83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 437: SummerSlam Ticket Truth

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

83 Weeks is back on Mondays and better than ever! Eric and Conrad dive into one of the biggest weeks in wrestling conversation. Eric reflects on the passing of Hulk Hogan and explains why, despite the heartbreak, Hogan left him with one of the greatest gifts of his career. The guys also debate the single most significant moment in Hulk Hogan's legendary career and revisit Hogan's infamous appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, discussing why he may have been in over his head. Plus, Eric breaks down the surprising SummerSlam ticket price drops, and explains what he believes is the real reason ticket sales have been slower than expected. Finally, Eric gives his candid thoughts on whether Vince McMahon can ever salvage his public reputation after everything that's transpired.     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 ROCKET MONEY - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to http://RocketMoney.com/83WEEKS  MARS MEN - Get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at http://Mengotomars.com  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.

Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says good luck. O-Doo brings your business together on a single platform. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, visit O-D-O-D-com to book a demo. It's O-D-O-O-O-O-D-com. Today's episode comes to you from the Blue-Tew Studio. When you buy two months of Blue-Chue Gold, you get the third for free with promo code 83 weeks.

You'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order. at bluechew.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fish Offer. What's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing great. It's Saturday morning.

I've had a couple cups of coffee. I've been looking forward to doing this show, and I open it up, and I hear this voice that I've never heard before. I don't know who it is. But I'm thinking when I saw that blue chubes, commercial that opened up our show and listened to that phenomenal read as you always do phenomenal reads but i thought man if that voice was doing that read there is no way they're not running out of you know gimmicks because that that was an incredible blue chew would love to

have that voice over i'm telling you well we may have some some run-ins here in the coming weeks we are excited who is that idiot who is that idiot where did we find this dumb shit yeah that's a great question it's a great question you know we'll We'll let anybody in every now and again. It's like all of a sudden we'll just hear somebody knocking at the door. And we're like, wait, what could it be? Hey, so Eric, we were back on Mondays, you know, for a long, long time. You and I were Monday morning pioneers, I guess, with 83 weeks.com.

And we gallivanded a little bit on a Friday. But today is our first Monday back. It feels like we're back in our normal time slot. I like a Monday drop for 83 weeks, Eric. Well, I love a Monday. day drop for 83 weeks because it is far less likely that I'll have to try to change schedules for you and Super Dave and everybody else that's a part of this. My schedules, I'm losing control of my time during the day because things have gotten so busy and I'm doing so much traveling.

But Saturdays, no matter what, even if I'm on my location, we're shooting a show in, you know, Moscow, for example. And I don't know about Moscow getting out a Wi-Fi signal. I'm going to leave that one on the table for further to do. discussion. But for the most part, when I leave, you know, I'm doing a show on a weekend, I can still do our live version of 83 weeks because that's always in the morning. I don't get busy till the afternoon. And it's just, it's a way for us to stay more consistent. I love the show. I love doing it with you guys. I don't know why. It's just part of what I want to keep doing. So thanks for being flexible. Thanks to the audience for welcoming us back on Monday. I kind of feel like Monday should be where we are anyway. Yeah, I mean, you were the king of Monday nights with the Monday Night Wars, and now we're back on Monday mornings. At the subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell.

It's 83 weeks.com. And of course, if you want to be a part of our Saturday morning crew, come join us over at ringclassics.com. You're going to peek behind the curtain. We have a live studio audience each and every Monday, including today. I want to give a shout out to Coach Keith and Jack the phone guy and little Jimmy Sorensen and a whole host of others as being with us on a Saturday morning.

Eric, I hate to start with a bad anniversary, but I think we all know what this past week was. It was the one-year anniversary since the passing of the late great Terry Belaya. Of course, we wrestling fans will never forget Hulk Hogan, and, well, no one else will either. It was memorialized at the front of Madison Square Garden, and it feels like there was a rush of postings of Hulk Hogan memories and memorabilia.

And I know that, you know, we all celebrate birthdays. And sometimes occasionally we do celebrate the passing and try to honor their memory. But I don't know. It feels awkward to have our first time doing that for the Hulkster. What was it like this week for you, Eric? Because you reflect on a year without Mr. Belaya. You know, I think about Hulk on a pretty regular basis. I won't say daily, but, you know, throughout the week, probably half a dozen times.

something will happen or a conversation will, you know, be occurring where there's a reference made that kind of makes me think about it a little bit. But also, and I think more importantly, I'm going to be really careful here because I want to say this correctly. What I'm doing right now at Real American Freestyle is significant. What Real American Freestyle do is doing it right now in the world of sports and television is very significant. I'll just say significant. For people who feel the need to kind of throw headlines on top of what they're doing, you know, the longest running, the best tasting, the best price, whatever it is, I think it's honest and safe to say that right now, real American freestyle is the fastest growing sport,

at least in this country. Now, that's all relative. Let's be real. It's all very relative. But when you look at from a business perspective where we started less than a year ago, well, actually the company was formed about 16 months ago. If you look at where we were 16 months ago, I was sitting around a table with Hulk Hogan, by the way, in Florida.

And I'm sitting with a guy by the name of Chad Bronson, who I'd never had a conversation with before. I didn't even know who he was. I think I may have heard Hulk reference his name a couple times in conversations where we were just checking in with each other, but I didn't know, Chad, anything about it. And Izzy Martinez, of course, was already a part of their trifecta. But Hulk, you know, invited me down. I won't tell the whole story, but I met Chad.

I heard the idea. I was pretty confident my ability to contribute to what they were talking about doing, had my own ideas about what that vision could be, and has been doing it ever since. And we've made so much progress. And that's just my little contribution. which is significant. It's television. I get it. And it's important. But there are so many other really important pieces of this puzzle that have led us to the success that we're having, including and in some cases way above the significance of the television component that I'm involved in. So what I'm saying in a complex way is, or a confusing way, is that this is an amazing team. it is a unicorn of a situation.

And I think about Hulk every time that occurs to me, and that occurs to me on a regular basis. This is one of the greatest gifts he could have ever left us. And I say us, not just me as a person and as a friend, and I was his friend, but helping to get this thing off the ground and get, And people say, well, he's not even there. How do you, how do, why is Hulk so important? Hulk is important to this, to work to our success.

Because I doubt we would have ever made it to Fox Nation in a meaningful way without Hulk. I think Hulk represented to a large degree, a certain amount of security in, in making the decision to, to try real American freestyle. And, you know, when we started out, we only had an commitment for two episodes, two shows. If it worked great. If it didn't, we gave it a shot. You know, from Fox's perspective, they had a significant amount of money that they were committing to and high visibility.

They don't want a failure on their hands. But I think one of the reasons, and I can't say this for sure, because I've not had this conversation with Fox, but I'm guessing that knowing that HALC would bring a certain amount of attention to the brand, how do I know they might be thinking that? Because that's exactly what I thought.

That's what the man knew, right? We knew that there's at least a shot. We'll get enough attention that if we can produce a good product, they'll stick around. And Hulk provided that sense of security. He gave the network, in my opinion, I'm not speaking for them, gave them the security to take a chance on something that nobody else believed would work. Nobody thought, taking amateur wrestling to the professional league status, and being available on television, nobody thought that that would work because it's been tried.

And nobody's been able to figure it out. But Chad had a vision. Chad Bracstein had a vision. I had a vision. Izzy had a vision. And not only had a vision, had the experience and the resources to cobble it all together and launched this freaking rocket ship called Real American Freestyle, which it had never gotten off the ground.

If it wasn't for Hulk, Hogan or yes, Hulk, I think about that at almost daily basis. I think it's important to people know that. It really is incredible. You know, sometimes it feels like things are just fate. And sometimes we don't really know why certain things are happening when they're happening. And then you look back and you think, wow, now it kind of all makes sense. You know, I don't, we can edit how much of, however much of this we want.

But from my perspective, Eric, I feel like without even Googling it, I think most people would agree that Fox Nation for their audience primarily is built. around a conservative fan base and subscriber base, they would probably lean more conservatively. And I know that Hulk towards the end of his life really made it a point to become more active in politics. And that led to, you know, his final wrestling appearance being a lot of booze, because maybe people felt like maybe it was old stuff

or maybe it was a political affiliation. But without him sort of throwing his hat in the arena on a political stage, would Fox Nation have been interested? So whereas there may be people who may be critical of what Hulk's political beliefs would have been or those appearances or wonder strategically, was that a good career move? Because oftentimes in business,

you don't really show your hand. But by him showing his hand, it actually helped pave the way to launch a new sport whether you disagreed with his stance or not. Boy, look at what it allowed the opportunity to create. and I myself wondered, man, I wonder why he's doing this. This is going to sort of have the audience because, you know, if you, if you understand politics, you understand that there's two sides of every coin.

And so if you just don't put yourself in that conversation, maybe that positions you best to be as a business person. But when he made that decision, and I know it receives some criticism, look at the upside. Am I all based on that? No, it's a fascinating perspective or way to look at it. And I agree with you. I think that, well, first of all, let's go to Haltz decision. And I have talked to him quite a bit about that over the years, not just, you know, the last six months or a year of his life when he became, you know, obviously connected to Trump of the campaign.

But well, well, before, for years, we've talked about politics. I've always been, you know, someone who's very interested in current events, including politics. So if we would always lean into those conversations, and it's not like Hulk has not always been a conservative, he certainly has. But Hulk was primarily a businessman. And for the largest part of his life, knew not to, in fact, I remember a conversation that Hulk and I had years ago, maybe 10, 12, maybe longer. It was a long while ago. And because we were looking at something that Donald Trump had signed for him. and we're talking about it.

He was telling me about how we met Donald and, you know, through WWF, obviously, and all that. And so Hulk was a, was very familiar and a supporter, so to speak, of Donald Trump. But we never got into really deep conversations about it because Trump wasn't really deep in political conversations back that. You know, he let his feelings be known, but he wasn't right, right?

And he wasn't political. There's always been that relationship. And throughout the course of recent events when Trump first emerged and conservative politics became a hot issue to talk about, you know, Hulk would say things that led me to believe he really would like to step out and, you know, because it was important to him. It was certain things were very important to him. And but he also knew he couldn't. He sometimes lamented that.

Sometimes I, not a lot, but sometimes I got the impression. And that's a better way to say it. That he was, he really wished he could get out and say something so people would listen. And he knew he had a voice. He knew he had a platform. But he also knew that if he did, his accountant would be calling and saying,

hey, where did you go to work? Because, you know, your check is half of what it used to be. So he knew and he resisted until a point. And this was recent. I don't know.

I've lost track of time to be very honest with a year and a half, two years ago, somewhere in that area, before he got real sick. He just said, I'm done. Because of what he saw happening and his perception of what was happening, he just was like, I don't care, I've got enough money. I don't need any more money. My kids are fine. I'm good.

I'm going to step out. And he started talking. And as soon as, you know, Holt started going public, but the way he felt, felt about things, Donald Trump called him back in. And then obviously it blew up. Would, to your point, would all of that have happened if that would not have happened? And if Hulk would have just laid back and worried about the perception and the public's reaction to him, because it was important. But if he would have allowed that to make his decision, would Fox Nation feel confident that Hulk would bring those same eyeballs or bring those same eyeballs?

