83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 444: Watered Down Championship

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson examine the biggest stories shaping professional wrestling's past, present and future. Eric explains how The Ultimate Fighter helped save the UFC and why WWE still misses Pat Patterson's brilliant approach to constructing unforgettable match finishes. The guys also debate whether too many championship changes diminish the importance of a world title, why Netflix wants and needs more WWE programming, and how WWE's growing relationship with Disney could become a massive money making machine. Plus, Eric says that if you like to bet, bet on Danhausen; the mystery surrounding WrestleMania's date continues; and the guys look back at the historic night the Monday Night War officially began. It's business, controversy and wrestling history, only on 83 Weeks!     THIS WEEKS SPONSORS 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. ULTRA - Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code 83WEEKS at http://takeultra.com ! #UltraPouches #ad 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 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 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 http://chime.com/disclosures  for details. SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.savewithconrad.com  to learn more. PODCAST HEAT - Want to grow your business with the power of podcast advertising? Reach loyal, engaged audiences through trusted host endorsements across the Podcast Heat network. Learn more at PodcastHeat.com

Today's episode comes to you from the Blue Chew Studio. When you buy two months of Blue Chew Gold, you get the third for free with the promo code 83 weeks. You'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order at bluechew.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fishaw, Eric. What's going on, man?

How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I finally feel like I'm back home after the quick trip over to Moscow and back. And shaking a cold, I picked up on the way. All right, man. I'm feeling good. Looking forward to Miami next weekend.

A lot of good RIF stuff coming up. Some big international shows we're going to announce soon. Our new reality show is going to be debuting here on Fox Nation this week. So a lot of great stuff going on. Yeah, I do want to ask you about the reality show. If you haven't heard the news, there is a new. new real American freestyle competition show. And I believe it's called RAF Undiscovered.

The premise is we're going to see 12 elite relatively unknown wrestlers compete head to head for a chance for a life-changing professional contract. You're going to be able to track the athletes through these intense live auditions and competitions. And of course, this feels like it's in the same vein as, man, is that right? 21 years ago we saw the ultimate fighter. Is this sort of the, the RAF answer to the ultimate fighter concept, Eric? I think the ultimate fighter concept, um, actually is, is in many respects, is singularly the most important thing that's happened for the benefit of MMA in our,

in our television lifetimes. No doubt. That show, the UFC was burning cash. It was a bonfire. And there weren't a lot of things on the horizon to suggest that it wouldn't continue to just burn cash. Until a guy by the name of Craig Peligian, very prolific, unscripted reality show, competition, elimination, form, you know, anything involving testosterone and danger. That's Craig Peligian's kind of,

real house and he got in there and worked with UFC and there's really Craig Pelagian his genius that came up with the format that's why I talked so much about formats things and recipes and formulas that are balanced in such a way that they make your presentation feel very unique because it is right and religion delivered a hell of a format it got people interested in the sport that was otherwise kind of obscure or if people people didn't know about it. Generally, depending on where you were in the country, you looked down upon it.

It was, yeah, it was like human cockfighting. It is it. That was the general perception outside of, of course, the fan base knew better. That show changed all that. And you can go back and look at the revenue model of UFC and the trajectory and when and how things turned around. And I think you'd be hard to argue that that show wasn't the reason for. it. Random sentence here.

Can you believe Stefan Bonner passed away? You know, Stefan Bonner and Forrest Griffin, the main event of that show, was one of the greatest fight. I mean, do you want to talk about the right place, the right time?

The UFC needed a hit. Of course, you had Ken Shamrock on that show and you had Rich Franklin on that show. So there was some other star power, but paying off this competition show and the result of this competition show being perhaps the most exciting

MMA fight in television history at that point. And I maybe even to this day, but it's really crazy to think that Stefan Bonner now has been gone four years. He passed away at just 45 years old. I don't know. It feels like he and Forrest Griffin and they really help put that company on the map with their performance that night. And I don't know. It's still just is a head scratcher to me. Maybe I, I hate to say it this way, but we're more familiar. And we've at least heard the story of a professional wrestler passing away young, but Stephen Bonner at 45 is still like, damn, that's way too young. Yeah, that's young.

But circling back, you know, your question was, is this our response to that? And it's, no, it's not a response to it. You know, we're honoring the model. Yeah. American freestyle is going to honor the previous work of Craig Polydian and Pilgrim Filgram and all the people at USC that also helped make that work. But of course, we're going to utilize that model. And it's a great opportunity.

because there are so many talented athletes out there that, you know, with just a little bit more of a break or a little more time or a little bit more of something, we're almost there. And we can give those athletes hope and a chance to continue living their dreams. So that's a pretty cool opportunity to have and it's fun to do. I hope people check it out. All right. have fun discovered on Fox Nation. Oh, that's what I was looking for. Fox Nation. Now,

Eric, do I have it right that that starts this Wednesday? Is that right? Yes. That was the information I have. Yes. So that's kind of cool. Wednesdays are going to be a double header for you now. Fox Nation has the competition show and there's a wrestling show on Wednesday, something for everybody. I'm excited about this though, man. If you really do take a look at the UFC's fortunes. If you were a long time UFC fan, you saw they went through sort of the Dark Ages as you laid out. And they self-funded this reality show. And I don't think anybody expected it to have the boom of success that it did.

