83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 438: SummerSlam LIVE Reaction

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

On this LIVE edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff delivers his unfiltered, candid, and controversial take on WWE's biggest party of the summer, SummerSlam. From the night's biggest winners to the stars who left with more questions than answers, Eric breaks down every major moment with the brutally honest analysis that only he can provide. No scripts. No sugarcoating. Just EZE's unmistakable perspective on all the headlines, surprises, and fallout from one of WWE's biggest events of the year. Plus, Eric goes live with the audience, answering fan questions and giving his thoughts on whatever's on their minds. LARINECO - Larineco is better-for-you chewing gum that uses the same mineral your teeth are made of to support daily enamel health. Right now, Larineco is offering our listeners up to 50% off at BuyLarine.com/83Weeks 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 RIDGE - Get 10% Off your entire order & take advantage of Ridge's Annual Sweepstakes by going to https://www.Ridge.com/83WEEKS  #Ridgepod NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to legal residents of the promotion territory, who have reached the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence. Void elsewhere & where prohibited by law. Enter by 9:00 a.m. USPT on 8 September 2026. 2 winners, prizes total ARV: up to approx. $539,165 CAD / £284,170. Skill-testing question required in CA. See Official Rules at ridge.com/pages/rules for complete eligibility, entry instructions, how to enter without a purchase, entry limits, prize details, odds, and restrictions. Sponsor: The Ridge Wallet LLC. CASH APP - Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/j5ojws30  #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Savings provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewitheric.com  to learn more.

Today's episode comes to you from the Blue Chew Studio. When you buy two months of Blue Chew Gold, you get the third for free with the promo code 83 weeks. You'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order at bluechew.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the Mortgage Guy, and we are live at 83 weeks.com immediately following SummerSlam, 26, 92 is in the books, and we are so glad that you're spending. with us. Of course, we couldn't do it without the Hall of Famer himself, the man who beat Vince

McMahon. Not once, not twice, but 83 weeks in a row. He's your friend in mine. He's easy E. Eric Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing great. I'm in Clearwater, Florida, and my new temporary residence for the next five or six months. And Real American Freestyle shooting our first reality series called Undiscovered when our second day is shooting. And it went extremely well and just adjusting to being outside of the comfort of Wyoming. Well, we're excited that you made time to check out SummerSlam and hang out with us tonight. We want to hear from you guys. What did you think about SummerSlam?

Let us know the good, the bad, the ugly. What were your favorite matches? What were your favorite moments? What did you think WWE missed the mark on for you? We want to hear it all. Let us know your feedback and we will be taking your questions for EZE. We're going to break down a little bit of night two and night one here. Of course, we'll quickly run through results.

Man, I don't know if you saw, but this week, Chad Gable sat down and did an interview, and he was asked about Shorty G. Now, of course, this was a bit of a homecoming this weekend for Chad Gable. He's fresh off of what JBL said is the best match he's ever called. And remember, JBL has called a bunch of WrestleMania's, and he thought the AAA match between Ludwig Kaiser and Chad Gable, and AAA was at the very top of that list.

And a lot of people wondered what would be next for him, but we found out. Chad Gable lost the match, but boy, he gained a lot of fans' respect in the process. The result is tonight he is your new Intercontinental Champion. He beat Penta, the man who put him on the shelf originally.

And let's not forget when Penta first made his debut in WWE, his opponent that night, was Chad Gable. Things have come full circle for Chad. He's now headed up the main, roster and all the way to the tippy top. He's on the way to the world title. A lot of people think he is a bona fide man of dinner. Dave Meltzer said he may be right now the best wrestler in the world.

And a lot of that credit is due to what he was able to do in AAA. And Chad Gable even gave a lot of credit to the undertaker, saying that one chat with the undertaker made him change the way he approached wrestling. And as a result, it's like it's clicked. Avoid did it click tonight. The hero's welcome in Minnesota. wearing the University of Minnesota boots, wearing the Minnesota Vikings colors on his tights.

Afterwards, he welcomes in his immediate family, his household, and even his mom and dad, wearing homemade Chad Gable number one and number two shirts. Just a tremendous all-time moment. But this week, that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about the report, and this all comes from Cody Rhodes' podcast. What do you want to talk about?

Cody just straight up asked, whose fault is Shorty G. Now, you may not remember Shorty G, but it was a cup of coffee in WWB and not exactly a bright spot between American Alpha and what we know today is Chad Gable and Chad said, quote, to my knowledge, I'd have to whittle it down to Eric Bischoff.

Maybe. I don't, I can't say that firmly, but he was the one that delivered me the news, so I'll leave it at that. And of course, the internet is a buzz about this and you're right at the center of it since everyone's talking about Chad Gable and his historic win the night. Let's just start there, Eric.

What do you remember about the persona known as Shorty G? That was a Vince McMahon idea. It was something that Vince, here's my interpretation, because we didn't spend more than a couple weeks on that idea, from what I remember, maybe a month and a half most, any serious conversation. I had weekly meetings with Vince, and there was no specific agenda for those meetings

other than to bring any issues that I had with creative or ideas or suggestions and bring them to Vince. Vince would then, I guess, share whatever observations or challenges he wanted to present to me to work on specifically for my brand. So it was a regularly scheduled meeting, and in one of those meetings, Vince said, hey, I've got an idea for Shorty G or for Chad Gable. and I see him as this character. He proceeded to lay out the character. And I think he even had some artwork previously done. Not 100% if that's the case. But I immediately went to the marketing department

because if you're going to create a brand, you take what I would do, take the basic idea, go to marketing, describe to them the personality, the character in as much detail as you can. Our department goes to work. They come back with two or three ideas. They would come back with those ideas. I'd kind of filter through them, the visuals, you know, merchandise design, that type of thing, logos, brands, et cetera.

I'd filter through the ones that I thought probably, you know, would be the most appropriate based on our previous discussion, bring them to Vince. We'd kind of go through them, filter through them. I'd take his notes, go back to marketing. So that process went back and forth for a couple of weeks. and I think one of the steps that I took, once we started narrowing down some of the ideas, again, Vince's idea, I'm there to execute based on my interpretation of his vision as it was. Brought Chad into it a little bit to get his input. You know, and Vince like that, Vince like the talent, you know, engaging and being part of the process. So I, you know, obviously I agreed with that as well.

and I engaged chat a little bit and I don't recall why. In fact, I think they probably walked away from the shorty G gimmicks shortly after I left. I don't remember hearing about it. But now that was, you know, were my fingerprints on it, of course. It was my show. But it was really a Vince McMahon idea. Probably the least surprising news we've ever heard. It always felt like a Vince McMahon idea.

And even when Chad told the story, I felt like, that sounds like Eric was just the messenger. Is that fair to say? More than a messenger. I mean, I took the idea and developed it. So like I said, my fingerprints were definitely on it. It's just that wasn't my original idea. I didn't look at Chad Gable and go, oh, I see him as this, you know, underdog collegiate, almost Bob a Babylon-ish type of weight toast milk bread baby face.

I didn't see that. But I'm not saying that's what Vince saw. That's my interpretation based on some of the conversation he had with me when he shared the idea with me initially. That's kind of what I think Vince saw in Chad. It's to lead into his collegiate athletic background. It's not like it doesn't make sense. Obviously, the idea didn't work,

and it might have been lame to begin with. It's a subjective thing. I would tend to agree with that, by the way, but what I didn't get hired to vote. I got it and hired to help execute. So there you go. Well said. Love the way you frame that. As a reminder, Chad Gable was Shorty G from October of 2019 to October of 2020.

His last three matches as Shorty G were all pinfall losses. He lost to Matt Riddle in a minute in 28. He lost to Seamus in 58 seconds. And he lost to Lars Sullivan. whatever happened to that guy in two minutes and one second. Thankfully, everything has changed for Chad Gable. A hero's welcome here tonight. A great story.

You got a win over Pinta. Does you have a chance to see the match? What did you think of Chad Gable this evening? I was so impressed. I mean, in happy form, too. I mean, obviously impressed. He's an amazing athlete. I knew that when I first was introduced to Chad Gable in WWE.

There's no question he's an incredible. athlete. And he's so good that you get used to him just being that good. It's not surprising when you watch it because he's consistently that good. So I wasn't surprised at what I saw in the ring. He's already set the bar high in my mind. He did again tonight. But what I really felt more than anything else was envy's not the right word, but I appreciated how much tonight meant to him, how far his career has come. When you could have, you know, suggested that maybe it was time to pull the plug, right? There just wasn't a lot of momentum.

He doesn't, he doesn't fit the typical archetype of a WWE super strong, you know, and to see him go from mid-card maybe, working hard at it consistently, to the position he's in, that's a cool journey. That journey and the, you know, the ups are great, but the downs are so valuable

because it makes you really appreciate and be grateful for the next upswing. And I think that's where Chad is at. He's, you know, Yeah, great amateur career at WWE. I'm sure he was excited about that early on in his career, but I'm also pretty certain he got a little frustrated with the lack of trajectory, you know, and that story about, you know, one conversation with Undertaker kind of just shifting

and tilting his perspective just enough to see a whole new opportunity in himself. Yeah. That's that's a story. I love to hear it. And then you get to see it manifested in the rain, you know, bringing his family in and having a big win in his hometown, the university. I mean,

all that stuff is like life changing lifetime memory stuff, not only for Chad, but for his family. No doubt about it. It's going to be one for the history books. Since we're talking about big family moments, I think we should just switch right now to night one and talk about what a great family moment it was for the Aldous family.

Nick Aldous has not wrestled in around. three years. He finally, after a three-year layoff, had his dream come true. He wrestled in the WWE, but it wasn't a dark match, it wasn't a television show. It was a stadium event. It was SummerSlam against the guy who retired Goldberg and John Sina and AJ Stiles all in the last year. So he took off the sport coat representing the general manager of Smackdown and put on the tights. I thought he more than delivered. But what I loved about this is, this was, it was such a family moment. He got a standing ovation, even in a loss from the crowd.

He brings Mickey James and their young son, Donovan, in the crowd. And of course, Donovan has been around wrestling this whole life, but this is the first time he's heard an arena chanting his family name. It's got to be just a really special moment for Nick, for Mickey, for Donovan. You know, when wrestling is good, man, I don't think there's anything better. And just the Nick Alda story on night one and the, and the, the, the Chad Gable story on night two and the inclusion of the family. I just felt it was a home run, man.

Not only from a personal story standpoint, but even what the optics are around WWE, like from a sponsor standpoint, who wouldn't want to sponsor a match like this? Now, that is a separate conversation because Chad Gable did have to do a mug, root beer celebration. That was pretty on the head for current WWE. But that's the sort of family stuff that everybody can attract

too like that's uh it's more than wrestling it's a human interest story eric i loved it what you think of the nick all this story i didn't see it play out live i was unable to to watch night one but certainly read about it and even the way you've described it here it's just again it's almost like chad it's going back up just a little bit i've had a unique relationship with chat or Nick and it's a very good way because a mutual respecter and and we chatted right after he got the job

he called me I don't know that he was looking for advice every once in a while he would call and run an idea by me or run a scenario by me and ask for my input things like that and we talked a little bit about the GM position and I told him

man Nick you you were great for this role you're actually more cut out for the role of GM than I was. And I had some, I had some heat. I, I, I, I had some equity as a heel that was valuable. At one point, very, very valuable. But Nick has more potential, had more potential. This is back in 2000, whatever, when he, when he first got the gay a couple years ago. And he, he may have asked, why I don't remember the exact conversation word, but I put out to him that, you know, what did, what did my character have as a general manager?

