wives and their rope, no offense, Rolexes and all that.

And sit down and go, oh, I can't wait. Wrestling's on. Because that wouldn't surprise me either, by the way. Right. If people,

people think they know what the wrestling, people that are, perhaps in the media, a business think they know what the wrestling audience is, but until they do a deep dive, they don't have a clue. They would be shocked. But that wasn't the case back when Stu Snyder and company was selling WCW. I mean this disrespectfully.

I know how that I mean respectfully. I don't mean any disrespect when I say this, but I know, and I know how this sounds. But the thing is, the lady had a preconceived notion of what, quote, unquote her clientele wanted to see when in fact she was not a member of her clientele but she had a preconceived notion of what they wanted to see she wasn't she wasn't watching the golf channel and by the way there was no one in the bar again i want to repeat it was me and one other guy the guy i brought with me uh later we were joined by another fellow uh who was exactly in the demo you described and he watched very intently he didn't comment but he didn't look

away. He wanted to know what was going on. And inevitably, that happens at my favorite watering hole down here in Huntsville. You've been to the boot before. You've seen there's four TVs behind the bar. And Dre knows whenever I'm there, hey, if it's Monday or Wednesday or Friday, switch it over one of the four TVs for wrestling. Inevitably, no one is watching the other three TVs and they're all making conversation about what they see on the wrestling show. Some are good, some are bad, but no one's made a comment about what's on the other three TVs at all. No, it's background noise. People put it up there.

So if you come in with your wife and you really don't want to talk to your wife and you two have been bishing each other all day long, but now you're hungry because you've worked up an appetite, bitching at each other's company. But you've got no choice. So you go out to dinner, you sit at the bar and there's something up there. Usually the sounds turned down, which makes sense if you're to bar. And you're just staring, you're just staring at the television. So you don't have to talk to the person that you came with. It's background noise. It's a distraction.

That's the only reason. People don't go to a bar to watch TV unless it's a game or an event or something like that. If you're just casually going out for a bite to eat, you don't give up. But what's on TV normally, you know, it brings up a pet peeve. This has nothing to do with anything we're talking about. But my cratoms kicking in and the caffeine's starting to kick in. I love it. Here with me.

Strap him, Buccafathers. Here we go. When I go into a bar or a restaurant. And it's similar to what you just described. Oh, man, this creatium is kicking in. It's similar environment to what you described. It's very slow. There's very few, if any, customers in there.

And I walk in and the bartender or the manager has this music cranked up that I'm sure is really great, you know, at a club like techno rock, whatever it's called, techno, I mean, just blaring. It's like if you own a restaurant people, take some advice from this conversation. If there's anybody out there in the AdPrey Show's world or outside of the AdPri Shows family, if you own a restaurant or you manage a restaurant restaurant, program your music for your customer, not for the 18-year-old washing ditches in the back. It just pisses me off.

And I've walked out of restaurants for that very reason. Or you walk in it and it doesn't matter. I'm the first one in a restaurant, a music player, and everybody's, prepping, get ready for. Cool, I get that. I used to work at a restaurant. I watched dishes. I was a cook.

I get it. But once you open up and now you're expecting to bring people in, play the music that your demo likely would want to hear something kind of middle of the road. Yes. Don't assume because you like something or in this case, don't like something that your customers are going to feel the same way you feel. That's a big mistake. It's a big mistake if you're a television producer.

Don't write and create to entertain yourself or to appeal to the, or to satisfy the things that you individually are interested in. It's a lesson I learned from Ted Turner. Produce television, create television for the masses. Yes, you need to scratch some inches along the way, but you want the biggest, broadest audience you can if you want to be successful. Just like if you're managing a restaurant, you want the biggest broadest section of audience.

can to come in and eat in your restaurant. Don't play music designed for an 18 year old techno pop freak. Sorry. So listen, we've got on our soapbox. We understand now that wrestling is, is a much bigger opportunity that maybe people give it credit for, but maybe not within the Turner organization. This is something that people have decided is less than.

And, and they're going to offload it. And we know that that's how it goes. you know, they wind up getting a steal, Vince McMahon and WWE. And we see the raw nitro simulcast, which is still one of the craziest things in the history of pro wrestling, March 26th, 2001, there for a minute, you're seeing WWE programming on a Turner Network on WCW Monday Nitro. I know we've covered that episode before, but as a reminder, did you watch that episode live? No, I didn't. Okay, guys, let's run a quick time out.

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You'd be glad you did. So Eric, let's talk about, you know, we know now that Vince has his arms around the thing. He's closed the deal. He's on freaking nitro. He's plugging WrestleMania. What a great time to be alive for him. You don't even have the stomach to watch it live.

I understand. But I can't have. help but wonder what if when he had to go to Vince McMahon in September or he had to go to Brett Hart in September of 1997 and say I can't honor your contract we're hemorrhaging cash WCW's kicking our ass see if you can get that old deal back if he had not been able to secure Mike Tyson and the ball never really turned the other way and the momentum that WCW had just devastated WWE. Do you think there was a scenario? in late 97, perhaps early 98,

if none of that Tyson and Austin McMahon thing took off, that Ted would have tried to make a play to actually purchase WWE? Oh, I think he would have wanted to. And I think he would have if that opportunity existed. I have, you know, honestly, I clearly haven't talked to Ted about this or never did talk to Ted about it. But absolutely, knowing Ted's appetite for acornment, acquisitions and love for wrestling.

Had there been an opportunity to purchase WWE, I have no doubt that Ted would have been all over, particularly in 97 and 98, when WCW validated Ted's belief that it could be a substantial part of the portfolio and a profitable division in and of itself. So let's talk about if that would have happened, hypothetically, if the worm turns, as we like to say, and it goes the other way.

and you're purchasing WWE, it would have been a totally different look and feel and probably opportunity for an invasion angle. And let's examine why. As I understand it, the WWF, in an attempt to not upset their own salary structure, we'll talk about in the minute,

they only purchased the contracts of Lance Storm, Chuck Palumbo, Sean O'Hare, Mark Jindrack, Mike Awesome, Felix Skipper, Shane Helms, Shannon Moore, Stacey Keebler, Chavo Guerrero, Mike Sanders, Hugh Morris, Sean Stasiak, Taz Hayashi, Mr. Yang, and Billy Kidman. So we would see a lot of these talents, as you see there, that's actually a shot,

even though it says Monday Nitro, those are actually wrestlers inside the Astrodome there in Houston for WrestleMania 17. Now, the language I want to be careful with here is, as to not upset the salary structure. As a reminder, Vince is not doing the huge money guarantees that WCW is. Can I ask you, Conrad,

I don't mean to interrupt, but when did, my understanding is, I don't have their understanding. That's why I'm asking a question. Do you know when Vince started? making downside guarantees? Well, there's been a lot of debate about that.

Of course, uh, Holland Nash have always said that, that they, they help bring that to the forefront and make that a thing for Vince. I have always been of the opinion that downside guarantees really started with like Lex Lugar and the road warriors in Jim Crockett promotions. But certainly, uh, I believe Mark Mero was the first person to get a,

a downside guarantee. Now, that might not be factual. but that's certainly the way it's been discussed with Mick Foley and I on his podcast, Foley's pod. Because if you recall, Steve Austin and Mick Foley and Mark Merrill all started around the same time, not the exact same time, but within a handful of months. And during that time, Austin and Foley came in on the typical WWE, so-and-so dates for so-and-so amount of money. I mean, we're talking like $150 for eight TV tapings or some such silliness.

versus Merrow comes in on a several hundred thousand dollar guarantee. I don't have it in front of me. Maybe it's three or four hundred thousand dollars, whatever it is. He got some sort of a guarantee that Austin and Foley did not. And Foley's been pretty out front about saying, he had a lot of animosity and professional jealousy towards Mark Merrow, thinking,

how was that guy worth more? The reality is Merrow had more leverage. Mero was leaving a WCW contract to go get a WVF contract, candidly, practice was already out of WCW, as was Austin. So they didn't have the leverage that Merro did. But my understanding is at this point,

so we'll call it March of 2001, the top end, the most anybody could get on a downside guarantee from Vince McMahon was $1 million. So folks like Stone Cold and the Rock and The Undertaker and Triple H, they're on a million dollar a year downside. Can I, and again to interrupt you, what I was most curious about is when WWE, and I realized that we're guaranteed contracts, probably in NWA with Lex Lugar, as you pointed out, certainly

in WCW, I, everybody that was working in WCW when I got there was on a guaranteed contract. Right. But I was curious as to when was the first time and who was the first person where Vince broke his typical revenue sharing model and offered downside guarantees. And it sounds like Merrill might have been the first, right? I think that's probably March or April, probably March of 1996, Mark Merrow. Okay. Interesting.

