83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 440: The Promo That Started The WAR!

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric explains why WWE's return to traditional house shows could be a smart strategic move, and why those live events can play an important role in developing talent. That leads to a bigger discussion about wrestler development, as Eric makes the case for why acting classes should be mandatory for anyone trying to become a complete performer. Then, the guys debate SmackDown expanding to three hours and why Eric believes adding more television could be a risky move. Plus, they look back at the infamous "WHAT?!" chant and how it became the perfect example of an audience taking control of a live wrestling show. And finally, Eric and Conrad go back 30 years to revisit the forgotten Nitro promo that helped kick off the Attitude Era, a moment often overshadowed by everything that followed but one that signaled professional wrestling was about to change forever.     THIS WEEKS SPONSORS BLUECHEW - When you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third FREE with promo code 83WEEKS. You will also receive an additional 10% OFF + Free overnight shipping on your first order. Visit http://BlueChew.com  for more details and important safety information ULTRA - Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code 83WEEKS at http://takeultra.com ! #UltraPouches #ad CHIME - Join the millions who are already banking fee free with America's #1 Choice for Banking. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head to http://Chime.com/83WEEKS  . Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime Card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details. SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewithconrad.com  to learn more. PODCAST HEAT - Want to grow your business with the power of podcast advertising? Reach loyal, engaged audiences through trusted host endorsements across the Podcast Heat network. Learn more at PodcastHeat.com

Today's episode and all of our episodes come 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 you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fish off. What's going on, man? How are you? I am great adjusting to our new life down here in Clearwater, Florida.

And just staying really busy, really, really busy. But I love it. Dude, I love the new background. Is this your new RAF background? You're doing on calls and whatnot. That looks cool. Yeah, I started doing that because we're down here in Airbnb. And, you know,

not that your background should really matter, but it's all kind of white back there and just blat looking. And it just bored me. So I was just messing around and I found this this photo, which we took. It's on the stage at our Real American Freestyle event in Tbilisi, Georgia, just a month or so ago, looking out towards the mat and obviously you could see it was a fishbowl kind of a lens that, or fish eye kind of lens that took the shot so you can kind of see both sides of the arena. It was sold out.

You know, it was just such a cool moment that I loved the picture and thought, yeah, that looks pretty good. Yeah, I've got to say it's the first time I've seen you use a virtual backdrop that wasn't your own place, but I like it. A little R-A-F action right here. By the way, they got a great event coming up. Tickets on sale now at real American freestyle.com. Going back to Cleveland, Derek, where it all started like a year ago, right? Yeah, there's so much cool stuff happening and, you know, to celebrate, you know, our one-year anniversary.

Really, really cool stuff. you know, the U.S. Air Force is involved. And we've got a nice little surprise courtesy of the U.S. Air Force that we're excited about. And just a lot of other moments that we've, you know, accumulated over the course of just one short year. Highlights, if you will, of some of the really cool stuff that's happened. And just a little bit of a story of how we got here in such an amazingly short period of time. What a card you've got for Cleveland, too. You've talked about them from day one.

no nickel and Kennedy Blades. They'll both be in action. So will Gable Stephson, who's certainly been making a name for himself. Tyrone Woodley will be there in action. I actually got to sit behind him at your St. Louis event. And Henry in the main event, I mean,

this is guy what comes in with a lot of name value. If you're a longtime UFC fan, you know exactly who we're talking about. Tickets are on sale now at real American Freestyle.com. You can go ahead and buy your tickets there or do what I'm doing and watch it on the Fox Nation app. It's going down next weekend in Cleveland. But we've got more good news, Eric.

I don't know if you saw, but the good news is Jim Ross had a successful surgery and he's headed home. This was a pretty major surgery. I assume anytime you go under anesthesia post 70 years old. And yeah, that's a big deal. But brain surgery is not something I've ever said before. And I'm so thankful and so glad that he's going to be back in fighting shape before you know it. But already home, that's a good sign, right, Eric? Yeah, that's a real good sign.

And he's tough as nails, man, or tough as a $2 or Oklahoma steak, maybe. But definitely tough guy. Best wishes to Jim and get well quick. I wanted to start the show off and talk about something that I know you felt strongly about way back when in WCW when you finally got the big seat, as I would like to say, and you took a look at the books, it didn't take long for you to figure out, hey, every time we're doing these house shows, we're losing money. and you started to make it a mandate that you were going to start cutting some house shows.

We needed to run a sharper P&L. Well, in recent years, WWE, it feels like, has not prioritized house shows. And we've even heard at some public events and some public remarks from the leadership group that they just frankly didn't see the value of doing some of those programs. But maybe they've done it about face. WWE has announced a new seven live event date tour.

It's part of the Road to Survivor series. So it's not a full-time return, but we are getting some more events and not necessarily in A towns. I say that not disrespectfully because my own hometown of Huntsville, Alabama rounds out the list on November 19th. But we're going to hit Canada, California, Ohio, a couple of shots in Maine, down in Fort Myers, Florida, and Huntsville, Alabama is going to happen over the course of about a month. October 15th is a Thursday, and we're going to run it through Thursday, November 19th.

I guess it is strategic, you know, if we're thinking about how. house shows to think about running them on Thursdays. If you know that you're going to have a Friday television show anyway, maybe that would give you an opportunity to do some dress rehearsal for things, have some more time to plan some things, talk through some things, sharpen your skills. And then maybe you're going to the big show on Smackdown on Friday. What do you think of this announcement? What's the rationale do you imagine?

I like to think it's very strategic for, and it's, it's smart. I'm glad to see it. And for a lot of the reasons that we've talked about over the last year or even six months, with regard to, you know, WWE cutting back on house shows, you know, a while ago, a year and a half, two years ago, whatever they made it more or less official. AEW has never really had house shows. They just produced TV shows and pay-per-views for the most part. And we've talked in general about what happens to the wrestling industry

when you no longer have the live, non-televised portion of the business plan. And obviously the financial part of it is the first thing everybody thinks about, but then there's the talent side of it and to a lesser extent, the creative side. Meaning on the talent side, we talked about this just recently. You know, unless you get an opportunity to get a develop your instinct, and develop the ability to read your audience in a way that helps direct your moves, your actions, your mannerisms.

In other words, you're using the audience. Hulk Hogan used to talk about it. Rick Flair would talk about it. A lot of, you know, the Roddy Piper's of the world would talk about it. Jay Roberts would talk about it. You know, they just happen to be the people that are known for, you know, commanding control

of the audience and telling their stories and selling their characters. with a narrative as opposed to just relying on physical stuff inside of the ring. Well, where do you learn that if you don't get the opportunity to practice it and to develop the skills and develop the instinct? Because you can't take that shit in a pill. You can't read about it. You can't watch a YouTube show and figure it out.

You've got to just kind of go out there with some great guidance, by the way, in coaching. But you need to go out there and find what works for you. and get comfortable with the voice of your now character as opposed to what you just would normally do. So I'm happy to see it because I think this strategy will fill a number of different goals. Talent development, you know, definitely being one of them, talent character development.

And then on the other, and the business side is obvious. I think, to me at least, you know, they're going back to what worked. We talked about this a lot. One of the things, in my opinion, that has made professional wrestling such a bulletproof form of entertainment in our culture since the very freaking beginning of television time is the fact that these stars, these characters, these people,

that the audience connects to because of what they see on television. Well, guess what? They're coming down the street next month. You get a chance to go and see the people that you enjoy watching on TV for about six bucks or whatever the price of a ticket was or is, whatever. The point is you get a chance to make a personal connection. And if you talk to anybody that's ever been to a professional wrestling, event that went in the door with kind of a, yeah, well, I don't even know if I'm going to like this

attitude and walked out with a holy crap. Now I get it. How many of those conversations have you been involved in or heard of? It's commonplace. We've all experienced it at different levels. I used to experience it at the business level when executives from other forms of entertainment would come to a pay-per-view for the very first time. They kind of look down their nose of professional wrestling like, almost born, girls going wild, a little tacky, don't want a brown paper bag it. if you're going to bring it to my house kind of thing. That's the way they looked at professional wrestling slash sports entertainment until they came to an event.