And this is around the same time that Chuck Liddell was starting to have a lot of success. But once they became a television hit on cable TV and they bet on themselves with the reality show, I mean, there really is a before and after of the UFC. And I think the ultimate fighter was right in the middle of that. And Eric, you know, this is kind of your wheelhouse. And I really want to spend just a minute talking about this because I do feel like a lot of the UFC these days, at least from my perspective, is it feels like it's a lot of matchups. And I'm not going to be negative about that, but I'm saying you don't have a chance to get emotionally invested in some of the performers. The way you do like professional wrestling has always done with whether it's WWE or WCW or what have you.

but the ultimate fighter allowed you to get to know the guys. And so you sort of pull for those people one way or another. I'm going to switch sports for a minute. My mom, not a big football fan, getting her to sit down and watch an entire three or three and a half hour NFL game. It's just not going to happen. I mean, she's going to, she may sit there, but she's going to pull out the iPad and start scrolling Facebook or whatever it is she does.

And she'll be polite, but Lord, she just could not possibly care less. but she loves the television show that HBO puts together called Hard Knocks, the story of these young hopefuls who are trying to make a roster. Now, the cosmic joke in that, I suppose is most of the people that you're going to see followed and profiled who are trying to make the roster, you're not going to see much of them on Sunday.

But that doesn't matter to my mom. My mom wants to pull for people. She likes the human interest story. And I think that this reality show format, I know it worked for the UFC because people fell in love with some of these characters like Chris Lieben and Rashad Evans and a bunch of other folks. I don't know that they would have had an emotional connection with a Josh Koshchek or something like that if it weren't for the reality show format.

So yes, you're going to find some incredible fighters and some incredible athletes, but this allows the viewer at home, maybe a non-hardcore amateur wrestling fan or Greco-Roman fan or whatever it may be, freestyle wrestling fan. They can sort of fall in love with the people and the story. and because they like the person, they're going to sort of check out some of the wrestling and learn more and give it a shot and say,

hey, you know what? This is kind of fun. That's the whole idea here, right? You know, Conrad, you did such a phenomenal job of framing up your question in the picture you painted along with it. And about two-thirds of the way through it, I'm realizing that what you really are describing

is exactly what we're doing in everything we produce for Real American Freestyle. Absolutely. Letting the audience get to know not only the athletes, the people, and their backstories. And that's one of the reasons why I was so excited about this project from day one when I first called me is because I knew that this opportunity was going to be a great one to introduce in a whole, in an entirely different way, one of the oldest sports in America and present the unique stories associated

with the people that are in it. And I knew I had a sense of that. I wasn't deep into the wrestling culture. Obviously, it had been a long time since I wrestled. But I was still familiar enough and stayed indirectly in touch with a little bit of what was going on to know that the potential was there. And what we did is we applied that premise

of letting the audience get to know the wrestlers, including it in our numbered event formats. That's why the packages, we invests a lot of time and money in those packages, more than anybody else ever has. Why? Because it works. Because I knew it would work.

Because Chad and Izzy knew it would work. Because we've seen it, I've done it. I think in some respects invented it, you know, in two-hour weekly, live sports action, whatever you want to call it. The nitro format revolutionized wrestling. And it wasn't until WWE followed that format about a year later after being forced to from a financial perspective. That's when the WWE business turned around.

We've talked about this many times, probably more than anybody wants to hear. But it's true, nonetheless. And now what we've done is we're taking everything that we've all learned, you know, what UFC learned from WWE and vice versa and what we're looking. learning from other people in addition to the things that I've kind of created myself or experienced and we're coming up with a format that allows the audience to get to the players and fall in love with the sport. That's a big part of it. I hope you guys will check it out. It debuts this Wednesday on Fox Nation and of course

we've got a big event coming up this weekend in Miami, Florida. Colby Covington are going to be in the main event, Chi-Moff on the undercard. Kennedy Blasie. is going to be a part of the show. Luke Rockhold, if you're a longtime MMA fan, you're familiar with that name. He'll be competing. But I got to tell you, one of the things I'm looking forward to seeing the most,

because I saw him do his thing live in action in St. Louis, and I was so impressed is Mugsy, not just hyping up the crowd, he's getting in the ring. If you're not familiar with Mugsy, and you're a pro wrestling, you're a sports entertainment fan, man Mugsy in an alternate world,

in a different timeline, He would have been a huge wrestling star, don't you think? Oh, he would have loved it. He's got such a big personality. And the thing I really dig about Mugsy is it's all authentic. He's the real deal. And you just watch any of his social media and I encourage people to look him out. I think he goes by Mugsy bulk junk, which is, you know, I haven't asked him about that yet.

It just feels a little personal. I'm afraid to ask, but not sure how he'd react to that question if I asked it. But nonetheless, he is a great guy. He is so good with kids. And this is what excites me about people like Mungzi. And really the wrestling culture is I've kind of being re-sposed to it later in life is, man, the kids are such a big part of it. And you see coaches that you can tell they get so much fulfillment out of coaching. And the kids, you know, get the fulfillment from the coaching.

And it's really cool to see those bonds. But Mugsy's one of those guys. When you walk in a room, you see him working. with kids, there's a different kind of vibe going on between those two, right? They're connecting in a different way than maybe a kid normally would with, you know, someone like me or you, you know, it's just, it's different. It is different. I hope you guys will check it out.