Does that surprise you? No, it doesn't surprise me at all. You know, I know Paul White, when Paul White left WCW, whenever that was, 98 or 99, his guarantee was a million dollars. That was the number that, you know, if I wanted to keep all I had to match. And I chose not to.

But that would have been about two years later. February of 99, I believe is when that happened. Um, when he finishes up with you and starts with Vince. So let's just call it what it is. The Hulk Hogan's, the Kevin Nash's,

the Goldbergs, all these guys have a downside guarantee that exceeds what the maximum would be. for the WWB. Not only that, I'm sure there were people in the WWF organization who would say,

wait a minute, I'm at the same level that guy was on, on Nitro, but I'm on Raw and we won, and he's making this, so therefore I need to make more. That would not have been a problem for you. So in this fantasy booking,

this fantasy conversation we're having, having here, if you had gotten your hands on WWE, meaning WCW won the war, WVE now has been sold, you'd have a handful of those million dollar guarantees, but you'd probably be able to dig out that value really easy with an undertaker and a triple H and a,

and a rock and an Austin. That would have been something that you could have probably pulled the trigger on, and everybody else has a much more reasonable dollar figure amount. It is interesting to think what if, because maybe instead of, again, no disrespect, Sean O'Hairs and the Hugh Morris is and the Sean Stasiacs, if you could have had that level of talent come over. Because I think when most fans think about this invasion angle and how it was quote

unquote bungled, it's because it didn't have the star power, right, from WCW, but that wouldn't have been a problem going the other direction. Yeah, that would be like acquiring WWE, but the only talent that comes with the package is the guys that signed up two weeks ago at NXT. Right. You know, I mean, it's just, and again, no disrespect to that. And that category of people, that shot that you gave us there and in the names that you ran, and I was trying to, you know, categorize them in a way.

I don't think any one of those people made more than 150 grand a year and some were probably less than that. So that wasn't an expensive package to bring in or, and or justify. It also speaks to, well, I want to ask you, what do you think with benefit of hindsight, I just want to add some context to what Vince has going on in his life at the time. He's purchasing WCW. He's also going to have the biggest WrestleMania ever that he's ever had, WrestleMania 17.

He's also recently just gone public. And now that's a whole new thing that he's he's out here pitching and juggling a lot of balls in that regard. Oh, by the way, the XFL is a thing now that he's going to venture out and do. didn't he have a didn't he have the restaurant absolutely and he's trying he's thinking about doing the the film studio stuff he's tinkered with the idea of buying a casino my man is stretched really really really really really really thin

to say the least but I wonder do you think it's because he didn't have his eye on the ball in that regard or did he have so much momentum had he convinced himself I'll be able to make it work I mean I've got the might as touch right now I'll be able to make this work even without the star power.

Or do you think by that point he believed the brand is where it is? Like we've heard in the last, I don't know, 10 or 15 years that Vince is quote unquote not interested in making another star the size of Stone Cold or the Rock or Hulk Hogan because he believes and probably accurately that the brand is where the value is. So like when a big time fight is sold, yes, they still call it U.S. FC204, but there's the two names afterwards that really matter. And when Floyd Mayweather fights, they don't call it something else. They don't say the WBF presents.

It's Mayweather versus so-and-so sort of thing. And it did feel like there for a while, especially in the last several years, it's become more about, well, WWEs coming to town. It's not about Hulk Hogan is wrestling Randy Savage at WWE's coming to town. Do you think he was sold on that and he thought, I've got the WCW brand. what does it matter who's in there? I mean, why do you think he didn't? I'm just trying to find the critical flaw in the timing of this

because you and I say a lot on this show that timing is everything. And events had a little more patience and didn't rush right into this. Now, wrestling fans certainly know, well, WCW was on TV and now they're not. So the longer it sits, I could see why you would think, well, maybe the more value that the brand loses. But if you just push out a half-ass version of it, it's sort of, you know, six or one. You're not, you're not. Look, there was an established WCW audience for several years prior to the acquisition. WCW was the dominant televised wrestling show in the country for a couple of years. And they had to head. They had all the boat, you know, our boat floated

higher, so did WWEs because of the war. We've all talked about all that. But there were a certain number of people that represented that brand. Sting. You know, Hulk Hogan will put him in a kind of, he was off in a category of his own because he probably still represented WWE more than he really represented WCW because he spent more time there, right?

So put, put, put Hulk and even Randy Savage off to the side. You've got your core WCW talent. Rick Flair was much more closely associated with WCW than he was WWE, even though Rick spent some time in WWE. He's a WCW guy. He's an NWA guy.

He's a WCWA guy. He's a, that guy. Luger, the Steiner brother, so many, you can just run down the top 15 people at the top of the roster. All of those people represented the WCW brand, myself

included, to a lesser extent. They didn't have any of those people. So you've got the brand, and if there was a critical flaw, it would be assuming that the audience believed just because you had the three letters, you know, WCW, that the audience would follow. And the audience is not going to follow. Obviously, they didn't follow because they didn't have the talent that represented the brand

so that the audience could relate to it so that it felt like, or it could possibly feel, I should say, like a real invasion and a real conflict because those key talents that were driving the viewership or WCW for such a long period of time, if they're not on the roster, they're not on the show. You got a bunch of people who, yeah, I kind of think I've heard of them and maybe I've seen a match or two,

but I don't really care. I don't relate to them because they don't relate to WCW in the audience's mind, if that makes sense. You know, and the thing is, I just, I wonder,

you know, is from a Vince perspective, is it arrogance? Is it lack of patience? Did he not have his eye on the ball? Because it's, feels like to me to sort of do this invasion angle with the roster he's got. And we know he's going to negotiate, um,

buyouts, if you will with Booker T and DDP and that goes a long way. But still the invasion gets kicked off with Lance Storm jumping in the ring, uh, jumping out of the crowd, jumping in the ring and super kicking, uh, Perry Saturday.

I love Lance Storm. He was one of my absolute favorite wrestlers in ECW. Thought he crushed it for you. guys in WCW, big fan of his. I could watch a Lance Storm match every day until I die. However, I can't help but think about when you did the invasion. Here's a guy who was always at the top of the card and raised a Ramon. And he's going to come down the aisle and just jump in and cut a promo and take over.

And then the next person who makes that switch over with him and joins him is the former main event and the former WrestleMania main event and the former world champion Diesel. you've got really two tippy top guys. I don't think it would have had the same effect if we had someone of Lance Storm's stature on the card from the WWF. I know the way that sounds. I don't mean for it too. I love. No, but Lance is a smart guy.

He understands. He knows what you mean. And I think our audience is too. And look, you're right. But Scott came over and not only was Scott, as you said, you know, top, top of the roster. Obviously a big star, but he came over and he created a question. He didn't come over and jump into an angle, right? He came over and made people go, what the hell is going on?

And we tripled down on that when we brought Kevin Nash and really created the question. Now, the intrigue. So it wasn't just an invasion for the sake of an invasion. And we could have done it like everybody else does it, like Vince did it with Lance Storm. we could have just shot an angle. Shot an angle isn't building a story. It's an incident that you built from that point, but there was no backstory.