It was like a giant light ball, went off like a freaking grenade in their head and went, oh, I did it now. This is a version of that. And we're going into B markets. Why is that important? Because those B market fans, those people that you're reestablishing your personal relationship with in a way that no other television character product can really do, Sports can do it, not the same thing.

But not only do those people that live in the B market community, you know, supporting you when you go to these events, they'll also come to the big events when they're in their, you know, 200 miles of their home. So you're reestablishing a really important part of your fan base, especially if you're focusing on key markets for your big major events. Well, the way you keep those things working is you keep drawing from a wall, a wider and wider radius because you're creating that outer

kind of portion of the market simultaneously. Anyway, that's why I think it's a smart move. It's interesting you bring up the location because that's something I hadn't put a lot of time into thinking about, but I think you're right. Like for a house show, yeah, some of my wrestling friends in Huntsville, they would go to Huntsville to check that out.

That's their hometown. But if they're, if they had recently had fun and they took a friend who was a casual or they took a family member, they took their kids and they had fun. Then when it's announced that the WWE is coming back for a more expensive ticket in Nashville or Atlanta, people I know would be more inclined to make that two or three hour trip to go to the show and fork over the larger dollars, the radius of the big events, I'll admit, is not something I had thought of.

That's an excellent point, Eric. Yeah, I mean, I just, again, I'm kind of trying to look at this through the eyes of someone with the resources and the research, you know, capabilities of a TKO. And to me, knowing what I know about, I just know how professional wrestling works and why it's worked for as long as it's worked as I just described. No other television property has the ability to do that. It's professional wrestling historically, relatively speaking, is low cost to produce. It gets uniquely high ratings given it's, you know,

cost of production, and is consistent, more consistent than almost anything else other than local news. So it's, it's such a unique product that you have to look at it a little differently than you would another business. There is the P&L reason too. I mean, here's the reality. Almost no one, I'm, I'm sure some of the top guys like Cody probably does, but almost no one is hitting their minimum number of dates, I would guess. I would guess that this roster is so loaded and you have so many talented boys and girls and I'm not advocating that they don't have those jobs. I'm just saying you have more people there than you can possibly feature on TV.

So in an effort to get some sort of return and make a connection with the audience, because if you're not seeing them in house shows and you're not seeing them on TV, how likely are we to buy or engage with their merchandise? Like, I've got to see them to make a connection with them to want. want to go buy their t-shirt or their doll or something like that. But if it's out of sight, it's out of mind, you can't really mark it to me. So I do think that when these house shows are allowed and none of the cards have been announced, I don't know how many of those are going to include tippy top talent,

if it's something where they're making all of their dates. But if you've got sort of unspent money, you can't take it with you, hey, if we had, I know he's no longer there, but if they had Seamus for 100 dates a year, and they'd only used him 13 times this year, why would we not put them on all the house shows at that point, right? We're looking for a return on our investment. And by running these smaller markets, respectfully,

the rents are a lot cheaper. You can't tell me it's in the same stratosphere to rent proxed arena in Huntsville, Alabama, as it is Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville. So I could see how, hey, we've already spent the money. We've committed these dollars to the talent. Let's try to get some sort of return.

And the only way they're going to have better merch sales, is if people can engage with them. And if we're running short of TV time and we can't feature them. Let's put them on the house show. Let's get something for our bank for our buck, right? That's one way of looking at it. I'm sure, you know, from a finance point of view, absolutely the right way to look at it.

I tend to look at it differently. I don't look at it differently. It's just to me that's not on the list of benefits. That would be down the list a little bit. as important as it always is. But I do think because this is strategic in so many ways, and as you're talking about, yes, you want to,

from a monetization perspective, you want to monetize your assets to the maximum degree possible, that's the goal, the ultimate goal, of course. But again, going back to the strategy part of it is, I also think that if you've got a lot of talent

who are not working in front of the live crowd, or not working often at all and just going through the motions, you know, at a high level, but going through the motions in a performance center, I think you've got a higher risk of injuries because I just, it's different. Now,

I can't speak to it because I've never done it, but I've been around it enough to know, and I've been involved with other things enough to know that, it's not like riding a bike. You've got to be in there bouncing around, two, three, four days a week in a minimum. And in order to be able to go out there and bounce around when the cameras are and do a great job and be able to go at 105% or whatever you have to do,

you know, that just doesn't happen because you happen to be in good shape. There's so much involved, and that's why I have so much respect for performers who are green and growing or veterans or those who are, in the peak of their career. It's really, really difficult and requires not only a lot of skill, a lot of maintenance to avoid injury. That's my point. I think the more often people are in the ring bouncing around, the fewer injuries you will have.

Now, on a percentage basis, you've got a thousand people working on a road. Or if you've got 100 people working on a road, you're going to have an injury, you know, let's say, in times, just to pick a number. Well, if you've, so that means, you know, you got 10 injuries. But if you've got a thousand of those people, you're going to have 100 injuries. So it's hard to say you're going to have more or less injuries. In some ways, you're going to have obviously more because you're at scale. But on a percentage basis, on a relative basis, I think a better way to minimize injuries is to keep wrestlers wrestling at a fairly high level, you know, two or three days a week.

And I think that's a happy medium. you're not wearing everybody out. You're not riding them down with travel necessarily. Still will be hard, but that's a hard business. That's what you signed up for, dipshit. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

But I think it would benefit so many different ways if they can achieve that kind of a schedule. The product will be better too. I mean, I know that there is what I believe to be a false narrative out there about, you know, and you hear this from old timers all the time. All these kids these days, they'll spend two hours planning a 20-minute match. Not my day.

We called it in the ring. Yeah, well, in your day, every match wasn't televised and you were married to a guy. You'd work a 12-week program and you're working four or five times a night with the same guy. No shit, you don't have to talk through it the 40th time you've wrestled. But the country. I don't mean to interrupt you, but that is such a great point you just made. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm. I'm not guilty of it because I was never one of those guys on the road all the time,

but I get it. You know, I've been around enough people like the one you just described, who can talk about, yeah, we can just go out there and talk about, well, of course,

to your point, you just get that right on the head. I love it. I mean, I'm not trying to be critical. I understand, but you also have to understand that things have changed. And I feel like you give an opportunity for these guys to have

crisper better performances and perform with more confidence. and perform with more confidence because they've had reps. Like the first time anybody tries any series of moves or sequence of moves, is it going to be as good as after they've done it the 100th time? Well, of course not. We all know that. So I think this is great for the business. I think it's great for a return on investment standpoint.

It's great for making a connection with the audience. It's great to improve the reps and the overall quality of the product. I'm for it. And I can go ahead and announce that when tickets go on sale, this Friday, August 24. first at 10 a.m. I'm going to be picking up those tickets. I'm going to Huntsville and I hope to see you guys there. And when I get home, I may be so excited from the matches that I tell the wife, hey, that show was sponsored by Blue Chew and so is this commercial. I want you to measure your

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And at the end of the encounter, get down to the foot of the bed, hold one finger in the air and turn your head to the side and yell, acknowledge me. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. Right now when you buy two months of bluechew 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. So, Eric, I appreciate you liking my quip about calling it in the ring. I've got another hairbrained idea I want to run past you. And I know that you were criticized for a variation of this, but I don't think it was exactly this. I struggle sometimes to define what wrestling is when I have to defend it to, I wanted to say non-believer, but we all know what I mean.