He was smar me, and he, you know, he could leverage his power every once in a while and, you know, play the game, the shenanigans of a slimy heel-ish general manager. But I couldn't back it up. I would find myself in situations that I couldn't get out of, vis-a-vis Steve Austin when I wrestle him in Montreal. If you want to call it Russell. but I would get caught up in situations where my mouth, you know, wrote checks I couldn't cash, and then I'd end up just getting a, you know, shit kicked out of me in the ring for six minutes. That's not really a wrestling match.

Nick has the credibility and the potential to not only leverage the power of the position, but if you push him far enough, he could back it up. That makes for a very interesting general manager character to me. And I don't think you want, and WWE has played it perfectly. I don't think you could have played it any better. I commend them for waiting as long as they did to pull the trigger on Nick finally stepping back into the ring. But to have that kind of in your back pocket, the fact that you could step up and go in any rational human being that would look at Nick Aldus today and debate whether or not, you know, he could go is nuts, right? you know he can go.

So to have that kind of character leverage, as well as all the other tools in a toolbox, I watched him tonight, you know, replay, watched him, his performance was outstanding. He's really good. He's got the little things down so well. And obviously the camera loves him. But now he's still got that power at his back pocket.

And his role as a general manager will broaden his, he's brought his creative options as a general manager, which means he's got more years ahead of them. I can't wait to ask you the follow-up question, and I'll ask the audience now. If you were Nick Aldous, what would you want to do? Would you want to try to campaign and try to wrestle more? I mean, he is a former TNA world champion.

He is a former NWA world champion. He's only 39, which means respectfully, he's younger than the entire main event scene of WWE right now. So there's still a lot of gas left in the tank. He looked phenomenal. But it does feel like, yeah, if you're a GM, maybe you've got more longevity, more job security. So I want you to think about that and let us know in the comments below. And Eric, I want to ask you first, but first I can't wait to ask you about Lorinco.

Larenko is a sponsor here for us today and I'm absolutely delighted that we can tell you about it. I've actually got a box right here. I actually keep it on me. I keep it at the office. I keep it in the car. Here's what's cool. It comes out. It's a little cube.

and bam, you're good to go. What you're going to love about Lorinco is it's better for you chewing gum. And recently I've learned a lot about the importance of dental health. A ton of what we eat and drink, things like coffee and tea and acidic foods, they can really do long-term damage to your teeth. So I'm leveling up my chewing gum routine with Lorincco. This actually makes your teeth stronger every time you use it. And the reason it does that is because Lorinco actually has the same mineral

that your teeth are made of to support daily enamel hemorrhom. health. Lorienco does this using nano-hydroxyapitite. That's the mineral that the enamel in your teeth is actually made of. They do this to strengthen your enamel and repair the damage. It comes in a lot of great flavors. And they even have a really cool great fluoride-free toothpaste. They've hooked Eric and I up with the gum. We're both huge fans. You're going to love that it tastes great and it lasts a long time. But you're really going to love that Lorentco gives you a brighter smile. It's plastic-free. Whenever I use it after a meal, I notice that the gum gets the saliva going to help rinse away the debris. It also feels like my teeth may be less sensitive

to hot or cold. Either way, it just feels good knowing I'm helping my teeth stay strong and healthy every time I use it. I think of it as like a totally effortless way to make sure you're taking the best possible care of your teeth. And right now, Loreneco is offering our listeners up to 50% off at bilorine.com slash 83 weeks. That's by Lorene, L-A-R-I-N-E-com slash 83 weeks, for up to 50% off. Check out Larenco. You'd be glad you did. So, Eric, I want to ask you, like,

when you're thinking about longevity and the business and the positioning, I mean, respectfully, it feels like there's more talented wrestlers waiting for their, who are under contract, waiting for their chance to be on TV, that becomes a very crowded space where you just can't utilize all of the talent. But a general manager,

even if you don't necessarily love the work as well as you might from an in-ring standpoint, I'm sure performing in the ring is much more fun, but you do have to make a business decision. What would you pick? If you found yourself and Nick all this issues, Eric, would you say, hey,

I want to keep going with this GM thing as long as I can? Or do you sort of hear father time and that clock ticking in the back of your mind and thinking, hey, if I don't wrestle now, when will I? What would you pick, Eric? I'll go out from this perspective.

I'll take myself out of it. In a way, I'll come at this from the angle of, What if Nick called me and asked me as his manager my thoughts and what I think he should do, which is kind of the same thing, but I'd be coming at it from a strictly business perspective. The fact that he wants to be in the ring and performing is a given. He wouldn't have gotten to where he is today, tonight, if his desire to go out and compete and perform in front of the live crowd was it a very strong part of his motivation.

So that doesn't just go away. In fact, it can get stronger over time, especially when for whatever reason your career as a performer has been cut a little bit too soon. So let's just put the fact that he's got a desire to do it off to the side. We all know that that's true. But as a manager, you have to look at your client's financial well-being and look into the future. And that's where I think the decision gets a little bit nicer. Because partly because what I've just got done talking about as a creative tool, which the general manager is, that role has a very specific purpose.

and there's a limit, as was the case of myself, to how many accessories that you have in your box to keep that character interesting. Talked about it earlier. You know, an healy, smarty guy, lies, cheat, steals, all that Eddie Guerrero stuff that worked so well for heels, right? You have all that stuff. but when you also have the ability to kick somebody's ass and can use that tool, you become very, very valuable. That's where Nick Aldous is right now. He's more valuable today as a general manager than he was a month ago.

That's where I would hedge my back. That character with the kind of credibility that character has reestablished didn't go away. It's just now we know. We've been reminded. it. He didn't win, but guess what? He can't kick your ass. Careful, this guy. He's a general manager. He's a suit.

Talks funny. Something he'll like what he says. But he may kick your ass. That just, he's got another four years, five years. Yes. So,

it's that or get in line. You may be, you know, flavor of the day or a week or two, and you may not. And then where are you? You just jump back into that general manager, bro? I'm probably not because you're going to probably find somebody to take it. Right.

Because they need it. It serves a purpose, a very valuable one. It's a necessary one. It's like plumbing in your house. It's nothing to brag about, but damn, you can't go without it. That's where he's at. So I would advise him to. to just ride this role and see where it takes you because it could take you for the next 15

years. When did I, when did I stop on camera? 2019, you know, that was 70, I was 63 years old. Come on. You got some miles left in the, in that tank, brother. Money making miles, not ego miles. Forget the ego miles. Can't take those to the bank.

Eagle miles don't get you anywhere. Money miles do. Let's talk a little bit more about night one. As a reminder, we are live and we're going to be taking your questions. If you're tired of the SummerSlam talk, let me just say, stay tuned. We've got a lot of nostalgia and a little bit of controversy coming your way. Stay tuned. But let's talk about it.

Liv Morgan had her first title defense against E.O. Sky on night one. She retained. There was a six-man tag with L.A. Knight, Royce Keys, and Solo Sequoia, against Jacob Fatou and Jimmy and Jay, the Ust. But the baby faces, I guess is what we'll call them. They got their hand raised. This is the first major PLE since the Royal Rumble for the former powerhouse Hobbs.

We know him now as Royce Keys. But there's a lot of chatter about LA Knight. And I want to ask you specifically, where do you think LA Knight is in terms of the WWE hierarchy? It feels like a lot of people would point to two years ago and say, hey, they were getting him ready at SummerSlam two years ago to move up to that main event. But it hasn't happened yet. He finds himself on the second match in a six-man.

Do you think WWE sees LA Knight as a singles breakout star? Or are they using him kind of where they think he belongs, in your opinion? That's a tough one to figure out. It is. It seems like, he's still very, very popular. He's got a strong, you know, base, a lot of equity. You hear the reaction. You can see the traffic in social media when he's involved in anything that's remotely meaningful.

So you know his fan base is definitely still there. And you hear the reactions whenever they do use them. So you know it's like right there. Why aren't they doing? They haven't done more with it. It just seems like it's a, it's just a gold nugget sitting on the side of a mountain. And it's just sitting there waiting for it to be picked up. But they get close to it.

They start moving in that direction. And for whatever reason, they don't pick it up and run with it. So I don't know what the thinking is. I don't know why. He's an interesting character with a strong face. Your audience seems to want it. Why not give it to them? But if I'm looking at it to answer your question specifically,

I think they see him as an upper mid-card guy because that's the way to treat him. It's hard to disagree with that. And I want to know from our listeners, because I've heard two schools of thought on this. I've heard some people say, oh, he's just doing a caricature or he's doing cosplay or he's a tribute band. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. But I see a whole lot of really hardcore L.A. Knight fans on social media sort of banging the drums. Let us know what you guys think. Do you think L.A. Knight could be a top guy.

This becomes a talking point again today because after night one, Triple H was asked about something about Damien Priest, which is awfully similar in the SummerSlam Post Show. It was really about some of the same talent being in the same spots, the top spots. Here's exactly what Triple H said. Look, I get that. If you're the guy who, if you're the guy that wants to take the spot, it's frustrating when there's guys above you that have the spot, and that's the thing. We're in a period of time where there's a lot of top performers and top spots that have

over time earned those spots and are selling tickets and are incredibly popular. So you really have to do something. The narrative of, it's my turn. I've been here for a while. There's no turns. That's not how it works. You earn a spot. Believe me.

If somebody is getting over more than somebody else, we move that person into the spot, move the other person down. But it's not just that. It's not just whether or not they're getting a loud crowd reaction. Are they going to be good in the spot? Are they going to hold up their end of the bargain? Are they going to screw it up if we give it to them?

Are they going to make a mistake that we regret? There's all those things factored in. The right human being, the right position. And I love the fact that sometimes talent are like, well, it's frustrating. Great. That means work harder. Get yourself out there. Figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out how it gets done. I've seen a million talent succeed because of what they do, not because of storyline or creative that gave them the spot. 99% of the time in this business, the person that gets over, it gets the push. That's how it works. That's how it's supposed to work.

You go do you, then we follow it because otherwise most of the time they will choke on it if it's not what the fans believe in. Big believer in if you want the spot, go take it. It's all there for anyone to take. Whenever anybody says, I don't know why I'm not in that spot, are you more over than Cody? Are you more over than Roman? Punk, live, Eo, the people in that spot, get there. Make the crowd react. Whenever you make it happen, that's all we're here to do for. I love that mentality because I think it makes people work harder and if they're not willing to work to get the spot, then you shouldn't have it anyway. It's hard for me to read that or hear that. and not think about LA Knight.

Because if you think back to one of those episodes of Unreal, we see where for whatever reason, Triple H didn't like something that L.A. Knight did, and they chatted about it in the guerrilla area. And a lot of people are critical of that, saying it made L.A. Knight look less than. L.A. Knight has never told his side of the story and says he's not going to because it does him no favors.