There was no mystery. There was no intrigue. There was no, what's he doing here? There were so many elements missing from the WWE, WCW invasion premise right from the get-go, talent, as we've just discussed. But not only just talent, it's just throwing them out there. It's the wrestling version of throwing shit against the wall. wall and seeing if it sticks. Let's just should do it. Let's just, you know, put it together and

let's see how the audience reacts. Sometimes you get, sometimes that works. Sometimes it works great, but more often than not, it doesn't. There was no story to it. It wasn't just a talent issue. It was just to let's throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks issue in my opinion. That's exactly right. And, you know, it would be akin to me, you know, if instead of Scott Hall coming down the steps, it was Shane Douglas or Jeff Jarrett. Yeah, they had been on the other show. Yeah, they had enjoyed success on the other show, but they weren't positioned as a top guy. And when this invasion gets kicked off and it's Lance Storm, and to your point, it's not Rick Flair, it's not Sting, it's not Diamond Dallas Page, it's not Booker T. And we know we're

going to get there with some of those guys. But imagine if, you know, the first, the first time we see anything about this sort of potential invasion, it's Goldberg, Spearing the Rock or Stone Cold, and this whole thing looks a whole lot different. And I just, wonder in hindsight did we just not have the right patience when you take a blue chew get ready to meet your new dick he's confident he walks into the room with his chin up he makes eye contact the stuff is crazy i mean i think my gimmick's talking he's the cock of the walk if you know what i'm talking about blue chute gold is better sex in a tablet they combine four ingredients into one powerful solution two ingredients to get you hard physically and two to support arousal and

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You know, we've spent a little time talking about that already. I know he wants to make the most of this opportunity, this investment, if you will, and he's probably realizing I got all these guys on the roster. If I debut any of them, I won't get a second chance to do this. I can't necessarily walk it back. If you were Vince,

what would you have done differently? Would you have doubled down on the investment? Try to go negotiate some of these contracts? I mean, you probably had an idea that some of those guys were not ever going to do that. And to put that in proper context, Hey, Mr.

Nash, would you like to continue to getting two million dollars to just check the mail? Or would you like to cut it in half and work your ass off? I mean, who goes for that? So that's really a tough sell. If you were in that spot, what would you have done?

I could have been in that spot and I turned it down. I mean, I got a call. ahead of the invasion and from JR and had an opportunity and I passed and it was a timing issue it wasn't angry or zentful or

any of that. It was just timing. What would I have done? I would have waited. I wouldn't have rushed it knowing that I didn't have any of the key talents that represented the brand and I would have tried to negotiate even if you wouldn't have gotten a Nash who would have elected to stay home because that was a smart thing to do.

He's not risking any injury. He's at home with his family. Doesn't have to go through the grind of traveling. Doesn't have to go through the grind because people think, oh, man, you'd be a part of WWE. Oh, it'd be awesome. It's a freaking ride. And when you're 6-11 and 300-some-odd pounds, it's even more of a grind, just moving from place to place. So I think that Kevin Nash's the Scott Halls,

Sting could have been a, Sting could have, they could have worked something out with Sting if they worked hard enough at it and gave it some time. Because a guy like Sting, and I'm not certainly not speaking for him, I don't want to misrepresent that Sting and I have talked about this. This is just me speaking as someone who knew Sting pretty well

and was pretty close to him for a long time. And I understood how Sting, process things, Sting would have been very reluctant, in my opinion, to cross the river, so to speak, not because of the money, because Sting really wasn't making that much. Sim was making a lot of money at the time, but not as much as some of the other names that you mentioned.

Right. Sting would have been affordable at that time, particularly given the size of the guarantees that Vince was giving out at that time. Vince would have had to convince Steve Borden that he wasn't going to be made an example of because much like Turner executives had a perception of WCW and all that

we've already discussed. The perception within WCW is that oh yeah if you go to WWE he's going to prove that you know WWE is superior and their talent is superior you're just going to get buried and they're going to embarrass you and once you're done having fun with you then if you still stick around maybe they're going to do something with you. But the perception was there was going to be this like initiation process and it would be ugly and miserable and you wouldn't enjoy it.

Vince could have overcome that with Steve. It would have taken time. And I think once you landed a Steve Borden as the Sting character and one or two others like Sting, even if they were kind of lower on the roster, less exposed, maybe less made of S under the belt, whatever, not to be disrespectful. But all you needed was one anchor like a sting. If sting would have come, Lex Lugar would have come. Right. Now that Lex Lugar is there and Stings there, guess we'd follow shortly thereafter, the Steiner brothers. Now you've got enough. And if I would have made a different decision, perhaps I would have been leading that charge. Then you've got

an invasion that at least the audience feels like it could be true. or could relate to the angst in the conflict that would exist between that WCW roster and those names that I just represented, you could have created a conflict that would have felt real and believable, much like the NWO story felt real and believable in the very beginning. You could have done that, but it would have required a little more time, a little more salesmanship,

and a little more money, but not a lot more. It's, it's interesting to think, you know, what could have been. If you had your druthers, you know,

is there a, a dream way to kick this off? Like, let's say you're in charge. We're, we're seeing that. And listen, let's add this context in here too.

Yes, the WWF was hotter than ever. We'll call it March 2001. But at the very beginning of April, when Steve Austin turned heel and joined Vince McMahon at the end of WrestleMania, business started falling. Tickets were down, ratings were down. It wasn't the same.

And I know that Austin was feeling like, hey, man, I've kind of done it all, everything I need to do of, I don't want to get stale here. I don't want to lose this momentum. I need to keep it fresh. Maybe I can switch sides and have a whole new crop of opponents. That makes sense. But he perhaps was asking for that without the vision. of what was possible with this invasion.

And at the time, nobody really knew what that was going to even look like or what it was. I mean, they literally made that acquisition within a week prior to WrestleMania. So if his brain was already, I'm going to turn heel, this is what I'm doing. It's hard to go to your top star and say, well, we're not doing that now.

Especially that top star. That top star and with all the other stuff Vince has going on, he probably thinks, yeah, why not? Let's make our top star happy. Let's keep him happy. But now it's like, okay, we start to see the business slip. It slips in May. It slips in June.

And Vince doesn't want to lose this momentum. And he thinks, okay, I'm looking for new ideas. I need a shot in the arm. I need something fresh. We're going to do the invasion angle. So they start it. Now, if you, I realize circumstances would have to be a lot different.

But if you were in the, if you had the opportunity to do that, and you maybe can't go out and cut deals with everybody who's on the sideline getting paid from Turner. Is there one guy you would have said, okay, this is the guy to kick it off with. I'm not going to invest in all of them. I don't want to upset the Apple cart with my current roster, but I got to have one star to kick this thing off right.

Who would it be and why? Sting? Because I think other than Rick Flair and really the reason Sting was, aside from Hogan, for the largest portion of the existence of WCW, Rick Flair and Sting represented that brand. and I think at that, particularly at that point in time, it would have been Sting. And can you imagine, too, if it was Sting, and he brought that spooky, cookey crow character along with him? Yeah.

And kind of, not replicate, but extend the kind of imagery and mystique that the crow character brought so that he started showing up at WWE events and stalking service. certain people or whatever. I mean, that would be the guy for me. If I was, Mrs. shoes at that time and I could only pick one guy. If I understood your question correctly,

it absolutely would have been. So how would you, how would you creatively now? We're going to have a fantasy book here. Sting's going to appear on raw. We got that. What's he going to do? How do we,

how do we take him off? How do we introduce him to this WWF audience that's never seen him before? Who was the attacking or watching? from the rafters or how would you make that debut? So what time of year was this? When Sting would have appeared, when was the invasion launched in WWE? Let's call it summer of 2001.

So whether you want to say June or July, we'll go with it. So I would have thought, I would have looked at a calendar and said, okay, what's my main event three months from now? I would have taken three months to build the backstory. And Act one would have

take it a month and let's say in act one. Let's just go with the example I gave of using utilizing the stings, kooky crow character, spooky cookie crow character. After the acquisition, after the announcement, I would have gone radio silent with regards to anything it had to do with WCW. Would not have talked about it. Wouldn't told all the talent, not to talk about it, just let the dust settle on the acquisition. When the time, was right, stings my only guy, I would have full rights to that crow character. I would say, okay, who do I want him in the main event with it? Whatever pay-per-view would have been 30 days from the date that it started.

And if you're going to go, why not go for the biggest? Let's just use, let's use Undertaker as it. Would that work though? But those two characters work against each other. Let me give you this heads up, this context. King of the Ring is at the end of June 2001. Steve Austin finds himself in the main event. Of course, he is the, he's the champ,

and he's going to be working with Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. And out of nowhere, Booker T interferes and tosses Steve Austin through the announced table, nearly costing him the title. Now, he doesn't cost him the title, but he at least interfered. And it's the first time we would see Booker T. And this is on pay-per-view.

