83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 443: Censorship In Wrestling

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson tackle a loaded lineup of wrestling news, history and controversy. Eric explains the difference between North Korea and Moscow before reflecting on the late "Superstar" Bill Dundee, a brilliant creative force WWE may have missed out on. The guys also discuss Rebel's courageous fight against ALS and why her battle transcends wrestling company rivalries. Plus, Eric weighs in on the Netflix censorship debate and examines whether clearly defined good guys and bad guys still matter in modern professional wrestling. REBEL HEART - Rebel Heart honors one of the original members of the AEW roster, Tanea Brooks, known to fans around the world as Rebel, who was diagnosed with ALS in March 2026. Learn more on how you can support at AEWTogether.org/RebelHeart     THIS WEEKS SPONSORS 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 http://BuyLarine.com/83Weeks  CAR GURUS - It's no wonder CarGurus is the number 1 most visited car shopping site, according to Similarweb's estimated traffic data. Buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at http://cargurus.com  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. DRAFT KINGS - New DraftKings customers, sign up with code 83WEEKS spend $5 to get $200 in rewards within 21 days - includes all markets. That's code 83WEEKS. In Partnership with DraftKings. The Crown Is Yours. 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 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 promo code 83 weeks. You'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order at Bluetooth.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the Mortgage Guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks. And of course, we couldn't do it without the Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, fresh off a plane from Russia. It's easy E. Eric Bischoff. Eric, how the hell are you, man?

I am just, I'm still floating, man. I'm physically beat up. I don't know if you could tell. I, I spent about 40 hours in the air over the last seven days. So it's a lot of air time flying back and forth to Moscow because you've got to fly halfway around. You know, there's no direct flights into Moscow. So I'm, I got, you know, really bad head cold, you know, a ton of jet lag. And I don't think I've ever felt better in my life.

it was such an incredible trip and I feel so, I'm just grateful. I know I use that word a lot because I want to and I think I should and because it means a lot to me to be able to experience what I experienced for anybody, but especially at this stage of my career, it's like, man, if that's not a blessing, nothing is. Real American freestyle happened in Moscow. You heard me right.

And I know exactly one person who's been to North Korea and now Russia and you're looking at him. Of course, I'm talking about Eric Bischoff. Damn that Dosecchi's guy. Eric Bischoff is the real most interesting man in the world. And I can't lie to you, Eric. When I was a kid, Rocky Far was my favorite movie. And of course, a lot of that movie takes place in Russia. And it wasn't lost on me that while you're making your maiden voyage to Russia, not one, but two movies were available on streaming over the weekend centered around Russia. The Ryan Reynolds movie, Mayday, which my wife and I absolutely loved, it got a kick out of. but had a great 80s vibe to it.

And then we saw Brank of War with Jeff Daniels all about Ronald Reagan sitting with Gorbachev. It's all about the Cold War. And I'm like, what is the odds that real American freestyle is doing a show in Moscow? And there's one, but two movies that are debuting on streaming about Russia. But this is not Hollywood. This is real life.

And you came back armed with a phenomenal series of pictures that I can't wait for us to share here. Eric, talk us through some of these picks and tell us more about your experience in freaking Russia, dude. Yeah, I mean, there's so much to this. You know, I know over the years, you know, people have always really expressed a lot of interest in North Korea. And whenever we talked about, you know, we did an extensive. I think we did one whole show on it or maybe more. And it often comes up in conversation and or people want to hear certain stories about North Korea.

So it's something that's, you know, kind of out still out there in the, I guess, zeitgeist or universe whatever you want to call it it's still out there you know people remember it made an impression curiosity but this trip that trip was really um it was really amazing in a lot of different ways it was a bleak dark you know an extreme kind of an example of some of the worst you know conditions in many ways that you were taught as a kid to believe about uh the former Soviet Union. And, you know, I grew in the 60s. I grew up hearing about that.

And I know this will be controversial because it sounds like I'm, you know, being an advocate here. And that's not the case. I'm going to contextualize why this trip left such an oppression upon me. North Korea lived up to its dismal expectations in what I was educated to believe that North Korea would be like. So I was not surprised when I got there. That's the point.

When I got to Moscow, I had this same, obviously, I can read, I see new stories. I know that Moscow is not as bad as Pyongyang, but I've always had this impression, starting from when I was young, about the way things are presented. And back then, many of that were much of that is true, because now, you know, Russia is a much more modernized

and the economy is much different for them there. There's more money, there's more wealth like there is in other countries. But anyway, my point is I got there and I was really amazed at the city itself and how beautiful it is. It just the architecture. And maybe that's one of the things that probably struck me the most because it's something I've always been interested in. Whenever I travel, if I go to UK, for example, I'm always looking for the oldest church in the community. Because I love to see the architecture. I love history.

And I love being in the presence of something that's established and recognized. all over the world. I don't know why I've always liked it. But the architecture that I saw there was as much as I, you know, I've seen pictures before. I was really impressed with that. But just the experience overall was, I mean, there was, you know, issues. I won't go into all of it here, but the travel was really tough. But the process itself was pretty easy. And I'm really, really glad I went. we experienced something, you know, when we put on that show and hopefully we're going to see it here in the U.S. We think we've got a solution because we're fully complying with the government and there's no issues there. So now that we can establish that, there's some real interest in presenting this show.

And I think we're going to get it done in the next couple of days. We might go without something. We're working on it. If so, I think people are going to be really, you know, impressed with how much wrestling, freestyle wrestling, no. Greco World War II, but freestyle wrestling is viewed so much differently over there than it than it is here. I guess it has such a deeper fan-based culture tradition, whatever you want to call it. And just to see the reaction we got from, you know, sold out crowd, to feel that reaction in a country, you know, that you've never been in before, just goes to show that wrestling kind of,

wrestling breaks down all barriers, you know, wrestling, you know, breaks down the walls. You know, we create, the world creates, that keeps people divided and apart. And this goes back to the beginning of time. You know, you go back and look at the Olympics, the very beginning of sport. You know, every four years, all the countries that participated went automatic truce so that teams could travel safely from country to country to compete against each other. And then after the games, they went back to being in war. You know, Ted Turner.

You know, read about Ted Turner. in the Goodwill games, which was a total money losing proposition from day one. And it wasn't a little bit of money, but Ted didn't care because Ted, remember, he's a guy that donated a billion dollars to the UN of all places. Didn't agree with everything Ted did, obviously. But nonetheless, sports, going back to the Olympics has been that one thing that kind of breaks down the barriers. You know, music can do it.

You know, art can sometimes do it. But sports in particular really does bring people together and allows them forget even momentarily, in this case a little over three hours, that, you know, there are some things we have in common and we can enjoy together. And it was great to be a part of that kind of experience. I can't wait to see the footage. I mean, you guys made real history over there. I mean, it does feel like you're kind of living in a movie right now. I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you're home.

And I'm glad you're able to record with us. we apologize we're a little late but now you know why man russia not something i thought we'd ever talk about here on 83 weeks so bad news happened while you were gone eric and i do feel like we should just get it out of the way uh we lost the late great superstar bill dundee now he lived a long fabulous life he passed away at 82 years old and his son jamie reported way back in 2023 that his dad was suffering from dementia so everyone who's seen bill in more recent years has noticed that, man, he's not quite the same. He looks like he's suffering.

And thankfully, where he is now, there is no dementia. He's in a much better place. There's no more pain. There's no more suffering. But I love that, man, he was being celebrated and honored and made an appearance this past Saturday for Memphis wrestling. They had his belts. They had his boots.

They had his ring jackets and gear. And fans were lining up to pay their respects to the legend that is Bill Dundee. And of course, we know that he, was the Lex Luthor, if you will, to Jerry Lawler Superman for years in Memphis. But his story actually started in Scotland. And as a 13-year-old with no formal education, he makes his way to Australia, spends 10 years there. And then at 5'7, with a Scottish accent, somehow becomes a wrestling star in the South, the Deep South, Memphis, Tennessee. And he became a phenomenal star there. And then years later, when Bill Wants needed someone to help pop the terrorist,

he brought in Bill Dundee and the Midnight Express and the Rock and Roll Express and man it was just on fire and then fast forward a few years in 1993 he came to work in WCW and Mr. Regal actually went out of his way to post about that on Twitter and gave him a lot of credit for helping make his act work for WCW in 1993. Bill Dundee, man, one of the more unsungent heroes behind the scenes in pro wrestling, a real creative force. Did you get to spend any time with, I guess we would call him as WCW names here briefly, Jeeves? You spend any time with Bill Dundee?

Yeah, quite a bit, actually. Bill was part of, I think it was Dusty's creative team at some point. And maybe it was Oly. I think it might have been Oly. It was, you know, Bill Dundee and. Greg Ganya and, you know, whoever else. I remember everybody that was on a team. I wasn't part of that team, but I remember them, you know,

working obviously together and I was the executive producer. So I have to say I interfaced with them, but I wasn't in their meetings or the creative process. So, but I did have, you know, sat around, had a lot of beers with them downstairs with Dusty, you know, and certainly heard, you know, in the environment where you're sitting around after work and having a couple of beers and telling stories

as almost always happens. You also get insight to how people's minds work when they talk about the business and they present their stories. The way they present their stories tells you a lot about how they think creatively or maybe more than creatively or differently from a psychology point of view. How do they view their characters? You know, if you're a comedic character, how do you see that character? What do you think a comedian character should be or a kid, you know, baby, whatever?

Those are the kind of conversations you get into, you know, and you can tell a lot about a person's perspective and the way they think about wrestling. Just listening to them tell stories. And that's kind of, I was a fly on the wall. I didn't get to participate in those stories. I didn't have any. I wasn't a booker. I never worked in a booking site at that point. So for me, it was a little, it was not a little bit.