But he doesn't stop in guerrilla anymore looking for feedback. He just walked straight to the dressing room. He doesn't want to put himself in that spot again. So it feels like there's some, I don't know, what's not being said out loud here is they just don't see him in that light. And they are doing a lot of sameness. And what's interesting about this to most to me, the most to me, Eric, is this criticism that now the talent have in WWB

is the exact same thing they were saying to you during the Nitro era. Oh, he's just pushing Hogan and Savage and Rick Flair and all the old guys. he's not pushing the cruiser weights, he's not pushing the new young talent. I mean, Roman Raines at this point has had more main events at WrestleMania than Hulk Cogan. So there is a sense of sameness at the top. It does feel like there's been that trio of punk and Cody and Roman. Maybe they're heating Oba up. We'll talk about that in a moment.

But what do you make of what Triple H is laid out here, that it's not up to creative. It's up to you to figure it out, even with your creative that doesn't position you as a top guy. Paul covered a lot of ground there. I agree with a lot of it, but some of it, you know, made me go, wait a minute, let's go back and talk about that. Right. So much of what he said is right. You know, there, you often hear people who are frustrated because they're not, you know, in the position that they thought they should be. And I'm not going to say the word spot because Paul just used it to death.

I don't want to hear the spot ever again, at least not for tomorrow. Oh, my God, it sounded like an Arna Anderson, Kevin Nash kind of parody thing for a minute there. Yeah, a lot of what he said is true, but, you know, for example, and again, I didn't hear the interview. Sometimes when you read things, the tone isn't there and the, you know, the impression isn't really there. The intent isn't, you know, easy to read. But when he says, you know, are you, when he asked the question, oh, you want Cody Spott, are you more over than Cody? Of course not.

Nobody is. Nobody is working for that spot currently is more over than the person in that spot because you have to be in that spot to get over, right? Not to get over, but to be over. For me to want Cody Road spot, according to Paul, I would have to be more over than Cody Rhodes currently in that spot. It's not realistic. that part of it made me go, huh?

Yeah. But the rest of it, you know, you pretty much agree with because I often would hear guys that were frustrated. They weren't where they wanted to be. It's like, you just got to get the push, man. Why is he not giving me a push? It's not the push. Yeah, the push is a necessary part of the equation.

Just like being in the role is necessary in order to maximize your popularity, right? You'll never be as popular as a potential star as you are. as a star. It's the best way I can say it. So that part's unrealistic. But to Paul's point, I think, really, what he's trying to say is if you put in the work and you find a way to get your support where you're going to get an opportunity to take that spot.

But you have to do the work. It's not like somebody's going to look at you and go, oh, that's the perfect look. I like this guy. He's, you know, we have fun. We, you know, you got a lot of things in common, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to put the machine behind him and give them a push. It doesn't work that way. It would be easy.

That's like a factory. You're not making cookies. There's not a cookie factory. You can't just throw the stuff in the cookie machine and turn up the heat and spit out good cookies. It's not that. This is more art than science. The idea that you just look at somebody and say, they've been here for 10 years. They work really hard.

They show up on time. In fact, they're early. Every day they show up at work. They show up early. I'm going to give this person a push and make him or her a star. Nope. It doesn't work that way. But if you're out there and you're finding ways to get yourself over,

if you're coming up with ideas, not for yourself but for other people, anybody could get themselves over. Duh, that's easy in some ways. in terms of creating angles and stories, ideas. Because everybody that would come to me came to me with a story for them. What does that do to your opponent? How does that help your opponent? How does it help the company?

How does it sell more merchandise? Come at me with that conversation, while you're going out there and working your ass off and trying new things, coming up with new ideas for finishes, whatever it is. That's how you get an opportunity to take that spot. Not somebody looking at you and going, you're the one. Go do it. I want to push into the moon.

Not so much. Seeing a lot of chatter in the live chat about LA night. I for one just don't think they're going to pull the trigger on him with WW. It feels like a lot of times we say this in wrestling in business, hell, just in life. Timing is everything. And it feels like if they were going to do it, Eric, it may have already happened. I'm not saying the moment is passed and they won't have other opportunities, but it's hard for me to imagine that he's going to go from the second match on night one and a six man to,

Okay, now he's beating CM Punk for the world title next one. I think we're a ways away from that. You know what, though? I just, I don't want to spend too much time talking about this because this is kind of like dirt sheet, sewage bullshit. And I don't want to comment on things I directly on things I don't know firsthand. Sure.

But if, and I'm going to say if the report that you read is true and if there's a situation where L.A. and I is going out there, performing, walking through guerrilla. not getting feedback, not engaging, and just walks on by, then I'm not surprised he's not getting that opportunity. That's a different issue. That has nothing to do with his ability. That has nothing to do whether he's over or not over.

That has nothing to do with whether he's capable of holding onto that spot. And he fits all of the other criteria that Paul laid out. But if he's got an attitude, look, sometimes you just got to, you just got to do it. You've got to, you've got to suck it up. And you've got to admit that you're not, you're not the only one at this party. You've got to collaborate.

And if he's not willing to do that or he's got a chip on his shoulder, that explains a lot. I hope that that's not the case because that young man is wasting a great, opportunity. I really, really hope that's not the case. and it's just dirty, rumor real bullshit. But if it's true, I hope he addresses it. I don't mean to cut you off, but it's,

I pulled that directly from an LA night interview. I mean, LA night said that into a microphone in front of a crowd. That is the way he feels. And I'm like you, every decision that you make either gets you one step closer to your goal or one step further away. And if your goal was, hey,

I hope they actually do something with me and push me, going out and saying, I'm not soliciting their feedback anymore. They can come find me if they want to go. I don't know if that gets you closer. I'm absolutely sure of that because that's a breach of trust. Yes. To me,

I'm going to tell you how, if I had somebody that working for me like that, they wouldn't work for me. I don't want that relationship. That's toxic shit. That's catchy. I don't want it. I don't want anywhere near it.

It takes the fun out of what should be. This is a fun freaking job. Is it hard? Absolutely. Sometimes I watch these guys and these women. And after 30-some-odd years in the business, I'm still amazed that they could go out there and do it for years. Boggles my freaking mind.

But man, you, I hope he smartens up. Well, I don't think that Triple H has a hard on for him, but you could have one for anybody. Thanks to Bluteu Gold, it's time you measure your days in minutes or hours, not, or maybe you don't measure in minutes and hours. Maybe you start measuring in boners and rounds with your lady, all thanks to blue chew gold. Blue Chew Gold is Better Sex and a tablet, boys and girls. They've combined four ingredients into one powerful solution, two ingredients to get you ready physically, two to support arousal and desire in the brain.

It works fast and it lasts. Now guys can have a complete experience in the bedroom with Blue Chew Gold. There's a reason Blue Chew is the number one brand for better sex. Go experience it for yourself right now at bluechew.com, and we've got a special deal for our listeners. Right now when you buy two months of Blue Chew Gold, you get the third for free with the promo code 83 weeks. that's promo code 83 weeks.

You'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Bluetooth for sponsoring today's pod and the bedroom. We should talk a little bit more about SummerSlam. We're going to continue to do that. But real quick, we need to start taking some live questions.

We are live with Eric Bishop. If you've got a question for us, keep them coming. AOTV productions, who always brings the good questions. He says, hey, Eric, some fans are trash talking, Triple H's daughter for her performance of God bless America. What do you think of that? Of course, she opened the show on night one. They had Darius Rucker on night two, but we saw another generation of the McMahon

bloodline open us up on night one. That was a fun little Easter egg. I'm sure it was a great family moment. I saw it. And I'm, I'm proud of her. I can't imagine doing that. I mean, that takes some real guts, especially because Paul and Stephanie are your parents.

So think about that. Put yourself in those shoes. That's a lot of pressure. Oh, and you're going to stand there and sink in front of how many people? 20, 30,000? I don't know. 35. No, you got to give her credit.

I listened. I caught it on social media early this morning. I caught it. And I think she did a great job. What are people bitching about? I haven't looked at social media today. But what's the criticism? Nepotism?

I think it's just standard WWV, you know, hater stuff. I mean, listen, I understand if you're going to try to pick apart anything, have at it, have fun if you want to do your trolling or whatnot, but the idea that you're picking on a minor,

I mean, a child who's singing good, God bless America, what are we doing? Like, who cares? High five all around. Let's get to the matches.

I don't know. Maybe it's a little silly. Lady H says, I know it isn't going to happen, or it wasn't going to happen, but man, I wish Mox was there at the end. What say you? I had multiple people say,

I know it's not going to happen, but man, it would have been awesome if John Moxley ran out there. Of course, we saw him as Dean Ambrose. I was surprised to see the guys, I guess it started with Seth with that middle rope, bounce off,

close line, whatever it is deal that Moxley does. And then they even hit Moxley's DDT finisher. And to my surprise, a nice little callback on commentary for Michael Cole shouting out Dean Ambrose. it is the story of the shield. I don't know that you could really tell that story without acknowledging it.

I just kind of thought WWE would just sort of ignore it. They did not. Were you surprised that WWE acknowledged Dean Ambrose tonight? Not really. I get the sense that the guard rails are kind of broadened a little bit and things that weren't really culturally appropriate, so to speak, within the WWE culture regarding this,

everything. Things have changed a lot, I think, and we see that. So I wasn't surprised. Well, we asked you guys, what did you think about Nick Aldous? What should he do? 52% of fans think that are listening to this right now. Think that Nick Aldus should wrestle part-time, 22% say he should give it a go full-time, and 26% say he should just be GM. So the overwhelming majority agree with you, Eric. Let him be a GM who has the occasional match.

I think that's a great spot. And by the way, it's not like they're running a ton of house shows these days. So it's a pretty good schedule too. Good for him. You're going to work TV and maybe some major shows. Why not? As we finish our chat about night one,

we saw Fatal Influence, beat the Bella twins and Paige. It looks like Bree Bella may have a separated shoulder. We don't know the exact details on that, but thoughts and prayers for her for a speedy recovery. It feels like since the bellows have come back, if it wasn't for bad luck, they'd have no luck at all, hoping that they get a happy end of their story,

whatever they're looking for. We also saw CM Punk and Cody Rhodes put on a nearly 30-minute clinic, and there was a lot of debate about this. Guys like Dave Meltzer thought it was a great match. It was a great 80s match. Brian Alvarez hated it. But I thought it told a fun story. I thought it was a fun little match.

A little bit of controversy about Punk's trunks. I don't know if you saw that. We'll let it linger for another day. But Randy Orton comes back out of nowhere. We haven't seen him since. Resslemania. We're hearing through the grapevine that the original plan was he was supposed to beat Cody Rhodes for the world title at WrestleMania, but he was down in his back.

So they didn't pull the trigger there. Clearly, something has changed. He's ready to get back into action. He sneaks through the crowd, hits an RKO, winks at the crowd, and CEM Punk retains. So it looks like we've now got Cody's next challenge laid out. It's going to be Cody and Randy Orton picking up where they left off at WrestleMania. I know you've been pretty loud and proud about saying that you consider Randy Orton to be one of, if not the best wrestler in WWE.

He's a guy that you would lean on heavily. Obviously, he's had a bit of a problem with the bad back, but he's back. And that's probably good for WWE business, don't you think? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, you know, Randy, I hate to use the word deserve because nobody deserves anything. They get what they earn. and Randy has earned, in my opinion, one hell of a last ride.