So the next day on Raw, Shane McMahon marches out and says, hey, everybody knows I bought WCW. And our intention is to invade the WWF. And now we're off to the races. See right there, it's not believable. Right there. You just took, first of all, it was throwing shit up against a while with Booker. No backstory, no intrigue, no anticipation, no buildup. Just boom, let's do this and surprise everybody.

And don't get me wrong. Sometimes that works really well. in a situation like this, you need to build some, what's going to happen? You got to tune in next. What's going on? You got to create some chatter and mystique about it. Keep going. I'm sorry.

Keep going. No, I'm just curious, you know, if you're going to debut sting, would you have done it at King of the Ring on pay-per-view? I probably would not. I would want to have that happen in front of the biggest audience I could. I would want it to happen on Raw. and would you have Sting attack your top guy and Steve Austin? Because at that point, Steve Austin's a bad guy.

Because to me, like when you said it would be. I got to sap you because membrane can only function at a certain pace. Sure, sure, sure. Steve Austin and Sting doesn't work for me because Steve Austin's a heel. And Sting is the baby face from a former WCW that they were at war with. So there's a creative disconnect there for me. It would have to address that somehow. Well, you picked it.

So I was going with what you picked. I wouldn't have picked Sting. If I'm going to attack Steve Austin, I would want somebody I could have a backstory with Steve Austin with somehow. That's where, you know, I would pick Sting as the guy for WCW to build the invasion story around. I would,

sting would be my general. He would be leading the charge and I would build everything behind Sting. Right. So the matchup, I don't know that it would be with Austin. the matchup would have there would have to be a story that isn't because there's no there's no story between sting and austin there's no reason what would the motivation be for sting to show up and all of a sudden defend the good name of wf doesn't make sense so

what would you do i again i think i would i would sit back i would surround myself with some people that were better at this than i am but first of all sit around and think about what's the best story moving forward? What's the best main event three months from now? And Sting would have to have a motivation, right, to come out of nowhere and start stalking and taunting and teasing that he's interested in what's going on. Perhaps, perhaps it could have been a WCW sacrificial lamb, and Booker T wouldn't have been the right one because Booker T's too big of a star. But if someone from WCWCWCW, who had been of less stature. Stature is not the right word.

You know what I mean. Lower down the roster than staying. Somebody were to fight. Okay, here we go. Here we go. Go silent. No discussion of WCW. Eventually start talking about, well, you know, we've acquired WCW and we finally got, you

know, the WCW roster going. Now that wouldn't work because it's an invasion angle. Never mind. No talk about WCWCW. all of a sudden we see somebody come in, not Booker T, try to get involved in a WWE match, a baby face,

not a heel, right, a baby face, come in from WCW, finally getting an opportunity in WWF and gets, not as a WCW representative, a former WCW star,

quote unquote, some money that everybody would recognize, finally gets an opportunity, the first one. And JR, whoever was doing color and play by play at the time, I can say, oh, you remember a couple months ago, we acquired WCW, former WCWCW star, blah, blah, blah, blah, enters the ring,

it just gets trashed, gets hammered, double team, triple team, gets beat to a pulp, almost like a gang initiation. If you can survive this, then you're on the team kind of thing. Same thing happens a week later or two weeks later. And all of a sudden, it's obvious to the audience that indeed, WWF the heels are absolutely destroying some of this young talent that's just trying to get a gig in WWF. Now there's a reason for staying to go, well, this is fucked up. I'm not going to let this happen.

And now you've got Sting showing up and then bring in Shane McMahon and say, I agree with Stig. This is not the right way to do this or whatever the verbiage would be. But whatever the motivation is, there would have to be motivation for Sting. to show up and write a wrong in typical baby face fashion, even though he's a spooky crow character, somehow another he'd have to be there to write a wrong. That would be an interesting way or a version of that because we're just riffing here. That would be an interesting way, I think,

to bring not just sting in the crow character gimmick, but to take the sting crow character that works so well because of a similar situation that we just described that was happening in WCW back in 96 or 97, now that same character with the same motivation and that same righteous perspective of life, he's here to fix the thing that's wrong, that would have been consistent with Sting's character. So you not only had the look of the crow character, now you've got the consistency of what the audience believed in with Steve Borden.

I would have launched it. I mean, that's a bad idea, but it's off the top of my head. Not a bad idea, but it's a, yeah, it's a, a loose idea at best, but something like that, it would have to be a motivation other than just boom, here I am. It's interesting to think, you know, this is the most celebrated opportunity and perhaps bungled opportunity in WW history. But our old pal Jeff Jarrett on Tuesdays always reminds us, creative is subjective.

And I think this is an excellent way to sort of explore that. Um, creative is subjective all the way up until the point you put it out television. Then you find out whether it's subjective or not. Well, I mean, even then, I think there's some stuff that I would like and you wouldn't like and vice versa. That's fair. Some will like it. So what is, is I think the attitude. And, and I get that they, they're trying to do stuff, but this does feel like the biggest, perhaps what if.

Um, the WWF runs out of patience and they have Shane McMahon become, the face of WCW. And this is happening at the same time the dude is wrestling Kurt Angle, which is a little silly. In hindsight, it feels less than to not have you be a part of it. And you alluded to the call that you got with JR and you said the timing was wasn't maybe right here.

But I also got the vibe in talking to you before. Jara wasn't really trying to sell you on this idea. And I don't know if that was just, uh, he wasn't really pleased with y'all's, previous interaction in WCW or what have you. But with the right sell job, do you think you would have considered leading the charge for this thing?

Absolutely would have had I been given a little bit more notice because I honestly, I wasn't TV ready. I had to let myself go a lot. Right now I'm about 185 pounds when I'm probably way less now than I did in 1995 or 1990 for that matter. I don't think I've been 185 pounds in 30 years. But at that time, I was up to 225, which doesn't sound like a lot because, you know, I'm 510, 225.

It's not too bad. But I'm not a, I'm a natural 175 pounder. That's probably what I should weigh. And I had ballooned up to about 220, 225. I looked horrible on television. So, and I, even when I finally showed up at WWWE a year later, I still look pretty horrible for television, not from walking around, but I was not TV ready. Had I been given a month's notice to at least try to correct that a little bit. And also it was happening over a period of time

when I had a lot of friends and family in town and I just couldn't on short notice like 48 hours, which is all the notice I really got. I couldn't, I just couldn't. Bad timing. But I probably, you know, who knows, had it been explained to me, me and I would have given a little bit more time. Absolutely, I would have done it because it would have been fun. It would have been fun. And it's fun to think about what could have been. You know, these days I feel like we don't talk about money enough with our kids.

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N.A., pursuant to license for Visa USA Inc. see terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton Debit Flex card, and Bank Corp debit flex card, savings provided by Cash App, a Block Inc brand, visit cache.com, slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. You know, I know that it would have made sense to even bring you back in 2002 when they did the whole NWO thing. I guess that would have made more sense, right? If you would have started this thing early with Sting and Sting is leading it and build a story out at a couple more former WCW talents to Sting's brigade and they're not gaining any ground, but they're putting up a hell of a good fight.

Stack up a few more talents that actually matter a little bit. Bring me in. Let me start bringing that talent in. Now you have something that feels like an invasion with a motivation. Yes. And just to add that context, we're saying we're not going to do this deal with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall and Hulk Hogan. They want too much money and a lot of.

upset, you know, our, our current pay structure. That's the, that's the talk in March of 2001. We do the actual invasion in July of 2001. We sunset it in November of 2001. And then in February of 2002, here comes Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan. Like what? Like in the scheme of things, it's three months after it's dead. What's the difference, right?

And, and, and again, because we have the luxury of 2020 hindsight and being fucking creative geniuses after the fact. But if you think about that from a what if, you know, point of view, I mean, I love Shane McMahon. We're good friends.

And he's an amazing talent. I have nothing but respect for Shane. And I can't wait to see him again down the road. But that was a bad fit. It was not believable. It was just, okay, I get it.