I don't think so. I don't think so. And you and I agree on that. So I think it's a really cool observation, but I think you're right. I think if Hulk would not have stepped out, Fox would not have stepped up. I'm just saying I know that,

you know, we have a lot of listeners who fall on either side of the aisle and they feel strongly. And sometimes we can get ourselves worked up. and maybe we don't see the forest for the trees, but by Hulk making this commitment, it helped launch a whole new sport. It helped create probably what will wind up being dozens of very successful careers. At some point,

I'm sure it will be hundreds of very successful careers. And I think you can track a lot of it back to one person having the courage to say, hey, this is what I believe in and this is what I'm going to do. Whether you agree or disagree with that, it did create huge opportunity. for perhaps generations that may not have been there otherwise. Yeah, you know, when you really, and sometimes I go off the deep end and I'll spend too much time

trying to determine what I should really be grateful for. And by that, I mean, life is a collection of individual moments and any one of those moments out of sequence or out of timing with everything else that's going on in your life, and your world can change. Opportunities that would never have existed,

as in my case here, talking about Real American Freestyle, all of a sudden, because all of those moments have aligned opportunistically to provide an opportunity. But any one of those elements, and they're always small moments,

they're not always big moments. I should say they're always small. They're, for me, almost always small moments are the ones that I really look for to be grateful for because they're the easiest ones to overlook and not recognize. But yes, Hulk making the decision, I can't take it anymore. I'm going to step out. Chad, Bronstine, and Hulk in the beer business together. That's how that all started. I wasn't involved in the beer side of the equation at all. I knew about it. Hulk and I would talk

about it. I was excited for him. He'd bring me, you know, tell me updates and all the time. He's very excited about it. But I was involved in it in any way. But Chad, Chad, you know, we can talk about Hulk and that's the obvious one, right? The least obvious one is Chad Bronson and Izzy Martinez. Without Chad's passion for what we're doing right now, because this was his vision, to build the sport of amateur wrestling, to provide a platform so that these athletes, he, phenomenal athletes, gold medal. What do we have like eight Olympic athletes on our card when we were over in Georgia or whatever it was? We've got the best of the best on the entire planet.

And that's in large part because of Chad's vision and Israel's ability to put us in business with those people. Any one of those elements not in the equation, this isn't happening. But a lot of it does kind of focus on Hulk making sure that we had the, attention. It's such a cool thing that I like thinking about why I should be grateful. It's a fun exercise. Well, it's a fun exercise, too, to think about Hulk Hogan's place in wrestling. And there's lots of chatter about that, you know, as far as the Mount Rushmore of what is the Mount Rushmore of wrestling. But I think it's pretty unanimous. Everyone acknowledges that Hulk Hogan is on that list. And whether you loved him or you hated him, you have

a reaction to him. And you think about the peak of wrestling, at least in my lifetime. You got the golden era of the 80s and then you've got the cable television explosion of the 90s. Both of those largely built on the backs of Hulk Hogan. You know, I don't know that WCW enjoys one day of profitability without Hulk Cogan. And I know there's a narrative out there that, you know, Hulk's legacy was this, root was that. But boy, look at what he did for wrestling, not once, but twice as we celebrate the one year anniversary of the Hulkster. We'll drop a comment. Let us know in the comments below what your favorite Hulk Hogan memories are.

And Eric, you know, it feels given everything that he did in his life, you know, because he did, as silly as this sounds, music, movies, television shows, real American freestyle, a beer. He was on the campaign trail. Wrestling is what his real legacy will always be. And I'm getting different answers than I used to, Eric. I feel like when I ask people, when they think about their most favorite or their most iconic Hulk Hogan moment,

it feels like it always used to be the Andre, the Giant Body Slam at WrestleMania 3. But I have heard quite a bit. And maybe it's because of the anniversary. It was Hulk Hogan becoming a bad guy in the NWO. When you think about the totality of your career or a Hulk's career, are you able to separate your career from it? Or is the number one moment to you, the Hulk Hogan heel turn? No, I think the number one moment.

When I say number one, I mean, what is the most significant? You know, what affected the industry and the way people perceive the business today? What moment impacted that the most? And as much as I am proud of what we accomplished with the NWO and, you know, going live, changing the entire format for the professional wrestling televised industry by going, you know, live every week. We're the first ones to do that. And it's the very reason the business is, is successful as it is today, is because it's live. We force that issue. And I know that, and from a business perspective, I will, I will have that conversation with anybody that has the

balls to have it with me, because I know I'll win. The data is there. But guess what? It wasn't the most significant thing that happened to the industry. The most significant thing that happened to the industry were the moments, and, you know, which one is, you know, subjective, but the moments that I think happened early on in Hall's career, early on in the WWF's extent or explosion, international television, those early years, the cover of Sports Illustrated, those, pick your moment in that era, but any one of the big ones could argue, would be the most important moment in the, in the long term history of the business.

I think NWO and all that and the heel turn, maybe we're a close second, but there's, it's not even that close in my opinion. Yeah, it's interesting to hear even you say that, but I do think when you look at it from a historical perspective, we had to love him before we could really hate him.

So, you know, this was the, that was the best, the most worthy sequel, but we always go back to the original. the red and yellow. You know, I don't know if you saw, but last weekend,

as folks are listening to this, maybe it was 10 days ago, there was Fanatics Fest. Man, what a sports weekend it was in New York City. You had major representatives from every single sport. I mean, the absolute icons in every sport. I mean, Tom Brady is walking around there. LeBron James is walking around there.

And of course, there was a big WWE presence as well. Roman Rain, C.M. Punk. Cody Rhodes, the absolute top of the card for WWB. We're represented at Fanatics Fest. But as I was thinking about that last weekend, and we've got all of these major sports figures from all over the world, because we've got World Cup games that week, and we've got, you know, Madison Square Gardens, Saturday night main event, and of course Fanatics Fest. And all I could think was, if the convention business was a thing in, say, 1985, and they were going to do a fanatics fest in 1985, and they're going to do a Saturday night's main event at Madison Square Garden. As big of a moment as this was, and as big of a weekend as this was, the aura of a

1985 Hulk Hogan walking around, and at that time, he would have been there with Joe Montana and Michael Jordan. But I feel like even with those two guys, you know, these larger than life characters from mainstream sports or traditional sports, if you will, I think Hulk Hogan would have own the room and he would have been the talk of the whole convention. And no disrespect to the tippy top of the card with the WWF. I just don't think they have a character or a persona or a performer right now who has really captivated the mainstream the way Hulk Hogan did back then.

But it's an, it's impathomable to even pot to think that we can never have that again. Like I don't think they'll ever be someone who becomes as much of a household name in pro wrestling and has such a major impact. the way Hulk Hogan did. But imagine Eric a 1985 fanatics fest with Michael Jordan and Joe Montana and Hulk Hogan. Like that just feels like it would have been even bigger for WWB somehow.

I get a, I get a better one for you. I actually had a glimpse into the scenario that you just described. Sands Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan wasn't there. But I was at a convention. It was a con, Comic Con.

I don't remember where it was. We're probably talking three, four, five years ago, whatever, I got really lost track of time. Not like what week am I in? Like, what year am I yet? That's how much time. I've lost track of time. So I'm going to say four years ago, it's a good guess.

I was at a Comic-Con. It might have been in Montreal. It was a big one. It wasn't a small one. Anyway, Joe Montana, Joe Montana was at a table directly to my left. Hulk Hogan was at a table directly to my right, and I'm in the middle. Hulk Hogan dwarfed Joe Montana. Wow.

Not kind of close. Not, wow, this is interesting. It reached the level for me of, I feel better for Joe. Wow. So not only are you right, I actually had a little peek into how right you are. And now let's step into the time machine. Joe Montana, let's assume that he was at the peak of his NFL success and career and visibility, right? Everybody knew Joe Montana.

Likeable, by the way, is a really, really super nice guy. Super nice. Humble, humble, humble, humble, humble, super nice guy. If Paul Kogun would have walked into any room at that point in time, because keep in mind, wrestling was still larger than life characters. These people weren't really. they were so large on TV that nobody expected them to be real in a real life. And Hulk stayed in character and he was huge.

Nobody else was really doing that. Hulk was. But I think if that Hulk Hogan, particularly because of where, you know, the pivot point that I talked about earlier, the early 80s and how significant that was culturally, which is why we don't see anybody that we can plug into that spot right now because none of them have hit the cultural nerve. They've hit the visibility nerve and the entertainment nerve, right?

People go, yeah, yeah, you know, Roman Reigns or whoever. I'm not to pick it out anyone named, pick whoever you want at the time. And go, yeah, but, you know, look at the crowd, this person. And that's true because they've hit that entertainment pinnacle, but they haven't transcended into cultural yet. Hulk was cultural. NWO was cultural. early 80s,

WWE had a cultural impact. Joe Montana didn't. Joe Montana had a sports impact. Yes. And you could argue that television became more profitable in the league became more. There's a lot of things you can say that Joe Montana brought to the table

that aren't as obvious as what a great player he was, right? But he didn't affect the culture, not like Hulk Hogan did, not like the NWO did. Now here's what I want to follow up on because you said something else that's really important. I think there are temp whole moments in the evolution of the industry. And, you know, the industry is evolving as we speak. Catalyst was really the streaming distribution model and how that's affected everything and

everybody. So we're a state of kind of transition and flux right now. But, you know, much like we were back when, we'll call it 1977, when cable first started becoming a thing. And then all of a sudden, The cable's a big thing. Oh, my God, terrestrial television is going to die because cables taking over. 154 channels, you know, Bruce Springsteen wrote a freaking song, 154 channels and nothing on, whatever the number is. It was a cultural thing at the moment. So who was ever at the top of the cultural divide got a lot of that attention? Those moments will never come back because the situation that created them will never be the same again.

NWO. It's why I so confidently, you know, of course it came off like sheer arrogance and, you know, I'm in my, you know, wrestling character, but it's also true. Nobody's ever going to achieve what the NWO achieved. Nobody. I don't care who you are, how good you are. You never come close to doing what we did with the NWO in a television wrestling business because those conditions no longer exist. It would be almost impossible. Not almost. It can be done, but it has to be an entirely new approach.

Point being, when Vince took WWF National, blew up the territory system model, that was a 10-pole moment. NWO, making the switch to primetime live television weekly and bringing the reality, bringing reality into the format and not leaning as heavily on the kid stuff and making the conscious decision to creatively and from a business perspective target an 18 to 34 year old audience instead of targeting a children's audience that was a that was a big moment but my point is that moment all those things that occurred all those the the the conglomerate of all those moments, the situation that created them will never happen again. So how's anybody going to be

able to achieve that? It's just interesting to look at these ten-pole moments. And I think what I'm trying to figure out is where do we go from here? Who is going to be that next star? Not only who is it going to be, I don't think about who it's going to be. I think a lot about how do we get there in today's environment. Now, how do we get there the way they did it in 1980 or the way I did it in 1990 or the way anybody's doing it in, you know, 2026? Because it's not working. To your point, which started this, to your point is there's not another person right now in the wrestling business that you could plug in to the role that we're describing with Hulk and fanatics and getting a reaction.

There is nobody right now, but there will be. I'm mostly curious as to how we're going to get there because that's the interesting part. It is interesting. It's also interesting to think about what a legacy Hulk Hogan leaves behind. I don't think that it can ever be matched, but it was right guy, right time, right place, right character. Timing was everything.