It was a very foundational experience for me to eventually to get into, you know, more creative, work and ultimately you know coming up a couple decent ideas was because I got to be that flying a wall listen bill bill with build he had such a unique experience the way he came into the business the challenges that he had to overcome was he five foot seven yeah you know at a time when you know it is even back that it's still in five seven um you know couldn't couldn't get a gig as a midget but not tall enough to be credible that's a tough spot to break into the business unless you're really creative, talented guy, enter Bill Dundee.

So you listen to a guy like him talk and tell his stories. You just make notes. And you learn different things about different ways of doing things under unique situations like what was faced with. Tells you a lot. You can learn a lot. Just shut up and listen, you know. Well, I can't wait for more and more stories and tributes to come out about

Bill Dundee because he is one of those unsung heroes. I think in wrestling. And I think his lack of exposure on WW programming or in the WW wheelhouse is probably not going to give him a fair shake. Like if you cruise over and you take a look at superstars, Wikipedia, and it's just, it's very, very thin. Thankfully, our buddy Mark James, friend of the show, has written a fabulous book with Bill years ago,

his autobiography. I'm going to recommend you check that out. Mark James' website has it. You can find it on Amazon or anywhere you enjoy your books. But a true innovator. I did want to ask you, and I want you to think about this and take a minute, why didn't we see him in WWE? As a reminder, when Vince was in trouble for the steroid trial, he looked to Jerry Jarrett to sort of steer the ship while he was at the crossbar motel, as my grandfather used to say. And then once upon a time, he also leaned on Jerry Lawler to not only become an in-ring wrestler, but part of the voice of the WWE for a long, long time.

And let's not forget that Dundee also booked for Bill Woller. wants and really blew that up. But once upon a time, Vince actually looked to Bill Watts to be a part of the behind the scenes of WWE. But superstar never got the opportunity. While you think about that, Eric, I want to remind everybody that you and I've been thinking about our teeth a little more. And that's why Larenko has become our go-to chewing gum. Larenko is better for you chewing gum that uses the same mineral your teeth are made of to support daily enamel health. Yeah, we started leveling up our chewing gum routine with Lerinko. it's a chewing gum that makes your teeth stronger every time you use it.

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And right now, Lorinco is offering our listeners up to 50% off at bilorine.com slash 83 weeks. That's bylorine, L-A-R-I-N-E dot com slash 83 weeks, for up to 50% off. Eric, why don't you think Bill Dundee got an opportunity to work with Vince? I mean, he had Paterson, he had a lot of creative people behind the scenes. Why don't you think,

I mean, he worked with Dusty once upon a time, and so many of these other greats that were often on the other channel, whether it's a J.J. Dillon or someone else, but never Dundee. Why do you think that may have been? I don't know. I mean, I think

I guess it's pretty easy to understand why didn't work in WWE as a talent. Right. He would ever would have gotten by Vince's kind of perspective of what at that point in particular, what a wrestler was. But behind the scenes, he was more than qualified, particularly what makes it, I think, even more mysterious to me, to your point, is in WWE's case, when they were WWF, the UK has always been such a big market for Vince, European, the entire,

European market, obviously. And it's a different style of booking over there. It's a different culture. People recognize the psychology is different. What they're used to and conditioned to believing in is different in nuance from what it is here. And it helps to have that perspective in a room creatively. So if we're going to do a tour, would you want somebody who has experienced touring in the markets that you're going to be in? Because that guy you're sitting in your room with or he should be at least, you know, he made his living by. reading the room come on let's figure this out let's sit down and think through this now um i have i have an opportunity to hire a guy who was a big star in a foreign territory in which i have zero fucking experience by the way i have an opportunity to work with this guy he's in the business he's he's credible guy i know who he is i know his career but i'm not going to use him because I can do it myself or with my existing staff who knows so much about that market because it, you know, rustled there three times in your career or whatever the case was back then. I don't know.

You know, it was a, he was a, he was a great source of, of the kind of information that helps creative optimize because you have to feel for the market. You've mentioned before that you will feel like one of the missing ingredients that you really lacked to help WCW get to the next level was you needed a great finish guy. I know you maybe realized that at the time, but I know with the benefit of hindsight, as we go back and we revisit some of these shows and we've watched some of those shows from the WCW era, you would see so many of the same finish on the same show. And that continuity of, hey, match three can't have the same finish as match eight or what

have you as an example. Well, did it ever cross your mind that maybe Bill could have been that? guy, did you not know that he maybe had that skill set? Was it just not the right fit for him? Was it more political? No, you know what? That's a kind of read that is one of the most interesting questions because there's more than one absolutely correct answer. Um, one of them was, you know, now we're talking about a very specific time frame. That's the context of how I'm going to respond to this. Talking about a very specific timeframe where I was exposed to Bill. and certainly had an opportunity to sit across to him and listen to him, tell his stories,

and begin to understand his point of view on perspective, just like we talked about for the last 20 minutes. So I had that, you know, level of connection, establishment. I established a connection. So I had an opportunity to gather information, basically. But at the time, I wasn't, I had no idea what I needed to know. I knew I needed to know a lot. but is the finish you know discussions about the finish should i like be obvious and take out a note pad and make notes or you know try to do it mentally because this is what i know i need i didn't

know what i needed at that time but that particular time i didn't know how important really the finish everything is important creatively everything it's it's a far more complicated business done well than people think it is because it looks so simple um but at the time that I was exposed to a lot of those conversations, I didn't know what I was looking for. So I probably heard a lot of things that would have indicated, should have indicated to someone who had more experience than I did at the time, should have indicated to me that, oh, this is a guy I could really use if I ever get an opportunity. I just didn't have that level of connection with Bill. But looking back now, having had that opportunity and having had that experience

and all the things that come with it, good and bad, I certainly recognize. now that he had yes. If I would have known then what I know now, yeah, Bill, Bill would have, you know, I would have worked with Bill somehow in a much, much different way. It's so fascinating to me to think about, you know, because I just did a podcast earlier today with Jim Ross. And he mentioned, you know, I was friendly with him. We had lunch every other Wednesday, you know, when we were in the Mid-South territory.

But as we got older, I just sort of lost touch with him. and normally when I go to these big autograph signings, it becomes like a big family reunion of sorts. You get to catch up with some of these guys that you shared all these memories with. But Bill wasn't on a lot of those, and it's because by and large, he was more regional star. I mean, an absolute icon in Memphis,

but not exactly a national star. And I think it's a shame because in an alternate universe, I could see a world where, and I'm not making the exact comparison, but he maybe could have been WCW's Pat Paterson. Here's a freebie for everybody out there because I think you would agree, you know, Bill D.

He would deserve something special coming out of the fans who believe what you just said. I'm one of them, by the way, is somebody should just do a movie. Don't try to make it a big movie. Don't try to sell it to Netflix. Don't go out. Just come up with a fucking brilliant idea and tell the Bill Dundee story. Because what make Bill Dundee so interesting is we talk about this now, and I'm listening to you, educate me about Bill, really,

is that that kind of backstory, where you're really getting inside of the kind of genius is overused, but in the unique, creative way of thinking of someone like Bill Dundee, and somebody who's good at finishes, for example, that's unique talent in a very unique business. You know, writing or anything is, writing creative is a very, very unique business.

It has to be by the very nature of it. If you're not creative, you're not in the business, right? So it's a very fluid thing. But, man, it would really be fun to see that kind of biopic on a guy who should be and is obscure. But once you get, once you discover it, you go, wow, I had no idea. That's Bill Lundy. He's a, whoa, I had no idea kind of guy. To achieve such financial success and such success just in the professional wrestling business,

I mean, this is a guy who left school when he's 13 and gets on a boat from Scotland and goes to Australia. So we're talking no formal education and become a six-figure earner and a star. Okay, I take that back. This is a Netflix movie. I mean, we're talking about a guy who's 5-7 with a Scottish accent in Memphis. Like, hey, boy, you talk funny. I mean, that's the reaction. Actually, I got to correct you there because the South in particular was really,

densely populated with Scots. If you look at the history of the Revolutionary War, you see how families and ultimately the Southern part of the Revolutionary War was, I don't know if it was predominantly Scottish, but it was heavily Scottish. I just think it's an amazing story. You know, Jeff Jared earlier this week called it an American success story. And that's kind of hard to argue. shout out to Bill Dundee. Let us know some of your favorite moments, matches, and stories in the comments. If you grew up watching Memphis Wrestling,

you're very familiar. If you're not, I want to challenge you to go out of your way to watch Jerry Lawler versus Bill Dundee loser leaves town. This is a fantastic story, and really the Jarrett's probably don't get the credit they deserve,

and Jerry Lawler as well. They put it to a soundtrack. They actually picked one of the songs songs from the Rocky soundtrack and they spliced together highlights of the match. And if you don't have time to watch the full match, just watch the highlight package. It pulls all the emotional levers. You see the crowd going phenomenally wild for this. Because there's the thing.

This is the territory days, Eric. So you're talking about these guys are wrestling in front of the same fans every single Monday night in the same town. That's not the most interesting part. And in the hate, you know, the 10% of our audience, that is the, the dirt bags and always got a kind of stir shit and, you know, virtue signal and all the other silly stupid internet wrestling ignorance that we have to wallow through in order to get to the good stuff, right?

Because most of it's really pretty fun. But it, I just want to say, I want to throw it out there, man. I think somebody out there needs to come up with the idea. I'm not going to do it. I don't have time to do it. I certainly don't have the passion for it, but somebody should. Because if you're a huge wrestling fan and you think you're a writer, you think you're a booker. And my God, call Conrad up.

Get his fun. Or if you really want to DM me, I'll give me Conrad's phone number because he's the AI guy. Conrad's going to be an AI movie making Muckerfather. So I think we've got to get all of you guys out there in the universe, the 83 weeks of universe. Let's all put our collective minds out there. And let's come up with an idea and I'm saying, now I'm serious. somebody's got to come up with an idea because this is too good for somebody not to do. It's all how you research it.