He's playing a role and he's doing what we're supposed to do here to tell a wrestling story. but it didn't work. Had I been able to take that role, had we been able to build up an invasion story that seemed to have motivation, it wasn't just thrown out there like an afterthought, see if it sticks or not,

but have a story similar to the one that we just laid out briefly. Let Sting and his team get so close to achieving whatever the stakes were. We'd have to create those stakes. But have them get so close, getting that brass ring, whatever it would have been, only to somehow not get it. Now with being that position, what would I do? If Scott Hall and Kevin Ash and Hulk Hogan, all of a sudden are available a year later,

again, that would have felt so believable. It would have got a completely different reaction. And it would have been continuity to the story. It wouldn't have just started, stop, start again. the other thing I think that is a glaring hole in this whole invasion piece of business is we have our first WCW match Booker T and Buff Bagwell in Tacoma now on the one hand it's like yeah well what's the big deal well I don't know the next freaking week they're at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta like to me if you're going to start

this invasion angle and I get that we're all as you said creative geniuses with the benefit of hindsight. Like you start this thing at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. That's where it kicks off, right? That would have made sense. But again, there's no why. It was no, it was just to, oh, it's Marcus Bagel and Booker T. They're WCW guys.

We're in Tacoma. Let's just throw it up against the wall or even we're in Georgia, which would have made a lot more sense, but it wouldn't have made as much sense as it would have in Georgia or anywhere else. particularly in Atlanta, if there would have been an explanation and a story. Otherwise, it's just, yep, there's Marcus Bagwell. He's from WCW, Borker D, WCW, and you're selling it in your commentary,

but it still just pops up out of the ground without any backstory, without any reason, without any states, without any motivation. It's just two guys wrestling. What if? And I know that this is silly, right? Everything in wrestling is a little silly.

We got to suspend our disbelief. But if there is, in the Georgia Dome and Stone Cold Steve Austin is out there and he just starts cutting promos about how you know he's got no competition you know he's dominated everybody in WWE he's beat the rock he's beat so and so he's beat so and so by the way there was this little piss ant company here in Atlanta Georgia they said uh you know I wouldn't worth nothing blah blah blah you know typical Steve Austin speech who yeah yeah he could start trashing on the lead up to that show and then actually in the ring during that show.

And what if we did the whole, here's the NWO and maybe, maybe he's of course, he's aligned himself, he being Steve Austin with Vince McMahon, you bought WCW, but you didn't buy the NWO sort of thing. Oh, that could have been a thing. And all of a sudden, if now Steve Austin and Vince McMahon are standing in the ring, and here's Hulk Hogan and Scott Hall at Kevin Nash and Eric Bischoff, Yeah, you bought WCW, but you didn't buy the NWO. And that could have been, that would have got the idea that you and Vince come face to face

in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. He's got his band of Mary misfits, including Stone Cole standing behind him. And you've got the NWO behind you. That could have been something too. Like it just feels like there's a lot of opportunity here with the benefit of hindsight. And I know at the time we're saying, oh, we can't afford it. But then magically, they just shift. the cash a handful of months later.

It was right there, and we just didn't do it. I mean, it's what you just laid out with the NWO and Austin and McAnne in the ring and the NW on the other side of the ring, oh my God, that would have been so badass. That would have been so badass. And could you imagine the match you could have had with Steve Austin and Scott Hall? That would have been freaking awesome, especially with that setup. I would have been,

that would have been phenomenal. And it would have made a lot of money. And it was right there. I mean, they're doing it in the Georgia Dome. And I mean, it would have even been cool if, you know,

we're mixing it up. And Goldberg, to me, when I think of the Georgia Dome, I think at Goldberg. Do you know it? Like, he's the guy,

I think is most synonymous with that building and wrestling. And honestly, now, with the NWO, that would have eclore. eclipsed Goldberg's impact. I mean, the NWO was bigger than Bill. The NWO was so big that it would have been bigger than Goldberg by himself in

in Atlanta. But if you didn't have the NWO and you needed that other person, yeah, Goldberg would be your guy. Goldberg walks on water in Georgia and he did it at that time. Probably still does. He, he was on the Atlanta Falcons football team and everybody gave him a lot of props for that.

but he was most known, most known for his college career, Georgia. So yeah, you would have, that would have been awesome. I mean, I think it could have been interesting to, uh, to just see Goldberg. Again, I know that we're saying at the time, Austin's a heel. Well, technically the NWO would be heels, but if they're all going to kind of come face to face, maybe if the NWO was trying to take over and they're giving a beat down, if Goldberg makes the save in the Georgia dome and he finds himself shoulder to shoulder with Austin. And of course, we know that's not going to last.

Eventually that one's going to turn on the other. Somebody's getting a stoner. We could build on that story, but it just feels like in the Georgia Dome, it's the perfect opportunity to do this sort of thing. You know what, though? Here's probably why that didn't happen.

Maybe. The risk in that story would be, NWO would have gotten over. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, they would have gotten, Wouldn't that be terrible if people liked it and tuned in? But that's now you're running against a cultural grain. Right. So dumb.

Now you've got, now you've got a, now you've got an emotional problem within the hierarchy of WWE. That's likely why that didn't happen. Don't you think that's a little silly? Of course. It's absolutely insane. But it's part of human nature, you know, but none of us are perfect.

It's, it's a flaw, but it's, that one was a big one. You know, there was some ego involved in there. If that was discussed and it didn't happen, that was an ego decision, not a financial decision. I don't know that,

you know, the eye, I don't think Vince's eye was all the way on the ball. Like it would have. And honestly, you're giving them, you know, some slack and perhaps you're right about that.

Nothing but massive respect for Vince McMahon. And I like him personally. But, historically Vince doesn't didn't hasn't like to acknowledge anything other than WWE yeah WWE is the standard everything else that's not WWE that didn't come up through the WWE cultural process and learn how to perform to the expectations and the unique perspective sometimes of Vince

McMahon if you're not on his list you you you're you're second class citizen. It's just a fact. And maybe that's one of the reasons why the WWE is such a powerful brand today and worth $9 billion stock price trading at $112. I mean, I was sitting in one of your offices a couple of years ago and kind of bottom fell out. And there was all this kinds of transition.

And I made up my mind despite the fact that time I didn't have a lot of disposable income to invest. If that thing hits $35, I'm going to have to sell some shit because I got to buy that. It was that close to $35 a share. Now it's up to $112. And I think the reason for that is because Vince's focus and commitment, as you started this podcast out earlier, it's all about the brand and not about the talent. But there is some ego involved in some kind of cultural patterns that we've all seen over the years

and heard about from people who were on the receiving end of it. just it was it was a perfect storm and a perfect opportunity but it was never going to happen there was never a scenario i can't imagine a scenario where Vince would have allowed the NWO and Bill Goldberg to get a massive reaction and fans side with that side of the equation over any WWE combination and i just can't believe would have given you to a million other reasons why. But at the core of it, I'm not letting those guys come in here and steal the, the loyalty for my audience and my roster.

As you may recall, one of the original ideas was, at least this is the rumor, hey, maybe we'll, we'll call Monday Night Raw, we'll make that a WCW show. And, and, and, and maybe it'll be WCW Raw. And maybe there'll be a new show on TNN because, yeah, you know, that's, that's the new opportunity that's presented itself. and well, that Tacoma thing goes so badly that that's all scrapped. And they have to come up with these creative ideas. And one of the ideas is, hey, DDP still wants to play.

Maybe he thinks there's an opportunity to bet on himself. He's the most positive guy we know. He's going to go put in the work. He's going to take a pay cut and make a go at it. And instead of this being some dynamite storyline, man, it just feels like it's bad from the. beginning. He's going to start stalking the Undertaker's wife. Now, wrestling fans at home know he's married to Kimberly. Why are you stalking anybody?

What? Uh, that creative is just less than ideal. And I know DDP saw himself as the people's champ of WCW. He would have liked to have wrestled the people's champ of the WVF, the rock. Uh, if you had your druthers, what would have been a cool way to introduce DDP into this audience because I understand that when I ask you that question, a lot of people who are Eric Bischoff or DDP haters are going to say, oh, you're just asking him because he's his friend.