Somebody who's just not a fan and doesn't get it and they, oh, you know it's fake, right, as if the freaking Marvel movie they watched film against a green screen with a guy standing in a rubber suit held up by wires was real. But whatever. I do want to ask, is there it? Why hasn't wrestling embraced like?

acting classes. Like, the guys have to get to a show, like call times usually like one o'clock. Nobody's really doing much of shit until three or four. And then doors open at like 5.30 and that's when everybody gets their shit together. But I'm saying for a large portion of that date, they're really doing nothing. What would be wrong with having like a mandatory 90 minute or two hour acting class in the ring every week before the show? And then during that, you're not just,

just doing hypotheticals, whatever your segment is for that week, we're going to dial it in right now and we're going to have acting coaches here and we're going to block it off and figure out where to do and how to do. But we're going to do it with an audience so everyone can see and learn at the same time and get better and better. Like we go to wrestling school, but when I describe wrestling to people, I say, hey, it's a television show. It's acting, but they do their own stunts. Because that's kind of what it is. Send me your hate tweets, but I mean, that is what it is. We're watching the fucking thing on TV. There was a. a script, they're going to really do the stunts themselves.

But trying not to hurt it. It's a fucking TV show without acting coaches. Like, why doesn't anybody do that, Eric? Somehow, when I went to a little bit of contacts, when I went to WWE in 2019, prior to my getting to WWE, there was a, what are they called?

There was a research company that came in to do essentially an audit of the entire creative process, amongst other things. Other divisions went through the same. And I've been through it before. I went through it twice at Turner. So it's not an unusual thing at all, especially for publicly held companies to go through these. I'm just going to refer to it as an audit because I can't think of the other term.

But it's not uncommon at all. I want to make sure people understand it. But what these, and it's usually required by the board. It's kind of a chairman of the board responsibility and decision, right? And boards have to work together. You know, there's a reason that boards exist. Let's put it that way. And I'm no expert.

I can't really speak to it other than I know from things that I've been made aware of how important the power dynamics on a board can be. Sorry, what led me into that? We're talking about acting classes. Acting classes. So as a part of this mandate by the board of this audit, the creative department, the television side, the broadcast side, production side, all were going through this audit when I got there.

It had already started. And I think the, you know, The job titles, if you will, of executive director in my case of Smackdown and a Heyman's case of Monday Night Raw, were part of a suggestion by this audit group of ways to improve the operations at WWE. And I bring all of this up because I got very much involved in it. I had meetings a couple times a week or two or three hours in a time with these people who are really taking You know, wanted to know from my perspective, you know, my take on certain aspects of the process. So one of them was obviously, and again, I'm joining this process ongoing.

It didn't start the day I got there. So I jump in and I can see that from a creative perspective, you know, there's a lot of different things going on and things that people were trying to achieve. Again, one more time. What let me in? Acting classes. Acting classes. One of the suggestions from this group, I'm sorry, I was just so focused on the context, but one of the other suggestions from this group, in my opinion, and I think Vince was going along

because it was a board thing. He needed to play nice in the sandbox, at least for a while. One of the things that became a focus was acting classes. And Vince was quite committed to it, by the way. I don't want to suggest that he was just going along because someone suggested we should try it. He was very, my impression for the short period of time that I dealt with him on it was that he wanted to see if it would work. He wasn't going through the motions. Now, I don't know what happened after I left because I was only there for a few months. I don't know if it was an ongoing thing and just died out slowly or for whatever reason.

they put a bullet in it. The only thing that I do know from back then, because I actually began trying to initiate it and start setting it up schedule-wise and working with Michael Hayes and the live event schedule and the TV side to try to see when we could start scheduling, almost similar to the way you laid it out, try to make this happen, right? We had to coordinate with the talent schedule and the coaches. So I know the project was at least initiated to that point. I just don't know where it went after I left. It's just amazing to me that wrestling on television has existed forever. And as far as we know, it was only originally maybe talked about or seriously discussed like

seven, eight years ago. That just feels weird to me. It feels like this should have been like a day one. I mean, we're all working on making sure the moves look good, but couldn't we make sure that the acting looks good too? Well, I think part of it, Conrad, is because the product has changed. You know, the business has changed. Well, yeah, every aspect of the business has changed. But the presentation in the format, you know, I use the word format. Some people think of that as just a rundown, scheduled, list of things to do on TV.

To me, a format is like the recipe. It's the special ingredients, the secret ingredients, the right bounds of ingredients, that make that schedule of things to happen actually matter. Right. And I think the format for television has changed to the extent that it's putting more pressure on the spoken word and less. None of the dirt sheet, you know,

Dave Meltzer fanbase will understand their head, brains will be splattered all over walls across America when I say this. But in terms of what's working, and returning on investment, it's clear that wrestling is going to a more sophisticated narrative. You're going to have to get better at it to become a star. It used to be if you just had a good gimmick in your promos,

and you were consistent if you get excited about it if you're a baby face. You were in that upper 10 percentile bracket. Now it takes a lot more than that, Because the television audience has become so much more accustomed social media, AI, especially now, this is going to become even more challenging. Because the level of performance that you're surrounded by throughout your day is pretty good in the world of entertainment. So if wrestling is going to keep pace, the storytelling aspects of wrestling are going to. are going to continue to meet a growing expectation from the audience reliance upon the narrative

word and a much more sophisticated character development is going to be a must the days of just going out there and oh it kind of reminds me of you know cherry funk back in 74 you good fucking luck. That's it won't fly. But, um, yeah. I just think, uh,

you know, if we're going to go to the trouble of scripting everybody's promos, investing in making sure they can deliver it. Comfortably, confidently, credibly. It feels like it should be a no brain. What do you know what? In one kind of right,

you know, sometimes I think, you know, a lot of people will listen, you know, But people that are in the business today, right, at one level or another, we'll listen to this and someone will have very strong opinions, either agreeing or disagreeing with it. Others will, you know, piss all over it because I said it or you said it. But part of the problem in the students, you know, when we refer to it as acting classes, you know, it's an automatic kind of roadblock for a lot of people. Hmm.

I don't know. Call it promo class. Well, it was, here's the, here's what I was, yes, but also find somebody who's a really good acting coach that understands all of the elements and, and characteristics that make good actors, especially good young actors or young actors learn quickly. And rather than trying to turn them into stage actors or film actors necessarily, learn what it takes to deliver great promos in short form narrative. These guys aren't going to go out there and run lines,

you know, in the beginning, as you're growing. You know, teach people how to go out there and kick the shit out of a minute and 30 seconds. So when they wrap that up, the crowd is just as excited about listening to their promo as they are watching to finish their match. Try to get to that. And I think if you broke down what makes a good wrestling promo

and then take someone that really understands how to teach that specific talent, I think that would be a major help. And I think it would be more efficient in a long run. Love to hear you guys' thoughts. What do you think? Are promo classes a good idea or a bad idea? I'm just trying to make heads or tales of what we can do

with some of those dead hours before doors open because anybody who's been to the shows knows what I mean. Like there's just a lot of sitting and waiting while everybody else is working around you. let's let's get better uh you could even have fun with this like i mean if we want to take it to the next level it make some money at it and have fun at the same time take this stuff on a road to comedy clubs promote it to the wrestling audience let them vote let them participate you're talking about people that are in a performance center we're not talking about people that are brands let them learn how to deal with a crowd that might be fun i mean nothing improv is probably

one of the better techniques. No doubt. The people learn is how to become really good at improv, whether it's acting or as you, because of the people you know, like Cassio and the comedian friends you have, as a stand-up comic, the better you are at improv,

the more money you make. And I don't think anything, you know, speaks to that more, obviously the comedy, but wrestling. So, So yeah, teach that.