You know, obviously the clock is ticking. We all know what kind of shape he's in. He's battling injuries. This has been a challenge for him up to this point. But if he can pull out one more great run, especially one with Cody Rhodes, he can end his career on a high note and know that he left the ring and he left the business better than it was when he got there. Really excited for these guys.

I thought they had a terrific match. I can't believe anybody didn't like the match. If you go over to cagematch.com and just ask for cagematch.net, ask the fans what they think. It is the third highest rated match on night one, punk retaining in 29 minutes and 45 seconds. To my surprise, what closed the show was not the world title,

but the hometown guy losing and going so far as to basically saying, I'm passing the torch. Brock Lesnar loses to Obafemi in the hell in a cell. I kind of expected that would open the show. I'm hearing rumor in innuendo that that was supposed to open the show. There is a false report out there that Brock Lesnar championed and campaigned to have it moved to the main event. That's not true.

I have heard another name, but we don't do dirt cheap bullshit here on the program. So we'll keep it moving for now. but Brock Lesnar in Minnesota, where a lot of us a year ago assumed, well, he'll be here losing to Gunther, the WrestleMania Dream match that we all assumed. Plans change, pal, it's Oba Femi. And not too terribly long after Oba has been on the main roster. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that we saw him wrestling Cody when he was in

NXT and it was a Saturday night's main event special. And it feels like you blink and all of a sudden, Oba is standing tall in the main event of SummerSlam in a dome show beating Brock Lesnar and what's being positioned as maybe Brock's last match. That's hard for me to imagine.

I assume he'll be back when it comes WrestleMania and Saudi time. But clearly they're trying to make the next big thing Oba Femi. Michael Cole even said that on the air. What did you think about Brock Lesnar and Obafemi? They exposed the boards.

They did their best to make it a main event, a hell and a cell worthy of the main event. How'd they do in passing the torch to Obafem, at least in your opinion? Yeah, I didn't get to see the match, obviously, but based on what, you know, you've described and laid out what I read and some of the stuff that I've seen online since, um, it's still cumbersome to me, the whole retirement thing and leaving the boots of the ring and then unretiring with no explanation. From the get-go, this has been a funky story.

I'm not even going to call it a story. It's been a funky situation. It's not worthy of a story. Maybe it's, yeah, I guess. It does it. It did have a beginning. It's a weird beginning. It's a really weird beginning.

And it did have a middle. And now hopefully it has an end. But it was so clunky in the beginning that it just never clicked for me. Now, looking forward, I think it's a great move. I think it could have been done so much better without the clunkiness. But I think if, no, I don't know, Ova Femi, I don't know what he's like backstage. I don't know where his head is at. I don't know, you know, where he is on the checklist of Paul Lavex, you know, attributes to earn a spot.

But just based on what I've seen, and we can all see, has a hell of a lot of potential. And if he has the tools in a toolbox, if he's developed the skills to really grow this character and be able to go out and do a lot, not a lot, but many different things because of his size. He shouldn't go out there and try to be a gymnast. You know, shouldn't look like, you know, Cirque de Soleil meets, you know, wrestling or sports entertainment. I'll get my ass kicked if I'm not careful.

Yeah, I think it's exciting. I think Brock's, it's time. Yeah, it's time. And I think the idea of Brock passing a torch in kind of traditional way, despite the funkiness of it all, uh, is a cool thing. But it's time. It's definitely time. Where else can you go with Brock?

You either feed him like the monster he truly is, uh, as long as you can. Or it, you, you got to put him out to pass here. And it sounds like they're putting him out to pasture. What do you guys think about the torch passing of Obafemi and Brock Lesnar? know in the comments below. We are live and we're going to go ahead and switch tonight too. Lots of nostalgia still coming your way, so stay tuned for that. We started night two with a bang. Darius Shrucker opens us up and then we all felt like we were going to get Finn Baller versus Sammy Zane. Both of these guys have cut really strong promos coming into the show about how they

both felt like they were wronged and they're ready for a title shot. The winner is going to be the number one contender. We all remember 10 years ago at SummerSlam. That's where Finn Baller won the big red belt. That's also the match where Seth Rollins accidentally jacked up his arm on a power bomb against the guardrail and immediately Finn had to relinquish the title. And he never achieved that spot again. So this was a great story for him. And fresh off of an only nine-day run, it felt like a great story for Sammy Zane.

But Nick Aldous got a hero's welcome from the live crowd as he announced that nope, he's going to add Gunther to the match. And then he had one more surprise after what feels like 15 months or more. Kevin Owens is back and he got a heroes welcome. He had major neck surgery. There was some discussion about whether or not he would wrestle again. He comes out and man people were shocked. They were excited.

There were women in the crowd crying. And what do you know? Kevin Owens wins. Kevin Owens, of course, is now the number one contender for CM Punk's title. These guys have been cutting promos against each other and talking about each other going back to the Ring of Honor days. And that means like 20 years ago. So this is a long time coming.

Now it looks like it's finally going to happen on the main roster. I can't tell you how excited and happy I am for Kevin Owens, the real guy to know that not only is he able to do what he loves again, but he's able to do it in the main event against CM Punk. This was a great story. And I know that WW has been taking some heat, man, on the internet wrestling community. People don't love the TV show.

They don't love the monetization of everything. They don't love the flow of it. There's not enough wrestling. There's a lot of parroting of bad stuff about things they don't like about WWE. But man, this Kevin Owen story, it's another incident over the weekend where I'm like, man, they got it right. That was awesome. What did you think?

I loved it. WWE, despite the internet wrestling community sewage flow and an opinion about WWE, I don't know how you can look at what we saw tonight, the magnitude of it, the success of it. in every measurable way and feel like you have any real insight into the industry or an opinion that actually matters to anybody other than, you know, whoever's in your mom's basement with you, and look at WWE and be critical of it. Are there issues that exist that are part of the business? Guess what?

If we don't monetize this product, you don't get this product, you knucklehead. how do you think this product exists to the extent that it does? Where does the money come from if it's not monetized? So anybody that if you espouse that position and complain about the monetization of the product, then don't watch it because it won't exist if it's not monetized. Get over yourself. What else was the rest of the question? Kevin Owens, he's back.

Oh, Kevin Owens. I forget Kevin Owens. Here's what WW is masterful at. Masterful at. Creating moments. Everything that we've discussed tonight thus far, for the most part, have been really emotional moments. Those moments, whether they're part of a finish,

or there are a surprise like Kevin Owen, or a feel-good moment like Chad Gable, Well, these moments are what keeps bringing people back to this product. It's so funny that we're talking about this. Lori and I were watching the first few minutes of the show together before she decided she had something else to do. And while we were watching it together, you know, we're both kind of look at each other. Like, man, this is, if I would have gotten snatched by an alien spaceship and taken them, you know, Jupiter or something, shit for like 15 years and then come back and the first thing I do is sit down and watch

SummerSlam tonight I would be like wow it's really got a lot bigger but it's the same old stuff there's nothing new going on here the costumes are more extravagant the lighting is better you see tens of thousands of people in the cheapest seats money can buy because they got that lights pranked up they're not trying to hide the empty seats and make you you don't think that maybe there's more people there than there really is. No, their lightness bitches up. Boom. Pop goes the lights.

And you can see a sea of human beings that all paid money to be there. It's been monetized. My God. No wonder people are upset. It's just funny to me. But WWE creates these moments that people remember. And because it's real emotion. You can feel.

you're happy for Kevin Owens. You're excited for yourself because you remember how exciting and how much fun Kevin's Evans can be. That's what you're excited about. The fact that he was a surprise turns up the volume even more. Those kind of moments are so special. And sometimes I think we lose sight where, you know, we count, you know, how many minutes of wrestling time are in a show, like that makes a fucking bit of difference to anybody other

other than a dirt sheet nerds. man, it is a phenomenal product. There is nobody better than WW at creating those moments. I don't think Steven Spielberg or Tyler Sheridan could do a better job of creating emotional moments with a live audience the way WWE does. I think it's impossible. Kevin Owens was on the post show tonight for WWE and he said he's not back to take it easy. He's going to have a blast. And if that means he's only got two more years left,

He's happy with that. We know that after a neck injury, there's a lot of guys who have to adjust their style and they think about longevity and big on the shelf that long will make you rethink some things. Kevin Owens is saying, nope, I'm going to keep doing what brought me to the dance.

And if that means I can't do it much longer, I'm going to do it my way. I like a guy who says that, Eric. I understand switching it up and trying to look at the long term. But if he knows that he'll still be able to contribute in wrestling once his in ring days are over and you can bet your bottom dollar someone is going to want to hire kevin owens as an agent

or a producer or something like that why not go out and do it your way i think that's awesome and it's a breath of fresh air we never hear guys talk like that i don't think i like kevin a lot i got a chance to work with kevin quite a bit during my short cent um in wwee kevin was involved prior to me getting there in 2019 kevin was involved in a storyline with shane wickman And it was pressure to keep finding ways to make that story continue. It had been going on for quite some time before I got there. I don't even know how long before I got there. But it had been, the story had been played out quite a bit.

And there was pressure to keep it going and find new ways to do it. And it was frustrating for everybody involved. There's a fly just dive on me here. I hope it doesn't show up on camera. It's janky as hell. but there was they had tried a lot of things to continue the story there was just a lot of frustration and that's the that's the situation that i got to know kevin in he was extremely frustrated Vince had a very negative view towards Kevin at that point in time because i think Vince was

frustrated i think it was uh probably a little more complicated because it was Shane and chain and vents. There was drama. Let's put it that way. And my job was to try to figure it out. And I enjoyed it. It was a challenge for all the reasons I just said. But part of the reason I enjoyed it was Kevin.

Because as frustrated as he was and had a right to be, honestly, in fact, if you would have known some of the things that I had heard, he might not have been as willing to keep trying. But he really dug in and tried. And he did things outside his comfort zone. Talked a little bit about this with AJ Sous back in the romantic kind of scurry story that I put him into and talked about why I was so proud of AJ, not because he did a great job executing a shitty story, but because he embraced something that was so awkward that as a character, it helped him develop. It gave him range.

It gave him depth. It gave him the ability to do something other than the good old local boy, you know, homegrown great wrestling talent, right? Now he can do more. Anyway, Kevin kind of was forced because of the situation, the politics, as it were, to do the same thing. And that's when I learn to respect people that I'm working with. I'm respected by them.

I always give people a certain amount of respect. The rest has to be earned. But I respected Kevin right away, but when I saw him break out of his comfort zone to try to execute the vision the way it was being presented to him, he ratcheted up the respect a lot. And Shane did the same thing. I enjoyed that process with those two guys. But that's how I developed a little bit of a relationship with Kevin. Got to understand him a little bit. Where's a family man?

He's a big family man. he threatened to bring his family out to Cody, Wyoming, and visit Yellowstone. So the invitation is still out there, Kevin. He bring the kids. It's a fun time. That big one may have to sleep out of the bunkhouse. He's not a good son. I don't know if you got anything in the house that'll hold him.