So I'm asking him because the diamond cutter was still arguably the number one or number two hottest move in the whole industry. So if he slides in in any match and hits a diamond cutter, huge impact right away, throws up the hand sign. You could see a good shot of that on the hard cam. You talk about making impact. again, not disrespecting Lance Storm at all,

the diamond cutter way more over than a super kick at that point. Like to me, if you're going, he could have been another guy that really kick this thing off interfering in some match with a diamond cutter. Everybody knows who that is as soon as it hits. But what would have been a good idea for DDP, do you think? Well, easily, going back to the original concept of, you know, creating a situation where a former WCW star finally gets their opportunity and that just gets abused in the process simply because he or she was,

from WCW. Now there's a motivation. Would that DDP? Could he have been the guy? And by the way, you know, I don't know why I don't think of GDP right away. I don't think I would have led with DDP,

but he'd be my number two. He'd be my number, he'd be my Kevin Nash in the context of Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, ultimately, Hulk Hogan. And he could have been such a great baby face. I mean,

again, you've got a WCW star in, in a course, if you're in the WWE culture, you look down your nose at that, especially at that time, is what it is or was what it was. But DDP had,

he was like a Phoenix rising from the ashes. He went from kind of a middle of the bottom of the roster to a legitimate big star in a relatively short, very short period of time, really, big scheme of things. He would have been that great baby, He could have done a couple promos.

I finally get an opportunity. I'm glad WWE brought out WCW. I love WCWCW my opportunity there, but at least we get a chance to continue pursuing this passion we love, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And have him go out there and just get, eat half the death. He would have been that good sympathetic baby face.

But to bring him in as a heel, after he'd been established and there was so much equity in the minds of the audience as a huge, you know, man of the people, one of them coming down through the crowd. I finally did it. Adrian! Everybody said I couldn't.

I finally did all that good shit, right? And just pretend none of it ever happened to bring him in as a heel. What the fuck? That's kind of arrogant, don't you think? That's assuming your audience never paid attention to everything this man did previously. That's just arrogant. It doesn't make any sense. I think bringing DDP it is a baby face that is a catalyst or a purest

my sting would have been an awesome situation. And I contradicted myself because I said I would have used him as my number two. I would have used him. I would have used DDP as that person that provided the motivation for Steve Borton. I would not have had him following the undertaker's wife for him. What the fuck? No, that's a terrible idea. That's the worst idea.

It's one of the worst ideas ever heard. We do see Buff Bagwell have a match here that's been pretty controversial. this is that match in Tacoma. I do want to talk about Buff, but before I do, I want to mention that fans of Tacoma, they're not with it. They're chanting boring.

They're chanting this match sucks. They're even chanting Goldberg. And to me, that's just another indicator that we needed to find a spot for Goldberg. We needed a spot, I find a spot. And I realize we're trying Austin as a heel. But Austin Goldberg could have crushed.

I mean, this is one of those dream matches. um kevin sullivan was with us for top guy weekend and here in huntsville uh as a part of what we do with ad free shows dot com and he dropped a few nuggets on us and one of the biggest pieces that i heard from him that was like how i never really thought about that because i like a lot of wrestling fans thought okay they just wanted to make him look like steve austin but they put some ufc gloves on him that's what they were looking for because austin was getting hot in september of 97 he's about to become a maid man and well that makes sense because that's when goldberg debuted on tv september and 97 now when we talked to kevin sullivan he says yeah i went down to the power plant

saw what he was doing and said hey we got something with this guy he's intense he's explosive let's make him our version the wrestling version of mike tyson he was doing all the head stuff like let's just do more of that let's put some gloves on him but he's got to be able to hold the guy so we'll cut the fingertips off. Let's put him in black trunks and little short black boots and do like an entrance from the back like Tyson used to do once he gets over. We'll just make him like the wrestling version of Mike Tyson. And at the time in 1997,

Tyson's the biggest box office star, not Steve Austin. Tyson is the pay-per-view superstar. And why would the number one company take a look at the number two company and say, hey, we want, let's copy that. That doesn't make any sense. It makes a lot of sense to make him the wrestling version of Mike Tyson. And I don't know until Kevin Sullivan laid that out at Top Guy Weekend,

but I've ever put that together. What do you think of that? I think that makes a tremendous amount of sense. Yeah. And Kevin was right there in the middle of it, probably long before I was. It would have been Kevin that brought my attention to this amazing potential we had in the power plan.

I didn't spend a lot of time evaluating talent. That wasn't my strength. I didn't have any confidence in my ability to look at talent and go, oh, I see something of that person. You know, afterwards, and I see him perform and I get a sense of what they're like in a mic and things like that. I paid a lot of attention to that, but I didn't pay a lot of attention to the talent of power plant where Kevin Sullivan did.

Kevin Sullivan saw something initially that, really, you know, I didn't see. He saw it way before me. Makes sense. It was. And even, Austin, you know, I mean, they're obviously, you know, can't deny the similarities. I mean, just physical similarities, but even in their gear and their appearance,

um, a lot of similarities. But, but I think, you know, Goldberg did have that MMA legitimate fighter vibe that set him, even though they looked very similar and I'll have the same ring gear, essentially. Goldberg had a different vibe to him than Austin did. Oh, no doubt. You know, my grandfather used to say. say there's no stress like money stress, son.

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Save with Conrad.com. What's better than a WWF versus WCW angle? Hmm, what if we made it a three-way dance, as they used to call it in ECW? Paul Heyman is going to become a part of the alliance, but of course we have to have a McMahon all over this thing. So Stephanie McMahon has now bought ECW. So Shane McMahon has WCW, Vince McMahon has the WWF,

and now Stephanie has ECW. To me, this is when the whole thing sort of jumps the shark. No disrespect to Stephanie. I think she was one of the best television characters of the era. We're seeing her very early, but man, she became a mega heel like 10 years ago when she was a part of the authority

and she's slapping folks. Now I understand you needed to pay that off of the match at some point. As far as a television performer, I thought she was fantastic. However, when I think of ECW, the last person I associated with it is Stephanie.

And as an ECW fan, a diehard, I found myself going, oh man, what did you think? Is this would have jumped the shark for you? like a trained one at SeaWorld. Yeah. You know,

I mean, ugh. I agree with you. Stephanie was a great performer. I loved working with Stephanie because she, she was so believable. She got into her character. She wasn't just saying the words and,

you know, memorizing a script in her body language, her eyes, her facial expressions. She was such a great performer. And again, She has so much credibility. But to miscast her, I mean, I, like, if you had a contest to see who could cast something the worst,

that would have probably won some kind of award. That was horrible. To me, the way to do this, and again, what do I know? But the way to do this is, and you guys tried it in 05. We had all three of you in the ring. Vince owns the WWF, you quote unquote, run WCW,

and Paul Heyman, quote unquote, run ZCW. And just leave the McMahon kids completely out of it. Let them do what, why would they, I mean, I understand from a storyline perspective and you and I have gone on and on

about how much we love succession, and I think they just got 27 Emmy nominations. It was all about the family and their dysfunction and who's taking over. That is a story that has interest. but I don't think we need to complicate the invasion storyline for that, like these dream matches that we used to see on these after mags on the cover. There was never any, what if Stephanie tried to supplant her dad?

That's not a thing. Like we don't care. Um, and we could have, but let's not confuse the issue with, with WCW and ECW. Jeff Jared often says on his podcast, if you confuse them,

you lose them. This is getting a little convoluted for me now. right? More than convoluted. It's just, it's just not believable. And there's nothing anybody can grab a hole of here. It's just bad.

Really, from the get go, the idea was bad. Had you had Heyman and Bischoff and, and who's the other one you, you talked about? You and Paul Heyman and Vince McMahon. Like those are the three heads, right?

So like, yeah, leave it at that. Leave it at that. that. And, you know, you could have put Stephanie in there instead of Vince. Vince may not have wanted to put himself in that position because that requires, you know, week in a week out, and sometimes you have the time to do it. Sometimes you don't. But even if Vince wasn't willing to kind of take the, that third position or first position and Heyman and I would have shared second

and third, um, put Stephanie in that. That would have been believable. Having Stephanie or even Shane, Stephanie, Stephanie would have made a little bit more sense, I think. Because you couldn't touch her, right? She had an advantage in that respect. That would have worked. Could have worked. But yeah. And here's the thing, wrestling fans, as crappy as it was,

they're so in love with this concept that the pay-per-view, the first one, invasion, man, it crushes. It's the highest grossing, most purchased WWF pay-per-view in history outside of a WrestleMania. So besides the WrestleMania, this is the high watermark. And if you're watching on YouTube, you see the poster. And I know what you're thinking.