It's maybe Guy Evans will hear this. Guy Evans could do it. I just gave myself an idea. You guys better come up for some shit pretty quick as if you don't. I can't. I just want to leave you with this because, I mean, first of all, he gave the world Jamie Dundee. I don't know if he should be celebrated or arrested for that, but one of those for sure. But what a fabulous story it was in the territory days because you had to come up with

you know, you're asking the fans to pay every single week to essentially see the exact same match, but with as Bruce would call it, a fresh paint of coat. But one of those idea was, we've all heard of the hair match. I'm going to put my hair on the line. But when Dundee volunteered, hey, you know what? You give me a shot at that belt. And if I don't win this time, you can shave my wife's head. Everyone at home knew, well, they're not really going to shave his wife said. He's going to win the belt. But he's, lost and they shaved his fucking wife said. Like this is unbelievable. That in and of itself

is a movie. Is it not? And is a cool part of that movie. The biopic, we're talking about there's got to be somebody out there. This listen to this show who can, if you can't see this, this movie can write itself. You have to push a few buttons. Use your chat. GPD. Ask somebody out there to help you, you know, collaborate with some friends. however you get through that process.

But there's got to be a way to put together a great treatment in a pitch for something like this. To again, it's not so much I want to see something really great for build up these legacy. Of course, that's a nice thing. But that's not my thing. My thing is, though, if you take that story and you present it the right way and it becomes aspirational and it makes you realize it, you know, you may not get to where you want to go the way you think you're going to get there, but you can get there. but you can get there in some pretty unique ways.

Here's an example. You know, that's a success story. Jeff's right. And I think that's how you contextualize it. It's such a fascinating story that I really truly believe in all seriousness. Somebody should do this because it's using the thing we're all passionate about, wrestling, all have opinions on and fight over and argue over and virtue signal over it because we need to be those people. Otherwise, no one will pay attention to us because you're a socially misfit.

human. But get through all that noise, man. You can come up with something really cool and put wrestling over, put wrestling fans over because it's a fan's idea. For sure. It's not my idea. It's out there. Now it's public domain.

Anybody can have it. Take it. Make it better. Make it 10 times better. Forget that you even use it to begin with. I don't really care. But somebody should do it. It's too good not to be done.

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That's C-A-R-G-U-S.com. Car gurus.com. Eric, I know that you probably never ran into him, but I do want to take a shot, man. I absolutely love Saturday because college football was back. It was like Fat Guy Christmas around here. But then on Sunday morning, we found out that not only did we lose Superstar Bill Dundee, but we lost part of the AEW roster. We knew him as the butcher of the butcher in the blade, the real life Andy Williams, who was a basis for the fabulous band every time I die. I mean, what a talented individual to be multifaceted like this. How many people

have achieved musical success and then in ring success? I mean, to be a television wrestler who's also a bona fide rock star. Like you're talking about exactly one person in history. Andy Williams passed away at just 48 years old. He too, just like Bill Dundee, made an appearance on Saturday. This past Saturday, he did a seminar in Pittsburgh for young wrestling hopefuls trying to pay it forward. And then that night, he stepped between the ropes and wrestled sadly his final match.

As the story goes, he collapsed after the match, hit his head on the concrete. the doctors were there, the EMTs were there, he was in an ambulance before you know it, but sadly he passed away and everyone who knew the real life Andy Williams says he was a sweetheart of a guy. Nothing like you would expect from his menacing look, a real, intelligent, well-spoken,

well-rounded, multi-talent, almost a renaissance man, Eric. I mean, to be able to play music and to wrestle, he's a natural-born performer and he left quite a legacy. I've never talked to anyone who didn't love the guy. And sadly, he's gone at just 48 years old, Eric. Did you ever meet Andy Williams, the butcher from AEW?

I don't believe I did. But that's my loss, you know, just listening to it. You know, and those are all of all those things that you said are really impressive, to say the least. But it also kind of paints a picture of a very, very, very, very. unique person. Yes. Very unusual in the sense of not following any path. He was

he had to be a, you know, intensely creative person because his creativity, you know, he had a lot of it in two kind of separate buckets, so to speak, you know. Most people don't have any in that bucket. He had two separate buckets, you know, music and wrestling. Kind of like Jericho,

you know, two different forms of entertainment. And they blended him and that's very unique. So I would have liked to broke bread with him and got into his head too. There's a couple of people like that I want to talk about. And obviously this being one, and it's another great example of why wrestling should be showcased

and what better light than sometimes it is. Another thing I know you would have loved Andy for supposedly a real big dog guy. And I think you and him would totally hit it off. I have no doubt that AEW is going to pay tribute to him on dynamite this week. Eric and I usually record over the weekend and our show drops on a Monday. Of course, he's been on the big bird from Russia. So we're recording on a Tuesday afternoon. But tomorrow night, Eric, at EW, is going to pay tribute to someone you may have crossed paths with. We're talking about Rebel. Earlier this year, we found out that

she was diagnosed with ALS. It was March of this year and that ended really a two-year search for answers that she had been on. She knew something wasn't right and she wasn't feeling herself, but no one had any answers, but when she finally got the answer, it wasn't one anyone would have hoped for. It was a death sentence known as ALS. And AEW is going to be drawing awareness to that. We'll have a link in the description for today's show of how you can get involved and support a cure for ALS. And we've seen a lot of people doing the ice bucket challenge and AWW's been selling merch in honor of her. And they're putting on a whole show in her honor, including Britt Baker, who we saw her years ago debut with AEW with, as she was called at the time, Reba,

these fabulous skits where Britt Baker was overbearing and mispronounced her name. And it was a really fun segment and a great part of the OG version of AEW. And now Rebel is putting up the biggest fight of her life. And we're going to pay tribute to her tomorrow night. Tickets are on sale now. I'll be there and if you can make it to Athens, Georgia tomorrow night, you should be too. Just a great person. We're talking, of course, about the real life to Nea Brooks.

And she spent some time in TNA2. I know that you probably had some convention times where you guys were at the same event. I know it's happened at Starcast and probably others. Did you get to spend any time with the real life Rebel? Yeah. Yeah. It's Starcast. It's sarcast.

And I was just thinking. It's ironic because I was just thinking about this. We had probably a total of 20 minutes of, you know, having fun at sarcasts up on stage. She was a part of the show. And I think, you know, she was a part of my little one of the challenges, I think, where people came up and cut promos on me. You know, she was, I think, the hostess or something like that. Anyway, had a lot of fun with her, you know, that night.

Maybe it was 45 minutes or so. had a very superficial conversation. And then you know me, I was on my way to the hotel. I'm not good after about 10 o'clock at night. So that was the end of it. And then the next morning, I got up and I was, she was early and I, Lori was still sleeping. And I went out for a walk and she was out of her car.

And I don't know what she was doing out there. I think she was trying to find a phone cord or something. And we just started up a conversation that lasted about 45 minutes. and just getting to know each other. And, you know, what she was doing. And, of course, I had run, you know, cross past with her in AEW, I think briefly, and with Brett Baker,

a very, very social, very superficial moment kind of hanging out, eating, and catering together laughing and joking. So that was all that I knew of her. And then, of course, I met her at Sarcast. Now I'm in this conversation with her. And that was the end of it. And we never stayed in contact for a long time.

And I got a text for me. her and I'm not going to go into the text. But basically, you know, in general, it was like, hey, if you have, you know, if you have any ideas after that, as a result of her, you know, her and I having a conversation, you know, love to ever get together or something like that. It was very, she wasn't asking for anything. It was just, I guess, something to say, which is why I didn't really respond to it, you know, and initially.

And then again, you know, time went on and then something happened. I think something, something happened in wrestling that kind of broke on on social media. Or her and I, she must have commented on something I said or I commented something she said, or we both commented on something somebody else said and somehow ended up in each other's feeds. And anyway, we started, I DM here a couple times and kind of generally started talking about where we are and what we're each doing. at the moment. And it got very spiritual and very quickly. Yeah. God bless her. She's tough. She's quickly tough than I am. She's tough. Much respect.

We're going to, uh, we're going to take a break right fast and, uh, let you guys know that the weight is over. Football is here. And so is draft Kings. Draft Kings is now live in all 50 states. One app every sport nationwide. New draft Kings customers can sign up with the code. 83 weeks. Spend $5 to get $200 in rewards within 21 days. That includes all markets. That's code 83 weeks in partnership with

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Limited time offer. Nationwide based on sports book predictions and free to play sports contest availability. Varies by state. Eric, we're going to try to. We don't have to try to do anything. I apologize for that. I can sometimes get. very emotional when things mean a lot to me.

And she said some things to me that just lifted me up. She wasn't trying to lift me up. It was just where my head was at at the moment. And it was just such a powerful, strong connection that happened so immediately that it stood out in my mind. And that's what I was thinking about when you brought that up. And to think about her, you know, she's putting herself out there. She's sharing something that is so horrible, but doing it in such a loving way. that's a not to me.

But it's in a great way. Okay, I'm good. So we don't have to do anything else. We can just move on. I'm good. Listen, we're all, listen, I don't want you to feel weird about that. I just don't want you to be in a bad spot. I know that, hey, listen, anybody who knows or loves her,

I'll never forget the first time I made her at Starcast. She was going to help kick off our after party. And we needed a hostess with the mostus. We needed someone to be a greeter and with a warm smile and welcome people and encourage them to have a good time. And when you met her in that circumstance, you knew, man, this cow is going to be successful at whatever she does. I'll never forget the next time we sat behind these microphones, I said, you know, in an alternate life, if the real life, Tania Brooks had gotten into sales and not decided to be a Dallas, Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, and had not decided to be an entertainer and a makeup artist and a professional wrestler and all the fun things.

things that she did, she would have just dominated sales. And she just had that personality that she left an impression on you. You know, when you met her, you liked her and you wanted to be around her. And there's something about those people that make them special. And she's certainly at the top of that list. And I'm so glad that she's coming forth and sharing her story and being an inspiration to others. And shout out to Tony Kahn and AEW for really leaning into it and shining a light on it. You know, these days, that's not very popular. but you want to talk about somebody who's worth it. I think she is.