I think you're going to absolutely love it. If there's an opportunity, if you're within driving distance of the Miami show this weekend, I want to encourage you to go see it. I've seen all the shows on Fox Nation, but the one I was fortunate enough to see in person in St. Louis. And it is a next level experience. If you've ever been to a UFC before, you know that it's kind of a party atmosphere in between the matches. Respectfully, professional wrestling has not caught up in regard to that. But the live experience for real American freestyle is like the UFC times 10. I absolutely recommend it. I hope you'll

pick up tickets. Real American Freestyle.com is where you can grab those if you're within driving distance of Miami. If you're not, fire it up on Fox Nation this Saturday. And don't forget to sit down with your wife, sit down with a non-fan, sit down with a young person who you're trying to get interested into something you like, a shared passion of yours. A lot of that can happen with these sort of reality show format. So I hope you'll check out the brand new show from Real American Freestyle, R-A-F undiscovered. It comes out this Wednesday on Fox Nation. But this Saturday, the fight is on. And where you're watching, Draft Kings brings you closer to the M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-A.

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Terms at dkng.com slash offer. Limited time offer nationwide based on sports book predictions and free to play sports contest availability. Varies by state. Eric, we are recording on a Saturday morning and we are just fresh off of something I can be honest. I did not expect. We have a brand new WWE undisputed champion. As we're recording this last night, Sammy Zane beat CM Punk on Smackdown. And this makes the fourth time the title has changed hands on TV this year. If you go back to January, you saw Drew McIntyre beat Cody Rhodes in a three stages of hell match to win the championship.

That happened on Smackdown. A couple of months later, it was March 6th when Cody Rhodes would defeat Drew McIntyre to reclaim the title. Jacob Pitu had prevented Drew from using a steel chair and the golden boy, but QB1 had the big gold belt around his waist again. Now, fast forward to July 6th, and we've heard in a promo before WrestleMania, when CM Punk said to Cody Rhodes,

you never know when a title opportunity is going to fall out of the sky, and it did on July 6th. CM Punk made a surprise return and defeated Sammy Zane after replacing an injured Cody Rhodes in the scheduled title match. That ended a nine-day title reign for Sammy Zane. but now it's all over. Sammy Zane has ended CM Punk's 67-day title reign, this time on a live Smackdown in Mexico City.

Of course, Kevin Owens got involved accidentally. He's going to hit CM Punk with the championship belt. Sammy Zane is going to follow up with a hell of a kick. And now we've got Sammy Zane's second reign. And on the surface, I thought to myself, self, Listen, I know I'm just an independent wrestling mark. If you're going to do this with Sammy Zane, it would have been cool if we would have seen Nail Generico in WWE wearing the mask.

I get it. But I wondered, why are they doing this? I don't, and then it clicked, Eric. In a couple of weeks, WWE is going head to head with AEW. It's going to be the When World's Collide Show. So it's a AAA WWE joint show in Chicago in the exact same, town at the exact same time that AEW is doing all out.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a rematch for CM Punk to challenge for the world title in Chicago head to head with the AEW show in the same town? That's got to be where this is headed, don't you think? I have no idea. I have no idea. Wouldn't they be booking for the market though instead of booking for the country? I mean, are you going to pull stuff like that? Not that I'm saying you shouldn't, but.

Is the purpose of making that happen to get the localized impact that you'd get from punk? I don't know. It's a good question. How do you reconcile this? You know, once upon a time, you know, we heard guys like Ole Anderson, who was clearly had an older vision of pro wrestling. He felt like, hey, you're giving away so much on TV. That was criticism that was thrown your way a lot.

I mean, maybe most famously with Goldberg beating Hulk Hogan. But here the WWE has done it four times this year, and we're just in early September. You know, at different times, people have different opinions about what should or shouldn't happen with the world title. A lot of shenanigans in this finish that allowed Sammy Zane to win the title back. I know you had a chance to at least see a clip of that. What do you think of the execution of the title switch and just where the WWE is with this big gold belt and it's sort of flip-flopping on TV four times?

this year. It's interesting and I appreciate you sending me that clip and yes I did have a chance to look at it and it just immediately a couple things pop right into my head. Just a visceral kind of reaction to them and they're not good no bad, just things that made me go

I wonder why. One is and this is going to all get to why I think we've seen so many bell changes but bear with me. It may take me a minute to get there. The finish was like, okay, it was fundamentally sound, but it was really nothing special. There was no real emotional ever flow in that finish as it was going down. It was like, hey, we're going to the finish, but there was no build. There was no drama associated with that finish.

It was a very one Z, Z, two, Z, three. Do you do this? I do that. You do it, boom, I get the belt. We're done. It was very formulaic, and it came off that way to me. And again, that's the way I view wrestling. I don't view it as a fan.

I view it as a producer. I can't freaking help it. So my views on these things probably won't, you know, align very comfortably with many people because I'm looking at things differently than you are, and you're kind of interpreting my angle into yours. My point is it was a very fundamental, like not a lot of thought went into it. And my second thought, you know, and I think the first was more of a reaction to what I was

seeing. Then I started thinking about it. And the first thing I thought of was, I bet you they're missing Paterson. Actually, they're missing that one person that can really, you know, do. And I'm not a finished guy. I've never even been in a room with a really good finish guy where they were talking. talking about, you know, the really, the minutia of a really good finish, right? I've never been exposed to that, so I don't want to sound like I have.

But I've been around enough of it to know what I was missing. And when I look at the landscape of people there, you know, is Michael Hayes possibly, potentially, probably at least partially, if not largely, that guy? Yeah, I could believe that. He was really, I mean, Michael's Michael, you could say whatever you want. He's a brilliant. He's a brilliant hat.