Man, the invasion. So you probably got all the WCW guys on one side and all the WVF guys on the other side and probably the ECW guys across the bottom. Nope. We got half Shane's face, half Vince's face. And at the very bottom, the three logos. And they went with the most recent terrible WCW logo. I would have used the OG logos for both ECW and the WWE.

and ECW, just use the old school logos. But that poster, man, it doesn't show the talent, doesn't tell the story, but the card itself does tell the story of the invasion. We get Edging Christian taking on Lance Storm and Mike Awesome. We get Earl Hebner taken on Nick Patrick. That's kind of fun. McPoly's the special guest referee. We get the APA taken on Chuck Palumbo and Sean O'Hare.

We get Billy Kidman taking on Xbox. Raven wrestling William Regal which is interesting because Regal's the WWF guy and now Raven is an alliance guy Chris Canyon, Hugh Morris and Sean Stasiak taking on Albert Big Show and Billy Gunn Tajiri taking on Taz Rob Van Damme taking on Jeff Hardy probably the match of the night

definitely the match of the night Trish Stratus teaming with Lita to take on Tori Wilson and Stacey Keebler in a bra and panties match Roll tied and then in the main event the alliance Booker T Bubba Ray Dudley Diamond Dallas Page Devon Dudley and Rhino

take on the alliance or that is the alliance they take on team WWF Chris Jericho Kane Kurt Engel Stone Cold and the Undertaker and this even though it's not

perhaps as Star studded on the WCW side as you would want I mean DDP and Booker T check the box the Dudleys certainly check the EC W box. It does 775,000 buys, but I just can't help but look at that card, especially the undercard and think,

man, what could have been? Like the Dudley's should have been in one of these tag matches, like the Dudley's versus APA or the Dudleys versus Edge and Christian. Something like that makes sense as opposed to maybe what we got. But man, it just tells you just based on the storyline alone, Eric,

a high watermark for the company, 775,000 people buy it, hoping, wishing, what's going to happen? I don't know. And then the wheels come off. Yeah, that's one of the disadvantages. Sometimes when you build something up and you create a perception and you have all this expectation, especially when you've had a history of surprising people

and, you know, you've conditioned your audience over years. to expect the unexpected. This had so much potential. That's great news. And you get everybody that comes into your restaurant called a pay-per-view. And how many people bought this pay-per-view? 775,000. Wow.

That's kind of massive. So you get 775,000 people that show up to your restaurant and they all leave disappointed. That's tough to fix, which is probably why they abandon a little. lot of this afterwards if they did. I'm not sure what they did. But yeah, the good news is 775,000 people showed up. The bad news, they probably left a little less than impressed. You know what's crazy to me, Eric, just, you know, we, we love on this program to say

context is king. You know right off the top of your head. What was the most successful WCW paper view in history? Come on. You know the answer. I don't know. Actually, take a stab. A Halloween havoc somewhere. Oh, come on, man. Starcade 97. Hogan and St. Oh, oh, yeah, I forgot. See how it goes? When you don't hang on to your past, you sometimes forget important parts of of it. The biggest WCW paper view in history. And it's not close is Sting and Hulk Hogan, Starcade 97. How long did you take to tell that story, Eric? Year and a half. 700,000 buys. Wow. The invasion's three weeks old. 775,000. Wow. Wow.

Wow, what a data point. I'm just saying like, the idea is right there. Wrestling fans won it so bad. You spent a year and a doggone half telling that story, and it broke every record, 700,000. Meanwhile, we throw shit against the wall for three weeks, see what sticks, 775,000 buys, and the wheels still came out.

That's crazy to me, just to give it that context. And that tells you what could have been. Of course, we know WCW was largely positioned as mid-carders. No disrespect that ADP and Booker T. They are top guys. And we know Booker T had more success than anyone who made that jump from WCW. But it just didn't hit, man.

And by November, it's all done. It's wrapped up. And just to put it in perspective, because we did talk a lot about, you know, the NWO and what could have been and how, they're going to be in in February. Let's not forget that later that same year at the end of 2001, here comes Rick Flair. They do wind up bringing Rick Flair in. Rick Flair, even if he wasn't going to wrestle, could have been an incredible mouthpiece for WCW. And I would argue

a much better mouthpiece and bigger piece of the show than Shane McMahon. Like let Shane do his thing. But hey, Shane brought me in and I'm representing WCW and we're going ahead to head, man, as a promo, that could have been fantastic. I would have preferred you in that spot. I gladly take Rick as a second spot. And of course, I think Rick would have been better than me, except for the NWO part. Right. But just in the initial invasion, you know, especially if staying would have been the guy

and had the reason and follow that up with Rick Flair and let Rick Flair be the mouthpiece of the invasion angle until he was forced or ready to get into the, I would have been pretty freaking cool too. Rick wouldn't have, like I said, lent himself to the NWO chapter of that invasion story. Right. The initial part of it, he would have and more so than me because Rick represented WCW far more than I did. I mean, for that matter, if you really want to do this invasion thing, to your point,

you could have the Goldbergs and the DDPs and the Stings represent the WCW side of thing with Rick Flair. You could represent the NWO side of things. with Paul and Nash and Hogan and whoever else you want. Uh, and then of course on the ECW side, you just have Paul Heyman and think about the promos from that group. If the mouthpieces are Vince McMahon, Rick Flair, Eric Bischall,

Paul Heyman, this thing could have been booked a million different ways. It might still be going on. Yeah, we say we don't have the budget for it. So as soon as we kill it, it finishes November at Survivor series. The very next night, that's when bringing Rick Claire. Three months later, that's when we bring in Hogan, Holland Nash. A year later, that's when we bring in Goldberg.

It was right there. We needed a bet on ourselves. And instead of flushing all, and here's the thing. I just want to add proper context for this because people always say, well, we didn't have it in the budget. But we had plenty of budget for that piece of shit XFL. Like the XFL, think about the massive losses the XFL took. And for a fraction of that,

you could have got all the stars that you wanted here. that you said you couldn't afford. And then I don't know, maybe you would have made money because you beat WCW's highest grossing pay-per-view that they spent 18 months building in three freaking weeks with candidly less than stars. Like you didn't use the top tier and it still got there. What could SummerSlam have looked like? What could Survivor Series have actually looked like?

And we just made that investment here and not in less than football. 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. All right, Eric, let's do a couple quick questions. Then we'll get out of here. This is a fantastic question from Zole Lopez. Ask Eric, if you could pick your five on five, who would be your WCW selections and your WWF selections, all of them in their prime.

So let's just, rather than say in your prime, we'll call it 2001. We're going to rebook the ending here. Maybe not the ending. We're going to rebook the Survivor series because as you and I joke, this thing could still be going on now. But what would that look like? You're going to get five representatives from WCW and five representatives from the WWF. So there is no ECW in this. 2001, who would you pick?

Sting Goldberg, DDP, where was Eddie Guerrero in 2001? He was in the WWF. He was already there. So on the WCW side, I'd have, I'd have any defect. Sting, Goldberg, DDP. So you're not going to do Hogan in there, not going to do Flair, a Nash, Luger. Not to start with. Not to start with.

So Sting, Goldberg, DDP, somehow Eddie Gero. We got one more. Scott Steiner. I'd go with Booker. Okay. So the fantasy booking here from the WCW side of things for Eric Bischoff is Sting Goldberg, DDP, Eddie Guerrero and Booker T. Now, who are they going to be wrestling on the W.

W. F side, Eric. We'd have to go with Austin, number one. The intrigue of a potential Undertaker sting matchup could be really, really fantastic. Austin and Undertaker together. Who else? Okay. Who else we got there? I have to see names on paper. I can't just pull names out of thin air.

Triple H, the rock, Kurt Angle. Oh, no, I would have held off on rock. That's why I'd like, you know, you keep, keeps certain powder dry because then you've got something to look forward to. So I wouldn't have put Rock in that initially. Big shows there, angles there. Oh, Kurt Angle and Triple H for sure. sure, heard angle in triple H for sure, because angle could have really in triple H. Obviously, there could have been some great, great matchups in there.