But yeah, the bunk house is all his. I love that. By the way, we asked our listeners here live, what do you think about the possibility of Kevin Owens and C and Punk mixing it up? over 60% of the people watching right now are in favor of that match. I for one really look forward to it. I do want to ask you about Kevin Owen's return tonight. AOTV productions brings a good question.

He says, hey, Eric, one person who criticized Kevin Owen's return was Vince Rousseau, saying WWE should have advertised it to help ticket sales. I get that on the one hand, but I think one of the things I loved about Nitro and the way you approached WCW with your leadership was you really leaned heavily on surprise. It was a big part of Sarsa. Kevin Owen's return, if it would have been announced, I don't know that it would have felt like a moment the way it did tonight. If it was announced on Smackdown and he comes back on Sunday,

it's like, oh, Kevin Owens is back. Yay. As opposed to, oh, my God, Kevin Owens is back and he's the number one contender. It feels different than. What do you think of events saying, maybe they should have advertised this to help sell some tickets? I'm not going to editorialize, but I couldn't disagree more.

And I think that the difference between the way I see things and the way Rousseau's seeing things, sees things would explain why Rousseau's really not a writer and really doesn't understand what the hell he's talking about. He's good at talking about talking like he knows what he's talking about. He doesn't have a feel. He doesn't understand. He's just good at talking about it like he does. As I said before you mentioned this part of the show, before you quote of Vince Russo, bringing Kevin Owens back, yes, it's a big pop.

It's a big moment. But as I said, a few moments ago, the fact that it was a surprise, tripled, quadrupled, the emotional impact. It's more value for the dollar. You're getting something you didn't. even expect you were going to get and you're so happy to get it that's called connecting to your audience that's called audience loyalty what that's really called is you you're beginning to to condition the audience to say to themselves consciously or subconsciously that's okay too subconscious

course just fine and for to miss this pealee because they always do something yes i'm not expecting. That's what's that's what draws people. That's what makes the PLE different than the weekly television show. I totally agree. I make the, um, the, the, the association with like a TV show. You and I watch a lot of episodic television and I know like, for instance, you watch Yellowstone. Well, sometimes at the end of Yellowstone, they'll give you clips or like a little teaser of what's coming next week because they want to keep you sticky. They want to keep you tuned in. But what they don't do is they don't spoil the surprise. You may see the reaction from other characters about a returning character,

but you don't actually see the returning character. If you want to know what they're so excited about next week, you got to watch. And if you just announce, hey, Kevin Owens is back. Respectfully, now it's just a match.

It's less of a moment. It's just a match. Absolutely. I mean, I couldn't say it any better. And that said perfectly. Well, I hope I can do the same for Ridge.

you know, Eric and I are longtime fans of Ridge, and you know all about Ridge. They make amazing power banks, wallets, luggage, premium everyday gear. I've had a Ridge phone case and like that MagSafe wallet on the back that carries my ID and two credit cards for as long as I can remember. But now Ridge is back with their legendary sweepstakes for the sixth year. And this time, it's bigger than ever. The sweepstakes are running from July 24th through September 8th, so you've still got time to sign up. and Tony Hawk is the official spokesperson this year,

so you already know this one's going to be insane. Two lucky winners will get to choose between a Lamborghini Hurricon Starado. That's the off-road Lamborghini. I know that doesn't sound real, but it is, and you could win one. They've also got a Ford Hennessy Velociraptor, which feels like that is easy, easy, ease dream ride, riding around with Garrett in South Florida, sign him up. They've even got a souped up for Bronco,

which Mrs. B may be in the mood for. or how about a hundred grand cash? I can't wait for you guys to check this out. There's only 1,500 of these hurricanes that have ever been made, this specific model, and you can have one of these. I can't believe it's real, but the first ever off-road supercar, a naturally aspirated V10, 610 horsepower,

imagine pulling that around your town. That velociraptor, that's a giant pickup truck with 558 horsepower in a twin turbo. think all-American muscle car, but somehow in an all-terrain truck. And how about the Ford Bronco? It's coated in scratch-resistant Kevlar armor, armor, riding around on huge 37-inch off-road tires. But here's the best part. You can enter completely free at ridge.com.

There's no reason not to enter. Why not take your shot? And if you want to boost your chances, you can earn additional entries by picking up Ridge gear during the sweepstakes. Whether it's one of those power banks, the wallet, the luggage, anything you've had your eye on, you'll learn extra entries in your purchase. What you're going to love about the power bank is it's built for modern life. You've got lightning, USBC, wireless charging, built-in cables, mag save compatibility, and you can even do up to three full phone charges on one power bank.

Ridge 2.0 is their most refined wallet yet. It's 10% lighter. It's more modular. It's designed to pair perfectly with their new tracker card. And the new tracker card works with Apple FindMai. So you can track your wallet. ring it when it's nearby and get alerts when it moves out of range. Ridge has a lot of new colorways and collections.

You've got to go check it out right now. And no matter what you pick, Ridge has free shipping, a 99-day risk pre-trial, and over 100,000 five-star reviews. If you're ready to upgrade your wallet and maybe you ride, well, for a limited time, head on over to ridge.com and use the code 83 weeks at checkout. That'll get you 10% off your order and a chance to win Ridge's biggest sweepstakes ever. a Lamborghini Huracons, Dorado, a Hannasey Velociraptor, a four Bronco, or a hundred grand in cash. No purchase necessary to enter, but every dollar you spend gets you more entries.

That's ridge.com and use the promo code 83 weeks. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Eric, I want to talk about the next match on night two here. It's Baron Corbyn. He's back. and he beat Trick Williams for the United States title. A lot of people felt like Trick Williams since he's been called up to NXT.

He's been featured with a platinum performing rap artist as a manager in Lilliotti. He's got a custom United States title. You see Baron Corbyn holding it there. It's got the fuzzy belt on. It felt like, hey, Trick is here and he's going to be a top guy. Baron beats him for the belt.

And I saw some pans belly aching online, and I asked myself, self, is this because we want to? wanted trick to have some adversity to overcome at the U.S. title, or do you think they may actually take a flyer on him and see if he can swim in the deep waters of the main event of WWE already? On the one hand, it feels awfully soon, but then I take a look at what they're doing for Obafemmy, and I wonder, is it? What's next for trick? Will he overcome this and get the U.S. title back, or does it make more sense to see if we can move him a little higher up the card?

I think if there's potential in him and they want to see if he can really get to the next level, he'll have a better opportunity chasing that title than he will holding it. Chasing a title is always an easier story to tell, in my opinion, than it is to crank out meaningful heels. When you have to feed a baby face heels in order to keep that baby face over, There's a certain point where the heels that you have left don't really matter anymore, as much as needed is a better way to say it. So I think if they see potential, his journey as the next level, maybe face chasing that title, good work.

I guess that's what this next phase is for is to find out can he grow? Can he hold on to it? Can he grow? Can he get over even more at a higher level? we'll find out. We want to know from you guys, what would you like to see next for Trick? Do you want to see him recapture his U.S.

title? It's been a while since we've had a good feud for the U.S. title, or is it time to see if Trick can swim with the big fishes in the main event? What would you do next with Trick? Let us know in the comments below. And let's talk about the next. It feels like it was just loaded with them all weekend. Feel good moment of the weekend might actually go to Chelsea Green.

Somehow, some way she defeated the 15-time world champion, Charlotte Flair, the former world champion Jade Cargill, the former world champion Tiffany Stratton, and the former tag champion, Lash Legend. She climbed the ladder, and she is now the interim champion. This is a big moment

for Chelsea Green. If you followed her career from TNA, she absolutely knocked it out of the park as a crazy hot mess there, the jilted bride. She was stealing the show on impact. She gets a bite at the apple and NXT, starts getting some progression, gets hurt. She's on the shelf. she comes back, gets some more momentum on the main roster, she gets hurt, she's on the shelf again.

She comes back, gets even more, she gets hurt again. And it wasn't that long ago, there was a big debate and discussion about her on the WWB Unreal series. Road Dog was seen advocating for her, Triple H sort of said, well, then where do we go with her? She's out of opponents. And they do a cutaway for Michael Hayes, who basically said something like Chelsea Green is an absolute rock star. She steals every scene she's in. We got to have her on every show. But she's here to make the Charlottes and the Tiffany's look good for the world title.

It was almost as if Michael Hay saw her as the opponent rather than the attraction. And just like her husband, 10 years prior to this, it was SummerSlam or WrestleMania actually in 2015. When he climbed to the top of the ladder in Dallas and won the Intercontinental title. And now 11 years later, his wife does the exact same thing. She climbs the top of that ladder. She pulls down the women's title. Chelsea Green is your women's world champion. And in the post show, you'll love this.

She did an interview, and she said that she dedicated her interim world title win to Michael P.S. Hayes. I love this story. That's awesome. Great stuff. What did you think of this one, Eric? I like to. I got to be honest, I didn't like the match.

It's just too clunky. It's a spot fest with gimmicks. and you know how I feel about matches like that. That being said, the crowd was addicted to it. They were getting just dopamine pop after dopamine pop after dopamine pop because the audience is somewhat conditioned to sell, you know, what appears to be big moves. You know, you throw somebody up against a chair like that's supposed to be some devastating move.

And I look at it and I go, oh, they're not going to pop for that. It's like, you know, they've never seen it before. It's like when we see people go through tables. How many people have gone through tables? And people still get crazy for it. So I think some of it has just been part of embedded in our DNA and wired our brains. Our neurocala. And it's to automatically react in a certain way when we see somebody going through a table or falling off a ladder.

But whatever. I don't like the match. But I like the ending. I like the emotion. I like the moment that it created. And I agree. I understand why they're doing this with her and why they're stuck with her. through the injuries because she does have that special kind of it.

It's an energy. It's a she's a she's a force. You know, she, she gives energy. She brings energy in and she elevates everybody in the room and the, in the process. So good for her. I hope that they keep in a role that she can stay healthy with and enjoy the ride. I hope she gets to keep that belt.

It was a replica belt, but it's going to be one of the most famous women's belts in history. What a moment for. Chelsea Green. Triple H was actually asked in the post-show presser over the biggest moments of the weekend. And he kind of felt like you and I did, I think. He said, Nick Aldous, Kevin Owens and Chelsea Green, notice those weren't necessarily about matches or titles so much. They were about moments. And two of the three of those had the family and even Chelsea Green, climbs down on the ladder, goes ringside, plants a big smooch on her husband, Matt Cardona.

Just a fucking awesome wrestling moment. Great moment. for all involved. And shout out to the ladies. I know you weren't necessarily a fan of the stuff, but my wife, who doesn't normally love women's wrestling, thought they all look terrific. They were all in phenomenal shape.

They had fantastic costumes. I thought they told a fun little story. And speaking of story, probably going to be the worst reviewed match of the weekend, but it was fun, and that's what it was supposed to be, Dan Housen versus Dominic Mysterio

for human monies on a pole. I know some people say that this sort of thing, makes WWE look bad. It looks silly. It looks goofy. But that's kind of the idea, I think. We've talked about this recently on the program. These Danhausen matches are by and large for children.