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O-Doo brings your business together on a single platform. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, visit O-D-com to book a demo. It's O-D-O-O-O-com. Hey, so we got to talk about some other big news this week, and we were talking about Joe Montana and pop culture and Fanatics Fest. Coming out of Fanatics Fest, we saw, believe it or not, some involvement from Tom Brady.

We saw Tom Brady on a panel and he was asked, I guess it came up about TKO and Fanatics Fest, and he had a little dust up with Logan Paul a few weeks ago or a few months ago now at this point. And Tom Brady basically made it clear, hey, I'm interested in doing a WWE story. I've told Nick Kahn to figure something out.

And then the next thing we know, he's slapping Logan Paul on stage. And then they're both seen at the soccer game flipping each other off. And then there was a report by TMZ that was like, hey, Tom Brady is trying to work something out with WWE. And I thought, yeah, no shit. What breaking news. We all saw.

We saw. We know. And I thought this was kind of duh. And then something was pointed out to me. And I thought, wow, I'm dumb. friend of the show front row Brian actually tag me and said maybe Brady

is buying into TKO and joining the board of directors the own stakes in the Raiders and the Birmingham City FC he could join Bobcraft's son Jonathan on the board which currently has 12 members Tom is also UFC matchmaker

Sean Shelby's first cousin I'll admit I had no idea that there was so much connective tissue between TKO and Tom Brady, but given the influence and mainstream and advertising and agencies and things like that that the Rock has as a member of the board. And we know the business acumen of like a Bob Kraft, but now maybe you get the celebrity angle from another sport with Tom Brady.

This could be a big deal for TKO. What do you think about Front Row Bryant speculation here that maybe it's not just on camera, but maybe Brady's going to become a board member. Isn't life fascinating? This is such a cool thing. I mean, this dovetails right into what I said earlier. It's not who's going to reach that next cultural level as much as it is how are we going to get there.

I think we got a glimpse into what may be a part of the way we're going to get there by utilizing and because TKO in particular, Ari Emanuel, especially his connective tissue and the depth of those relationships, the closeness of those relationships with key people in key positions. And what does that really mean? It's not like people going into business and doing dumb shit with Ari because they're buddies. They know Ari makes money. Ari is successful and these people want to be in business with other successful people. And Ari just happens to have all their phone numbers and knows their kids' names and vice versa.

So what does that really get you? If it doesn't get you, what it gets you, that access gets you is speed. What that access gives you is the ability to come up with an idea or a strategy at a Monday morning meeting at 948. and know that you could probably put the resources together with the right people shortly after lunch, as opposed to taking six months or a year to figure it out and build a team, right? And to get things done. That access across so many platforms within the world of entertainment, movie, sports, it's all entertainment, books, it's all entertainment. If you're doing it because you have time to do it and it satisfies the need, it's entertainment, my opinion.

But going to be careful with that one. It's weird. But TKO is uniquely positioned to make this mean so much more than somebody else that would have come up with that idea just because of the reach. Could it be big? It could be huge. You know, what would Tom Brady bring to the board? That I don't know. I don't know a lot about Tom Brady.

other than, you know, his football accolades have no idea what kind of businessman he is, or more importantly, how much interest he has in being in business. He's certainly smart. There's no question about, you know, does he have the IQ? Yes. It's a question of what does he really want to do with that IQ? Is he really interested in being an active board member and contributing as much as he can across those platforms?

If that's the answer, then yeah, this could be really huge because they'll surround him with people to help him make the right decisions or make the decisions he really wants to make, but help him get there the right way. It's pretty exciting. It makes sense, though, too. And I don't know what it you would like this would look like, but wouldn't it be interesting if there was some kind of a negotiation that said, well, okay, time, we know that you bring value because, you know, I am an agent and I do know that world.

Um, so maybe, maybe your participation is part of your, you know, entry fee, so to speak to be on the board, which makes it even smarter. So fun, fun time. If you go back and you take a look at when the rock became a board member, that's also when the final balls popped up and it looked like we were going to be on the trajectory for Rock versus Roman at WrestleMania. They called the pivot. It worked out.

Cody finished the story. Everybody's happy. Uh, but that timing was, was, was part of it. part and parcel together. You know, hey, we're announcing Netflix and the Rock's involvement and the Rock is back. So it does feel like that maybe what we're heading to with Brady, and I know a lot of people assume, well, we just saw Brady do something at Fanatics Fest with Logan. It means they're going to work something out at SummerSlam. I don't think that's possible. I think Logan is still too fresh off of surgery. But I guess the next question is, does it make sense if you're going to

have some sort of in-ring presence for Tom Brady? And I ask you, because I still think you're the resident expert on the use of celebrity athletes in wrestling. I know that, you know, Vince McMahon and others have used them before. And I guess if you go back to even the early Crockett days, I mean, you had Joe Lewis as a special guest referee, but as far as like competing while they're still competing, you know, the Rodman-Malone thing. I think that was kind of your lane. So I wanted to know, you know, from your perspective, when's the right time to drop that?

I know that a lot of people immediately say, oh, well, it's got. to be WrestleMania. But we know WrestleMania is going to achieve a certain level of success simply because the name WrestleMania exists. Like there will be a lot of casuals

who will check it out. So I guess my question is, do you drop it somewhere else? Like I think you help build and elevate bash at the beach with the presence of Dennis Rodman. But we would also later see Dennis Rodman on like a road wild against Randy Savage.

What is the best business case for where you use? use Tom Brady. Do you do it on a WrestleMania or on a I don't mean this the way it sounds, a second tier show, not WrestleMania. Fascinating question. Because there's no

wrong answer, right? The question becomes what's optimal? What maximizes the Tom Brady equity that he's lending the company?

And I certainly can't answer that. I think if I was faced, you know, somebody came in here and said, okay, here's a situation. They set me up the way you just did. If you pick right, you get a million dollars. If you pick wrong, you get embarrassed. So if I had to make a choice right now, I would lean into not using Tom for WrestleMania,

using him for something other than WrestleMania. Because to you, Brian, I think what you said, if I understood it correctly, was WrestleMania is going to get what it's going to get to a certain degree. And no matter what you do after that, it ain't getting there. Yes. You've either got 75 or 80% of your market committed, you know, a couple months before WrestleMania, or you don't.

And if you don't by then, there's nothing you're going to do that's really going to change it dramatically. You've already missed target and you're not going to be able to put the bullet back over here and so we can get on track. You can tweak it. You can adjust it. could do some things, but nothing significant. So then I'd ask myself, okay, I know it has a certain amount of value. Do I want to put that resource, that value over here, or I know it's not really going to

have much of an impact beyond a certain point? Or do I want to use it over here and help elevate and create more revenue on this particular event. That's one question I would ask myself. The one that I would ask myself before that actually, because this is the one that matters the most, is Tom, what do you want to do? Do you want to be a character? Like, now, Rock was already a character, so it's not an apples to apples, right? Rock was already a character. So Rock stepping into the ring would have felt reasonably organic under any circumstances, because he's been or before. He's a rock. We'll know it. Tom jumping in, into wrestling is an entirely different move.

That's a different chess move. So it has to be treated differently. But we all knew that Rock, or we didn't know, we expected Rock to continue wrestling. We don't know if this is a one-off for Tom or is Tom thinking, okay, I'm going to like Dennis Rodman, as you put it out. Yeah, I'm going to do this thing on TV and then as needed, I'm going to come in and I'm going to, I'm going to pop the territory for a minute or two, you know, a couple times a year. That's a different strategy.

both are valuable. One's one strategy creatively, and the other is the other. So I'd have to know the answer to both of those, or at least have a strong opinion supported by some research that would convince me that it's more valuable to the company to hold off. And if that were true, I'd also factor in, do you want to do this once or do you want to do it ongoing? Because that may affect it.

No, it's a long-winded answer. I'm really sorry. No, it's a great answer. I just love hearing your perspective because I don't, to your point, I don't think there's a wrong answer. I mean, obviously attaching Tom Brady's name to anything is going to add value. It's just where do you get the best rate of return? And I think if I weren't, if I didn't know that, that Brady was going to be calling,

I mean, his full-time gig, of course, is, yes, he owns minority stake in the Raiders and other places. But they're paying him a mountain of cash to announce football games. and so I say all that to say I wonder hey if he wasn't still doing that would it make sense to do it around wrestle paloosa which is the September show which is sort of closer to the start of football season I know they tried to do a big kickoff

last year on ESPN with that when they created the event for ESPN and I don't think that that's it just timeline wise that would be tough so Royal Rumble maybe I mean that's at least the other side of the football season for most, especially if they're doing it in really late January. So we'll see.

But I am curious, what do you guys think about Tom Brady in the WWB? Let us know in the comments below. Is it something you're looking forward to? And I ask Eric, because it feels like there has been a growing sentiment online from people who say, oh, I'm tired of the celebrity involvement. And given Travis Scott last year at WrestleMania and Pat McAfee, this year at WrestleMania, I get it. But I also feel like, hey, if he's working with Logan Paul,

it's kind of all, I don't know, that feels like the right place for that. That doesn't necessarily feel like the WrestleMania main event, like a Travis Scott or a Pat McAfee. It's not. Tom Brady, I just give a pass. I view it totally different than. Look, if there are those out there who are looking at this, I can't stand wrestling, celebrities, we see too much of it.

That is such a dirt sheet mentality. you know, first of all, before I don't want to go off on dirt sheet freaks. There's too many of them. I want to go back to your suggestion of, you know, and you kind of dismissed Russell Paloosa in September. Now, the complication here is that I would imagine Tom has a pretty busy schedule in September. Yes. So that's like a major thing because he does,

so that's just like, okay, it's September 1st, I got to go to work on you see you later. he's prepping probably now. There's a lot that goes into that role that he's in, and it's a full-time job. And then it just gets more intense in September. So recognizing that is probably a default that's impossible. What if it's not? I think you said,

WWA created Russell Paloosa for ESPM. Yes. Russell Paloosa didn't do all that well. Yes or no? I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't know that they released all of those numbers. We do have some Netflix numbers to discuss, but.

Here's my point is that I think, again, this is strategy now. How do I get the most bang for my buck? If Tom Brady is involved in us, first of all, it's a little too early. We're starting it too soon. But if Tom Brady is, if this is the case, Tom Brady is going to get so much coverage. This is like me the first time I brought in Dennis Robin and paid him a million bucks and everybody thought I was nuts. And within like 30 days, he delivered about $30 million worth of exposure for us. This is that on steroids.

This opportunity is that times 10 because of Tom's relationship with the NFL and ESPN. Who is not going to cover this story for 30 to 60 days out? and if if Russell Palooza is didn't reach everybody's expectations tactically I would use Tom there the only the challenge in all of this is uh and I'm just thinking from a scheduling standpoint I think Tom Brady has historically been calling the Sunday America's Game of the Week deal so it's a Sunday night it's the only one uh because you know you have sort of two slates of games. You've got the early set of games and then you've got the afternoon games. Then you've got one night game on Sunday night. That's the Brady show. And

Russell Paloosa is a Sunday night. It is an NFL stadium, but it just feels like the timing of that one at Russell paloosa may complicate it. But you got to assume that's where it's headed. And I'm with you. The coverage they'll get for this will just be phenomenal. I mean, one of the things that I think ESPN and WWV are probably both actively looking to do is how do we get more WW ESPN crossover? How can we sort of force it in? And so they've shoehorned it in and sometimes very effectively like Danhausen in the Knicks. I don't know that anybody would have had that on their bingo card.