What have we got for? Yep, we need one more. And I'm actually going to challenge you. I'm going to take Eddie Guerrero away from me. All right. But Chris Benoit. Okay. So you're going to put Benoit on that side?

Yep. All right. So we got Benoit, Triple H and Kurt Angle. And who do you want to, who do you want to slide that Eddie Guerrero spot? from the WCW side of things somebody who was still still active in 2001 yeah let me let me pull up that roster and let you know who all's over there in 2001 um I don't know the best one would have made sense but bam bin bigelow Chris cany and buff fagwell uh we already got Goldberg on the list um Conan scott sider Scott sider Scott sider

Scott Steiner. I guess maybe if he didn't snap his leg off, Sid could have been cool or maybe Luger. But that's what we got. So we got Sting, Goldberg, DDP, Booker T, and Scott Steiner. Man, that's a fucking hell of a theme there. And you still,

to your point, you still have Paul and Nash and Rick Flair and Hulk Hogan in the weights. Then you've got Austin Undertaker Benoit, Triple H, and Angle. I could argue that WCW could have won that, which I guess would be interesting. I know we know that Vince would have never allowed that to happen, but when I take a look at that,

yeah, I would think WCW's got a real shot to win that. And every one of those talents makes sense from a history, backstory point of view. Adam Arpin says in an invasion angle, you always have a traitor in your scenario with Sting. Who would you have defect from the WWF to join Sting? That's interesting. So is there somebody on the WCW side that would have, or the WVF side that would have come back over? Who would make sense? Would it be a Benoit, a Guerrero, a big show?

Not a big show. Not big show. God, I don't know. I'd have to think about that harder. I can't just pull names out of my hat like that. I have to think about that. Aaron wants to know. Besides thing and Undertaker,

what other dream matches would you have booked? Is there like, that's the one everybody always gravitates to, not me. I always thought Austin Goldberg, like in 98, that's what I really wanted to see. I think fans have,

have really fallen in love with the darker crow version of Sting and him versus the Undertaker really intrigues a lot of folks. Is there another quote unquote dream match you think could have been cool that we didn't get to see? I'm with you. I think Austin Goldberg and Stig and Undertaker are really the only two that I throw into that dream match category. That's assuming they had a good decent story behind them.

But those are the only two that feel like real dream matches like oh my gosh if that would ever happen those are the only two mark cyrus shout out to mark glad to see him back on some of our live recordings wants to know what would have been the proper link to tell a proper invasion angle story we know that it really gets kicked off in june and then it comes to a close in november we saw you stretch sting and and and hogan for 18 months you got to think This one could have gone even longer, right? As we jubbed this thing could still be going on.

I mean, looked properly, there's just so much story there. I hate to be that guy because it feels like this is, um, feeding into a narrative. I know Bruce would argue this and I know from a business sense, it doesn't make any sense,

but you sort of alluded to it earlier. So Jim asked a fair question. While most agree that the angle was rushed in hindsight, isn't there, some chance that in the back of Vince's mind, he put vindictiveness over business and intentionally made WCW look weak. I don't think he intentionally made them look weak. I think the idea of always making certain that the WWE brand prevails and gets stronger every day,

by default, kind of creatively craps on just about anything else. I don't think it's a personal vindictiveness. I think it's just Vince McMahon's view of how to build his brand. How can you argue with him? You can't, right? As fans and audience, would we have liked to have seen it differently and would it maybe have entertained us more possibly?

But on the other side of the equation, you can't argue the strength of the WWE brand and Vince McMahon's vision and execution in building it. one of the guys who did go back and forth that we haven't talked about on this show was Chris Jericho with the benefit of hindsight if we were booking this fantasy booking if you will would you have liked to have seen him be a guy who would have defected or would you have kept him on the DVF side of that. No, I saw that pop up on our chat feed here from our studio audience and that would have been made that would have made total sense.

Especially if he had, but if you've seen, I'm sure you have because he gets posted about once a year. Chris wrote a letter to me, handwritten, you know, when it was time for him to leave, thanking me for the opportunity and hopefully we'll get a chance to work down the road together someday. It's a very nice letter. It touched me.

It was very classy of, of course, particularly under the circumstances. But to have Chris Jericho make that turn and pull that letter out, remember when I wrote this letter to you a couple of years ago? I said, hopefully we'll work together. someday. Today's the day. I mean,

that would have been just little shit like that. It's good television is nothing but a great, a bunch of great detail, little details shruged together in a great way. That would have been a, that would have been a cool opportunity. And Chris can't pull it off. He's the best.

You got to see that match from last night. As we're recording, we're recording on a Thursday morning. He wrestled commander. I know, you've probably not seen much commander, but, and what a talented guy.

We had him at Rick Flair's last match. I first saw him on GCW and was fortunate enough to see him in some AAA shows in Mexico. And my goodness, what a talent. And he had a hell of a match with Jericho last night. Still doing his thing, man, all these years later, Chris Jericho. One last suggestion that's sort of thrown up in the chat here. We haven't talked about it at all. But what a cool opportunity it would have been to introduce Ray Mysterio in the middle of all this.

I mean, a guy who just set WCW on fire a few years prior, the idea that he could have been a surprise in some of this, man, that, that leaves you a lot of opportunity. What couldn't that guy do, right? See,

that's what I mean. I have to look at names on papers, but how can I not have included Ramus Jero? As you were giving me, you know, ideas to choose from, I was thinking in my head, I need the,

I need an underdog. I need an underdog because they're easy to get sympathy on and get people on your side with. Give me an underdog. give me an underdog. And then we got on to another name, but perfect, absolutely perfect. I'd have to go back and rebook my team. I'd throw Ray Mysterio on there,

not only because it could just provide such a dynamic visual presence, because Ray Bistair really did come to national prominence in WCW in the Cruiserweight Division. So there's a direct link to WCW and its heritage, heritage, I guess. Yeah, but the ability to create sympathy. Because he's physically an underdog. Awesome. Awesome choice. We got to at least mention that on the other side of this invasion,

I think the two biggest sort of breakout stars are Rob Van Damme and Booker T. They're going to enjoy the most success. And unfortunately, the person who it doesn't work out for, I mean bigger than all is Buff Bagwell. And a lot's been written about that, said about that. I don't know that he necessarily. got a fair shake.

It's hard to believe that his television wrestling career started when he was so young and ended so abruptly. Do you think there's a scenario where Buff Bagwell as a part of an invasion angle could have worked out? I know you weren't there. I know we don't know exactly what happened. But it just seems like, man, that was a guy who was on TV for a long, long time. And then it's over.

Certainly could have. I wouldn't have led with Buff Bagwell. I need to stretch of the imagination. No disrespect to Mark. But he certainly could have been on any of those rosters. We didn't, you know, I didn't name him on my top five or anything like that because I was really looking for story potential more than anything else. But certainly, but I look for the bit in any one of those positions as a performer. I, you know, it's unfortunate what happened with Mark.

I think a lot of it was timing and culture. You know, we talk occasionally. I don't know if Bruce does or not, but there's a, there's a culture in WWE. And it's different than the culture and was in WCW. And adjusting to that culture and adjusting to what's expected of you in the ring, because it was different in WWE than it was in WCW. I think if anything went wrong, it was probably Mark's ability to adapt quickly. Because Mark was just one of those guys.

If he shows him at a party, he's going to show up and be the most fun at the party and make the most noise and attract the most attention. Not necessarily the best way to try to break into a company like WWE. So I think that was probably the issue. It wasn't because Mark wasn't a big enough talent or popular enough talent or good enough worker or didn't have the right look. None of those were the issues. My guess is it was just timing and failure to adapt.

Eric, I didn't know what to expect today, but I had a blast talking about what could have been. Yeah, I typically shy away from these conversations, but this one was a fun one. So thank you very much. And thanks for everybody, you joined us in the live studio. Thanks for everybody hanging out. having a good time with us. If you haven't already, check out ad-freeshows.com and time for the debut of Tuesday with the Taskmaster tomorrow on ad-free shows. And we'll be back next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Fishoff.