And I want to encourage everybody. This is nothing to do with wrestling. This has to do with doing the right thing and being a good person. Hey, watch her show. Celebrate her show. Let's pay tribute to a great lady. It's going down tomorrow night. As you're listening to this, it might be tonight.

Wednesday, September 9th. They've got a loaded card. It's stacked in her honor. And I know it's going to be a special night. I'm glad I'm going to be in the house to experience it, there won't be a dry eye in the house. I hope you'll make plans to join us at EWTIX.com. Let's pull for Mrs. Brooks and let's find a cure for this shit, man.

Let's switch gears here. Let's talk a little bit of Rassling News as best we can. I don't know if you saw this, but there's a report that TKO may be experimenting with something. Half-time shows at Rassling. I know what you're thinking. Hey, didn't they try this like 40 years ago with the Great American Bash with Dusty Roads and the country music stars.

Well, what's old is new again. There's reports out there. According to wrestle votes on Fightful Select, TKO is exploring the idea of introducing half-time-style musical performances at major WWE events. WWE has brought in plenty of celebrities and musicians over the years, and sometimes they've been a part of storylines or one-off appearances, but this idea may be a little differently.

Instead of just featuring a celebrity, they may actually start doing musical performances that could become another attraction, if you will, at WWE. And there's a lot of discourse about this. Of course, we know on screen this past Sunday, we saw Lill Yadi wrestling Baron Corbyn. And he survived five minutes. So Trick Williams got an opportunity to rematch Baron Corbyn. And Barron dropped the title. Trick Williams is your U.S. champ again. But Eric, when you tried this sort of the kid.

Kiss Demon integration and all of that, man, people really took you to task for that or Master P. And before you, Dusty tried it with a handful of country music acts. And now, it even goes, it even goes back to Vernania in the AWA.

Prior to me joining the AWA, I think he did a, a wrestle rock event at the that's right. The country Metro Dome. There was actually a rap video produced for that was it's still out there in the social media universe like if you're into mushrooms and shit like that you want to really take a ride make some tea find that stuff on youtube and

do the Russell Rock rap along with Sergeant Slaughter it'll change your life yeah it's a formula but you know what's interesting when we can make light of it and you know acknowledge that other people have tried it in the past and you know obviously it didn't work certainly didn't work for me when I brought it a kiss although I think the rug was pulled out from underneath this early when we weren't able to build up to a kiss demon new year's evil pay-per-view uh with a a kiss concert or performance in between matches how about that live in tempi arizona uh associated with the whatever bowl was going down down there at the time so there was a lot that's a but that was a big idea that it never got to see the light of day because

somebody pulled the plug on it. But what's interesting about this attempt, and it's way more interesting than a little yachty to me. I don't care who it is. Plug in any artist doesn't matter because the formula has been tried before. This isn't really creating anything new, but the business model is different. So it changes the structure of the opportunity

and how more people can play together. And you look at where TKO is and all the components of it with Ari Emanuel, kind of in the driver's seat, and you look at their ability to bring in resources and synergies in these projects, and all of a sudden what would otherwise be one way or another or more than one impossible, all of a sudden becomes pretty possible. There's more margin in it because of the kind of economies of scale of resources, if you will, that you have control over.

That's what makes this more interesting to me because it has a much higher likelihood of success in the long term. In the short term, wrestling fans are going to gag. They're going to hate it. But there's nothing they're going to be able to do about it because it's going to be around for a long time. Once it figure it out and they get the formula and tighten it up and figure out a way to scale it,

it'll be what you're become very accustomed to the future. I'm sure of it. Erica, I know I'm stating the obvious to you, but I think this gets lost on a lot of wrestling fans. But as a reminder, if they're successful in doing this, you nailed it when you said wrestling fans are going to gag. But here's the reality. They're not doing it for wrestling fans. They're doing it for non-fans who would not normally buy a ticket or tune in to watch a W.W.E show, but they happen to like that rapper, that country artist, that whoever it is, they're hoping that someone will think, man, I would never buy a ticket to a WVE show, but I really want

to go see blank. And by performing there, maybe we can fire up Netflix, we'll turn on peacock, or we'll buy a ticket, we'll go pay for parking and we're going to see it. And maybe we'll get exposed to something. And maybe it can change the way people feel about wrestling. Because I would imagine a lot of people who maybe bought a ticket to Sunday night's main event and thinking they were going to go see the Cuevo performance, maybe they were hoping or maybe they walked in thinking, hey, wrestling's lame. Oh, it's all fake. I can't believe adults watch this. But hey, Cuevos is here and I want to see this rap performance. He's an Atlanta guy. I want to see it. And maybe while they're there, they're like, you know, this is kind of fun. I didn't expect to enjoy it.

Conrad. Conrad, how many times have you heard other people? people tell us those stories together. Yes. How many times have you and I experience when we, we have someone that we're doing business with who is, you know, very sophisticated, maybe golfs on the weekends, you know, kind of polo kind of guy or lady, whatever, would never, never imagine themselves watching professional wrestling because, you know, it's that thing they do.

But through whatever situation you may have developing your relationship. you invite them or you hear a story about them having been invited by someone that just they went along just because they felt like they should and had the time of their life or in my case what I experience on a regular basis and I'll tell you with one really quick story but before I get to that you know it would be people in the in the in the affiliated industries whether it be on the supply side you know which didn't happen very often or or if it was me trying to pitch WCW to a business unit in, you know, Time Warner at the time, long before the murder, for example, you know, I would bring somebody to an event if we were in LA to try to grease them up and get them excited about what we're going to talk about, right? And so they, okay, I'll go. They didn't really want to, but hey, I haven't been to wrestling since I was a kid and Erickson we're doing business. So I'm going to go check it out. Next time in that town, guess who calls me first wanting tickets? Not just for him, but for him and his buddies. And a couple of them have kids.

Can we get those kids too? That's how you turn wrestling fans by getting just exactly what you said. I'm just painting a picture of what you pointed out, is you're getting people that might not otherwise sample the product to at least sample the product so they can fall in love. It's a very simple formula. And if they, again, fine-tune the recipe. It's all in the format, the details of it,

how much of what and how much little of this and all that, figure it out and scale it, change the business. Those are the fun things to talk about, you know, how you approach things differently because the business is so different. You can't keep approaching wrestling the same way and expecting a different outcome because the audience is changing, not just where they watch it, but just culturally, what entertains people or creates heat is different today

than it was five years ago, 10 years ago. It's a reflection of how our culture has changed. Your stories, your creative, even in wrestling, you have to change along with it. Or you're just not connecting. Something that I don't think has been connecting with fans. I don't know that this has even been on your radar, but I want to put it on there.

WWE has begun censoring things that air on Netflix. I don't think a lot of people expected this, because if you'll recall, the very first Monday Night Raw on Netflix, we had an F-bomb and there was a lot of chatter that hey they're not going to be censored here but we kind of all knew well that's not very sponsor friendly so they're not going to go buck wild with it and it's not going to feel like ECW uncensored at a 1998 pay-per-view but recently friend of the show richard deich who's got a fabulous podcast about sports media he interviewed the netflix VP of sports Gabe spitzer and he was asked if the platform has

conversations with WWE about blood and cursing. And the answer was not often. Obviously, there's rating standards that anyone has to adhere to. We're Netflix, so we try to be a little bit looser on that. But that has not been the experience. Like even this past week, we saw page code of promo backstage with Nikki Bella, where she said, I built my career on hustle, loyalty, and respect. You just slept with it.

and that line was clipped. So it's not on Netflix. And there's a lot of other examples of language and bleeding and other things that just aren't there. Now, the hardcores, man, they don't want that. Now, I understand occasionally we're talking about licensing music. And so maybe you get a license to air a song once, but you can't play it over and over and over. I get that.

But if we're talking about language like that, where technically it's not even a bad word, a band word, if you will, hustle loyalty and respect and you just slept with it. Like that doesn't feel like it should be edited, but someone may. Yes, it should. Or maybe I should say that different. I hit the brace hard just to get attention on that one. Maybe it shouldn't. But here's the question. It isn't a question of taste or morality clearly. What are we talking about here? Netflix, professional wrestling, okay? Let's not pretend we're something that we're not.

Right. It's not a moral question. Then what kind of a question is it? If it's not a moral question, what, what am I asking myself that forces me to have to make this decision? Oh, it's my attorney, my general counsel who's saying hustle, loyalty, respect, that's a W.W.E component of a trademark. And I'm just pulling this out of thin air. I don't know if this is really true or not, but it could be true. And you've got a corporate attorney, your general counsel, say, no, you can't really use those three words in combination in wrestling related context,

because it represents this trademark and the revenue associated with that, which is John Cesar's revenue. So it could be that, which, you know, now unless Netflix has a deal with WWE, It is licensing that footage from them. That could happen. Well, it's on raw. It's on. So I'm saying this aired on the program, but now on a replay, it's gone. So I'm saying it's on the WWE program on Netflix, but now it's edited out.

And now that particular instance may have been, and I'm not saying this is it, but the only thing I can put my finger on is, hey, you know what, John Cena may have requested that that would be removed. John Cena is a married man trying to make his name in Hollywood, and he may have thought, you know, that's not really the kind of PR I was hoping for. I'm out here being your ambassador. I'm not going to be a part of a storyline.