You've got some really smart people around there, including Heyman, you know, Bruce. There's still some guys that have connective tissue to the wrestling psychology that has always made wrestling work. Because I think largely there's a stronger influence of, there's a stronger pressure to move forward with non, necessarily wrestling psychology things, if that makes sense. I think in the pushing it more mainstream, we're losing a little bit of connection to what makes wrestling special and unique from other forms of TV.

So that's kind of how I process that 54-second clip. Those are the things that popped out to me. Kind of boring, and I wonder if this really represents a shift in the business model because the business model has shifted from what it was even five years ago. What do you guys think? Do you like to see title changes on TV? Does it add to the story?

And that's really what I think this is all about. I mean, it is heavy on story. And I know that once upon a time, certainly amongst critics, you know, they want to see clean finishes. They want to see long competitive matches. And I get that, certainly from a PLE standpoint. But on television, it does probably need to be more. story and less hard hitting action. I'm not saying that there's not a balance there, but

story is what's going to keep people hanging around, don't you think? I know I'm sounding a broken record, but we talk about this all the time. A story is everything. I know the online debate, you know, the internet wrestling community. It's, you know, you have that you have that fan base. It just loves the human car crash. I did too. That's why I created the Cruiserweight Division. I said it back in 1996. These guys are my human car crash. That's how. how I define the Cruiserweight Division back when I launched it, right? So it's not that I don't like that high-flying, very athletic, acrobatic, dynamic presentation we actually need it.

But now we've leaned so heavily into it that we've leaned out of kind of the good stuff. The stuff that makes that unbelievably, you know, fun presentation mean even more if you can is by giving it a great story. So we're not watching an exhibition of athleticism in a five-star match. We're watching Broadway. We're watching live theater heavily dosed in testosterone, heavily drenched in testosterone. It's combat theater is what we're really enjoying. That's a great way to put it. I don't know if anybody has before, but it's really what sports entertainment is. It's combat theater. And the more believable the theater part of the combat is,

the more likely it is the audience will dig it. From a ratings perspective, obviously, you know, people want to see, you know, I made the analogy recently that in WWE, it does feel like if you go to a WWE show, you're there to see storyline advancement. Yes, there will be wrestling, but it's almost in the background. We're going to see lots of promos. we're going to see lots of backstage skits. That's sort of what it is.

If you go to an AEW show, there will be some of that, but there will be more wrestling. And I do think that the formula that the masses want is they want that soap opera feel. And I guess where I'm getting at is when you see something of consequence happen, you know, for years and years, these international PLEs were often sort of disregarded.

Because we knew, hey, nothing substantial is going to happen here. There's not going to be any storyline. advancement. We're not going to switch titles. Well, we just switched the title in Mexico City last night, and it was on Smackdown for free on regular table television. Does that have a long-term positive effect on the ratings or is it negligible? I ask because I know that you experimented with this a few times, including I think one of the best executions that people always focus on the Goldberg change and it was unbelievable in July of 98. But if you go back to the prior August of 97,

at Nitro 100. You guys flirted with the idea of doing a three-hour nitro. That was the first one at the Palace of Auburn Hills. And somehow, some way, Lex Lugar shocked the world and beat Hulk Hogan. That felt really, really big.

But in fairness, it felt really, really big because Hogan had the title for so long at that point, too. So just talk to me about, you know, what are the pros and the cons of doing a title switch on TV? Can you do it too much?

Does it happen to diminishing returns, or is it tried and true as a way to keep people sticky to the program, if you will? The answer is obviously in the middle, somewhere, deeply nuanced in the middle. And it's sometimes kind of hard to find. But if you pair it down just to a simple conversation that you would have with someone that maybe really didn't know much about professional wrestling, but you kind of wanted to explain, you know, how it worked. It's pretty simple in terms of its building blocks. You need a good guy. You need a bad guy or that girl, good girl, whatever.

Take your pick. You need that have a serial position between your two characters. You need a mission, a journey. There needs to be a path. And there needs to be stakes. and in combat theater, the stakes, the primary stakes, the stakes that are above all else, including maybe in some cases family, is the belt.

That's the perception that you're trying to create. So how do you protect it? How do you build upon it? And how do you exploit it in a way that doesn't diminish it? And I don't have that answer. You know, people have tried in different ways. I'm a firm believer that when you can keep it, keep it on a heel for as long as you can until you really build that baby face and then go.

But doing it too often does diminish it. If the end result of it doesn't change anything, it's just, you take it for a while, you drag it through the airport. I'm tired of checking this thing through baggage. Here, it's yours, but on the business side of the equation, nothing really moves. And you do that a couple times in a row. The audience may not know that your business, that should not move in the needle financially, but the energy will be there.

There won't be any increase in energy. It won't be a result. It won't have mattered. The belt change won't have mattered. And if it changes a few times, and I'm guilty, Your Honor, okay, I've accepted my punishment. You know, I've been living it ever since. You know, been there, done that. That's why I'm so confident what I'm telling you is you have to be able to know when to say when.

And doing it too often does diminish it. How do you mitigate that and still keep stakes because you need those stakes? What other stakes are there available in a competition, you know, a match? between two individuals to name a winner and a loser. There's got to be something in it for them, right? What is that? Well, if it's not the belt, I don't know what else it would be right now, top of my eye.