Take it to comedy clubs and monetize it. It's funny you say that because you and I are both friends with an improv comedian who just made his in ring wrestling debut last weekend. It's a brand extension. It's an idea that's only 90 seconds old and it's already a brand extension. Speaking of. extensions. There is going to be an extension in the Mysterio Rasselin family tree. Alea Mysterio has officially started at the WWE Performance Center. She's now listed on the brand's

internal roster. She's listed with her surname Gutierrez, of course, not Mysterio. I saw someone and I forget who wrote it. So my apologies for not remembering the handle, but someone on X, Eric said, oh, they could just call her Mitz. M-I-S-M-I-S-T-R-O. I know it's terrible, but it made me laugh. Miss Terrio, come on now. That's a great name. How cool is this, man?

We've seen how influential, how successful, how amazing Dominic has been. This is becoming a family business for the Mysterios, huh? Nepotism. It's such a, in this case, it's a beautiful thing. First of all, congratulations. secondly she's incredibly beautiful i'm guessing she's going to be pretty good just i'm i'm falling a cut feeling wow how how proud ray must be how rare this is that's so cool would that make them third or fourth generation because i know raise let me get up

out my calculator and my geological rulebook. I'll figure it out because I don't know off the top of my head. Let's talk a little bit about something we do know about. The UFC is expanding in Las Vegas. The company owns about 70 acres of land in Las Vegas. That's where they've got the UFC headquarters and the Performance Institute and the meta apex facility already in place. But there's about 35 acres left to develop on and they're planning more expansion. Here's the quote from Lawrence Epstein to the Las Vegas Review Journal. We're currently in the process of developing a master plan for this facility, which will include hopefully a lot of things,

a hotel expansion with our TKO partner, WWE, maybe additional collaborations with other sports and entertainment organizations here in Las Vegas. This is super exciting, not just from a UFC perspective, but hey, he said TKO partner,

WWE, and if you're looking at their most recent financials, well, WWE is more profitable than UFC. Why not get some tourist dollars through there or have a West Coast, if you want to call it that? Training facility, probably a lot of tax reasons to have something like this in Nevada and economies of scale with UFC. This could be exciting. What do you hope it is for WWV, Aaron?

This is a little myopic, just, you know, really focused on one thing. But I still believe that a weekly show, a weekly show. All right. A weekly show, like Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, small amphitheater would be a great place for trainees from that area to really go out. Because now you've got a fresh crowd every show. He's not the same people that come to every show like the soundstage. That's the one benefit of being in Vegas is you get a different crowd every night,

in addition to your local crowd. So I still think a nightly show kind of schedule as part of your overall development strategy would be so, it would be amazing, I think. I can't wait to see what this is in Las Vegas. I know that there's a lot of people who hope that this could be the Hall of Fame. I don't think it's going to be a Hall of Fame like a Museum type thing. Maybe it is, but I could certainly see them wanting to make it some sort of an attraction, you know, where they could set up a ring and have matches and just, just like you're going to

see Cirque de Saleh. We're going to go see WWE. Like if you're in Los, that was kind of, yeah, you're and I are on the same page. I mean, I just need so many opportunities to get your brand out in front of a new audience every weekend in a lot of different fun ways. It can become kind of immersive. So it's cool. I like it. Super cool.

want to know from you guys. What do you hope it is? And if you were out there with your wife, do you think you could convince her to CERT delay WWE? Could that even work? Let us know in the comments. Let's chat a little bit about SmackDown. I don't know if you saw the news, Eric,

but Smackdown is going to expand back to three hours. This will start in January. They've gone back and forth on this a few times. Right now it is back to two hours, but that all changes on January 8th. And of course, there's a report from wrestle votes radio that says the date could always shift, but the expectation is that the move back to three hours is planned as part of the new year programming schedule for USA Network.

So it sounds like it's a network call. Maybe this is good because it represents more opportunity for some of the bloated roster. Bloaded sounds bad. You've just got a loaded roster and you've got to find more TV time. Well, hey, here's another hour, but I don't know that it's one I'm looking forward to. feel like they've fooled me once, fooled me twice on three hour WWE shows. Yeah,

I don't know what the reason. Well, the reason for going back to three hours is driven by dollars. Yes. You're selling more inventory and or at a higher CPM than anything else you could do with that hour since you're there already. And because of economies of scale, it costs you almost nothing extra.

to have an extra hour you can sell. So of course you'll do it from a financial point of view, but here's, you know, that's the good news. The other news is that you're diluting your audience because you lose audience generally. I haven't looked at quarter hours or even hours in a long time. But based on the numbers I see, I'm extrapolating that you're probably losing ground.

from the moment you open, you start losing the round before mid-show, and it continues until the very end. The days of ending with a higher rating that you started out with, which is what we did at Nitro and what WWE eventually, after we taught them out, did,

is you would end the night, your show would end 20, 25, 35% higher than it was when it started. If back, I was producing television for BHE Entertainment, independent production company, if we produced a show that delivered a three for, or opened up with a three, our lead in handed us a three, but we went down to a 2.5, we already knew what the renewal possibility was for that series. That was like

the kiss of death. Now it's commonplace. So I don't know how much this really affects business. but you do take that number and instead of, you know, the total gross audience average, instead of dividing it by two, now you're dividing it by three, and you generally have pretty significant drop off at the third hour. So it just dilutes your overall number. Part of that is optics and PR. Part of that is, you know, CPMs. What happens to the value of your sponsor?

when there's more of them in the marketplace, but there aren't necessarily more people that excited about advertising and wrestling. That's the variable that we'll find out. Eric, I know once upon a time, Monday Night Raw used to have two hours. I'm talking about during the Monday Night Wars, and they would be named,

you know, different things like Raw is war and war zone or whatever it was. And I know that you guys would always do a start of a new hour with Pyro and things like that. from a rating standpoint, again, I was a kid, what the hell do I know? But I've been under the impression that way back when the reason WWE was doing that as they were trying to count that as two separate shows. So you'd see like a sign off at the end of an hour. And it felt like even though we as wrestling fans knew, well, it's not two separate shows.

It's one show. Clearly the scoring model or the rating system, however it worked, it allowed them the latitude to say, okay, it's two shows. Would the systems allow that now? Or no matter what we call it, hey, it's three hours of, of WW. It's the same show if they're back to back. Could it be done? It probably could be done by producing, literally producing two separate shows,

which would mean you would have to format it as its own separate show, not three hours disguised as two separate shows. So could it be done? Yeah, I think. I think Nielsen would still track it accordingly. And that's what this is about is how does Nielsen track it? How do they report it? How does the combined number of two separate shows affect the CPM?

I don't know the answer to that. That's the reason for the juggling game. That's the goal. So I don't know. Could it be done? I don't know. I'm not in the business anymore. But you're right.

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Eric, we've got great news. The rock is going to be a country music singer. Did you see this? He did an interview with Rolling Stone and he has a, I guess, an album out or a song out called, your dad, it's off of the Moana soundtrack, and he says that as you roll along in life, I've been real fortunate to be a part of some really cool projects and love it, but music has always been such an anchor for me.

One area that particularly interests him is country music, quote, very specifically in genres that I love, like country music, traditional country music, and we're exploring that now. We just saw Pat McAfee drop an album. And like a generation ago, Bruce Willis did this and Eddie Murphy did this. And now the rock is thinking of doing a country album. What do you think of this? I think it's great. I think it's great.