I'm retired. Maybe don't reference me in previous relationships while I'm married trying to, he just has a movie in the box office right now, that Coyote versus Acme. So maybe that's a John Cena thing. But the overall censorship of the program changing, like we saw it once on Netflix,

but now when you go back and you watch the replay, it's not there. You and I talked about this. I wonder, could it, could it possibly be, I mean, I'm just trying to explore what it could be here. Sure. It maybe not as is, maybe it's not as obvious. But if it's a replay issue, could it be, they couldn't really blurred out live, but they could in post. I mean, you think she was shooting, brother?

It was scripted, right? No. That's true. It's a backstage one. So in my head, it's not only as it scripted, it's probably pre-taped. So it's not like it fell out of her mouth accidentally. But I know I'm sounding like I'm digging to try to defend it. I'm not.

I'm just looking for the obscure answer here because this whole thing doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense of the on the face of it. So on the face of it, let's admit to all of us, it's bizarre as hell. So I'm looking for a bizarre as hell excuse or reason maybe. I still think it has something to do with the license. I don't know why. Okay, so let's set that one aside, but blood. You've got a guy who gets busted open.

Now we're back to the post-production potential. Could it be because they have no real way to digitize it live, but going forward, because I've done it with paper views. WCGM used to do it in pay-per-view. So, I mean, that's where I'm kind of pulling this from. Is this a streaming, version of what I was faced with at Turner, where Turner corporate policy said, I don't care, no blood at various times. And then they'd reverse it or quit caring. But essentially, you would

get the mandate. There will be no blood. We do blood on a pay-per-view. Well, guess what? We're still Turner Broadcasting. We don't do blood. Make it go away. We make it go away. So it could be some version of that. Here's what I think it could be. And again, you and I have no inside knowledge. It's not like either one of us have picked up the phone and asked anybody. We wouldn't do that. That's not our style. So we're just, we're going to be fans here and talk

about it and discuss it. But I wonder because I mean, you've got the VP of sports saying, hey, no, we have certain standards, but we're going to play a little looser with that. What's implied in that answer to Richard Dyche by the VP of sports from Netflix is, no, we're not making those changes. So it sounds like it's a change on the WWE side of the fence. And again, we're just grasping at straws here.

My question is, do you think perhaps WWE is saying, hey, our hardcores, they're going to watch it live. And so if you see it, you see it. And we would encourage you to watch it live because. I buy that. Okay, now that's some, that's some, that's some sunssoon ninja shit right there.

That's a strategy. That I'll buy. Because that's, that's a carnivores approach. two things. And that's what a carnivore would do. And I think it's a very carnivorous company, meaning that's a company with a big appetite. And that's a smart move. If that's what it is. You got to give them a hat. You got to give them credit for that one. And by the way, not only that, but you also get plausible deniability. Hypothetically, when this Netflix deal is

up, it's not like they're just going to be no more Monday night raw. No, they're hoping to have it somewhere. So maybe to increase your leverage, you clean it up. So if someone else, another suitor is interested in, hey, we're really taking a look at should we bring Monday Night Raw over. Let's go through the archives. I got one. What if this is a creative strategy? It's not a, it's a creative tactic. It's not a, it's not a legal situation or or anything else. It's a creative strategy because what do I want, where do I make most of my money? Do I make it on my live show worldwide?

Where do I make the most money? If the answer is I make my most money or I need my biggest audience, for whatever reason, the goal, the A show, if you will, is the live show and the B show is the tape show. I don't know why that could be, but it could be. There could be a reason. If there is a reason, then what if you put a velvet rope, just like Studio 54 did with dance with clubs. You make it hard to get in.

The only way you get to get in is if you're approved by the two dormant, we're selective. Not everybody gets to see what goes on in this club. That's the velvet rope theory, right? So they're just doing a version of the velvet rope theory where they want to drive the majority of the audience, the must-cTV portion of the audience, right? they want to drive them to the live show how do you do that by not letting them see what everybody

else gets to see when they get past the rope that would be cool i i don't disagree at all i think it's interesting that we're even having the conversation this is another unintended that's what we should be talking about in wrestling look this is some spacey shit i get it but wouldn't isn't it more fun talking about spacey shit like this related to wrestling and what the future could look like in different things and stuff, then talking about a stupid finish from 1964 or whatever. I mean, this is fun stuff. We talk about that other stuff all the time. Speaking of fun stuff, remember when you were young and getting hard was easy.

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safety information. And we want to thank Blue Choo for sponsoring the pod and the bedroom. So Eric, I, uh, I'm going to bring up something that you're probably not going to love. Sorry in advance. Oh, good. We've been having fun, except for the emotional part. We've been having fun in this show. We've been educating the audience. The format that made this show famous, by the way, by making our portion at least of the otherwise socially disconnected internet wrestling community a more enlightened place to be. But here you go. We're going to get right back down into the gutter. So what do you got? I don't mean to, but I want your opinion of something. And it is going to be with someone that at different times you've had to, well, let's say it nicely,

agree to disagree with. Brett Hart recently did a tour with our pal Kenny McIntosh, who you and and I think a lot of. A little love for Inside the Ropes. Love what they do. If you have an opportunity to support Kenny, you should go out of your way to. Buy a ticket, check him out online. You're going to love his stuff. But Brett Hart was claiming that the WWE has issues right now

because there's too many idiots teaching people things. Quote, WWE is having the problems they are because they have all these idiots telling people how to wrestle when they don't know how to wrestle themselves. That goes for Bruce Pritchard too. He doesn't know.

Now, obviously, you and I would count Bruce Pritchard as one of our very best friends. But what I really wanted to bring to light here is not necessarily whether you agree or disagree with Brett's sentiment about the problems of WWE when they're clearly printing money over there. But do you have to have wrestled in order to be an effective booker? Like, I don't know if I necessarily agree with that one. What say you? No. don't. And the answer is obvious, I think, in many cases. But that's not the issue, really. The issue, and this is a, this is a perspective that Brett holds that has been held consistently throughout every generation of ex-performers, right?

the ones that are hanging on the tightest because there is no other sense of who they really are beyond the make-believe character that they've kind of whether they know it or not become and the only way that they can really relate is to keep forcing it out there and i'm and i'm sure people you know are accusing me of doing this but you know i do this because i enjoy doing this it's not a need, it's a want. And it's a priority because it gives me the ability to communicate about something that had a big impact of my life. And I still find ways to find interest in. Not in the way most people find interested in wrestling or become interested in it,

but either way I look at it as a weird microcosm. And there's a lot of things you can learn from it in terms of business and structure. Just look at, you know, television formats. One of the reasons real American freestyles, you know, one of, there's several really big reasons that have nothing to do with what I'm about to say. But, you know, one component of it is we have found a way as a team to present a product that's been around since the beginning of almost time, going back to the Olympic Games and whatever that was, 4 AD or whatever I don't remember. But a lot, though, right? we've at least in recent times we've been able to take this product that nobody else could really figure out how to put into you know an entertaining format to get people to watch and have fun with

it was always viewed in such a oh it's like watching patreon and and sometimes it is especially to the non-ristling portion of our audience right got the audience that didn't never did it in high school or college that audience which is about 99.7 7% of the population, I guess. They had a hard time watching because it just wasn't fun. We as a team have found a way to make it fun. And that's what formats and one of the reasons why I find wrestling so interesting is because you can track it throughout time.

It's always worked. That's why wrestling's always been on the forefront of just about every new emerging form of entertainment. When it went from syndicated television to cable television, guess what won? Actually, syndication, professional wrestling was one of the most successful components of syndicated television when it was launched going back to the Dumont Network in Chicago. So what I'm saying to you isn't news because I'm not saying, I've discovered something. This is so obvious over time that the wrestling format and the psychology that comes with it is a really unique thing. What do you guys think?

Let us know in the comments below. Do you think you needed to be a wrestler in order to be an effective booker? Is that important? Does it matter? Well, let us know in the comments and we'll continue this conversation. You know, we both, what am I doing here? What are we doing here? We both know someone that kind of represents what I just referred to.

Yes. And maybe that was your lead in and I just blew it for you. But we should be talking about that. That's a perfect example. What a timely example in so many different ways. Let's talk a little bit about WWB when it comes to heels and baby faces. I know you were on a plane, so you may have missed it, but they had a Sunday night's main event this weekend, not a Saturday night, but Sunday night. And it was in Cody's hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, where you had Cuevo who used to be a part of, maybe there's still a thing, Migos.

I think they're broken up, whatever. The point is, it was a hometown show for old Cody Rhodes. He had Mama Rhodes there. He had his lovely bride, brandy. He had the kids. Everybody sit in the front row, even Tiel Margaret was there. All the Cody Rhodes clan was there to support. port. And in the build for this, there had been a lot of talk of whether or not Cody could pull

the trigger. He was going to have to play dirty in order to beat the viper that was Randy Orton, a guy that he once respected, a guy who helped break him into the business and he traveled up and down the roads with and can he pulled the trigger. And they've teased this before, even back during the John Cena feud with Cody, like could he embrace, for lack of a better word, the dark side. So it does feel like we're at least flirting with the idea of Cody as a heel. But what I wanted to ask you about it, sometimes when we talk about booking philosophies with Jeff Jarrett, he says, hey, the old school way of doing this is you just take out a scratch sheet of paper and you list out your heels and baby faces and you try to do them in order. Hey, here's my top

heel. Here's my top baby face. So if you wanted to put a number beside it, hey, here's my number one heel. here's my number two heel, here's my number three heel. And we all kind of know, like in the golden era, Hulk Hogan was the number one baby face. And in the WCW era at its height, well, Hulk Hogan, Hollywood Hogan, in fact, was the number one heel. And he worked down a list from there.