Versus, nobody's going to buy that bullshit anyway. So you need those titles in there, and those titles are probably less significant in terms of how often they can be changed because they don't mean as much, other than perhaps a progression to, if they're disciplined, a progression to a world title shot, that would be, that's cool, I think, but I don't think anybody's been really disciplined enough to do that in a long time consistently.

So they're basically just there to help provide stakes to the story that they're trying to tell on TV in the lower cards. And those titles probably do have to be switched more frequently because of the nature of what they are and what they're designed to achieve. whereas your main championship, I think, should be your PLE, your, your, your, your, your, your, your WrestleMania, your all in, whatever, whatever your relative event is, they should be special occasions. Eric, you mentioned, you know, stakes.

And one of the things that I appreciated about the way wrestling was that I think we're missing now in wrestling, I want to pick your brain about. And I know it's a little thing. but I think sometimes we're also familiar with wrestling that we forget that, hey, you know, the story here is, wink, wink, this is a fighting league and everyone is trying to move up the ranks, just like they would in a traditional, you know, UFC or RAF or professional boxing. But I remember the after mags, we used to call them, the grocery store magazines, and you've got all these different ones, but at the back, you could flip open and see what,

what they would have as rankings, like a top 10. And in your early tenure in WCW, when you first get there, they're still doing a top 10. So on the weekly syndicated shows on the weekend, they're going to have, you know, Gordon Soli or someone like that rate the top 10. So, of course, your world champion and then the number one contender is the United States champion. And then we're going to list everyone else, give them a number one through 10,

list their hometown, list their weight. And it would be like a way of sort of keeping up the way. way you would in a traditional sport, like in college football, we get the AP. And a few years ago, we used to get the BCS. But we knew, hey, this is the number four team in the country. This is the number six team in the country, whatever it may be. But WWE doesn't really do that. And maybe it's because it is more entertainment and it doesn't need to be as much of a

sports like presentation. But wouldn't that be an easy way to give stakes? I mean, you made a great point when you said, hey, nobody's going to buy the first talk anymore because that used to be a pretty common thing on commentary. You would hear the announcers say, hey, they're looking for the winner's side of the purse tonight. So it's as if this was a traditional boxing match. Like the winner makes more money. You know, in the UFC, you know, you usually have a contract where it's like X number of dollars to fight and you get a bonus if you win. And if you lose, well, you don't get that sort of bonus.

Talk to me about that. Do you think the top 10 concept could work or by doing that and associate a number, does it relegate certain talent in the minds of the audience to say, well, they're not even in the top 10, so they're not serious. Because I would argue a guy like Otis who just returned to TV, clearly there's a lot of hardcore Otis fans out there. Shout out to Cassio Kid, one of his absolute favorite wrestlers. I don't think Otis is going to be in the top 10. And I don't think an Otis fan, someone who likes Otis, is necessarily saying,

oh, well, even though he hasn't won a lot of matches on TV, I'm disappointed he's not in the top 10. Is the top 10 a 1980s thing and it needs to go away or could it have value now? No, I think it's more needed now than it ever has been. Could it work? Yes. Would it take a tremendous amount of work? Maintenance and discipline? Yes, it would because it could get out of control pretty quickly. You know, creative and we'll call this PR would have to be really, really, really, closely aligned and looking at the same calendars. Now, that's where it gets tricky because a PR calendar, a marketing calendar,

is looking 90 days out more often than not in terms of how they plan, whereas, you know, live television, when changes have to, you know, sometimes injuries, whatever, travel issues, you know, require, okay, we've got to go instead of taking the left, we need to take a right. And everything else is going to have to adjust downstream. So the difference in timelines and it's syncing up between really optimizing your marketing and promotional opportunity to tie in with the TV opportunity, if you can achieve that and have that kind of thing supported by the ranking so that it's consistent across all your forms of entertainment, I think it would be an awesome thing because it gives you a framework.

If you don't believe me, if this isn't connecting with you for any reason, I beg you, go to any national sports radio show that cover sports. On serious or anywhere else you find it, there's a lot of them out there, but they're national shows on CBS or whatever. Check them out. There's some really good ones out there. And if you listen to them talk on Saturday, and all this is driven by what? betting. Everything is through the lens of the odds or what Vegas says, right? Or the talking heads that happen to be talking about, you know, whatever game they're talking about. It's all within the

architecture, the discussion is all within the architecture of the gaming industry. It's what they have to talk about. It's what they have to argue about. You think somebody's an underdog? I I think they're an easy bet, whatever. It's something to talk about other than statistics, and you work those in. So I think if there's a way to do it and integrate it, that'll be the challenges. How do you integrate that and support it across all your lines of contact with the audience? Because that's what it would take to make it work.

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Blue Raz. It's Dave Silva's favorite. Ultra is the ultimate guilt-free pouch. It delivers you instant focus and mental clarity without the nicotine or caffeine. The new customers can use our code 83 weeks to get 15% off at take ultra.com. That's t-a-e-e-ultra.com for 15% off. Just use our code 83 weeks. Now after you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Eric, let's much gears here just a little bit. And let's talk about the Netflix partnership with WWE. A friend of the show, Richard Dites has a fabulous podcast. Highly recommend you check it out. It's D-E-I-T-C-S-C-H, easy for me to say. That's how you spell his last name. But he had

Gabe Spitzer on. And we've mentioned his name before. He is the Netflix VP of Global Live Sports. And he had a quote when he's talking about, he is talking a little bit about the NFL game in Australia, but he's talking even more about WWE. He says, WWE has been great partners and I think we're thrilled with the results so far. We knew in the U.S. that having Raw every week, we'd have that passionate, loyal fan base that they have expected in ways over to Netflix.