I mean, kids are going to absolutely love it. But I can't wait to hear as you rub your face what you thought of the human monies on a poll match, Eric. First of all, I want to meet one of these people that are suggesting that somehow this match in Danhausen, in particular, make the WWE look stupid or whatever it is. What was it? What was the criticism? Well, I just know that there's, I mean, listen, if you take a look at this match and then you

compare some really hard hitting stuff that you see and other parts of the show, it's like, okay, are they kind of making a mockery of wrestling? And I understand that some people who want to watch their wrestling and take it very seriously, it's not for them. But as a reminder, Dan Housen is one of the most overcharacters, not just in WWE, but in the world. I mean, I'm not even talking about in wrestling. Like this guy has been all over ESPN. He's got huge lines everywhere he goes. The merch is a money printer. He's got to be on the show. He's got to be featured. I think it's okay that he wrestles. It's okay that we have some comic relief. I think Bruce Pritchard used to call this a let me up match. And once upon a time,

it would be the ladies who would go out there when they were divas and they'd have a two-minute match that was kind of a nothing burger. Now the ladies have a decent amount of time and a huge reaction in a very special moment and a title change in a freaking lighter match. So the let me up is now Dan Housen and little people. What did you think? We talked about this many, many years ago on this podcast. We've been doing this for a minute.

I think it was Dusty Rhodes. Who knows? but I always attributed to Dusty. Wrestling is like a buffet. You've got to have a variety of things to offer in order to attract the largest potential audience or customers in a case of a restaurant. You've got to have great vegetables.

You've got to have great seafood. You've got to have meat. You've got to have chicken. You've got to have a great variety of vegetables. does all that different stuff because not everybody likes what you like. You may own the restaurant and you may love a certain kind of food. And you may think everybody out there loves the food you love as much as you love it. And by God, it's all going to be made the way you make it.

Okay. There's probably 20% of the potential market out there that likes the same thing you like. There's probably another 80% that like a lot of other different stuff. So what are you going to cater to? You're going to cater to the smallest denominator in the audience, the smallest percentage of the audience, is that your goal to find that small little target and try to saturate it? Or is your goal to build your brand by broadening your audience and bringing more eyeballs and relationships to your brand?

Because if that's your goal, you need to have a Danhausen match. Dan Housen is a gold line, not only in terms. terms of the merchandise sales, but the fact that he's creating a connection. Did you see how young some of those audience members were? My wife commented on that. She only watched for like five minutes. One of the first things she said was look how young that audience is. And guess what?

That's the future. If you think the future is targeting these basement dwelling morons that are counting the minutes of wrestling versus the minutes of interviews, if you think that's the future of the industry and you know good luck with that but in wwe and any company that's out there with especially a live event company has to attract the largest audience possible in matches like this whether they be back in the day diva matches or whatever kind of specialty match you concocted um you get comic relief you need it doesn't mean you can't have other great hard hitting technically based, you know, matches that people that love

Japanese wrestling also love or lute's doors, you know, they've got it all and they need it all, and especially a character like Dan Housen. I can't wait for us to talk about the main event. This was what they decided to put on last for both nights. It's Seth Rollins and Roman Raines. It was the longest match of the weekend. They went 33 minutes and 33 seconds, but felt like a million false fins. I just assumed there would be some interference.

It didn't happen. Roman Ray gets the win. He retains. And part of me feels like, hey, I'm ready for something new. But the other part of me thinks, hey, they're just getting started with this. We're probably going to get a series of these matches as we get ready for next year's WrestleMania, which certainly feels like after we saw Obafemi closed night one in a non-title fair and a hell in a cell as he maybe retired Brock Lesnar again.

It feels like next year at WrestleMania, it's going to be Oba versus Roman. So they're probably going to keep those guys separated for a bit. So what does Roman do in the meantime? Is it more Seth Rollins? And would you be for that after the match you saw tonight? And mostly, what did you think of the match? It wasn't a bad match. It was a good match.

It was a great match to some respects. But he didn't do much for me. I mean, maybe because I'm just kind of over it. It doesn't feel compelling in any way. It doesn't grab my interest for any specific reason. I don't feel like if I fail to engage in that story, that I'll miss anything because I've kind of seen a lot of it, variations of it.

So unless there's an element that can come out of this matchup shortly that makes it really more interesting, for whatever reason, that's the challenge, come up with a reason to make it feel unique and compelling. But unless they come up with that, eh, I know they're both great wrestlers. I know a lot about them. I just don't know anything new about them. So I really don't, I really don't care about it. Hopefully they can make me care. I'm going to give you a hot take that's going to annoy you and probably

push you off, but here goes. I think Roman Raines is probably the most overrated main eventer in WWE history. Like, I know this isn't a wrestling term. It's a music term. But Roman Raines is what music would call an industry plant. I don't think if Roman Raines,

disappears tomorrow, WWE's fortune changes at all. I think, you know, they pushed him so hard against the grain. Down our throats is the phrase that Triple H would use

about why they're not pushing Bronn Breaker. Well, they pushed Roman down our throats forever. We had a good storyline with the bloodline, but now that the bloodline is sort of, it feels like it's into its black and silver era of the NWO, it's kind of like,

eh, it was a fun moment in time, but it's time to move on. I just don't know that there's any really, truly fanatical Roman Rains fans. Like if they book Roman the way they do punk or the way they do Cody or the way they do anyway, I just feel like he has just been, we've been conditioned to believe he's the top guy, but there's no real reason. I don't know that anybody could say, here's my favorite Roman match or here's my favorite. When people talk about their favorite match ever, how many people list a Roman Rains match?

how many people list their favorite promo ever as a Roman reins match. And it's not like he's doing the world PR tour and doing all the heavy lifting like they have a Cody Rhodes or before that, you know, what John Cena doing. He just flies in, takes 12 minutes to get to the ring, wrestles kind of the same match, does it really, really slow, gets his hand raised, and he moves on. He's Goldberg, if Goldberg worked more than 10 minutes. What say you?

I agree. Okay. I know that's not what you're expecting because apparently people think that I support everything, WWE, which is clearly not the case. But I give an honest opinion and I look at things from a business perspective, which probably puts me on the WWE side of the equation for obvious reasons because they're doing really, really well. But there are things like this that I just shake my head out. You know, it's funny. you know how much I've put over the bloodline story. To this day, in this moment, I believe it's really one of the best stories

that have ever been told in wrestling for a lot of different reasons, but it'll never have the impact of the NWO for a variety of other reasons. So you can't, because of that, you can't really compare them is what I'm trying to say it along with the way. But like the NWO, which yours truly, you know, I, I nose dived it by, you know, growing it too big and the red and white, the wolf pack and derivatives of the original NWO, too many guys into it diluted the significance of it. Okay, you got me on that.

I did that. But because I did that, because it's so obvious, why is WWE doing the same thing? Like, wouldn't somebody say, hey, remember when Bischoff did this with the NWO and you did all, you know, you did this, you did, if there's not a, now, if there's a compelling story, here we go again fucking compelling stories always at the root of all disappointment and evil

if they can come up with the compelling story that makes it feel new I'm in because we know that the creative team has the ability we've seen it before they've demonstrated their prowess so we know it can't happen doesn't happen every time but it can

the potential's there and if they come up with a great story they can because the potential there and make that feel fresh, boom, I'm in. But if they keep doing what I did, which is briding it until it dies, essentially, people will reflect back on the bloodline storyline and have a less favorable opinion of it, not because it wasn't a great story that achieved all the things that a great story needs to achieve in order to be considered one of the best stories that have ever been told. achieved a lot of those things, if not all of those things.

But it's kind of like a fighter that just refuses to retire and goes out there and gets manhandled by somebody 25 years younger. If they would have just stopped two or three fights earlier, they'd be legends. Now they're footnotes. And that's what will happen to the bloodline story if they don't come up with the way to either make it more exciting and interesting and live up to the expectation that they've already created with the audience, people like yours truly. I have an expectation.

It's your fault. You got me there before. Now give me there again. If not, leave it alone. Come up with something fresh. Go a different direction. Yeah, I mean, I can't believe that you agree with me, but I do want to ask you, this is a fun exercise.

As a reminder, since we're just getting our heat, I'm getting buried in the comments, keep them coming. I appreciate it. I know it's a hot take. I thought it for a long time. I finally said it today. as a reminder, and I want to say this in a loud and clear voice, no one gave a shit about Roman Raines until he shared the screen with Paul Heyman.

And we all agree that Paul Heyman was a part of the Bloodline storyline, and the Bloodline storyline is maybe one of the greatest storylines in WW history. But would we feel that way without Roman Raines and Sammy Zane? Specifically, I phrase it that way because it feels like the internet, for whatever reason, has decided, eh, about Jimmy and Jay Uso. Well, what else is there? if you strip away Sammy Zane, you strip away Paul Heyman, do we ever get as invested in the bloodline storyline?

I don't know that we do. If we don't sprinkle in a little rock garnish, does it get as hot as it did? I don't know that we feel that way. But that's just me. What do you think, Eric? Would the bloodline storyline have worked as well without Hayman and Sammy? Well, definitely without Heyman.

He was the glue. He was the, he was the catalyst. He was the glue. And he was the propellate. You know, he's the reason it all happened. He was the Wizard of Oz behind the scenes of the master manipulator that had this phengali-like relationship, you know, with his guys. He went central to that.

Sammy did such a phenomenal job. He made you believe, even if you weren't already, you know, on the team, so to speak, but the bloodline and you are already a huge fan boom sammy kicked it up another notch that's why and that's particularly the addition of his sammy's performance in particular yes is what made me really engage in the bloodline story the rest of it i'd seen versions of it before i kind of was part of something that is a version of it before the template just the faction thing the similarities But the way it was executed, the depth. And from my perspective, again, business, not, you know, how many minutes in the ring,

the story elevated so many people. And NWO did too, but not like this. The number of people that really were able to step up at a relatively short period of time with a lot of focus on them while they were doing it. It was very, very impressive from a business perspective. Some comments here. There's a lot of Samoans. That's true.

The host is fishing, Bra. Just say you didn't enjoy the main event. I did enjoy the main event. I thought the main event was fine. I'm just saying, hey, we're sitting here having a conversation about

why is there a glass ceiling for a certain talent? Are they going to roll the dice and move some people up? Does anybody think that Roman Raines is going to beat Obafemimi next year at WrestleMania? And if you think that's the case, Like, is there really a case for that being what's best for business at this point? Like, let's just process how long he's been positioned as a top guy. His first WrestleMania main event was 2015.

That was 11 years ago. Can you imagine if Hulk Hogan main evented 11 WrestleMania's in a row? Even they took a break. That doesn't seem to be the case for the bloodline and certainly not for Roman Reigns. I'm just saying for me, I enjoy Roman rains as a part of that bloodline story. I want Heyman by a side. I like the accoutrema, him as a singles performer. There's a sense of sameness.

Even guys like The Undertaker have to switch it up. I'm ready to see something different than. And I want to know from you guys, is that something you're looking for? Or do you think, hey, I'm an idiot and Rowan's the band. How about his Oriental says, Conrad, stop hating. You're not getting hired by them. I didn't advocate for a job from them. I don't know where that's coming from.