Maybe Sting was your number one baby face and maybe a couple of notches down was DDP, but he sort of rises through the ranks. Well, if you take a look at WWE now, as they're flirting with this, I guess we'd call it tweener idea, of Cody Rhodes. Is he a heel? Is he a baby face? What will he do? What won't he do? I think we could all say in his most recent feud with Kevin Owen, C.M. Punk was the heel in that

equation. And Roman Raines is getting big reactions because he's a star, so he's certainly getting a huge star reaction. But he's also running around with the Uso's who are taking advantage of guys and they're beating guys down two and three and four on one, five on one, whatever the case may be. well, that feels kind of healish. And I know in wrestling, our buddy Chris Hero, friend of the show, he would say that wrestling in America, it's more of a morality play. And so you've got good versus evil. Now, you were sort of the master of this way back when because you helped make bad guys cool.

Now, some people would say Rick Flair and the Four Horseman maybe started making bad guys cool, but nobody quite did it like the NWO. They became a merch juggernaut. and it created the anti-hero on the other station in Stone Cold Steve Austin. But if we go back to WrestleMania 17, when Stold Cold turned his back on the fans and joined Mr. McMahon and became a heel, well, history would prove out that business started to take a downturn. I don't know that Shades of Gray have ever been proven to be ineffective for wrestling better than Stone Cold.

I mean, he's the brightest star we ever had. He gets hot in 97, hotter in 98. he finally beats 83 weeks in 98. It gets hotter in 99. He's out for 2000. And when he's back in 2001, people still hang their hat on WrestleMania 17 as being up there with WrestleMania 3.

This is as good as it was of the attitude era. But he turned heel and the business was never the same. So much so that he grew frustrated with it. And as the story goes, quote unquote, took his ball and went home the next spring. I feel like WWV right now has a lot of shades of growth. I don't know gun to the head. Would any of us agree that Roman Reigns is a heel?

Because he's gunning around with a faction who's beating up guys and taking advantage of them, three and four on one or what have you, but he's getting a big superstar reaction. So is C and Punk. I feel like they have tried to maintain that Cody Rhodes is going to be the John Sina of this generation. And he's going to be the ultimate baby face, the ultimate hero.

But does that still work? is that still necessary? Is Shades of Gray something that can be effective? I want you to think about that, Eric, but I want you to know in the meantime that we can all be smarter with our money, and that's where Chime comes in. Chime is changing the way people bank. You see, Chime is not like a traditional old bank who charges fees and gate keeps perks and rewards. So you can actually go ahead and get the most rewarding fee-free banking of all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, minimum balance fees, all with CHIMM. You can even get 5% cash back on your CHIM card in a category of your choice, like gas or groceries, all while building credit through regular

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It only takes a few minutes. 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.com slash disclosures for details. So Eric chat me up.

Shades of gray. Cody has a tweener. Is punk a heel? Is he a baby face? Is Roman? And does any of it matter in 2026? What say you? Here's what I don't know.

I certainly don't know the answer to that. In my opinion about all of this has changed so much because the way I look at the business of it has changed so much. But it's almost, you know, when I can't keep track of how many hours of television are out there because sometimes, you know, we go three hours or are we two hours. What month is it? What season is it? Whatever. But let's just say right now there's five hours of, we'll call it, a programming out there. In WWE, I'm just looking at WWE.

Even though that's a lot of time, you've got a lot of wrestlers to try to establish characters that you need to try to get over. There is actually a limited amount of time. Given the volume of product that you need to have in the marketplace to create the churn and create to generate the revenue because the revenue is such ridiculous highs right now. And in order to be successful, you have to keep growing that. So how do you keep growing that? you keep increasing that commodity, that asset that you have in your talent, your talent being your intellectual property. So we need more that are generating revenue, right? So how do you create the volume of IP that you need when you have still a finite amount of time to do it in?

Because the shows have to be entertaining. People's attention spans are short, which means you've got to move through your characters in a relatively quick pace in order to keep everybody floating, so to speak. And in the process of everybody floating, it's very hard to give one person to really float a lot higher because now you're building volume, you're not building individuals, single brands, the way you're used to,

because you didn't have the pressure of time and space the way you do in today's market. So it's actually opposite than what you would think on paper or on the surface, I should say. Anyway, so maybe what, But what you do have, yes, you have a limited amount of time on your prime format, your A format. But what you also have is this social media format that gets hundreds of millions of views and makes much broader connections. And you can do it on a much more frequent basis.

It can be controlled. It can be episodic. There's so many cool things. And I'm not an ad tech guy, but my partner is. And it's one of the components that makes. already have such a success so quickly on. It is, you remember back Dave Meltzer's comments in the very first show, I don't think anybody's going to watch it

because I haven't seen any promotion for it. Well, of course not. You live under a social rock, you get. No wonder you haven't seen it. But the point is that a lot of people saw it. Traditionally, they did see a lot of social media, a lot of it. And that's what my partner is so phenomenal at.

And I didn't even learn I didn't really understand, had no exposure into how that side of the business of social media worked. The ad side of it never really occurred to me. There was no reason for me to learn it by the time it was becoming a thing. But now that I'm learning it or now I'm even trying to learn it, I'm just having to pure stuff, you know, because I'm in proximity. But I know that that's one of the big reasons that REF is as hugely successful is it's becoming. I'm not saying it's hugely successful now. We're very successful now in a lot of different ways.

And in a record amount of time. And it's largely because how that component of television and entertainment has changed. And you have to understand that component. I didn't understand it. I could handle the creative side and all that. But in and of itself, that isn't enough. You have to have this other component. And there are other components to it as well.

It all has to kind of fit together and work. but that ad tech side of it is really just of all businesses not just my limited experience. It's such a huge, huge world. It's fascinating. I'm curious. Do you guys like clear-cut black and white stories? Do you like easy to follow? Let me let me let me get.

I did a horrible. I did a horseshit job of explaining the reason for that. My point in that is, is the shades of gray a means of slowly, getting these characters over. In Cody Rhodes case, the way you laid it out to me initially, it sounds to me like a slow tease. Instead of a hot angle. This ain't Memphis anymore, brother.

You can't produce TV the way you did in 1976 or 86 or 96 or 2006 or 2006 or 2006. Or maybe in 20206, we know this needs to start thinking of new ways to present this content because the audience sees things or is entertained by things differently in this generation than they were in pretext. previous ones. So maybe this is shades of gray. And now we're seeing a little bit of Roman rains. Is he turning hill? Why are you seeing these guys? We're seeing this stuff on social media. Because maybe now instead of characters being introduced on television, because you can get so much more exposure in social media, you use social media to tease and develop the character.

So it's not just a one day I'm a heel and one day I'm a baby face. It's a slow, interesting build and you get people talking about it on podcasts and all of a sudden people start looking for that content to see if it's true and the next thing you know you've got movement and you you've got growth so i don't know there's so many fascinating things it could be because rustling is so fascinating hey everybody so by now you've heard me bragging about saving people money at save with conrad.com for years but i thought you know what don't take my word for it let's ask someone who really did save with conrad let's welcome in tyrus tirest What's going on, man? How are you?

I'm good, Conrad. How about yourself? Man, I'm delighted to talk to you. I got to ask, what made you come to save with Conrad originally? Well, first, I'm a return shopper, if you will. I was listening to the podcast years ago now with you and Bruce, and I just figured we were in the mode for a refinance, and I heard you guys save money. So I called you guys, got hooked up with Jimmy way back then, and that's really how the ball started to roll. So initially you were interested in lower your monthly payments or did you want to knock out some credit card debt? Or what was your goal the first time you went to Save with Conrad.com? It was mostly just to get the lower rate, but there's a little bit of credit card debt in there too. So we rolled that all up.

And you got a cheaper monthly payment on the other side of that? Yeah. Yep. And with this time that I used, it saved me quite a bit a month. Yeah. So let's talk about what brought you back to Save with Conrad. First of all, thank you for using us not once but twice. I appreciate that.

But that was your needs back then. When was that? Was that 2020 that you did that before? Yeah, it was around that, maybe 2019 somewhere around that. Okay. So now a few years later, your needs have changed. What prompted you to go to Save withconrad.com this time? Well, we were looking to refinance once again, because we bought Darren the high rate time.

And we had, you know, a little bit of credit card. dent and we thought, why not hit that refinance button? And originally, we were thinking, why not just go through the national brand that was servicing our loan? I called one of them over there, and he crunched the numbers, and he said, no can do. Sorry. And then I thought, I'll just say with Conrad again. And I called and the delightful Francis answered and you know her. Oh, yeah. And the first thing after I told her what the national brand said, she just said, are they stupid? We can. We can save you money.

And she got the ball rolling. I worked with OG Larry and saving $425 a month. All right. I love to hear that, man. $425 a month. I love that, dude. Congratulations. Thank you.

If you had someone who was on the fence, because I know that there's a lot of people who just know me, as the wrestling podcaster. But if you had someone who listens to my pods and they're on the fence about whether or not this is a real service and can he really do this, I mean, what would you, what would you say to that? Absolutely do it. It worked for me multiple times from Jimmy way back when to Francis and Larry. It just, the whole team, they just had nothing but great things to say they're easy to work

with. They worked well with the inspectors and everything like that. just a great experience and I would recommend it to anybody. Well, I'm glad that we were able to to help save you some money and I would be delighted if we can help save you and your family some money. Do what Tyrus did. Go right now to save with Conrad.com. You can talk to a live person, get a quick quote, or just drop us an email directly at Conrad at savewithconrad.com. And of course, we can still do it the old school way. Give us a call toll free at 888425-0105. Thanks for all the time today, Tyrus. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Conrad. And a molest number one.

128-1698 and 203902, Equal Housing Lender. SavewithConrad.com. Well, what else is fascinating is that slow build that you talked about that maybe they're doing with Cody, but what you did 30 years ago with the NWO, we're going to talk about that as part of our NWO30 series as we continue the conversations.