It is a hit with every metric that we hope for on the U.S. side. The place we've been surprised in a good way is that we continue to grow outside of the U.S. In most countries in the world, we're the home for all of WWE. That's raw, that's Smackdown, that's NXT. That's the big premium live events every month like WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam.

So I think we probably kind of knew this, but the idea that that he's saying, hey, the real growth is on the international events because, well, that makes a lot of sense to me. And as a reminder, Netflix became the exclusive home of WWB in Italy on April 1st. It just so happens that on May 31st, WWE did their first PLE in Italy.

It was the clash in Italy. So this is a way whenever there is new growth expansion globally, Netflix could pick up the phone and say, hey man, we got a new market opening up here. What if we ran a big show over there? I could see how this has the makings of a great long-term relationship if you've got that sort of correspondence and relationship with your broadcast partner.

I mean, so much of the WWs revenue is guaranteed through these contracts. And if you know, you've got it, I guess we call it an emerging market to use business speak. Why not send a big PLE over there, right? Absolutely. You're growing the market. I mean, this is like going back to the, maybe the territory days back in the early 20s. I don't know, I'm not a historian, but before they became really successful and well defined,

having the opportunity to basically do it at Lewis and Clark expedition and carve out whatever territory you wanted to carve out. go with it, right? That's kind of where we're at here. It'll be really fascinating to see. For years, I've kind of looked at what, and wondered why wrestling has been so uniquely successful in Europe. And some of the answers are obvious, but, you know, at the core of it all, And I think one of the reasons why the sports entertainment product works, the combat theater elements of sports entertainment works, because it translates, good and evil translates. You don't need close captioning, right?

It doesn't need to be interpreted. You can figure it out watching it, right? Emotion translates. You don't need to understand the language. If you're following along and the performances are right, you're enjoying and I think wrestling has the ability to not only

with the events of post-production capabilities and doing voiceovers and making it sound like your announces or actually you have the menu when they're really not all of that is late 80 stuff that is involved and now it's really in place

but there's still something really special about those live events in those markets and I think anytime they have an opportunity to do mission because you're growing your territory. How deep can this form of entertainment who maybe hasn't had as much exposure as it has for obvious reasons in the UK and throughout Europe? You know, what is the Chinese market going to look like?

I have no idea. I've heard people talk about it, speculate. I've never heard anybody that really knows what you're talking about, talk about, you know, will this more translate to the Chinese culture? because if so, you know, buy your stock now, you know, that's another, you know, that would be an amazing thing.

Well, there's no doubt about that. I want to talk a little bit more about what we learned from Dice's podcast with Spitzer. He called out the C and Punk Bronn breaker match. That happened on the very first episode of Raw this year. He gave that as an example of WWE and Netflix really working closely together. And he said that if Netflix is getting.

given five or six weeks notice, they can activate a lot of promotional levers to help boost these viewing figures. He even said, we're going to see more of this, specifically citing Roman Reigns versus Penta. And that, of course, is going to happen in Mexico, as we know, coming up, I think later tonight. But it is a big ask from Netflix to say, because we know that creatively, a lot of wrestling is, you know, you have hammered it here on the show, the whole Sarsa format,

surprise is a big piece of that. Hey, you have at different times been critical of AEW announcing the night before dynamite. Hey, here's the entire card. Here's everything you're going to see because you believe, and I think you're on to something here, that there is a certain contingent of fans who will say, yeah, nothing really interests me on that. I'll skip this one. Whereas you made nitro sort of must see TV because you never knew what was going to happen.

Who's going to pull up in a black limo? Hey, Lex Lugar doesn't work here. What's he doing here? all of that sort of stuff. But if you've got a partner like Netflix, well, you do have to at least consider, hey, we could treat some of our raw television shows. I mean, I guess it's a Netflix special.

You know what I mean, though. It's not a traditional PLE. And announce a match weeks in advance to get that support from Netflix. Like, you got to jump at that opportunity if you're WWE, right? You have to. You have to try. And if it doesn't work the first time, figure out why and go back and rethink it. re-architecture it because you that's I mean that's the beauty of synergy when it when and I hate

it just about makes me gagged using the word in a conversation so much I hate it because it was pounded down our throats by a bunch of people who didn't know how to define it but nonetheless synergy now is is the topic here and I think if if there is a way that you can weave corporate marketing Netflix marketing and creative as tightly as possible so that you can exploit that immediacy, right? Four, five, six weeks is all the time that you need, but it's also cool because it can be made to feel spontaneous and urgent, right? So it's a great thing if you can pull it together.

And, you know, there's a pretty good minds there on both sides of the equation. I bet you they will. I'll be a game changer. Oh, there's no doubt about that. And I can't believe it. but on Dice's podcast, again, you should go check this out. Spitzer strongly hints that in order to increase the U.S. audience, Netflix is interested in acquiring even more WWE programming when it becomes available.