No, no. A lot of people were like, oh, God, I can't believe they're making us do this. This is wrestling. It's so silly. And then it catches fire. And everybody's like, well, we were wrong. No, here's what that turns into. I've seen this a million times, right?

Something like that, Danhausen thing comes up and all the brain trust and everybody that knows the wrestling business. You know, that'll never work. That'll never work. And by the way, to a degree, I was one of them. All right? So I'm making fun of myself here, folks. Settled out.

Settle the fuck down. I get it. And I admit it. What's wrong with you? anyway, I would have never imagined this. And if I was one of those people in the room whose career was dependent upon making right decisions, this is another thing. Most dirty,

idiots are never in that position. But if I was just by the value of my decisions of what they contribute to the company, I would have said, no, don't do that. And I would have been wrong. And it's so much fun to be wrong with us. but it's a perfect example. The media, I mean, it's a phenomenal story.

It's a movie that Danhausen effect is the title of the movie. I'm giving you everything. What's wrong with you people? Get to fucking work. Just pick up a pen, get on your computer, do whatever you need to do. Write the story. It writes itself. All you need to do is keep up with it and make it a little bit more entertaining than it already is.

And you've got yourself a Netflix special. Get to work. but it's you know those kind of things don't come wrong too often but this could be another one of those who knows looking forward to seeing what's next for tom brady and w vwee you did ask about hey what was the success of wrestle paloosa and i know that sometimes they'll they'll have some sort of PR announcement and they'll try it out front but it's not often that we get real numbers from streaming services they like to play that all very very close to the vest. But Netflix this week did release what the WW viewership has been so far in

26. I thought we would review some of those numbers here, Eric, and see if any of them jump off the page at you. The Royal Rumble had 3.1 million viewers. Elimination Chamber had 1.9 million viewers. WrestleMania Night 1 was 2.7 million viewers. WrestleMania Night 2 was 3 million. Backlash was 1.4. Flash in Italy was 1.6, and Knight of Champions had a million viewers. Again, as a reminder, ESPN is where all of the PLEs are housed domestically for WWE. But the rest of the globe checks out these shows on Netflix. So those are the numbers.

And I have to admit, Eric, I don't know why. But the idea that Royal Rumble beat both WrestleMania is kind of surprised me. Yeah, I certainly don't have any visibility into programming culture or viewer culture, I should say, in programming, you know, internationally. So everything is different. Is it seasonal? Could that have something to do with it? You know, I don't know. It depends on what part of the world, obviously.

There's so many variables that I've never really looked at any of that data. So it's a huge mystery to me. Who's watching? You know, what is? And, you know, I get a little bit of insight. not for WWE at all, obviously, but you get just a hint of an insight with our YouTube analytics for Real American Freestyle. We know how many people in Canada, because our YouTube show for Real American Freestyle, it's only available internationally.

So in other words, when we do a Real American Freestyle event, you get it on Fox Nation in the United States. but if you're outside of the United States, you can't get Fox Nation, but you can go to our YouTube channel and you can watch our show internationally because we're geo-blocked the United States. So that way we're not in breach of our agreement or create confusion with Fox Nation. So because our shows air internationally and we have analytics for that international footprint, the viewing audience, you can kind of start cobbling together something that, looks like a pattern or a story. And each country is different. And a lot of that has to do with culturally. How do the people in that country view wrestling?

For example, I can tell you for sure in Moscow, it's a part of the culture. The sport of wrestling is looked at very much in many ways in terms of the audience's relationship with it, like the NFL or even Major League Baseball. It's a part of that culture. Same is true in Dagestan, you know, it's why we were just in Russia. It's why we're going to Moscow. It's why we're going to a couple other places that are going to be announced very, very shortly, like within days.

Because that was part in that part of the world, wrestling is, when I was in Georgia in Tbilisi, Georgia, for the event we did there, I walked outside of the arena because I was bundle of the nerves. You know, we weren't, we weren't in total control of that. production. We were relying very heavily on local, you know, staff, engineers, you know, people, and they didn't speak English. So we have, we had a pretty good system or we had a system in place to facilitate all that, but it was nerve-wracking because, you know, life television, there's a million things that can go wrong at any given moment. That's just a major of

life television. But life television internationally, when you're not even in control of your production team, now there's a million of things that can go wrong and you don't have any idea how to fix really if they're serious. So or to do it quickly the way you normally would. Long story short, I was a bundle of nerves. I walked outside of the arena that we were in in downtown Tbilisi, Georgia, beautiful country, by the way, Georgia. And I came out of the door and I looked down,

I happened to be looking down into the loading dock area, and it was a loading dock area of parking lot. And it looked like they were pre-gaming. There were families down there pre-gaming, cooking, hot dogs, drinking beer, kicking soccer balls around. There must have been 600 people down there. They were waiting to get in. I'd never seen anything like that for, certainly for wrestling, freestyle wrestling.

But even compared to professional wrestling, sports entertainment, I'd never seen the kind of energy or experience the kind. And I think because it was a family thing. You know, and it's like the Georgians look at freestyle wrestling, again, as part of their culture. Do you look at these guys as wrestlers like huge soccer stars, the kind of reaction they get? I had never experienced that kind of energy and connection. That's what was different. It wasn't just the magnitude and the size of it.

It was just a different frequency of energy. And it brought tears to my eyes. I mean, I called Chad. I said, dude, I'm not to sound like a bitch, but I'm sitting out here by a loading dog, you know, eating a Georgia hot dog. And I'd had tears in my eyes. This is amazing. It was. So, yeah, you know, I'm sorry.

I'm one off on international. What I'm trying, the point I was trying to make is culturally, every country is different. So you need to know how, you know, wrestling fits into that culture, whether it's readily accepted or not, to really analyze what any of it means. but it's fascinating. There's no doubt about that. It's super fascinating. And the numbers and how they leap off the page to me is that, hey, obviously,

WrestleMania is a big brand. But so is Royal Rumble. Maybe we have been underestimating Royal Rumble and SummerSlam and what their impact is. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth, and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together.

It's an all. in one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's ODO.com. Of course, there's a lot of chatter about SummerSlam right now, Eric. We are knee-deep in SummerSlam territory. A lot of the card has continued to sort of reveal itself. and the big story or the big discussion is where ticket sales are. And I know that a lot of times,

you know, we wind up spending, I think too much time talking about what ratings are or what ticket sales are. Great to know that they're business indicators and things like that. But it just feels like it's not, these are not live. They're all business metrics and they're all part of it. They're all a line item.

But the idea that, well, SummerSlam doesn't, isn't a complete sellout. doesn't mean that it's also not hugely successful. I mean, I think right now we've got around 30,000 tickets on each night. And it's like, hey, let's take a time out for a minute, 30,000 tickets and we're still, you know, at least a week out, that to me doesn't sound like failure.

We sold 60,000 wrestling tickets. Like, that's pretty good. But I think they've enjoyed so much success that the minute it looks like it's a little less than people start to wonder, is there a chink in the armor sort of deal. What do you think about the discussion about SummerSlam tickets and conversely, I don't know if you saw this, they just reduced the price of the tickets to $25. So there was a huge price cut to get tickets moving now. And I think some fans do have a very valid gripe.

If you were an early adopter and you're the most loyal and you're the most loyal and you're the most diehard and you paid full rack rate and now we're going to try to slip as many $25 tickets in as we can. If I was one of those guys who, you know, I want to be first in line. I don't want this thing to sell out. I got to claim it. I got to be there the day it goes on sale. The second it goes on sale, I'm a ticket master hitting refresh. I'm probably feeling like, man, fool me once, fool me twice. Talk to me about this from a promoter's perspective. what would be your feeling about where tickets are right now and how should fans reconcile the price cuts?

As far as where ticket sales right now, I think one of the reasons anybody's even talking about it is because it's one of the few things that is published that even morons and really low level, low level thinking people can reasonably access. and if they're not able to access it because they're that far down the food chain, you know, they've got Dave Meltzer and others to provide that information. And that's one of the reasons because David had this Meltzer and all these Dirtier

Yarders, and I'm throwing them all in a bucket. There's some great ones. I've said this before. You know, Mike Johnson, nothing but respect. Wade Keller is doing a good job. There are people out there that they're doing a great job. Okay. But the vast majority of the DREC that exists in social media and is where these conversations actually come from are from the Dave Meltzer-ish level club membership where they just want to have something to criticize so they can, you know, let everybody know what, you know, how smart they are and how much they know. know about the wrestling business because they're you know they hate the wwe because of what they're

doing to the business you have this i mean these people that could probably took them six years to figure out of tie their shoes and live in a basement and they're all trying to project where the industry is at with a nine billion dollar publicly held company based on trends that dave melzer posts i mean that's what i think of that who are these people and why does anybody listen to them Why does it, and I'll tell you why, I know the answer to my own question. Even that guy that did the root to the Bluetooth commercial knows the answer to this question. It's because that's all they got. You don't have any real experience.

They don't have anything real to relate it to. They don't have any exposure in a business that even gives them an opportunity to see things from a truly business perspective. So they rely on the emotional things because that's all I got. They don't know anything else. And if you focus on the right virtue signal that you know is going to play well in your little section of the club membership, and you need that attention because you're not getting anywhere else. Any women waiting outside your door? You're not driving a really cool car.

Your future? Eh. Maybe, maybe not. But man, you're a rock star on the internet. those chat rooms think you're the smartest guy in the world because you're telling them what they want to hear because it's what they relate to because they're just like you they're just as needy and ill-equipped to really go out and achieve things as you are so they find the easiest way to get those hits those dopamine hints let's just virtue signal on our little club and see what happens

people will talk to me people give me a thumbs up someone might even respond or Oh, I bet you I could make this person off. Watch the reaction I get from this statement. That's the conversation that we're having about WWEs in trouble because they put tickets on sale. Their tickets aren't as hot as they were last year. That's where that's coming from. So that's what I think of that.

I just explained why I think it. What was the second part of the question? I wouldn't worry about where we're at, ticket sales, why? pay attention. I don't want to know why. I'd ask the right questions and expect the right answers and then get to work. If there are things that I can control, I can do differently, I would. Otherwise, I would might say, you know, gas is back up to, you know, six bucks a gallon, eight bucks a gallon in some places, whatever it is. Things are a little dicey right now economically. You know, I would look at that as a reason too, as opposed to triple H is a shitty boker.

I mean, it's so stupid that, you know, all you can do is laugh. I'm sorry. What was the second part of the question? Before we get to the second part, I just want to give you this context. Two years ago was the last one-night SummerSlam. So SummerSlam's always been a one-night affair until last year when we got night one and night two of SummerSlam. We're back at it again this year.