And tonight we're going to revisit Nitro number 51. This went down from the UTC Arena in Chattanooga. It was September 2nd, 199. There's nearly 6,000 fans in the building. Over 5,000 are paid. And we get started with Diamond Dallas Page and Alex Wright. Next up, we've got Harlem Heat over Greg Valentine and Buddy Valentino. And then in our third match, it's Chris Jericho versus Dean Malenko.

As a reminder, Jericho just debuted a week prior against Alex Wright. And he's back a week later working a nine-minute match with Dean Malinko. This is really setting the pace and the tone for what you're in tune for. whenever you fire up WCW NITRO. Two of the absolute best wrestlers in the world doing their thing in the third match on the show, Dean Malenko and Chris Jericho. But what develops during the match is interesting. Here's where we get heavy on story.

Ted DiBiase is present and he's watching from the crowd. He's in the audience. And remember the prior week he was counting his fingers. And now it's a clue. Hey, what's going on? It looks like he's a part of the NWO. he's teased four and five. We would assume that he's four, but who is five?

And it's fair to say, based on the way we've seen him presented on the other channel, that he's the financial backer of something. But what exactly is it? We know he's aligned with the NWO, but what's he spending his money on? What's he investing in? Match five is Brad Armstrong, one of the unsung heroes of professional wrestling, taking a big choke slam in just under four minutes from the giant. But what's interesting here is what's happening behind the scenes.

A black limousine arrives. And this is going to become a regular part of Monday Nitro. These limousine arrivals almost became part and parcel of NWO. You want to know, hey, who is coming into the building? And everyone automatically assumes, well, it's the NWO. Anytime you see in this era a black limousine pulling up, you just assume it's Holt Kogan. But is it? You get another pre-recorded segment from Hull Codon.

again, the following announcement has been paid for. So we're hammering home that, hey, they are buying commercial time on the program. We are not in control of this. And against our will, we're forced to show you this NWO propaganda. That was some pretty brilliant shit. I mean, right there, you got to admit, nobody was thinking like that back then. I love how people talk about disruptors and how they run, you know, they make responsible for so many changes in industry.

But wasn't that some cool disruptive shit? It was amazing, especially even the way they're shot. I hope you're watching along with us at 83 weeks.com. You'll see these are black and white and they're almost kind of shot Batman style. So the camera is moving at an angle. And I just love it. I mean, against the giant projector screen, we never saw this version of Hulk Hogan before.

It feels underground. It feels independent. It doesn't feel slick and polished like it was done by Turner. It does feel like, hey, these are a bunch of guys who have a camcorder and they've got a big check. and they got shitty lights. Yes. No flashlights.

Yes. Fantastic presentation. Hopefully you're watching at 83 weeks.com. When I see this stuff, it just, first of all, it makes me miss Hulk Hogan. It reminds me they just spray painted the big gold belt. And it's so present in all of these.

He's doing a great job of showcasing, you know, the symbolism here is, not only can I take over this program, I've got this company's richest prize and I'm spray painting it and come get it. if you want to do something about it. But Hogan's message is clear.

We're two weeks away from war games. And Rick Flair, Arne Anderson, Sting, and Lex Lugar, you guys don't stand a chance. It doesn't feel like a regular rassling promo. But we do see Randy Savage in Match 7 get a big win flying off the top of that flying elbow on Big Ron Stud. The same guy, Ron Reese, who we once saw portray the Yette. He's getting knocked down with the flying elbow from Randy

Savage. And why is that important? Because don't forget. I was just thinking that same thing, Conraddrat, as you were saying that to me. I'm going, why is he telling me this stuff? Why do I care about this? And here you are about to tell me. I can't. Randy Savage is pissed and furious with the giant. So we're trying to prove

to the audience that Randy Savage at under six foot tall, he can still take down the biggest man in WCW, Big Ron Stud. So the giant, who Randy is pissed off at for dropping the title to Hulk Hogan and loses the belt for WCW.

Randy Savage is a man on a mission. He wants the giant. But is it believable that the undersized by comparison, Randy Savage could actually beat the giant? He just beat the shit out of Big Ron Stud in two minutes and 44 seconds. Let's break that time. Let's break that.

You're doing a good job covering or stuff. But some of this stuff is worthy of a conversation. Sure. And that's it. That's an issue of an is it believable? Here's what's weird about that. If you knew Randy, what's believable is that he could put himself in that position in a real way. Like, shoot, because Randy was nuts. And not all the time, but there were certain things about Randy that if you crossed them,

even maybe he didn't even mean to, just certain things would set him off. So could I see something escalating to the point that somebody found one of those, you know, maybe a small handful, but definite buttons that were triggers? Yeah, I could see it. Now, is there any doubt as to the outcome? No. But that's not what people were interested in. They were interested in the journey, not the end.

Is Randy really going to do this? Is he this crazy? You know, I mean, that's part of Randy's character, wasn't it? he could often slip into that crazy mode. It's another way to get us ready for Halloween Havoc. And I can't wait for us to see what he's going to do with Paul Kogan. But on the way, it's fall brawl. We're going to do things in order.

It's Randy Savage versus the giant in two weeks. So to show you what Randy Savage can do with a giant, he does it, the big Ron stud. By the way, in my scenario, there was alcohol in fall, just to be clear. Imagine. I'm looking at that scenario just as a realistic scenario. And I'm sitting thinking, really? Eric, could you actually see that in real life? And I remembered I should have also included in that story.

Of course, but it took place in a bar. I just want to make sure everybody understands that. Randy Savage does a fabulous promo, sort of hammering home that his marching orders are. You don't sell shit, do you, Conrad? You do not sell shit. I'm trying to be mindful. You said you needed to take Mrs. B to dinner. I'm sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry. She doesn't wonder if she hasn't even suck her head out the door. She's pissed. She's listening to be going, would you just shut the hell up and get that show over with? I'm trying to help you use that blue chew gold, brother. But I need more than that. If I don't get the show over with pretty quick.

So let's talk about the NWO. During Savage's match, the cameras are going to catch Hall and Nash popping out of the limousine. But Hulk Hogan sees the cameraman and he tells the guys, get back inside. it's another little small detail that I really like here because it makes it feel different. I mean, normally when you see somebody pull up in the back in a limousine, they're looking for attention or else they wouldn't be pulling up in a limo.

But now we're seeing that Hogan's trying to be secretive. He doesn't want them to be filmed here. And WTW's cameraman are now in the position, at least as the viewer, it feels like, hey, we're trying to catch the NWO doing things. As a result, it feels less stage. You know, these days, whatever we're watching backstage on a Monday Night Raw or a smack down or something like that. The guys are just having what we're supposed to believe as a private conversation,

but there just happens to be a camera about 18 inches from their face. But this feels different because when Hogan sees the cameras, he's like, hey, hey, get in the car, getting the car, get in the car. Isn't it, again, another really interesting point, extremely nuanced, but really powerful at the same time. You know, I don't even, I'm not sure this is the right reference or not, but when you hear people talking about breaking the fourth wall or the fifth wall, eighth wall, whatever the fuck wall you know when you what you're what you're really saying is you're giving

the viewer a sense of being there in a way that you typically don't get the way things are shot right just different camera angles and different access and different eye contact in some cases very subtle things but in in the brain or the people watching because your eyes are really just an extension to your brain literally um you're we're receiving that information in a different way so you react to it differently it becomes more believable um it's really fascinating thing when you hear it explained by somebody that can actually explain it not listening to me but when you really have it explained to you how how effective it can be and how how to use it effectively um it's it worked and here's the truth i don't think that was our intention we didn't go hey let's break the north wall we weren't that

sophisticated it was here's what it was and we eventually lost this battle but the battle for a long time because we wanted the consistency of being able to present those kinds of moments and you don't need to be long you don't need them a lot but you need them consistently over time at the right time but we kept running out a waste of explain it you know what I mean there's only so many things you can do that could explain how something you know how access you know a camera that normally wouldn't be there could plausibly be there that you got to cross that bridge with the viewer. And, you know, there's different ways you can do it, but you start running out of

those different ways pretty quickly. And then it becomes very repetitive. And it doesn't feel right. And it doesn't feel believable anymore. Well, I can only imagine the amount of focus that you guys had to put into this type of show. And whenever I'm looking for focus these days, and I know you do too, we both reach for Ultra. And I specifically want to chat with you guys who feel like you need a nicotine pouch every 15 minutes just to feel normal. I want to ask you a question, how many pouches or cups of coffee or energy drinks, do you need just to stop yourself from crashing? Or maybe even worse,

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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. So Eric, match nine is pretty remarkable. This should have been a pay-per-view main event, but it's all story. It's Stinging Lex Lugar against the Steiner brothers. Yeah, they did this once at Super Brawl back in the day. And on paper, you think, dude, this is going to be a fantastic match, but it only lasts 38 seconds.

Now, why is that? a damn neck nick patrick about 38 seconds in lugar accidentally collides with Patrick he got shoved by rick steiner bumps into nick patrick and nick immediately calls for the bell and disqualify sting and lugar obviously you know what you know what just let me let me comment brother well i hate to do this episode good that wasn't my idea i don't know whose idea it was i would bet a hundred i would bet everything i could get my hands on that was a that was a Kevin Sullivan idea that's it that was a classic and again just an example of the little thing and what makes it so brilliant is it's so subtle but it sucks you in that damn Nick Patrick in the way he did it and just a little bit of doubt

just a little shade of a question there you know how deep is this Nick Patrick how involved Is it true? What is, oh my gosh, what is he going to bow to next? You know what I mean? Now you're sucked into the story, however you interpret what's going on. But again, so nuanced, that's a little way. And the point I want to make is that was the challenge of keeping natural hot, is keeping consistent with those little details.

And that's an example of a really cool one. Give it to them, give it to. No, give it to them. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe they're giving us away. Oh, we did this. back in the pay-per-view, but now here we are, they took it away from us, those dirty bastards. It's pretty cool. Well, and it really furthers the storyline.