Now, I don't, I mean, obviously that seems obvious, I guess, if something's working, you want more of it. But the idea that you've got a VP saying that in a media appearance makes me feel like, boy, this relationship, because there's always rumor and innuendo, and I know. know that's a sidebar for you another time about dirt cheats who were making things up, blah, blah, blah. But for him to sort of hint, no, we have an appetite for more. Boy, that's got to make everybody in Stanford feel good. And it does bring into question, is he talking about NXT?

Is he talking about SmackDown? Is he talking about AAA? Is there an opportunity for an acquisition for TNA? Is it something else? I think it's interesting that, hey, there may be more money in them there. heels when it comes to Netflix. It will be. And any one of those outcomes that you just walk through could possibly be it.

You know, what is Netflix, you know, strategy for the next five years? How are they going to recategorize their programming or re-evaluate their programming? What's working? What's not working? How do we block it? meaning what programs of similar nature and audience composition that are kind of in the same genre or ballpark, how many of those do we have? How do we figure out a better way to get the most out of this audience, right?

They start segmenting the audience that way and offering up perhaps special promotions to access that special content. All of that stuff creates a little bit more interest and generates a lot. interest in a product and hopefully, you know, makes it more valuable. Seems, I don't know much about Netflix's business model other than they gobble up everything and they make any show. Well, it's not true anymore, but there was a time when I was in a business. And the hardest thing about selling a show to Netflix isn't selling a show to Netflix.

It's getting in the door. But if you got through the door, you were selling a show to Netflix. If you were, you know, reasonably good at what you did, had a reasonably decent idea, you'd sell it at Netflix. They were buying everything, buying up things because they want to be the largest probably content provider platform in the world in their other way. So are they going to make even a bigger investment in wrestling, including outside of WWE content?

That's a nice thing to think about. You know, who knows? Well, I can't say that I had this on my bingo card. I mean, we have sort of freestyled this for years that WWE feels like they would be a natural fit with Disney. I know we sort of speculated when Vince first went public and saying he was pursuing other ideas and options

and opportunities. Disney was always on the short list and you can take a look at what they've done with some of their theme parks in recent years. They doubled down on Star Wars. They doubled down on Harry Potter. And man, they're just printing money. Not just from a live park experience, but the ability to merchandise all of that

stuff and create new stuff that we've seen. I'm not a Star Wars guy, but I guess, you know, Mandelorian was a success for them and they had this whole baby Yoda concept, like that they can leverage the nostalgia too. And when you look at that from a macro perspective, it's like, man, is there a better fit for this than WWE? And Mark Shapiro announced earlier this week at the Goldman Sachs conference that the

company is planning something with Disney. The exact quote is, I'm excited for 2027 because we're working with the Walt Disney company on some special events around Disney and WWE and bringing those two audiences together. Now, later in the week, Fightful Select reported that a WWE source speculated that it's going to be a WWE themed

Disney cruise line experience that could make business sense down the road. WWE stars are expected to begin appearing on Disney Plus programming over the next year. I heard from people who were outside of our wrestling bubble and they just happened to be big Disney fans and they take their kids on a Disney cruise

every year, that sort of thing. and multiple friends of mine who have young kids sent me a text or a screenshot of this report and said something like finally our worlds are colliding. Like we have talked about for what feels like years on this program that a missing piece of the WWE equation and maybe it really got abandoned wet back during the attitude era is catering to kids. But if you're going to do freaking Disney and WWE cruises, boy, that's how you get the families. that's how you set the hook with the kids. What do you think of this?

I know you tried the, I think it was called the wrestle vessel vessel or the bruise cruise that you guys did once upon a time. But a partnership with Disney, well, that's a whole other level, right? Who to thunk wrestling and Disney? What an odd marriage that would be.

But to answer your question or react to your statement, really about, you know, that being, WWE doing business with Disney and being part of that cruise is really identifying now with that teen and preteen audience, which is cool. But what I, what I'm wondering now, the producer in me is, how does that affect me or does it affect me creatively? Yep. While I'm also trying to tell stories that are going to appeal to a 25 to 49 year old demo. or even an 18 to 25 year old demo because those are two different worlds.

So how much balance do I have to have between those two different worlds? How much distance do I have to have between those two different worlds? So interesting opportunity, I always look for the other side of it. So who knows? Well, I mean, you and I have speculated before. I think it's got to be a third show. I think that's the only way it works. I'm saying in addition to Raw and SmackDown,

I guess you could say NXT is the third show. So maybe it's the fourth show. There needs to be a children themed show. And it could be a Saturday morning show or what have you. But I mean, all of my, when I was growing up, I mean, I don't mind sharing.

The reason I'm a wrestling fan now is because I fell in love with it as a kid. And I think almost everyone listening to this identifies with that. And we've sort of been chasing that dragon ever since. We want it to feel for us as 45 year old freaking adult. the way it did as 10-year-old kids. And 35 years later, it ain't. But it ain't ever going to change. But we keep watching because we fell in love with it.

And it's that connective tissue of the way wrestling made us feel when we were 10. And I want to get that feeling in young people today. But maybe some of the adult-themed storylines are going to keep moms and dads from wanting us to watch that. So maybe this is another example. I mean, we just speculated last week, why do you think WWB is censoring their stuff on Netflix. This week we find out they're talking to Disney. Uh-huh. Maybe we figured it out. But I am curious, would a Saturday morning show, a Sunday morning show just aimed at kids?