But if you go back to SummerSlam 2024, it was in Cleveland. And if you'll recall, Jelly Roll, Logan Paul, they were all on that card. there were around 57,000 tickets sold. So we've already passed that this year for the number of tickets sold. But I do think that if anything, the lesson that we could have as a takeaway here is, SummerSlam probably could have been a one-night event. It didn't need to be too,

but I understand that a lot of fans would say, I wish it was just one night. And I get that. But I want you to consider this. WWB didn't just arbitrarily decide to do this show in Minnesota. up. They got a rights fee. And that rights fee is based on the economic impact in the community. And having one night of event versus two nights of events, even if there is a lot of duplication, WWE doesn't know that, nor does the city going in. So they can at least sell it as if,

hey, we're going to have all of these. And we know it will have a greater impact on local restaurants, on local hotels, on local bars. So if you're trying to up that spend, you pro and guarantee the biggest economic impact and get the biggest rights fee. I think two nights make sense. Two nights in a stadium may be a little ambitious. If we did a giant arena and we did two nights there and not an outdoor stadium, maybe that's it. But I feel like if this was an arena and we had back-to-back nights being sold out and

60,000 tickets, it'd be high-fives all around. But because we're in a larger building, well, the sky must be falling here. I mean, that's, nothing could illustrate the lack of knowledge and information, which is the definition of ignorance. Nothing could highlight the ignorance of that thinking more than what you just laid out. I mean, it's just, it's insane. People need to quit thinking they understand things they don't know what you don't know. I'm going to get the shirt because it applies them in a lot of ways. You know, I pride myself on at least attempting to know what I don't know.

Don't try to pretend I know should I don't. Sometimes sound like I do, but I really try to think through, you know, positions and decisions and choices. Better than I have in the past sometimes. But you just don't know. It's funny. Let's talk about the price of the tickets. We know that them, you know, they drop the price. prices over and over and over for

WrestleMania and they wound up with some pretty decent numbers. They've dropped the price here to $25. I wanted to talk just a little bit about, you know, the effect on the consumer that way. Scott DeMor recently pointed out that he thinks WWE and their new pricing strategy may be accidentally

doing long-term damage. And I know on the surface, maybe that sounds a little silly like, well, I don't know about that. But I recently had a conversation with a boxing promoter of all people, Eric. And And the conversation inevitably turned to pro wrestling. And he said, hey, you know, when I was first getting started, my mentor suggested that

I should promote some sports entertainment as well. And I, you know, he has a boxing guy probably had the same reaction you would imagine. Oh, that's that phony stuff. I don't do that. I want to do real sport, whatever it may be. But it was negative and he didn't do it. And this came up because when he found out I did wrestling podcast, he goes, I realize now it was one of, if not my biggest mistake by not involving it in my portfolio of products.

And I thought, how do you mean? Can you explain how that is? And he said something that I thought was fascinating. Boxing fans are wrestling fans who grew up. So if they become, you know, as little kids, as little boys, they become wrestling fans and they go to the matches with their dad. Then they grow up and they become boxing fans and then MMA fans or maybe MMA fans and then boxing fans, but it's a part of this ecosystem that sort of, you know, you start attending these live events. The people who are most likely to watch a wrestling show and attend a wrestling show are also probably going to be more likely to buy a boxing ticket and watch a boxing show. I thought that was fascinating. But if the barrier to entry to taking your family to the shows

is more expensive, yes, you might be able to sell a more expensive ticket to a more. more affluent adult buyer right now to maximize your gait right now. But long term, like I can tell you without question, I bet almost 99% of the people listening to this podcast, Derek, started watching wrestling as kids, and they fell in love with it as kids. And that very concept is why I was so excited when you told me that Real American Freestyle was going to have like a youth initiative with Next Gen. But the pricing thing, that is something I never really considered until Scott DeMore pointed it out that, I mean, I think Shapiro even said, hey, Vince had, you know, left margin on the table because he was effectively trying to sell tickets to

families. And they wanted to have more of a UFC pricing style and audience. And I get that, but it's kind of chicken in the egg. I don't say that either is wrong, but I think it's an interesting observation about just getting those kids hooked while they're young and catering to families. chat with me about that and how price points could affect that, Eric. We could do a show on this subject. It's a good one.

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Join at RocketMoney.com slash 83 weeks. That's rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks. Rocketmoney.com slash 83 weeks. So, Eric, let's get back to it. You know, the impact that pricing of the tickets has on families and what the long-term effect could be on the promotion based on those prices? Chat me up. This is so interesting because it's a much deeper question. The pricing of the tickets and pricing families out of the market is a very critical topic that I think needs to be looked into.

And the reason it needs to be looked into, and before one looks into it, you have, have to at least have an understanding of what I'm about to say. And you may not agree with it, but you would want to take a look at this. There is a reason professional wrestling culturally, here we go again, in this country, there is a reason why it started as one of the most successful television enterprises throughout the 50s in the beginning of television, the Dumont Network. I think was either the first or one of the first networks to carry professional wrestling somewhere right around the time I was born, mid to late 50s.

I was born in 55. I think they launched in 56. Wrestling in every major market in the United States and small ones, when it was all independence and independent wrestling promoters produced their show in a soundstage like Bern Gagne did, like Jerry Jarrett did, like everybody else did. They shot their show on shitty equipment. They care about production values. They just wanted to get their matches and their commentary out there

because that was their opportunity to generate ticket sales. We all know how that business worked, right? Well, the reason it worked so well is because that content, that wrestling show that always run an audience, always has, right? Cost them nothing. They got that show for free. They not only got that show for free. Why do I know these things, Conrad?

And that little goof that read the blue chew had a little while ago. Why do I know these things? Because I did that job. That was my job in the AWA when I first started in the wrestling industry. My job was to take Burns show that he produced for as little money as he possibly could. Why? Because he didn't get paid for it. And I took this show and I would try to convince television stations in a local market

to carry the show for free. no license fee. In some cases, Vern paid them. I was never part of those transactions, but they were before I'd out there when Byrne was desperate and actually had money.

But, you know, WWE bought their show onto the year in a lot of their major markets, right? That was the television syndication business. Now cable comes along, that business doesn't mean as much. I'm sorry, what led us into this question? $25 tickets.

The $25 tickets. Okay, I'm sorry. Let me get back on track. So here's a concern. WWE made the decision a year or two, three years ago, whatever it was, cut back on our house shows, right? Mm-hmm. Tony Khan doesn't even do house shows.

Nope. The only house shows that are out there are indie house shows for the most part, right? Okay. So wrestling isn't coming to these markets. The way they did back in the 50s, in the 60s, in the 70s, the Jerry Jarritz, and the Verginias. They would draw those people to the arena. That's the only way they survived.

And a lot of them survived really, really well by getting the public, the local people to come in and see these stars that they've watched on TV. That phenomenon, that connection of taking scripted characters that you've built an audience for on television, then bringing those scripted characters to a local arena. So a kid and his family, because they all enjoy it, can actually be within 30 or 40 feet watching someone that they watch on TV because that was still a big deal. Television was a huge deal in the 50s and 60s. It was like TikTok for kids, you know, but only for adults back in the 50s and the 60s. It had a significant cultural impact. And professional wrestlers were the, you know, you didn't see the, you know, Chuck Connerers in the rifle.

one of my favorite shows with Johnny Crawford back to the 50s and the 60s. You didn't see him coming to, you know, Ames, Iowa, to be the rifleman that you see on TV. So you've created this weird connection that still exists to this day. This strange, not strange, this very unique connection between the character and the relationship you've created in your mind. and now you're physically there with them. The more you take that opportunity away, the more that you make choices that reduce the ability of the human to connect with the character, the smaller your audience is going to become.

That connection is the reason why wrestling works to the level it does today. I think cutting down on the house shows, and indirectly pricing families out of the business because you want to maximize revenue. In this short term, absolutely right thing to do. It's a shareholder move. If you are the CEO, if you're the head, if you're the chairman of the board, you have a fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders to return a maximum amount of value. Guess what?

It is the right decision. What? I was that guy. I would also let shareholders know what the risk are. In my opinion, which may not mean fuck off, right? But based on the experience, I have the feel that I have, the instinct that I have, and watching and analyzing from afar what's going on, I think the biggest risk is that over the next 15 years,

you're going to start seeing the impact of that law. Loss of local contact, loss of house shows, loss of ability to create that very, very special connection that created this magnificent monster in the first place. When you pull that plug, disconnect that cord, I don't know what the future looks like. That's what I would, that's a conversation that I would want to have with people that I respected and trusted. I know I'm in the minority and I know a lot of people listening to this will vehemently disagree with me, but I think catering to kids is the number one most glaring omission from today's wrestling product. When I was a kid, and I realized we all consume differently now, but when I was a kid, every kid I knew woke up on Saturday and Sunday morning and we were watching cartoons and wrestling.

It became a part of our routine, whether it was syndicated superstars or power hour or whatever it was, that was wrestling on on a Saturday and Sunday morning, and it was catered to kids. But a lot of those shows that were on in those time slots were catered to kids. And I don't know that that really exists the way it used to. And I'm not suggesting that it must be done on a Saturday or Sunday morning, but I am saying I think we could have a more toned down, more silly, more easy to follow, more over-the-top characters. I would like to see there be a children's show from WWE.

It feels like a missed opportunity right now. And I realize that, you know, if you're a company like TNA or AEW, you're trying to be different than. And I think, but I think somebody could stand out and be different than by catering to kids. I just think like WWE with their merch and licensing, they're probably best suited to do that. But it doesn't feel like they've, they've had that youth initiative.

right now, Eric. You know what? And I don't want to talk about real American free sales youth initiative because that would be, I mean, I'm a whore. I mean, I'll sell my shit all day long. I don't care. I'm proud of it. Actually, I'm very proud of it. But this is about wrestling. Suffice to say, Chad, clearly myself is he believe that youth is the path. And by the way, so a lot of our investors. So everybody recognizes that youth is the way to go. And I'm sure WWE does too, but they're faced with this fiduciary responsibility, return, you know, profit for the shareholders problem. They're going in the direction they're going. I don't see pricing getting cheaper going.

I don't see anything getting cheaper going forward. The idea is that we're going to roll prices back to pre-pandemic levels in any kind of. category of anything you buy other than probably gas, I think is nonsense. It's just conversation. It's like dirt sheet bullshit. So I don't see the ticket prices going down. I don't see them reengaging in the house show business. So now that severed cord that I think is so instrumental to the business is going to be

completely pulled if it hasn't been already. But you've got to find a way to bring those kids back or hold on to them. Yes. God forbid how many terms if you heard me talk about growth. You're either growing or you're dying. Simple math. So if you want to grow the audience for the very reason that you said, it is the future. It's the foundation.

You hook them for life. McDonald's does the same thing, by the way. That's their marketing strategy. Hook them for life. You have to come up with a plan. If we're not going to do this, maybe nobody agrees with me. And nobody agrees that the local connection to the audience is. what builds your national platform.

I could be wrong about that. But if you think I'm right, and you know you can't lower your prices, and you know you can't reemerge in the live, you know, wrestling business, what do I do? I think what you just laid it up, create a kid's show. And I'll tell you now that I want to clear something up here.

I don't know why. I feel like venting my spleen here this morning. Do it. amongst just plethora of reasons that I have zero respect for anybody from most people in the dirt sheet industry, because they're all the same, with the exception of the aforementioned guys that I actually followed, talk to occasionally. People have accredited me and Jason Hervey to a degree of coming up with this idea called Matt Rats. Remember that? Yeah.