I'm allowed to like something that's a little different than what you like. and for what it's worth, Eric agreed with me. Here's what we can all agree. Roman's getting paid a whole bunch of money, and he needs to manage that money, and you need to manage your money. Cash app can help you do that, especially if you got youngens out there

for all the parents out there with teenagers. We know you're already trying to keep up with a million different things. Cash app is here to make sure that your teen's money and their spending isn't adding to your craziness. But the cash app card, it's available for teens 13 to 17 with sponsorship by an eligible parent or guardian, every transaction will trigger a real-time notification for you to see, empowering your team to practice independence while also giving you peace of mind by keeping

track of their spending. You'll also manage everything directly from your own cash app account without ever having to switch between the two, making it easy to stay connected to your team's financial activity in a way that's most efficient, but also empowering. And listen, nobody wants unnecessary surprises. So here's what you need to know about cash app. buddy there's no monthly fees there's no minimum balance requirements there's no hidden charges whenever you send or receive money but you do get 24-7 fraud monitoring and if the card

ever gets lost you the parent can lock their card right from your phone in just one tap it's really a cool way to teach your kids about financial responsibility without ever having to stress about the fine print you're going to give your kid a little more independence but still stay in the loop i think you're absolutely going to love it They've got a lot of really cool products here too. Like if your teen gets their first job, you can get them access to their checks up to two days early. They can even set personalized savings goals that they set themselves,

and it keeps them updated about where they are. But I just love this product, especially for young people. And I want you to know it's never too young to teach your kids about saving. Small steps today can really build stronger habits for tomorrow. So Cash App is now offering teens' interest on their savings. teens can start with as little as just $1 and grow from there without ever paying anything extra, and you can manage everything from your own cash app account without ever having to switch between the two. So if you're ready to give your teen access to interest on savings, start by downloading Cash App and sponsoring the account today.

New Cash App customers can earn $10 if they use the code Family 10 in their profile and sign up and then send $5 to a friend within 14 days. Terms apply. Cash app is a financial services platform, not a bank, banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners, prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, Cash App Visa debit flex cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, and the Bank Corp, Bank, N, A pursuant to license from Visa USA Inc. See, terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, the Sutton Debit Flex card, and the Bank Corp debit flex card, savings provided by Cash App, a Block Inc brand, visit. at cache.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. We are live and we are home stretching it here on 83 weeks and we have got a lot of fun live questions coming in. Keep them coming. But the biggest question I have for you, Eric, I don't know if you saw this, but over the weekend it was revealed that WWE has filed to trademark AWA. Now, of course, we know they were running a big hubbleau in Minnesota. We even had Greg Gagne at Ringsside and a lot of other Minnesota natives.

But part of me, thanks to myself, self, are they about to create a new show and new content to run on a new channel and reignite the AWA? What do you think this could be, Eric? What do you hope it is? It's hard to say. I mean, I'm fairly familiar with what was left of the AWA library when it shut down.

And there wasn't a lot of the, a lot of the material, a lot of the tapes were water damaged and, and it just weren't properly stored, you know, too much humidity, whatever. So I don't know how much actual footage is there. I don't know if I could support its own channel, so to speak, or maybe I can see it being part of a channel that featured regional wrestling like AWA or Memphis or, you know, Don Owens territory or wherever. I can see that.

I think that's been done before, but I can't see a standalone. on. I can't see an independent wrestling or a brand being built around AWA. But I'm not thinking they're going to leverage the old stuff so much as I wonder are they going to, just like they sort of called developmental NXT, could they call evolve AWA

and try to get in some sort of 2B or something like that, like some other service, because here's the reality. They have got both companies, A,W and WWE, have an absolute ton of wrestlers who were very worthy of having reps on television, but they have more wrestlers than they have television time. So it feels like the WWB model is to go out and try to secure as many rights fees as you can. Well, you kind of got Smackdown and Raw and NXT sort of already mapped out. They have yet to land distribution, at least in North America, for AAA.

But maybe that's because there's a perception from ad buyers that it's a largely Hispanic audience. And they're thinking about how will we sell ads. But if it's the American Wrestling Association, I don't know. It's interesting. I don't know. What do you think? Is there a way they could do another brand? I just don't see it.

I mean, your business case for doing, doing it kind of makes sense to me except that there's no revenue on the other end of it. These 2B deals are, eh. Well, I'm not saying 2B in particular. I'm just one, like, hypothetically, and I'm not one of these tinfoil hat guys. But if there is going to be a shakeup between Paramount and Warner Brothers, and I guess we'll know when the court case has decided next June, maybe there's room for another wrestling show, either on Paramount or on Warner Brothers.

who knows what all that looks like, but it does feel like maybe they're just getting something ready in case. Maybe I'm just reading into it. Maybe it's just an old licensing deal. Who knows? I think it's an old licensing deal or some variation of it. I'm not as optimistic as some people are about the prospect of a new wrestling league or brand emerging any time in the near future.

I just can't. I just, I don't see it from a business perspective. Yeah, wrestling is, you can argue, and you'd be right that wrestling is more popular now in a lot of different ways than it's ever been. But to break through the clutter now, especially when you've got, you know, number one is number one by about 90% of the market. Number two has about 10% of the market. And you're going to try to find your piece of that market in between the gold, the gold, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Eliath and number two, who's a self-funded multi-billionaire, I don't know. The odds on that look kind of shaky to me.

I don't know if you've kept up with this, Eric, but it was actually, I don't know how we landed on this. But on this day in 1992, this was the day that in Baltimore, Ron Simmons beat Big Van Vader to become the first ever African-American World Heavyweight Champion. He became the WCW World Champion on this day in 1992. You've seen a lot of real wrestling history made. For whatever reason, people always gravitate to talking about the Nitro era of history with you. And I know you weren't exactly in a position of power at this point in 92,

but you were there when it went down. Did it feel like a major moment to you when it happened way back when? Absolutely did. First of all, Ron Simmons, everything about him felt real. And this moment was intensified. You know, because of, you know, the way the locker room treated and reacted. And a lot of it was genuine. I mean, it wasn't just doing what, you know, the Booker told you to do, go out there, you know, put them up on your shoulders, make it seem like you're really excited for it.

And there was none of that needed to be said. I was there. I saw it. It was a very, very cool moment. And, you know, Vader certainly deserves a lot of the credit for the way the crowd was into that match, and both live and as well as viewership. Ron, you just cannot say enough about Ron Simmons. He's a man's man. He was credible as hell.

He had the audience in the palm of his hand. There wasn't anybody in the room that wasn't cheering for Ron and wanted to see Ron over Vader because of, because of the, Vader did such a great job. It was a magic moment. It was very cool. And it couldn't happen to a class year guy. To this day, where you see Ron Simmons,

he just, he walks into a room, you can feel the respect from 50 feet away before you see him. That's Ron Simmons. His great close personal friend, John Layfield says, Ron Simmons is our Jackie Robinson. I don't think it gets any better said than that.

Shout out to JBL. I know they had a great time at RussellCon this. weekend. We are live with Eric. We're going to be talking about some NWO anniversaries, but let's rapid fire some of your questions. We'll try to get to them all. AOTV production says, hey, Eric, one of WW's biggest critics right now is JD from New York. He believes Triple H needs to receive his termination papers now. What do you think? Yeah, I just, it's hard for me to comment on these things and that's unlike, you know, a bitter old man. And so I'm going to like not to comment too much other than to say, people, if you only understood, if you only had the foggiest idea of what you're talking about, or if you understood remotely how tilted your perspective is based on your lack of information and real knowledge, certainly experience.

It's embarrassing. You're embarrassing yourself. But whatever. You know, it's the Internet. It's the reason people jump on the Internet to get hate, to spew hate, to watch other people hate, bitch, complain, hurts your signal. Whatever, whatever you need for your dopamine hit is right at your fingertips. And that's where most of these types of comments are really generated from. that and you know a couple bucks on the side the B man O2 says Eric where you disappointed your

Hall of Fame speech was during the pandemic era and couldn't have a live crowd that's a that's a really good question and I would be lying if I said I haven't thoughts of myself or maybe even expressed out loud not not regret what man I would have love that feeling of being out there and I've talked about it all the time you people know this if you've listened to the show more than three times you've heard me say this you know there's nothing like the energy you get when you're standing out in the middle for me because i wasn't a wrestler so i didn't get that kind of connection to the audience but when you're out there and and in my case had a microphone and control of the entire room i had everybody's focus

and i could make them do pretty much what i wanted them to do almost exactly when i wanted them to do it. That's a real powerful drug. And I miss it to this day. I miss it. But I was also grateful to get into the Hall of Fame. And yes, I would have liked to do it in front of the life crowd, but I'm no, I'm no less grateful for the opportunity and in the moment because it didn't mean a lot to me. It means a lot to be, you know, I didn't think it would, right, years ago because everybody comes, what are you going to get inducted? What are you going to get inducted? And for a long time, it was like, probably never, but that's cool.

It's not need. I don't need validation anymore. I know what I did and I know how I did it. I'm good. But when it actually happened, I got emotional. And I didn't expect that. And certainly being there and being acknowledged by my peer, and social media, obviously, you know, they weren't in front of me.

I couldn't feel that energy the same way, but it was there. People were there and, you know, you feel that love, I guess, if there's a better way to say it. So, no, I'm grateful for it. But yeah, it would have been kind of fun to get that fix a little more time. Brian Nadal 305 says, Eric, I think you need to be honored in Waterloo, Iowa. He was last year. You should have been there. It was a fun time.

I got a picture on the wall, dude. Had a great time. Some good people. It was a great time. PJ Taints says, Ask EasyE. Have there been any discussions about Chad Gable doing RAF eventually? Any shot at that, you think, Chad Gable, trying to stand at Real American Freestyle? I know my partner, Chad Bronstine.

I think they've talked or at least exchange text emails. Remember, Chad, long before, well, before Real American Freestyle was partners with Hall Cogan in Real American Beer. WWE owns a percentage of Real American Beer. So there's a business relationship. And I may have had, I may got those details wrong. I wasn't involved. But there was a business relationship between HAL, Real American Free style, or Real American Beer and WWE and Chad Bronsie.

So Chad was kind of integrated a little bit into WWE. with a few people, particularly in the marketing department and things like that. And then he kind of grew his relationship. So when I got there to Real American Freestyle, when I joined that team, one of the things Chad talked about because he knew my relationship at WWE was, hey, what about Chad Gable? Because Chad, Ronstein, wrestled in Ohio, which was very active, you know, wrestler, still, very engaged in freestyle wrestling as a sport.

competitor but he doesn't wrestle anymore but very involved in the sport obviously and he reached out to chat and i think gable and they they've had a conversation or two or tax exchange and i think there's a desire to do it um i don't know gable feels about it he you know may not we've talked to i'm not going to mention names we talked to one other very legitimate you know collegiate wrestler and he said man i'm not going to go out there and get on the mat with all those guys is really I'm like, give it. You know, it's not, it's not like riding a bike. You know, you may have been really, really good at it years ago.

But if you're going to step on a mat with somebody that's currently, you know, competitive at the world level, it's not going to end well for you. But I don't, I can't imagine there would be a desire to do it. But maybe, you know, wrestlers are strange people. Amateur wrestlers are, and obviously that with Real American Freestyle, professional free sell wrestlers are very unique people. And sometimes their addiction, like mine is that energy exchange with the live crowd because of the power that I have in my hand, a microphone.