Who knows? Who knows? You ever watch the voice? Yes. You ever see that show? You see people all the time. You know, you see them walking out where you go. That person, I'm going to sing a song.

Come on. And they belt out something that brings tears to your eyes and your skin turn shades of gold. I mean, come on. Who knows? Maybe the man can sing better than he can wrestle. Who knows? Or maybe it'll just be fun to watch.

Somewhere in between. I don't know. I think it's great. I think it's great that he's going to give it a shot. That's, I don't know. You know, that's, that's balls, Eric. I was going to say that's freedom. That is the ultimate.

I don't like the term FU money, but and I'm not suggesting that Rocky is that way at all. And I kind of think he's the opposite. But when you have, when you're to the point in life, when you go, you know what? I know everybody in this state knows who I am.

And I can't go to the store without people recognizing me. But I'm going to do this just because I want to. That's freedom. So good for you. Well, we're glad you're here. and we're glad you're joining us at 83 weeks.com. If you haven't already hit that subscribe button,

leave us a comment. We would love to hear from you. And we've got to talk about this week in wrestling history, Eric. I don't know if you saw this, but it was 35 years ago last week when we first saw the big gold belt introduced on WWF programming. We know, of course, we're talking about late summer in 1991.

Rick Flair had just left WCW after a big dispute with Jim Hurd. He FedExes the belt. to Vince McMahon to prove that no, he's serious, he's coming up, he's coming in. And Bobby the Brain Heenan appears long before Flair does to say that this belt represents the real world champion. And comparing this belt to the WWF title that Hulk Hogan has is like comparing ice cream to horse manure. So pretty interesting stuff that we never heard on a Vince McMahon program.

He was always making sure that everybody knew that WWE is number one. but I wasn't really a mature enough fan to understand what a big doggone deal this was that Rick Claire was finally jumping ship and he was taking the belt with him. Of course, five years after this is when the Montreal screw job would happen because he was afraid that maybe Brett would do exactly what he himself did, which is put a competitor's world title on TV. We know that was never going to happen. Brett still had a contract.

It is what it is. But this little moment in history, you know, you're starting in WCW around. this same time when Rick is out and now the belt is held up. What do you remember being the chatter backstage or amongst the boys or amongst the announcers about the WCW title being on WWF programming? You know,

you know what's weird about this in terms of my timeline is prior to getting to Turner in, I think it was June of 91, I had zero. NWA, Rick Flair, WCW, absolutely not on my radar. We just didn't get it. I think NWA actually got on TV

right about the time I had already moved out away from Minnesota, I think it was living in Chicago at the time, and right around Ben, I think I remember seeing NWA advertise, but I remember thinking, what is that? And I figured it out quickly, but in terms of knowing what was going on, you know, politically or storyline-wise or even talent-wise, absolutely not on my radar until I got to turn it. And then I was kind of immersed in it and had to learn a little bit.

But Rick Flair was leaving. In fact, I met Rick for the very first time at my very first TV taping in Anderson, South Carolina. And Rick was back stretching, and it was his last. day before he was going to leave. And I met Rick. It lasted 30 seconds. Introduced myself. He's very gracious.

Looked up, shook my hand. I went about my business. He went about his. And he was gone. So the politics of it all, and I wasn't watching WWF at the time. So not, not closely.

So I didn't really know the story when I got to WCW. I only learned of it after getting there. So I didn't really have a firsthand impression of, of it as it was happening because I wasn't really aware of it. Super interesting to think about that that was 35 years ago. It was also 25 years ago that maybe the worst thing that ever happened during Stone Cold run became a trend. When I just described to you the worst part about Stone Cold being a top character in wrestling, do you immediately know what I'm talking about? No.

What? Does this ring a bell? What? You don't remember the what chance? Oh yeah, I do. Of course. I had to overcome them when I first got to WWE as a character.

Everybody loves to do what at you to try to throw you off your promo and see if they could get you to break character. It was fun time. That was the most annoying shit ever. Was it not? It was. You know, that was, I think, probably not the first time,

but it was a real clear example of the audience realizing that they're a really big part of the show. Like, they should be getting a check if they do their job properly. Because a really great audience can make a mediocre show feel like a big deal at home when you're watching a television. conversely a dead crowd can make what should be a great show

feel flatter than piss on a plate proud is so important but yeah sorry off on tangent let me ask you something dumb Eric I've heard it before I've heard it a lot but I've never actually had a follow up for it

and if you just humor me have you ever seen piss on a plate Was it a picnic one time? I know, maybe not. Maybe maybe I'm just imagining what it would look like. No, man, I've heard so many people say it. Like Bruce says it. And I'm like, how did that ever become a phrase?

Who's pissing on plates? And now I'm kind of curious, how flat is it? I mean, do we need to run the experiment right here? I think it's a term. It started, I think, back in the 30s or 40s. It just kind of carried off. And I think people, you know, Bruce is about my age, a little younger. I think people in our age group, you know, senior elders like Bruce and I, we remember

hearing that phrase from our uncles and our parents, you know, and our grandparents. And it's just kind of we've carried on the tradition. And it's probably no longer means much to people of, you know, Gen Z or Gen Y or whatever's next. But, yeah, Piss on a plate was kind of a common term. back in my day and bruce is too he's old he is old uh we're thinking about bruce i know he's been he's been uh having some some health challenges so oh no dr bruce in a long time i i think he's pissed off of him i'll have to reach up no he's uh he's not loving life right now we'll talk about

it all fair hey um it was i don't know 30 30 years and a week ago 30 years and two weeks ago, 30 years and 10 days ago, I think is the real answer. We saw what I believe to be one of the most important, but seemingly lost to time and nobody talks about it. But I think one of the most important promos of the entire NWO origin story. We're going to go back to one week after the attacks at Disney, where we know that the authorities were called. They sent Aaron Anderson out on a stretcher.

the macho man is on the top of the NWO's limousine, Bray Mysterio got lawn darted into the side of the building, and local residents were calling 911. And a week later, the Olympics are still going on. We're still doing the show here at Disney. And the horsemen are here, and Arne Anderson,

and remember now, this is August of 96, he's not yet retired. He's a couple of months away from having his last match. But this is one of the best promos I think of the year, maybe of Arn's career, and I think it was critically important to set the tone for the NWO.

So, Eric, we're going to watch this clip. Of course, we can't show you all of the video because WW won't allow it. We're going to run the audio, and we're going to have you a picture in a picture. Join us right now at 83 weeks.com and check this out. I think you're going to dig it, Eric.

Last week, I can't believe it. You know, you were a victim last week. This week, you're a perpetrator. Intense pain is a wonderful thing, Gene O'Coling. Your life flashes before your eyes. Things that are the most important to you become crystal clear. Look at this. You start to begin to learn the meaning of life.

Last week when they stuffed me in that ambulance, and I looked across and I saw flare, sting, woman, Bagwell and myself, I realized that we were people brought together, not by philosophy, but by necessity. And I started to think, New World Order, New World, where have I heard that? And I remembered in the good book, it says, when the New World Order is put into place, it signals the beginning of the end of time. Well, WCW is our world. It's where we live and breathe.

and if you want to destroy it, Hogan and the outsiders, you've already made a mistake that jumps off the page. You're going to take a baseball bat to a horseman, finish the job because there's one rule of gang fighting. See, we are the original gang, and we're the most vicious in all of professional wrestling history. They send one of yours to the hospital. You send one of theirs to the morgue.