Everybody thinks it was my idea. And I was up in Canada trying to sell an idea. Because I guess people perceive me as the idea guy. Right. I had nothing to do with that show. I was invited to Canada. The guy's name was Graham. I can remember his last name.

I was invited by Graham and Jason. They wanted us to come up because they'd been working on this project called Matt Rats. That's where Harry Smith came out. That's the first time I met Harry Smith. to come up and see this idea they had it, and Graham was a local television producer, so we had some production capabilities and resources and things. So they shot this little pilot in a small soundstage,

and it was a pilot. It wasn't designed to make it to TV or anything. It was basically a showcase in a pilot that Graham was going to use to help sell a show. And they wanted us there for obvious reasons, because they were able to put us on camera, Oh, look, it was interested in us. But I was fine with that because I was interested.

I talked to Graham a little bit before we agreed to come up. And he gave me basically his pitch for the show, which is simple, really. I'll just describe it here. It's MTV meets wrestling at that time. So it was all. And Jason and I had worked on a similar project for WCW. It's where like Billy Kidman and a lot of the early, you know, the younger cruiserweight that we picked up out of the indie scene, Chris Kemp.

and then help, you know, in Diamonddale's page, to agree, help kind of recruit some of these guys because we had a very similar idea, which is why I was interested in what Graham was trying to pitch me and Jason. But it was very cool. It integrated music. The wrestling was all very visual, very dynamic, not the same kind of storytelling you would typically see in, you know,

WWE or WCW, you know, back then. It was very cutting edge. The promos were different. friend. It really did feel different there and was excited for them. Now, they wanted to talk about us getting involved. I wasn't really, you know, interested in flying back in Fort Alberta, Canada, and dabbling in, you know, a project that really was never, you know, at that time, I needed something pretty big to keep my attention. You know, this was never going to be that. But I was supportive of Graham and continued to talk to him and when I could, you know, lend some advice or support in any way.

But the idea was a good idea. It's an even better idea now, Conrad. But you laid out as a potential solution coming up with the kids show, target kids. Don't even mix in some of the other stuff. My God, they've got the resources. It's really just wrapping your head around the strategy and finding the right home for it like an MTV was. Maybe it's TikTok. TikTok's not long for them yet.

Or maybe they are. I don't know if I'll follow that shit. But find a place. Rumble, for example. where you could, or whatever it is, Kit, or these other, you know, emerging kind of of youth-centric social media platforms that really target the demo you want to target and get that show to them. Because that's how that audience is watching television.

They're not going to watch you on Netflix. You don't care if you're on 2B. Now, maybe 2B. That's a R thing. But they won't care if you're on TBS. Not that audience. the older audience will. So kids, you want to grab a hold of?

Like, Wade's age, he's four and a half. I want to start getting his attention now. I want to develop a relationship with that. I want my grandson, if I'm producing the show, I want my grandson to have fun watching his granddad show. Not because of his granddad, because I want him to fall in love of those characters because we can hold on to him.

If we satisfy, we continue to produce the thing that caught his interest in the first place. And if we can continue that connection, you've got to hit. It's hard. But I don't think that there's any option if it were me. If I was our Emmanuel, I would be sitting down talking to people about how to do this. It's one move that could mitigate the loss of the connection that the live experience created, which I think is so germane to why wrestling works in the first place. This is a way to mitigate that.

Well, it is a way too, I think, to bring back the house show business. Like, hear me out. I know I'm going to make a terrible analogy here and I hate it. But the answer, I think, fell in their lap accidentally this year. It's right in front of us, Eric. Build the children's show around Danhausen. So the adults who were blown away by it and are thinking like, Oh, because I saw Meltzer say, oh, they're using Danhausen too much.

They're going to overexpose him. And I understand that to a degree because I do think as an adult, like if we're trying to do so many serious angles, but the Danhausen thing is supposed to be fun. I think you could build your entire children's brand around Danhausen. And I think that could have legs and you could take it on the road, almost like a Disney on ice deal. That becomes your family component. So there's less serious.

hard-hitting action and there's more fun at this show, but it is catered to kids. So now the place is crawling with kids and now we can sell a different type of merch. Like the move in going to the circus, the expense was never the circus ticket. The expense is now the kid wants the big cup and they want the thing that lights up and they want this funny necklace or that silly hat or they're getting you in all these other ways and you get that family element. But that sort of makes the fan. familiar with wrestling. And here's the other thing it does that we have not talked about at all.

It makes moms comfortable. Because if you're if you're a mom and you've got little boys, you don't want the kids seeing all the over the top simulated violence and adult language and things like that. Like you don't want them to accidentally hear the rock drop an F bomb or something like that. But if they're watching an adult show, that's the risk. So then or someone is cut and bleeding badly or hit over the head with a chair or a plastic bag or whatever it may be, whatever the controversy of the week is that could potentially scare off advertisers. The other person that really scares off are moms who don't want their kids watching it. So if the kids show is more acceptable and it's more fun and Danhausen's right at the center of it,

what mom would see Danhausen and say, no, little Johnny, you can't watch this. This is not for you. This is too adult. You're not ready for that yet. No mom would say that about Danhausen, right, Eric? No, and well, somebody will come up with something, right? But there's always fringe kind of freaks out there that overreact to something just so they get attention. Same old, same old.

I think you're right so on the money. And as I'm thinking as you're talking, I'm getting more excited about this idea. Listen to you talk about it. I'm thinking, okay, we know what. We know what we want. We want a kid that's really a kid-centric show that's really going to, you know, fill the gap. Right? Something that makes them feel special.

So you create this show. I think the show has to be 100% targeted towards six to 12-year-olds or whatever the demo is. But that's the range. I don't care about any of this other stuff that's going on. I don't care how successful it is. I don't want it anywhere near this stuff. I want my wrestlers. I want these characters.

And the stories and the presentation that comes with it, I want it to be the most compatible for this specific age group. And yes, Danhausen front facing. Occasionally can you bring in somebody that even the six to 12 year olds go, oh my gosh, he's from Raw or she's from SmackDown. Yeah, you do that every once at all.

But here's the mistake somebody will make is they'll try to blend it too much. They'll take the safe way out in their mind. because oh, stars bring ratings. So we want mom and dad to watch do. That would be the bullshit excuse. What they're really saying is I'm kind of afraid that if we focus all on kids, we won't make it because we don't really know. It's true.

You don't really know. This may not work. You know, it's all a fucking risk. You got to make up your mind what you want to do and how much risk you're willing to take. Again, I'm driving a train. I'm taking this risk. Actually, I don't even think I have a choice. I have to take this risk.

Just how much am I going to commit to it? But I would commit 100% for targeting the show towards kids. I want a different writing team. I want any of the existing writers. I don't care. Fucking good they are. It could be all little Steven Spielberg spunk. I don't care.

I want its own dedicated team. And I want them to think through the eyes of the demo. Think through the eyes of what they think. And Eric Bischoff wants to hear or a Triple H wants to hear or Bruce Pritchard wants to hear. or Bruce Pritchard wants to hear or a Vince McMahon would have wanted to hear. Now, I don't want to hear that shit. I want writers that will come to me and tell me what this product

through the eyes of a six to 12 year old needs to be. How do I make it aspirational for them? Kids skew up, right? A six-year-old wants to be a nine-year-old. So they kind of get them with the brothers watch and what they're, you know, what they hear about their brothers or brothers are watching? Right, everybody skews up.

When you're 16, what do you want to do? You want to drink. and maybe younger. Everybody skews up. It's the same across the board. So what do I need to do to get a six-year-old excited about this? And then how do I keep the nine-year-old excited about this? That's what I would do.

I would push it a lot of it. And guess what? You're talking about all new characters that you could actually afford to travel. It'd be their own kind of talent level. It'd be unique. You wouldn't see them over on Raw or SmackDown. They don't play there. they play for kids.

So you'd have a different talent pool that you could probably manage, knowing that you were going to convert this to a live model. You could probably manage your expenses going in and build a talent fee structure that would support the business model to then be able to take it on the road. Because right now you can't. You just can't. But this strategy you could. Not only could you do it that way,

but this would also give you an opportunity, in my opinion, to really leverage the AAA IP. You know, I mean this very, very respectfully, but there can only be one Hulk Hogan because it has to be played and portrayed by Terry Belaya. But we all know there's been a few Leparkas. And if you're going to take the, make this a children's show and keep it on the road and that sort of thing and do like a Disney touring on ice thing and leverage the merch forever, I do think the Lucha concept of, we've got these masked characters and we're going to make these clearly defined characters and we're going to position it for kids and they can do some of the fun acrobatic stuff. It does feel like, hey, that could be a perfect marriage in heaven. I think WWE is uniquely positioned to do it.

But I'll be honest, I have not really heard the phrase and I love it. Everyone skews up because you're exactly right. Like a little kid wants to be a big boy. Oh, I want to, you know, we all want to be older when we're kids. That is until we get our age and now we want to skew down. And that's why I'm excited that Marge Men is sponsoring our podcast today because Mars Men is going to get you feeling like he used to feel way back when. I mean, listen, nobody hates a good dad bod, but it's summertime.

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on I feel bad for Silva I know he's he's upset with me right now but I do want to hit this big news Vince McMahon looks to be I can't believe this is real out of the woods We know that he had a personal lawsuit situation at the beginning of 2024 that WWE was then involved with. It was never criminal. It was always civil. And now it's over. Dismissed, withdrawn.

It's a done deal as he and Janelle Grant will now head to private arbitration. There's going to be a check written, hands shaking, and we're moving on. It's in the rearview mirror. And it wasn't that long ago. He settled the shareholder lawsuit. So it feels like he's checked all the boxes. I think everyone's natural thought is, what's next for Vince?

Are we going to see him somehow do something with WWE? It's hard for me to imagine that he would be in a position to replace Nick Con, given all the financial success that Nick has brought him. And it's hard for me to imagine that he's just going to step back into Triple H's role, given the momentum that Triple H has had for the past three or four years. It feels like Vince McMahon, is not really in a position to have any serious power within WWE, because why would you make a move if what you've been doing has been so financially successful,

but it's hard for me to imagine him doing wrestling outside of WW. Like, I don't think there's a scenario where he winds up working with AEW. I don't imagine that he would be interested in buying TNA. I could be wrong. We know that New Japan just recently sold, AAA is sold. Like, I don't know that there is a place. for Vince McMahon or that he would feel like there's a place where he would want to compete against his baby, WWE.

So that doesn't seem realistic either. But Vince as a board member, now that announcement feels like that would get a lot of support from Wall Street. Maybe if and when the TKO stock needs a shot in the arm, because it is down a fair amount over the last 12 months, it does feel like maybe you could just have this Vince return as a board member in your back pocket. But as far as real influence at, I think, 81 years old, is he even interested in that?

And what would step one be? Will it be like a PR campaign? Because we've seen him take all the arrows for a few years now, but he's largely remained quiet. And it feels like if he is going to reenter the space, you got to assume that Vince, who is a master storyteller, he's going to try to maybe change the way people view Vince McMahon, change the narrative around the name Vince McMahon.

That feels like step one, but what does it lead to? Where are you at on this, Eric? Now that Vince seemingly has checked all the boxes and cleared the way for him to be a public figure again. I mean, you make it sound like he just took a shower. I'll clean it up now. All good to go.