You know, we're knee-deep in this. And it's been done before. I mean, a generation before they did this with Danny Davis, a heel referee concept. But this is bigger because now it's like, is Nick Patrick on the take for the NWO? We're seeing Ted DiBiasey seemingly throwing his money around. Sting and Lex Lugar, they're not here for the shenanigans. they're pissed and they give chase to Nick Patrick. And as they're doing that,

they encounter the limousine. And who's inside the limousine? Ted DiBiase himself. Now, this is where it gets really interesting, especially if you're watching over at 83 weeks.com, because something really fun is going to happen here. First of all,

as a reminder, we all saw, Orkogan saying to Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, get back in the limo. He did not want it to be caught on camera. But now we reveal that it was actually Ted DiBiase in that limo. Was it Ted DiBiase's limo? He's not just some former random WWF guy watching the show.

No, he is officially involved with the NWO. This is the first time we know for sure. But nobody has ever seen anything like this before in wrestling. At least I haven't. Sting is going to grab a freaking cinder block and throw it through the limousine window. I mean, that has an air of realism that we would never get on another channel at this point. The limousine takes off. So Sting and Lex Lugar, I'm not making this up,

commandeer a police vehicle and go after the limousine. So now we've got two of our baby faces stealing a cop car, chasing around the NWO's limo. We've got Hill Street Blues. We've got Hill Street Blues on Nitro. It's unbelievable. By the way, we do see the four horsemen. They're here trying to find the NWO.

They're going to rush the limousine. But when they check the limousine now, guess what? Nobody's there. Now that creates a terrifying possibility. Like the NWO's mystery member, the guy that maybe Ted DiBiase was talking about when he threw that thumb up to show the number five the previous week, if they're not in the limo, does that mean they're already in the building? Oh, my gosh, they suckered us again.

It's time for our... Back to the building. Time for our main event. It's the four horsemen versus the dungeon of doom. So remember now, Chris Binwa and Steve Mungo-McMichael, they're not happy that Flare and Arne have bumped them out of the war games match with the NWO in favor of staying in Lex Lugar. So we've got all four horsemen here taking on Kevin Sullivan,

Ming, Barbarian, and Big Bubba. It's an eight-man main event, but all of a sudden, Hall, Nash, and Hogan hit the ring. The NWO is here and they're attacking everybody. The horseman, the dungeon, it doesn't matter. WCW is WCWCW and the NWO is the enemy. Things get chaotic. It breaks down and WCW needs help.

And here it comes, over seven feet tall to help. It's the giant coming down to save WCW. Now remember now, we're in September. So the prior month, Hogan, with the help of the NWO, stole the giant's big gold belt. The giant has repeatedly said he wants Hogan. And he's headed for a match with Randy. Savage at Fall Brawl.

And the giant is a member of the dungeon of doom. Duh. So of course he's here to save WCW. Of course he's here to save the NWO or to save WCW in the dungeon of doom. But when the giant gets in the ring, he chokeslams the barbarian. He chokeslams Ming. Then he turned to Kevin Nash and they embrace and the crowd realizes what has happened. The giant is the fifth member.

He's joined the NWO. this is technically the dust yes and this is really when you think about it the first major wcw defection because i know some people would say well no technically that was hogan but they teased all along the third man so it implies that hogan was in on this from the very beginning but the giant well he was not a part of it he just lost his title and he's a former wcd heavyweight champion so that that first and i never thought of it that way kind of until you just pointed that out if I heard you correctly. So then this first,

this move by the giant represents something that really is the, the overthrow. Yes. The first person to turncoat, right? Yes. The rest of it was a setup. Now we're getting into Act 2. We've been watching Act 1 for a while now, a couple weeks.

Now it's Act 2 because now it's the company falling apart. The plan is starting to work. And you got to wonder. with the limousine and Ted DiBiase. We saw it in the WWF with the million dollar corporation. Is it Ted DiViase's money that lured the giant? Whatever it is, Randy Savage sees this, and he goes freaking insane. He comes down to the ring with a steel chair, and he's nailing everybody.

The giant, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash. He's even got Hollywood Hogan cornered. The crowd is going absolutely crazy. But Hogan ducks the chair and nails a low blow. and now it's the NWO on Savage and they absolutely destroy him. Hogan gets the chair and Savage is paying for everything. Hogan blasts him.

The giant chokeslams him and I want you to go watch this chokeslam. It's one of the best the giant did. I mean, probably the most impactful choke slam at this point in his WCW run. But then Hogan delivers a leg drop and then another and then another. It's basically a preview of Halloween Havoc. Except Hogan's not trying to win the match. He's trying to humiliate Randy Savage. He's trying to prove a point, but they're still not done.

Hogan, we've already seen the previous week. He's spray painting the hair of Rick Flair with black. But not for Randy Savage. He paints a yellow streak down his back. This is personal. He's not just saying that Savage lost. He's calling Savage a coward. And we all know as wrestling fans by 1996,

the shared history with these guys, that goes back 10 years. And this is obviously going to make the Halloween Havoc match feel even bigger. And as a reminder, it's Savage versus the Giant next Sunday at Halloween Havoc. As you could imagine, especially in this era, the trash just starts raining in. But just like the prior week, the NWO is now headed to the broadcast position. You'll recall they took over commentary the previous week.

But now they've got a new member, The Giant. He's joining them at the desk. And he's going to explain what the hell he just did. It's all business. He says Ted DiBiase contacted him about business. That's a revelation. Ted DiBiase isn't just another wrestler. He's functioning as the financial power broker for the NWO.

And apparently, well, as he's told us for a long time, everybody has a price. So this is a really fun episode of Nitro, but we go off the air with something really fun here. Hogan and the NWO start destroying the Nitro set. They're actually tearing pieces of the set down. It's the perfect visual to go off the air. Three weeks prior to this, the NWO attacked wrestlers. Two weeks ago, they vandalized the production equipment. Last week, they hijacked commentary, and tonight,

they're tearing the entire show apart. And you see, Hogan, what an iconic shot that is of him holding the NWO or the WCW Monday Nitro sign that hung on the front of the desk, spitting on it. They're taking over the freaking program. This is a big time of that. Right there. That other shot,

you hold it back up again, David. Unbelievable. Isn't that a badass shot? It's amazing. David, I'd like to figure out a way to capture that and treat it somehow, but I would love that in a frame. I think that's really,

really cool. It just tells such a great story. And really, I love that shot. That's a cool shot. I'm sure I'll get sued by somebody for whatever, but I don't care. No,

I think it would be fantastic. We need to, Silva, if you'll send me that, I got an idea. Maybe we can do something fun with that. But Eric, here's what's so great about this.

First of all, you've got great wrestling. I mean, let's not forget, this is the first time a national audience has seen Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko. Let's not sleep on that.

Fantastic stuff. But the storyline beats of establishing the black limousine, establishing that WCW is desperate. How desperate? They're stealing freaking cop cars. They're throwing cinder blocks through windshields. Like, this is next level stuff of having that air of realism.

A Ted D.B. Biasi, he's now writing checks to recruit members of WCW. One of the head referees for WCW is seemingly on the take as well. So the question that we're really hammering home to close this episode of Nitro is, who can we trust? Who can we trust? Who's next on the WCW defection list? Who's next on the NWO payroll?

Now next week, we're going to see what we would call the go home episode of Monday Nitro before the next pay-per-view, where it's WCW versus the NW at War Games. Next week is when we'll see the debut of fake Sting, but we don't know it's fake Sting. We're going to see a guy who looks just like Sting, wearing Sting's outfit, jump out of that damn black limousine that we established this week with Ted DiBiase and attack Lex Lugar. And what will the results of that be?

We're just weeks away from the debut of Crow Sting. Eric, I absolutely love this era of Nitro. I know that people say, oh, Eric had one good idea. Piss off. This is the greatest idea and execution of a storyline ever. I'm so glad we're getting to celebrate it and break it down beat by beat. But the little nuances along the way, that makes all the difference. And that's what keeps me in this, man.

That's what keeps me having fun doing what we're doing is because I forgot about all this stuff. I mean, I didn't really notice or appreciate it is a better way to say it. may not have appreciated some of the nuanced genius that guys like Kevin Sullivan and others. I just keep going back to Kevin because he led the group. But that was part, you know, that was a team. Scott also had a lot to do with some of those nuanced, cool ways of executing some of these smaller ideas. This wasn't story art stuff.

These were character moments that in kind of elements to change the way people thought about the product but they were also nuanced and that's why there needed to be so many of them when it was so hard to keep it going but the fact that they came out of a collaboration of some pretty interesting cats um and i'm i'm seeing it in many cases like i said because i probably didn't recognize it for what it was when i saw it the first time now i get to relive and look at it from a different angle and it's so much more impressive to me it's like i want to say cab scott you know sully fuck that was some good shit guys i wish i would have said so then but thank you um It was some fantastic.

I'm saying about. Fantastic. I just love it. I can't get enough of it. I hope you guys will stay tuned. I can't wait to talk about what happens next week, where we see the fake sting, but we don't know it's the fake sting.

We're just weeks away from the debut of Crow Sting, and we are about to be knee-deep in what is going to be the biggest and most successful WCW payoff in history. I'm talking, of course, about StarK-97. I'm a year and change away from yelling at Eric again. Stay tuned. Hit the subscribe. button, turn on the notifications bell, and stay tuned.

Maybe you later this week will have the information about how you can watch Real American Freestyle for Moscow. In the meantime, go pick up a ticket for the next Real American Freestyle event at Real American Freestyle.com. Eric, thanks for all the time. I hope your cold gets better. I'm glad you're back, safe and sound, and I hope you get to use some of that blue chew tonight. I got plans. I got to go. We'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks. Thanks with Eric Bischoff.