I got goosebumps on that one still 30 years later, Aaron. Isn't it funny that we spent so much time at the beginning of the show talking about the need for live events? So young talent gets an opportunity to go out and develop a character that ultimately maybe, maybe can hold a candle to that interview. That's where Arn learned that. That's why those live events, to me, as a producer, have so much value. If WWE is probably looking at this strategy going backwards again, what we talked about,

and launching this live event strategy, they may well be projecting a loss of revenue as a result. It would be the best investment they could make in their product long term. Talk about developing young talent. Arne Anderson got as good as he did. did, it was able to cut that promo because he was given the opportunity, which he took advantage of, to learn. Now, granted, Arn has native skills and instincts. Not everybody's born with Arn's particular talent, and it is a talent, but you still need

to develop it. It's not going to develop itself in a training environment. So that was just perfect. It was a perfect example of why. You got to kind of go back to the future in some respect. But, man, was that powerful? That was, and I don't know. You never obviously asked Arne about it.

I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't already, if he didn't even have that promo worked out on his head more than a couple minutes before he did it. That's how good Arna knows. That's how much he was able to learn wrestling in front of crowds without a televise. vision to your point in that conversation. It was unbelievable.

What a promo and what a great tone it set for the war that the NWO had started. Good guys and bad guys without actually saying it that way. Arne said as I stood there looking at Rick Blair standing next to Sting, it was like, okay, as a reminder, good guys and bad guys be damned, it's all of us versus the NWO. promos like that added such a layer of realism to this program and this product on the other channel we've got ron simmons dressed up you know in blue drawers and a blue helmet and it's a different thing we're trotting around we're about to start trotting around the fake rayser ramone and the fake diesel and you've got arne anderson cutting a promo about you send

one of ours to the hospital we'll send one of years to the morgue i know this sounds like petty ego bullshit and it probably is but I don't really care. But, you know, people talk about who created the attitude era. You just looked at who created the attitude era. The NWO story and the reaction from Arne Anderson and the way that Arn set the tone and talked about gang warfare and delivered a reality-based promo where I do believe you've been listening to it this morning that there were elements of it that aren't probably believe. believed were true. So guess what? You know, this era, and it's why I feel so strongly about how

significant the Nitro era was to the current state of the business today is because that moment was one of the contributing moments, one of the bigger contributing moments to the attitude era, because it would have not be. They would have never been an attitude era if it wasn't for the fire and the heat and smoke and the audience that interviews like that delivered. Just a freaking phenomenal interview. Aren't Anderson criminally underrated forever, but what a promo there. Let's talk about 30 years ago in the NWO. We touched on last week, Hogwild.

What an underrated show it is. What an incredible card it was. And what an iconic moment capped off the show. Hulk Hogan spray painting NWO over the legacy and the tradition of the NWA world title, now known of course as the WCW world title. So the next night on Nitro, we're going to see some still photos of Hogan beating the giant.

I'm going to remind you that you can order that pay-per-view replay tomorrow night on Tuesday. But out early in the program, here comes Sting and Lex Lugar, and they're demanding that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash faced them that night. The outsiders don't initially show up, but eventually the outsiders on Hulk Hogan in tow also all there. And they accept the challenge.

And Hogan also drops another important tease. The NWO isn't necessarily stopping at just three men. Hogan's here talking about a fourth and a fifth member potentially joining them. So let's talk about that for a minute, Eric. At this point, what you've got is working phenomenally well, probably better than anyone expected it. You've made Hogan the champ. He's spray painted NWO over the WCW belt.

You're showing unity with the good guys and bad guys of WCW. So logically, these three guys are going to be overwhelmed and outmatched by an entire locker room of good guys and bad guys. Did you have an original number in mind of, hey, we need to get, I want to run seven guys here with this gang or five guys or was there a plan in that regard or did it just evolve week to week it evolved week to week nothing about the growth of NWO was planned because no one no one had any idea what was going to happen with it yeah hope that was it didn't know anything but it became clear like within a week or two

that whole smokes we got lightning in a bottle here how do we how do we grow it and I know it A lot of my critics and basically morons who don't really understand how to build an audience and how to build a brand were critical of growing it too soon. And let me just say, growing it too soon wasn't an issue. Growing it too big ultimately was. Right. But in this case, growing it too soon was not. And there was a lot of thought given, for example, to Sean Walman.

one of it was just opportunistic and I had known of Sean Wall Sean Walman lived two doors down for me in North Minneapolis of Vincent Avenue for a minute and I had not worked with him at the time but I had known of Sean Waltman going way back to my days in AWA

certainly became a fan of his as one two three kid because I love I love the high I love the style that he brought to the table because it was very unique at that time. Sean's, you know, because he used a lot of, you know, and he did him well, karate kicks, martial arts, whatever you want to call it, but he did his kicks very well. They didn't look like TV kicks. There were real techniques and executed really, really well.

He was just able to work them and work them into his stuff. And because he was smaller, he could fly. And, you know, Hogan wasn't going to fly. Nash isn't going to fly. You know, you need somebody on the other side of the equation that's going to fly and bump and sell. And Sean Walman was perfect for that, perfect for that. He could be as overselling for somebody as he was, you know, getting him, you know, going over somebody. So he was an important part of the equation.

I just said visually and dynamically in terms of what matches can look like, that Sean was a really opportunistic piece of the puzzle. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, how you make these decisions. I guess the next guy who's going to be introduced is Ted DiBiase and then the giant. We know DeBiase had some sort of connective tissue to the WWF. Is the giant becoming part? Is that a Hogan call? DBIC was mine.

And I, at this time, I didn't want to be that guy. I didn't want to be the mouthpiece for NWO. Didn't occur to me. It didn't make sense to me at the time. But I knew we needed somebody to be that kind of narrative anchor that wasn't necessarily a wrestler. a manager, if you will, for the group. Because we couldn't always have the group together in a promo.

So we had to have somebody that was consistent, you know, that we could have it every time we needed the NWO, we had somebody that we could go to consistently. That could be the mouthpiece. So I thought Ted, it really had nothing to do with this WWE thing. That's just something everybody else thinks was true. Nothing at all to do with it. It had everything to do with his voice. I know this sounds, you know, weird to some people, but I just loved his voice was so authoritative,

has so much power, he had so much credibility. You know, he wasn't an active wrestler. He had issues and limitations. He couldn't wrestle, but he didn't need to because his character was strong. And again, he just had the voice of, you know, God in terms of its tone quality. that's what did it for me. And obviously he knew the business and, you know, could, you know, figure out the role and all that.

So that was the decision. You know, the fact that he was in a former WWE was obvious, but it didn't really, didn't raise the part for me in any way or the needle. How do you think Hogan was doing and adapting to being a bad guy? I mean, he's, he's worked his first match now. It is a pay-per-view match. He wins the big gold, spray paints at NWO,

announces the next day. on the program that, hey, we're going to be expanding. Do you think that he took this like a fish to water? Did it take a little bit for him to get his sea legs under him? What can you tell us about the transition? Because at this point, I mean, he's only been a good guy forever. I think the heel nature, the heel instinct in terms of what he did in the ring and his timing and how to sell, all of those very, very important in the ring.

elements of making the transition from baby face to heel. I don't think he had any trouble with any of that. I think that came easily for him. I mean, he'd been working across from some of the best heels in the business for a long time. So he had a lot of experience working with heels. So I think the transition to becoming one was really not difficult for him at all in the ring. I think what was a transition and evolution was in his character. that was harder that was much harder and i'm not suggesting he had a difficult time with it but it

developed more slowly than his heel work in the ring his heel work on the mic evolved at a slower pace in his heel work in the ring that's what i'm trying to say and he leaned a lot on Scott and Kevin. You know, he spent a lot of time with them. You know, he loved, he loved getting it, he loved chopping it up with them because it helped him kind of adapt to the vibe. So he wasn't, you know, the formerly, you know, say your prayers, eat your vitamin's red, yellow guy, now pretending he's a heel, he evolved into the culture that Scott and Kevin brought

to the table. That's the best way to say it. The end of Scott and Kevin in the NWO brought an element of pop culture into WCW in a way that had never been done before. That was all Scott and Kevin.