I think there are athletes who only get that kind of rush when they're competing, they're grinding with another man, Matt, just one-on-one, out there in front of everybody. that's their rush. If Cable has that, yeah, because we'd love to have them. A wrestling historian wants to know, Mr. Bischoff, during your time working for WWE,

was there ever a pay-per-view where you walked into the arena and you were impressed by the presentation? I think specifically he's asking about the set. Did you have a favorite WWE pay-per-view set back in the day? You know, because it was my favorite pay-per-view, I'll default and say Halloween Havoc. It was the most thematic.

really of our pay-per-views because it was all around the Halloween's holiday event. But WWB, do you have a WWE one? Oh, a WWE one. Uh-uh. I don't even think I was there at the time, but that one, I think it was for Smackdown with a fist coming through. Yeah, that's right, Smackdown, yeah. That was pretty cool.

Different. Kind of told you what the show was all about without even, you could just no audio, freeze frame that shot. you could probably figure out what that show is. That's kind of a cool thing. Shout out to Ray Dotson 92. He says, Eric,

I miss WCW. I have both of your books. Sauce Inc. says, can I get a please? Come on now, Phil. That's not very fair.

JTank 1562 says, did Eric enjoy seeing his old buddy Greg Gagnea? He was on the show tonight doing a little wave. What was the last time you talked to Greg? Can't remember. Jim Shorts says, thanks for all the podcasts over the years. Dustin Bennett says,

I love baseball and I love the Savannah bananas. Danhausen is the Savannah bananas of pro wrestling. It's great. I think that's a great analogy. Perfect analogy. Darville Maros says, I got to stand up against the NWO Wolfpack slander. That was incredibly cool to young black kids.

That was my first wrestling t-shirt. I'll shout out to you. Don't turn your back on the wolf pack. His poor he says, Goddread, don't ever complain about WWE ads. You do more. Not over at ringclassics. I don't. You can get all of our episodes, early and ad-free at ringclassics.com.

E. Wilkie 270 says, does Eric have any thoughts about Vince Rousseau's new book? I can't imagine you've read Total Non-Stop Agony. Have you, Eric? No. And I won't. And I won't have any comments. Eric, uh, does, can you hear this? It's been 30 years ago this week since that song debuted for professional wrestling fans. It's also been 30 years ago this week that we started to see the following announcement has been paid for by the New World Order. And I don't know that you guys ever got really enough credit for that because if you recall, when we first saw Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, they weren't

coming out from the back. They were coming in through the crowd. They were trying to do a hostile takeover. So when the NW logo was designed and they started selling NWO merch, I think it was Kevin Nash, you correctly pointed out, well, you can't put it next to a sting shirt at the WCW merch stand. We don't work here, remember? So there were vendors outside of the arenas, like trying to sell NWO shirts like they were a bootlegger at an NFL game. So how could we actually insert an NWO promo into a WCW program and not sort of lose the

plot? The answer became, well, if this outside organization decided to buy airtime on the station, well, that was out of WCW's hands. So it ran like it was an infomercial. I thought it was a stroke of genius. I love that we're getting to talk about this. It happened 30 years ago this week for the very first time. What can you tell us about Rock House,

the now iconic NW theme that is the theme for our show? And the whole, the following has been paid for by the new world. Who deserves the credit for that? I know who did the voiceover. Shout out to Neil Pruitt, but whose thinking was, hey, yeah, they can't just do a pre-tape promo. There's got to be a reason and a way to navigate it in. Chat me up.

Yeah, that was a unique, I mean, everybody, everybody realized that this was a completely different approach to storytelling and wrestling. And if we wanted it to stick, there had to be logic attached to it. We had to be careful that we didn't jump to shark. early by not paying attention to the little things. Kevin Nash was great at that. Kevin had a unique, just he has his perspective. He can look at a scene or a storyline and find some of the littlest things.

They're so easy to overlook, a little detail in a story, a little nuance that is necessary for the story to continue to evolve or the brand to have credibility. Kevin had a unique eye for that. You know, some people have an ear for music. Some people have an eye for whatever. Kevin had an eye for detail in storytelling. He would think things through more so than a lot of people on the team. In some cases, including myself, that was Kevin's value.

People don't know. People that have never worked with Kevin creatively, but yet find a way to criticize, you know, his run, you know, in almost an impossible situation that he knew is impossible when he took it. But if you never work with Kevin, you don't really understand the unique perspective that he has an inability. So probably a lot of it started with Kevin. And as we as a team, I'm talking about, you know, Kevin Sullivan, myself, whoever was working together realized, you know, that that's a valuable contribution to the process. we also started thinking differently about nuances and detail. So you haven't had a lot to do with it, but the rest of it was all the team. The Rock House music, it was part of the Turner Music Library.

I wouldn't know who would have searched that music. It could have been a nut yo there. That would have made sense in her role. But it could have been a number of people that just reached over, across the aisle to the atrium and reached our counterparts over it, turn of music, and said, hey, what are you got that we can pick some music from? They sent over a digital library, and we sat down and went, okay, let's start going through it.

Somebody, don't know who, found that song, brought it to me. I think there was maybe two or three others, and they wanted me to sit down and, you know, see what they've narrowed it down to, heard this one, and that was it. I don't even know if I listened to it. just it it was perfect and then the voiceover the look um you know a number of people had a hand in the black and white the way we shot it that wasn't a single person's idea that was a collaboration as almost everything ultimately is for the time it hits tv um but neil pruitt had a lot of influence over that a lot of influence Craig leathers probably the the the

the director probably did as well. But I think it was primarily Neil. And then, of course, he would bring ideas, filter them up to me. And I'd either have input or just to say goodbye. You guys got to check out the behind the scenes of those first promos shot against the projector screen all in black and white. You'll see Neil Pruitt do some run-ins there. We should get Neil on the program at some point. It was also 30 years ago this week, Eric, where we.

We saw the NWO back sage attack. Of course, this is the summer of 96, if we go back 30 years. And we're not able to really film the program in Atlanta. We're down at Disney. And all of a sudden, we see the NWO start attacking WCW wrestlers. And this is a very cool moment because this is one of the first times we see the baby faces and the heels from WCW banding together to battle this outside group that's taking over. And speaking of taking over, they launched. darted Ray Mysterio, Kevin Nash specifically, into the TV truck.

And it looked so real that there were multiple 911 calls. The police were called, ambulances were called. The macho man is so caught up in it. He jumps on the top of the limo as it's speeding away. This felt real. And Kevin Sullivan said that this was the best thing he ever did in his wrestling life. And think about what all that encompasses. but the idea that you get baby faces and heels to,

I guess we would say, break K Fabe to band together against this rival group coming in now, trying to take over. And meanwhile, on the other channel, you've got T.L. Hopper and Sal Sinseer, and it's just not the same. This felt so real.

I think that's the word I would use to describe the scene. When you think about the most important moments to establishing the NWO, obviously Scott Hall coming down the stands on your birthday in May that's near the top of the list. Hogan dropping the big leg, that's near the top of the list. Hogan's spray painting the belt with the NWO, that's going to be on the list. But this backstage attack, I think, often gets overlooked. This was a magical night.

Take us back to that night. What do you remember about it? And why was it so special? We were under duress, meaning the only place we could shoot was the Disney MGM studios because so much of our crew was freelancers. Every freelance, every television production and freelancer

that was worth being hired in the United States of America was working for the Olympics, right? Even all of Turner Sports production staff who we typically, you know, were forced to use, even if we didn't want to use them, When we wanted to hire outside people, we couldn't because of the nature of our position inside of Turner corporate. We had to use Turner Sports production people instead of freelancers whenever possible.

They weren't available. There were no real venues available. And we couldn't put a crew together if there was. So Disney, because we'd been working down there, I knew that they had the production capabilities for us to be self-contained. We didn't need a production truck. We didn't need a satellite. We didn't need a lot of the freelancers because Disney employees were there to fill those roles. That's what I mean by duress.

It wasn't an optimal situation. And having to shoot the show outside, even less optimal in the summertime in Orlando for obvious reasons. But we did it. And it's under duress sometimes that you do your best work, at least I do. And I think we all did. Because there was a lot of people that had their fingerprints all over the show. Sullivan being, you know, first and foremost in terms of laying out that scene backstage and making it feel so real.

It was a cool moment. I think it's an important moment. And it's interesting, and I appreciate you pointing out, because I hadn't even thought about it. The moment when you think about it from the viewing audience's perspective, the moment when you're watching this scene, first of all, you have never seen action take place outside of the arena. Don't think you have. Not like this, not live.

And to this extent. I'm probably going to be proven wrong. I don't care. I'm making a point. That scene was so unusual that you were glued to it because that's not supposed to happen. I've been watching wrestling. I'm a fit fan now. I'm watching wrestling for the last 20 years.

I've never seen anything like this. Therefore, it must be true. That's what I want you to feel. I want you to feel like that could be true. And not only could be true is true. Now I've got you. If you can create those moments, we talked earlier about moments and how significant they are.

This is a moment where you can do something that's really never been done before in this manner on live television, national prime time, our baby faces and heels right, Kay Fabe and galvanize.

Now it really feels real because that never happens. Ever. It is now. This invasion is real. People were generally confused. they didn't know.

Is this real or is this Memorex? You know, they didn't know. And the not knowing is what created the chatter and sharing of thoughts and opinions long before the internet, not long but before the internet as we know it today, for sure. It was a word of mouth. It was back when water cooler talk actually mattered. long before social.

So it may be one of the most important moments in Nitro history in terms of elevating the reality and locking the audience in us. We want to hear from you guys. What do you remember about that moment 30 years ago this week when the backstage attack happened? We've always just boiled it down to Kevin Nash, lawn darted, Ray Mysterio, but it was much bigger than that. people believed.

We were able to allow them to suspend their disbelief. They picked up the phone and they called the freaking police about a TV show. If that happened today, people would say, you got to get locked up, buddy. You need to be in a loony bin. But we all wanted to believe so badly back then. And man, you hooked us. And we loved it. And we're great to celebrate that song 30 years ago, Eric.

What an iconic theme song. and what a summer slam. It's all in the rearview mirror. We're going to be talking more about the NWO next week. We're going to be doing some deep dives. We've got some fun stuff playing this summer. Hit the subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell, and tell a friend about 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.

You know, my grandfather used to say there's no stress like money stress, son. Are you feeling that right now? Let me help. You've got a friend of the mortgage business and me, and I've helped families just like yours, save hundreds of dollars a month. Seriously, we've helped listeners to this podcast save up to 800 bucks a month.

At save withconrad.com, we routinely help our podcast listeners consolidate all of their high interest rate credit cards into just one much lower monthly payment. Would you like to lower your monthly payments? Wouldn't it be nice to skip your next two house payments? Are you finally ready for some breathing room and peace of mind? Start saving money today with your friend in the mortgage business.

Me, at savewithconrad.com. You don't need perfect credit. You don't need money out of your pocket. And if we can't help you save some cash, we won't waste your time. You see, at savewithconrad.com, we don't say no. We say not yet, but here's how. We want to be your mortgage advisor for life. So find out how easy it is to finally get rid of your credit card debt once and

for all, get a much lower monthly payment, and even skip your next two house payments. Let's find out how much money you can save for free at save withconrad.com. NMLS number 128-1698 and 203902. Equal housing lender. SavewithConrad.com.