I'm going to go right back to the way things used to be. people are going to react to me the same way they used to be they're going to return phone calls to me the same way they used to return phone calls to be i'm going to have the influence because i have what i used to have the power but i'll still project the power um is the is the civil suit over and the headline potential over and all the gritty details over yes but the damage has been done The damage to Vince's reputation, irregardless of whether he wrote a check voluntarily through the process of arbitration, or whether he wrote a check because a judge said so or jury. The damage has already been done. So I think it's naive of anybody to think that Vince is going to be able to just, okay, now that's over with. checked all those boxes, and here we go. What do I want to do?

I don't see it. And for that reason, the idea of putting Vince on the board to get a positive reaction from Wall Street, I am not a Wall Street guy. It's a foreign language, foreign culture to me. Okay. I understand it, but not well enough to really understand it. What little understanding I do have is that that would likely have. the opposite effect on Wall Street.

Now, wrestling fans will go, oh, no, because, you know, people remember, you know, things were better than in this storyline. At least, you know, Vince, you know, price the show for the family, so you'll get a lot of, you know, online support from the Internet wrestling community will be all of a sudden. Now Vince won't be the bad guy so much anymore, right? There's a chance that, you know, he's going to make ticket price. It's going to be cheaper for us. It'll be better for the product.

We're already seeing it. It already exists. It'll just be, the volume will be turned up quite a bit. So if we assume that institutional investment bankers and hedge fund managers and the people that really matter. Now, if we assume that they're all like internet wrestling fans, yeah, they'll have that positive reaction. Because, oh, it's going back to the way it used to me, it used to be always so much better.

That's just, everybody, me, you, everybody thinks things were always, certain things were always, he's better in the past. They weren't. We just create that memory in our head because it's more comfortable. You get a bigger dopamine hit that way. So we're going to make it pretty. Trust me, I've done it myself a million times.

I just catch myself out. But you'll get that internet wrestling reaction, but I think institutional investors and people that really matter will shit all over it. So I, but I don't know the culture. But if I had to make a choice right now, If I had to make that bet, I would bet against him being any part of the board. You mentioned Nick Conn's name.

Nick Con has the mightest touch because of his relationships in Hollywood. At every level, you could conceivably want a relationship. Yes. You think Vince McMahon's going to take on that role? No chance. You know, Nick spends a lot of time in Los Angeles. You think Hokka got booed in Los Angeles? How tough you think it's going to be for Vince to get a meeting with some of the people that control the real dollars

and are going to be affected by the press that will come with him if you do business with him. It's another big threat. Even if, you know, I'm getting ahead of myself here. But let's assume, just for the sake of discussion, so at least people understand how I think or try to. And this is checked all the boxes. Boom, he's back. He takes over Nick Kahn's role. He's now interfacing with people in Hollywood.

We all know what that world is and how they think. So let's not pretend that doesn't exist. Vince got me-toed out of that role 20 minutes after the headline broke. And you just can't erase it. And those same people aren't thinking, yeah, but, you know, he did go into arbitration. I mean, you brought Jack, you paid the price. That's true, by the way, but it won't be enough for them to get over the fear of association. But let's say somebody goes, you know, this deal is too good, I got to do it, oh, take the risk.

What are you really risking? You're risking for yourself at least, if not your company. The slings and arrows are the people that are just so anti-Vince McMahon because of the damage. that has been done, whether it's true or not true, whether it's 100% true or 95% true or 50% true. It doesn't matter. It's not part of the equation. And in the minds of the public, he's guilty in a pretty dramatic way across the country, but especially in that zip code, Hollywood.

I just don't see that. So what are we left with? Creative, consultant, work with the team. I don't know what the personal dynamics are. I can only imagine it's a minefield that would never work. But just throwing stuff up against the wall to see what sticks. Is there some kind of relationship creatively? I don't know.

I just don't see it. But guess what? I could be embarrassed that I'm even having this conversation with you six months from So who knows? It's Vince. Kind of weird, you know, he's a, he's an enigma and just don't know for sure with him. Yeah. Enigma may be the right way to say it.

I, uh, I'm curious, you know, I feel confident that he's going to put out the Vince McMahon story some way. Like I know years ago, he was working on a movie, a screenplay. And I know that script got around. I had a chance to see it. and I don't think that that is maybe going to happen. Maybe it is, but it does feel like, you know,

he started this Vince McMahon series with Netflix. And if you'll recall, he didn't finish because all of these legal issues came bubbling to the surface. It feels like he's going to try to reintroduce himself to the, the audience at large, to change the narrative and, and then make his next play, whatever that may be.

I mean, the rumor in innuendo is that he's, made investments in California with production houses, and I think allegedly there are offices on the East Coast as well, I don't pretend to know what's next, but I know that there's a lot of wrestling fans here are curious what is next for Vince, and do you think it involves wrestling? So, A, I want to ask, do you think that we're going to hear Vince McMahon's story in his own words, somehow, some way, where he is completely in control of the edit and he has total control over it. Do you think that is the first step or is it something else? And then secondarily,

do you think he tries TNA or PFL or bare knuckle or is Vince Dylan with sports entertainment, combat sports? So give me those one-toos there, Eric. I mean, the T&A thing I don't see happening for, you know, all of the reasons that I talked about earlier with Nick with Vince replacing Nick Con. But some of the same reasons, I don't see that. But beyond that, even bigger than not, is I don't see that being very motivating. Vince will need something much bigger and grandiose, even in terms of its potential. That option just isn't available with TNA.

It just really isn't. So I think he's looking for something bigger. think Vince telling his story, his way with 100% creative control and edit, or as close to it as he's possibly able to get, which is probably 100%. I think, I would bet on that today. I place a big bet on that today. Is that being the first thing? If he's not already working on it, that'll be the first thing just because that's Vince. That's his personality. He's been sitting here taking this heat now for a long time.

Yeah. He is a fighter at heart. And I don't necessarily mean he's an ass kicker. I mean, his first reaction is fight. He doesn't even consider flight. Most people born with that instinct, I think Vince got fucked. Because his instinct is just a fight. probably would have served him a little better if he would have, you know,

tapped into the flight part of that equation in his earlier years. I know it wouldn't mind. But I don't know. He's going to do something, but, man, I just don't know what it is. And that's why I think the documentaries is like the path of least. He could be in a, and I don't mean 100% creative control. Obviously, as I said, he could do that or get close to it. But the process, the final decision, he'll buy that fuck around if he has to.

Yeah. That's what I mean. I mean, look, there's nothing going to stop him from telling his story. Nothing. And he could actually afford it. So, yeah, I bet on that. Yeah, it feels like he's probably been working on this the entire time. I mean, what else was he doing to monopolize his time?

I don't know that there were any cameras at his adios. birthday, but it feels like that would have been something they could have been filming. Who knows? Hey, hey, I hate to interrupt you because I, you know, I hate it. However, you hit out something there. I agree with you. I think this thing is in production. I think it's been in production for about two years.

Yes. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time telling you why, because these are all little tiny dots. And some of them seemingly so, so insignificant, I won't even be able to hold your attention with it. Trust me, when I say you, I just completely. completed a picture in my head. And I think it's been going on for the least two years, if not more. I think there are elements of it that are already being produced. ESPN, reaction to Hulk, Hulk's funeral.

That was produced. Yeah, no doubt. I think I'm even working, I'm even a larger sum of money now that that will be the next thing we see. and it'll come surprisingly fast. Stay tuned, boys and girls. I bet it's announced this year. And if I was a betting man, it comes out maybe Royal Rumble time, the anniversary.

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Equal housing lender. Save with Conrad.com. Let's talk a little bit about what happened 35 years ago this month, Eric. I don't know that me and you've spent a lot of time talking about it, but this is the 35-year anniversary of Hulk Coke and appearing on the Arsenio Hall show and lying about taking steroids. This was a major rift between him and Vince McMahon. we are about to be knee-deep in the Zohorian trial,

and this feels like a rare misstep in this era for Hulk Hogan publicly. And I know that there's been a lot of discussion about that anniversary, and we know that really and truly the WWF was never the same. I know they had the failed warrior experiment in 90, but in 91, they do the Gulf War stuff, trying to gain some lost ground after the warrior debacle or experiment. and that isn't well received. And then on the heels of that,

here is the steroid controversy. And they push Hulk Hogan out there as Hul Kogan, not Terry Balea, in street clothes, but still wearing a bandana. And he has an option to just own it and get in front of it. He obviously feels like that's going to do irreparable harm to the value of the brand of Hulk Hogan.

And he's not forthcoming. And as a result, the relationship fractures, some of the consumer confidence fractures, the media really guts and quarters him. Did you spend any time in your, all the time you spent with Hogan? Did you ever talk to him about the Arsenio Hall appearance and, and the negative effect he may have perceived it had on his career? Frequently, but when I say frequently, a couple times, you know, maybe over the course

of two or three years, we, somewhere in there would be a two, three, three, four conversations, it would come up somehow, you know, as, you know, seeing something that's happening now and kind of relating back to that moment and the way people are handling it. Look, he knew he messed up. What year was this? 1985? 1981. Not 91, 91, 91.

91. So how old is I in 19? I'm trying to figure out how old Hawk was. He's a year older than I am. 35 years from you, Eric. So it was 35 years ago. He's about 36 years old. So I know when people say, you know, it's 36 years old, it should have made better decisions, should have been a better choice, it should have been a better person, shouldn't have gone out there and lied.

True. He knew that. He knew that when he did it. Now, I take that back. He knew that immediately after he did it. And he lived with the consequences for a long time. And nobody can defend it. not even him never tried but the one thing that i would like people to try to remember when you

think of it no this is not a really important you know data but it's an interesting thing like all trivia history is did one wish it performed related to a sport or an event right so i get why we're talking about it and and i appreciate it um but in totality it was it was an interesting moment and it had critical impact as you pointed out but clearly the the business moved on and so at Hulk Hogan with no real armor file. Not measurable, at least initially. But for one moment, put yourself in those shoes. From one moment, try to imagine what it would be like to grow up in a lower middle class

family working on the loading docks. You're kind of a big, goofy kid. You don't really, you know, fit in anywhere because physically you're a freak. Your head's the size of three of your feet. friend's heads, you know, you're kind of awkward because you're growing into this ridiculous frame. And you kind of have as good at sports, but not really. And now you're a beach, you know, you're in your teens. You grow up on the beach. You're kind of playing in bars and, you know, trying to stay out of being a dock worker. So you're looking for ways. You stumble into

wrestling. I think I'll give that a shot. All that period of time, you're not really developing a lot judgment. I live through that. I know. I'm an expert on this subject. You're not really thinking about, you know, what I'm going to do in the future. I haven't really handled any high pressure situations. I've never been in the public eye before.