That wasn't Eric Bishop. It came naturally to them. And when it became Scott, Kevin and Hulk, it was up to Hulk to adapt to that character's presentation.

NWO is a threesome as a character, right? The brand as a character. Hulk had to adapt to that because it didn't come naturally for him. That wasn't his world. The music wasn't that familiar to him. It was a little bit because of his relationship with Brooke and her relationship with music. So it wasn't he was like, you know,

he probably had more of a hip-hop connection than certainly I ever did. and probably more than a lot of people do that you know. But knowing who, knowing about the culture and being able to kind of feel comfortable in it or two different things. Scott and Gavin really helped him feel comfortable. But it did take time.

I, I can't wait for us to talk more about this Nitro. And believe it or not, three days after this, you had a clash of the champions. And we're only one day removed from Hogwild. So there's a lot to talk about. a lot going on. I do briefly want to say, hey, let's be honest. Everybody hates bank fees,

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chime is a fintech not a bank banking services and chime card provided by chimes bank partners qualifying direct deposits required terms and limits apply go to chime dot com slash disclosures for details so eric this august 12th nitro is a loaded ass show i just wanted to briefly run through some of the card we got dungeon of doom getting a win over high voltage and rough and ready ddp beats the reneged Gain. Conan beats Jim Powers. Chris Benoit beats Big Ron Stud. We know him as the Yette from a year prior. The Steiner brothers versus Harlem Heat. Steiner's are going to win by DQ, so Harlem Heat retains the tag straps, but those two teams were paired up for real in this era. Ray Mysterio beats

Ultimo Dragon to retain the cruiserweight. This is all on TV, guys. Rick Flair and Randy Savage for the U.S. title. And then your main event is Sting and Lugar against Scott Hall and Kevin Nash and Scott Hall and Kevin Nash's first match in WCW television. Yes, they've had a pay-per-view match or two, but this is the first time we've actually seen them wrestle on TV. Eric, it's no wonder that you were kicking Vince's ass with this loaded of a card. Well, you see that.

Only the last third of the card was really that loaded, right? Last half, maybe. I mean, Steiner's in Harlem. Ramis Cario and Ultima and Alamavage and then the main event, Sting and Lugar against the outsiders. You've got four pay-per-view level matches

on free TV. Yes and no. We had four pay-per-view potential matches meaning we had the star power, but those appearances advanced the story. They didn't culminate it. Or

there was a reason for those matches. We could put those matches on TV because we were able to tell stories and we came up with finishes that lent themselves. And at least in the main event case, we always had, you know, we tried, I'm careful with the word always. We always attempted to leave with a cliffhanger. And we're successful at it while we were, you know, knocking it out of the park every Monday.

We lost sight of that towards the end. amongst other things. But that was one of the controversial things about nitro. And that's where, you know, your buddy Dave Meltzer and others of his ilk, where, you'll never last. You can't put paper or quality matches on TV. You know, the pay-per-view business will die. It's the only place WCW makes any money.

Again, you know, opinions from people that don't have any idea of how things really work or could work. That was one of the biggest criticisms. I think it was also one of the smartest things that we did because it proved that this is a television-driven business, not a live event mentality-driven business. To be clear, I wasn't busting balls or being critical. I loved it. I'm saying, well, let's compare just the last half of that show.

I want to run through it again because let's remember, Nitro is longer than Monday Night Raw is in this era. So we've got a different sort of matches, set of matches here. Steiner's in Harlem Hink, they literally wrestled on a bunch of pay-per-views this year. Big time, big-time match. Ray Mysterio and Ultimbao Dragon was revolutionary in 1996. Nobody had seen anything like these two guys. Flair and Savage, two of the biggest names from the last 15 years in wrestling right here for the U.S. title and then in the main event. Sting and Lex Lugar, two former world champions against another world champion from the other show,

making his debut with a near continental champion from the other show in the hottest angle. Now, meanwhile, what's happening on Raw? For Root beat Skip from the Bauda Donas. Crush beat Savio Vega. The pig farmers beat T.L. Hopper. That's the plumber. And then Sean Michaels beat Owen Hart. Like when you stack those up and I was a WWF kid,

there is no comparison. I mean, I'm watching Nitro every freaking time, Mary. Well, and I guess, and I didn't think. that you were busting my balls at all. I think what I'm trying to point out that probably came out a little stiff was that this is an example and you're kind of making my point about how significant changing the format, the recipe, the way wrestling was being presented. Nitro completely turned the format, the recipe, the ingredients of professional wrestling completely upside down, inverted it in many respects.

and it was that inversion disruption if you want to call it that because that's the buzzword but it was that inversion of the formula and recreation of a formula that catapulted the attitude era it catapulted the monday night war era it catapulted other than the initial expansion in the 80s of wwe nationally it catapulted the industry to a level in terms of growth over a period of time, probably that'll never be seen again. And I think is largely responsible for the reason that WWE, to the extent that it exists today, exists because that format back in 1996 forced the WWE to change the way they did television and follow our format.

You know, when Vince Rousseau, you know, his thumps his chest and talks about, you know, he created the attitude there. He copied what we were doing and called it the attitude era. And they've done a good job branding it. But that moment, Arne Anderson's interview, the whole approach cosmetically to the way the product was presented, that's what created the Monday Night Wars. That's what created the attitude era.

That's why it's really the Nitro era. I like that. Let's start calling it that. Hashtag Nitro Era. start using that on social media. I love to see your thoughts. Let's do briefly talk about the ratings. If you go back to say early May of 1996,

Raw did on May 6th, 1996, 4.1, the nitro's 1.9. That's a, that's a country ass whooping right there. When Scott Hall shows up on Monday Nitro, Monday Nitro gets a 2.8 that week to Raw's 2.3. I know that that is something that is going to stick out in a lot of people's mind.

Hey, Scott Hall wins on his first night in. Two weeks later, when the big man shows up, it's the exact same story. Kevin Nash gets a three. The WWE gets a 2.3. Now we move on down to the day after Hulk Hogan becomes a bad guy. Raw gets a 2.5. Nitro is a 3.5. and here one night removed from Hog Wild and Raw gets a two and Nitro gets a three, three.

Like you guys are firmly in control. Everybody's paying attention to what you're doing. Everybody is looking forward to seeing Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in a television match for the first time. And this is also where we start to see doubt about, hey, what's going on with Nick Patrick? Eric, these are any way you recall who had the idea to maybe entertain a heel referre? I know that concept had been done by Danny Davis and the WWF 10 years prior, but nobody had done it here in WCW, maybe ever chat me up about let's make evil Nick Patrick.

I don't remember, but I can, I would feel comfortable betting a significant sum of money that it was Kevin Sullivan. Now, it could have been Terry Taylor, but I would, I bet on Kevin Sullivan.

I wasn't close to Nick. I didn't talk to Nick much when I mean socially. We just, you know, I'd see him at TV and he was busy. You know, he had a lot of shit to remember and go over and listening to guys, you know, lay out their matches and change it, you know, 45 times in an afternoon. So, you know, his plate was pretty full whenever he showed up at television. And I was a little busy myself. So it wasn't like we had time to hang out playing the hand of cards. But, you know, Nick was close.

to Kevin, I believe, and a couple others. That's where it started, I'm sure. And I'd be shocked if it wasn't Kevin, you know, that was the catalyst really important. Let's talk about Clash to the Champions. As a reminder, Hogwob was on a Saturday. Then we had a Sunday off Monday Nitro. And then three days later, that Thursday, August 15th, we're going to do a Clash to the Champions special from Denver, Colorado.

There's going to be over 8,000 people there. It's going to be live on TBS. it gets a 3.5 rating. I really wanted to ask you, like, how far in advance are these Clash of the Champion events scheduled? I understand that sometimes you're just going to run house shows, but I know ahead of time, TBS is going to want you to do X number of these specials.

I really wanted to figure out from a timing perspective, did you know when this was scheduled, hey, we're going to have Hogan win the belt at Hogwild? Because I know that you know there's a pay-per-view a few days prior to this, but I understand the business reason for wanting to do Hog Wild, you landed the Castro GTX sponsorship and others. But I'm just wondering, timing wise, is this too much wrestling in the same week? Was that a concern?

Was your hand kind of forced to do it? Or did you realize, hey, we're hot right now. We need to do one. What goes into planning a clash of the champions? Two days, three days after a nitro and five days after a pay-per-view? The schedule for a clash, we didn't get to vote on that, by the way. That was a TBS decision. Historically, that's the way it was before I got there.

That's the way it was while we had clash. They would tell us, here's when we want the clash. And then we would book around that. We would probably know clash dates from TBS minimum of six months, probably we they probably get into us a year in advance, but everybody knew they weren't going to be nailed down to probably six months in advance. So I wouldn't guess because we knew so far ahead

that those those venues were booked pretty early. Creatively though, I think to answer your question, we booked around the schedule. We didn't schedule around the booking. Let's run through some of the matches. I feel like this too is one of those forgotten great shows. Just a loaded ass card, especially when you consider what else was going on in wrestling at the time.

I mean, this is groundbreaking stuff, especially when you open up a clash of the champions, free on TBS, well, than 12 minute match for the WCW Cruiserweight title. It's Ray Mysterio versus Dean Malenko. Those two guys, probably my favorite matchups from the entire cruiserweight division.

And then we had something that was for the 80s. fans who were casually tuning in. VK Wall Street and Jim Duggan go four minutes. We get a little more Lucha action with Conan and Ultimo Dragon who go 257. We're going to have something for everybody, Medusa and Vulnakano with Sonny Ono for two minutes and 42 seconds. A Lord of the Ring match with a young Eddie Guerrero who's in the middle of a great feud with DDP.

They go four minutes and 20 seconds. We have the giant get a quick win over Chris Benoit showing how devastating that choke slam is. He's really been booked like a million bucks here, 23 seconds. And then a world tag team title triangle match. Harlem Heat versus the Steiner brothers versus Lex Lugar and Sting. A lot of star power in that one.

It goes to a no contest at 13 minutes. But the main event, this is what I really wanted to pick your brain about. Hollywood Hogan defending his title against Rick Clare, who has Elizabeth and woman with him in this era. Clear gets a win by DQ about eight minutes in. But I assume when you know you're going with Hogan first and he's going to win the belt, does Hogan say, hey, let me work with Rick first because it does feel like he's somebody

that Hogan trusted, especially if he's trying to establish a new bad guy persona, figure out his new heel working. I mean, it feels like a lot of these guys have routines. And now Hogan's kind of got to develop a new bad guy routine, if that makes sense. No, I think going back to what I said earlier, I don't think Halk. any difficulty or felt the need to modify his approach to, you know, who he was going to work with and how he was going to work.

Trying to find a comfort level with working in the ring as a heel. So no, I don't think that was a motive behind anything. How did Rick Flair become the choice for Hogan here? Is that, is it something like once upon a time I remember someone saying, hey, we're not sure what to do for the next clash of the champions,

but we need to pop a number. I'll let it be flare and sting. is Flair and Hogan sort of the modern answer for that? Yeah, it might have been. And again, Hulk didn't have any insecurities about his work as a heel, but at the same time, you're going to want to work with somebody that's going to make you, if you're, if you can go out there and pull off an eight or get in the ring with Rick Flair and pull off a nine and maybe a 10, what are you going to do?

Especially if it's your first televised. match as a bad guy. I mean, I know the paper view, but I'm saying more people are going to see the clash than they'll see the paper. Yeah. And I think, you know, when you talk about the, not that Rick would have to adjust his style all that much. Rick, at that point in time, and probably to the day he could adjust his style,

you know, subconsciously and it would be seamless. You know, he just, that's his gift, right? But what Rick did, regardless of how he adapted his style to whoever he was working with. He sold his ass off. That was the constant thread through everything Rick Flair. You know, Rick had his match critics. You know, O'I Anderson used to hate Rick Flair matches.

He just loses shit watching them. But it worked. What are we complaining about if it works? It worked for Rick. But, you know, the old saying, Rick could, you know, wrestle a broomstick and make the broomstick we could. Well, that was true. It's why his career was what it was.

Really, really good heels wanted to work with a really, really, really good baby faces, wanted to work with a really, really good heel to state good baby faces. I didn't think that was probably it or anything. Probably felt like he'd have more fun. You know, my grandfather used to say there's no stress like money stress, son. Well, are you feeling that right now? Let me help.

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We're going to be doing an ask Eric anything next week. We've got a bunch of your questions already. Keep those coming. We're going to be putting Eric on the hot seat next week. bring your questions, drop them below or hit us on Twitter. And you know what? Let's go ahead and have you use the hashtag Nitro era. We're done with that attitude era mess.

We're going to talk about the Nitro era. And something that I wish Nitro had been around for. You know, JBL said last week on curtain jerkers that if this character that debuted last weekend would have been around when Ted Turner was running WCW, WCW would have won for 830 weeks in a row. I don't know if I believe all that, but let's take a look at your friend in mine, Eric, Cassio Kid, and his wrestling debut last weekend.

Well, Don, I got to. So I know you're going to tell me something. Can I ask you something? The Cassio Kid. There he is. And look at the microwave opens. Look at the mask. I have a legitimate.

serious questions what the hell am i looking at the casio kid we talked over before the show he was trying to figure out what his gimmick would be and tater diana told him that he looked like big van fader cascio big man tater making his making his wrestling debut if you throw some hot pockets in there we got a microwave sitting on our table now if you look like a spider your spider man if you move like a bad your Batman. If you're built like a tater, we got Big Man Tater. Oh, look at this. Adam Priest! Adam Priest has been eliminated by Big Man Tater. Lemon Pepper Supply.

What do you think of Big Man Tater in his pro wrestling debut? Oh, man, that is so awesome. That is so awesome. Get some Eddie Kingston vibe going on here. What's wrong with you? My God. Apologized to Mr. Kingston,

but we're not going to do that. He was horrible that he did the other night. Man, you do that. You deserve it. Come on. You got to tough it up and take it and move on. I don't know if you saw it,

but as we're winding things down, there was some controversy this week about a spot in the Kevin Knight, Chris Jericho match, where he had the lion tamer on and Don Callis was going to interfere. Did you see that spot? What did you think? Oh, I saw it. that spot and you know i think to myself self this is where the best wrestle oh fuck

oh damn it you only hate it because you know i'm right admit it come on want to grow your business with the power of podcast advertising reach loyal engaged audiences through trusted host endorsements across the podcast heat network to learn more about advertising opportunities email Dave at podcast heat.com or visit our website at podcastheat.com. I'm looking forward to putting you on the hot seat next week. It's going to be ask Eric anything. Of course, we're going to be talking about this week in NWO history. Can't wait to hear what you guys think about a rock album. What do you think about our idea about, hey, should we do acting classes and wrestling? Let us know in the comments below. Hit the

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