I have no idea how to handle that. I've never had anybody recognize me on the street and approached me and asked me for something. All that shit, I never experienced any of that. Now you're Holkogen, yeah, you're 36 years old, whatever it is, however old he was. And now all of a sudden within 36 months, you've gone from semi-awkward, kind of cool rock shard in your local community, you are playing base, chicks do love you, your biggest shit. Yeah, your life's good. But, you know, what you're about to walk into is an entirely different universe and it's going

to happen seemingly in a matter of. 12 hours. It's going to hit you fast. And all the money, attention, fame, blah, blah, Sports Illustrated, that's hitting you every day. These overwhelming things are hitting you, and you're not keeping up with it emotionally, mentally, you're just not keeping up with it. So now all of a sudden you get thrust into this critical position. And the only thing I'll take exception to is when he made a reference to the fact that Hulk Hogan knew it would hurt his brand. Of course he did. He was more concerned about how it was going to affect the WWE brand. And no one's going to believe that. And I really don't give a shit. I know. I had the conversation.

It wasn't just him. The relationship between Vince and Holt was different than most people think. in its own weird way, I've often described it as love, hate, but that's too simple. It was more of a, somewhere between father, son type relationship and mentor, mentee. In many respects, it was mentor mentee, because they were close up in age that they like to do the same shit, ride motorcycles, no, all the same shit, right? Throw weights around a jam. They were very pure light. but Vince was also Vince. So there was that relationship that always had a little bit of friction to it

because Hulk wasn't able to connect to Vince the way Hulk really needed to connect to Vince to feel like he was a part of the company. He knew he was a part of it financially, but that wasn't everything to Hulk. So when I say to you, and not to you, Conrad, but to the audience, I say, he was concerned about his brand, but he's also concerned about somebody else's. He's just defending his front. No, it's actually not bullshit. It's actually true.

And if you really understood the relationship between at least the perspective that I have based on the conversations I've had over the 30 years, I was close to Hulk, I think he really, really wish he would have had that father-son kind of connection. August 27th, 1991. there was a roast of Vince McMahon. And I think that was really the first time that the world, even inside the tent of WWB, understood that the Vince Hogan relationship was fractured.

And a lot of people point to this appearance on Arsenio as being what really drove the wedge between them. Vince felt like the right course of action was to get in front of it and just own it and tell the truth and people would forgive you. Hogan had a different perspective. and when they weren't on the same page, they never really got on the same page again. There's a great book out there about this.

I want to plug it called Titan Shrinking. We'll be covering that moment and that roast and that birthday celebration at the end of August next month. But I do want to just contextualize how big this moment was because this same week or the following weekend after the Arsenio appearance, Vince McMahon goes on superstars. Remember now, this is 91. So there is no Monday Night Raw.

Superstars at this point is the A show. This is where we're selling tickets. This is where we're selling merch. This is where we're giving live event updates. We're cutting promos for those events. It all happens on superstars. And Vince actually appears on camera and basically does almost like a public service announcement. And he announces that the WWF superstars are role models who have a responsibility to promote a drug-free

lifestyle. And he announces that the company has already established a drug testing format and situation. They've even got drug education and rehabilitation. That's always been provided by WWB. But now this is the moment where he introduces mandatory anabolic steroid testing. Now, he's doing this because he wants to make sure that fans know the WWF logo will represent drug-free sports entertainment that families can be proud of. So he's doing this, A, because he knows there's going to be a federal investigation into Zahorian, and also, too, he needs to calm sponsors down, calm negative headlines down, calm the media down. This is an interesting time in the WWF, and I think there's an argument to be made that without this Arsenio appearance

and the steroid controversy that will follow, that ultimately leads to, the fractured relationship between Vince and Hulk, I think you could argue, Eric, it creates an opportunity for him to be receptive to coming to work with you in WCW. But without this Arsenio appearance, without them being on different pages,

I don't know that it ever happens, Eric. You know what, Kahn Red, I agree with you, and I've never looked at it from that perspective. But I think you're absolutely right. And I appreciate you laying it up the way you did,

because it is, you know, Obviously, you know, I knew there was a fraction of the relationship. Didn't understand why or when. Never really got into that with Hulk. But the way you just laid it out in the timing of everything, yeah, I would bet on that as well. Just as a reminder, what's going to come out of this is not,

hey, how can we get the title on Hulk Hogan as quick as we can? It becomes, hey, we're going to have a Royal Rumble and crown a new champion and we're going to try something new. Let's remember the timeline. This appearance is July of 91. What's happening on the other channel in July of 91? Rick Flair's just walked out on WCW. Now he's coming in and he's bringing the big gold belt with it.

So maybe Vince feels like, hey, here's a time. Here's an opportunity. Let's try this. So oftentimes people look back at that moment when Flair came over with the big gold belt and they say to themselves, this is the biggest no-brainer in the history of the world. Why didn't you just put Hulk Hogan and Rick Flair together head to head? That should have been the main event.

you forget Arsenio, Zohori, and steroids. There's a lot of reasons that maybe you might be hesitant to say, hey, we just need to double down on Hulk Hogan. Now, Hulk Hogan, given the idea that this company and WrestleMania, the brand was built largely on his back, I'm sure he feels like, what do you mean? I can't be the top guy. So even the next WrestleMania,

it's not teased as Hulk Hogan, the WWF champion. No, the championship match doesn't even have Hogan involved. It's Flair and Savage. Instead, they position the next WrestleMania, Eric, like, will this be Hulk Hogan's last match? Will this be Hulk Hogan's last WrestleMania? And Hogan, before the WrestleMania, just looks at the camera and goes, I just don't know.

But as the story goes, Vince didn't even run that past Hogan when he was going to start pitching it as, is this Hogan's last match? Hogan hears that for the first time when the cameras are rolling. I think that you can go back and you can trace all of the, the separation in these two fellows politically, professionally, and even on a friendship basis personally to this Arsenio appearance.

35 years ago this month, I can't wait for us to talk about it as it continues to evolve. But without it, do we even get the NWO, Eric? I don't know that. No, no. And that's what's making me so fascinated with this conversation of this perspective because I agree with you. And you know, I love talking about where did the initial, you know,

catalyst for something, you know, occur because that's what I like to be grateful for. And it's often hard to find that out. But I think if we take it face value, we both agree that that Arsidio interview only because Vince had told Terry, mess up, get clean. Terry made a choice. His choice put Vince and WWF at WWF at risk. I guarantee you that's where this shit fell apart. I heard Vince make a comment once.

He made it in front of a bunch of people, so I'm not going to feel too bad about sharing it. But in the back of a limo, and he was making a point. Everybody was in a fun mood. It was not set in anger, anything like that. But somebody said something about,

you know, protective, you know, Vince is of the WWE brand. And Vince, you know, shifted into Vince, like, character and said i would eviscerate my own mother she compromised w wb and it was said in i don't want to say humor i think he was making a point and it was a very effective way to make it because it was like when you heard those words coming in the end and it was like ooh by watching a movie

am i or am i in a movie it was fun It is fun. It's also fun to trace back the steps and think about what could have been possible. Speaking of possibilities, I think we all recognize that the invasion storyline, which was 25 years ago this month, Eric, was the invasion pay-per-view. It is the biggest pay-per-view in WWB history, not named WrestleMania from a bi-rate perspective. And then it was all downhill after that. I mean, it felt like the biggest no-brainer storyline in the history of the world because we had always fantasy book. What if the WWF versus WCW?

What could happen if that were real? And we had the opportunity and it was a fumble in large part because they didn't have the right players. You weren't there. Hogan wasn't there. Flair wasn't there. Goldberg wasn't there. Sting wasn't there.

The NWO wasn't there. So it sort of felt like WCW, the B team, respectfully. It just didn't feel like what we had hoped for. But even that invasion storyline, I think, was built largely on the original. invasion storyline. I'm talking about the 30-year anniversary of the NWO. I don't know if you saw it last weekend, Eric, but Justin Bieber was running around Fanatics Fest wearing an NWO shirt.

I just can't believe that's real, but if you take a look in the NWO category, the top-selling shirts are the NWO retro shirt. They've even got a 30th anniversary film reel shirt. They've got a 30th anniversary photo shirt. They've got an NWO red logo shirt. They've got an NWO third band shirt. I mean, it's unbelievable the merch and the legacy that the NWO celebrates. And they're ringing the cash register right now for the 30 year anniversary.

And I know Hogan's not here to see it. But boy, how proud would he be right now? He would be proud. And I'm sure Kevin Nash is. And I know Scott Hall would have been. And I certainly. as well. And it's, you know, as much, look, I'm, I'm very happy with my life away from sports

entertainment. I could not foresee any scenario that would bring me back into it, not because I don't love it, appreciate it, and respect it for what it's provided to me and my family, but because, you know, there's a, there's a certain point where you just have to move on and embrace new challenges. So I don't think about sports entertainment in the sense of really what I, even accomplished in the past and in fighting for you know respect or anything like that for acknowledgement my ego isn't tied to it at all not even a little bit um i recognize certain things that i think are important and and i'm proud of but i know if hulk was here it would mean so much to him because he you know the character and the value that he could bring to that

character. That's who he was. That's what drove him. That's what got him out of bed every morning. And he could sometimes say it was unhealthy, it was too much, he was whatever. You can pick it apart all you want. But he was so committed to that character. And then to make the change and take the leap and go to the dark side, that made his appreciation for the NWO even more significant than it probably did for Kevin or Scott. For them, it was different reasons because they left kind of, you know, underappreciated WWE and they came and just made their, made the statement they wanted to make immediately after showing up.

There was no 12-month story arc that got them there. They walked in, took shit over and made history within 30 days. So NWO, I'm sure, meant a lot to Scott and does Kevin for that very reason. And Sean Waltman as well. But for me to know that there's product out there that was the result of an idea. And as we started out talking about in the early part of the show, it was a moment in time where all the other critical moments had lined up in a perfect genetic sequence to allow magic to happen.

That I was really, I'm not so much proud of it because a lot of it was out of my control. those moments, but I'm so grateful to a better part of it because it was magic. It was 30 years ago this week that we saw Hall and Nash literally takeover Nitro. As a reminder on Nitro, we saw both of these guys climb in the production truck, and it felt like a legitimate, hostile takeover. We'd never seen the inside of a production truck in wrestling before, but it was an eight-man tag match on the screen. It's Dungeon of Doom against Alex Wright, Jim Powers, Joe Gomez, and the Renegade,

There you see Hall and Ash in the projection truck forcing them and the television crew to point the cameras away from the ring and towards them backstage. For a few minutes here, Nitro feels less about wrestling and more about the chaos the outsiders were creating. This is one of those unscripted anything can happen moments that made Nitro unforgettable and seemingly, I don't know, a disruptor in the wrestling space when compared to the type of storylines we saw in the, the WWF. I mean, this is when we've got the goon and Salvatore Sincere on the other channel. That was 30 years ago this week. Of course, we're getting closer and closer to Hogwild, which is where Hulk Hogan is going to challenge for the Big Gold Belt, and we know what he does there. We'll be talking about that in the coming weeks. Next week, we're going to talk about the free agents who have been released from WWB, who are now available. There was a mass layoff after

WrestleMania. Those folks can now seek other employment. Of course, this weekend is summer Slam. We'll be talking about that next week. And we're also going to hit on some other headlines like things that are coming out of WWV Unreal. And we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about a hugely successful weekend that Real American Freestyle had in the rearview mirror. At that point, it will be a couple weeks old. But I have a feeling that you're going to see some of those moments on the big screen because it was like a freaking movie. All that and more next week here on 83 weeks. Hit the subscribe button, tell a friend. and let them know, 83 weeks is back on Mondays with Eric Bischoff right here at 83weeks.com.

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