Could that be successful in 2026? You know, I don't know. I'm so far removed from the kids block. You know, what used to be considered a kids black. The very first show that I sold with Jason Hervey, my former partner. Shut out, Jason. I know I owe you a call, was to a woman by the name of Molly Miles, who was the VP of production for Fox Kids Network. Because Fox Network had a kids network, and that was Saturday mornings was their block. And I remember what the time was probably from 8 to noon, right? And all of the programming was geared towards teens and preteens. Well, the whole kids block kind of concept went away for whatever reason for all of the networks. And it was no longer kind of exclusive to that demo.

So the demo at one point was extremely valuable. It was in some respects, maybe still is. I don't know. I haven't looked at it in years. But the demo used to be fairly high because, of course, there's a lot of consumer goods out there that are targeted towards young kids. they're buying clothes every other week. They're constantly going through merchandise that you end up having to go to wherever to buy. So it's a very valuable demo, or at least it was.

That'll be the thing. How do you, and it's almost a PR thing more than it is a ratings thing. You know, if you're promoting something that's really on the edge of the 25 to 49 year old envelope, Okay, you're pushing the envelope a little bit here creatively content-wise and whatever manner that may play out. You're pushing the envelope over here. Here you're just perfectly within any guidelines that may or may not even exist for this type of content. So even though these two aren't really bumping up against each other, you as a company are marketing this type of content and this type of content. Now, by the way, Disney does it too.

that's why they've got something called Touchstone Films or whatever their secondary film. You know, it's not a Disney film product that's a Touchstone product. Why do they do that? For the same reason I'm describing here, they're separating the brands a little bit. So if there's a way, I know I took it way into the weeds. I'm sorry to do that. But yeah, we'll put it up with that. Well, let's button up what you're doing at home.

Let's mention Bluchu. I don't know that they're going to be sponsored any kids shows, but they've been sponsoring our show from Day 1. and there's a reason why. It's time to make your bedroom noisy again. Nothing says, hello, neighbors, like a bedpost knocking against the drywall at two in the morning. Seriously, don't try Bluetooth gold if you're not ready to buy a new bed frame.

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And Eric, this time it's across the pond. He's been asked about potentially uncurcing Manchester United, the football club. And here's a fun quote. Oh, trying to get a freebie out of Danhausen, eh? Well, how about you send Danhausen some of the British pounds, British pounds? All right. So Danhausen is going to need about 10 mil of those British coins. you have pounds, if you will, and mail them over in a money sack, classic style, and Dan

hausen will do the bidding. But it's not just Manchester United. At least three NFL teams have inquired about some sort of a potential crossover promotion partnership with Danhausen. They want in-stadium appearances, and it does feel like internally within WWV fanatics is going to run some sort of Danhausen NFL crossover line later this season. Nothing like this has ever happened in wrestling before. I mean, if you're a sports programmer or you've paid any attention to sports media in the United States,

you know that absolutely nothing compares to the NFL. But globally, Manchester United too? Holy cow. This whole lightning in a bottle thing with the Knicks and Danhausen and WWE, it doesn't feel like lightning in a bottle anymore. What do you make of this report? So I want to go on, I don't know anything about. what I'm about to talk about, which is, you know, you believe it, we've been here for seven years

doing the same thing. Just kidding, you know that. I don't know anything about the prediction markets other than I want to get involved on this one. I want to create the prediction. I don't know how you do that. Do you go to the prediction board, whatever, and submit your ideas for a good proposition? I think the proposition on the table needs to be that, we should be able to bet on is will Danhausen be featured in a Super Bowl commercial this year? Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? I want to be the first in on that. Let's figure that out. Come on. As a team, come on, 83 weeks, all of you out there. If we act as one, if we reach out and we find a way to get a bet up on any one of these really cool, you know, predictive market platforms. And we

we start the proposition as to whether or not Dan Housen gets a Super Bowl commercial this year. I think that'll be fun to watch it. Maybe we've created that. Maybe we put it out there in a universe and created it for Mr. Dan Housen. I mean, Eric, is there any, when I really scratched my head and think back through wrestling history, like obviously, Hulk Hogan was a pop culture icon. I mean, he was on all kinds of mainstream stuff. I'm talking specifically in the boom, the golden age.

we'll call it 85, 86, 87, 88. The dude was everywhere. But even that, like, I don't know that it was, I mean, and I know a lot of this is born out of the WW ESPN partnership, but at times it feels like he is a regular part almost as much as like a freaking Stephen A. Smith on certain days of the week. And I know a lot of that is centered around promoting WWE premium live events, but associating him with the other sports programming is not something I ever expected.

I don't think we've ever seen anything like this in wrestling before. Is there even a comparable air? I can't think of it. I mean, yeah. This is like it's happening like right. It's like you're watching it on a screen happening in real time. Like every day,

there's something else. You know, every day he's a new announcement of doing something else or he's popping up somewhere. It, and it's sustaining itself. You know, it's not like,

oh, it's hot, you know, 10 days. All you said, I was Dan Housin, I haven't heard a word from since. It's not that. That's what it usually is. This is like he started hot and he's getting hotter. What? How does that happen? And it's just, he's unique. He's entertaining. He's tongue and she. You don't have to, by God, let's figure out more ways to find more people that are actually entertaining and less divisive in all forms of entertainment. So I think it's great. Good for him. But it is fun to,

watch something that's cultural because it happened so fast. It's like, wait a minute, six months ago, we didn't even talk about this. Now that's all we're talking about. And those things happen throughout our lifetimes, you know, sometimes bigger than sometimes smaller, but it's always fascinating to watch culture adapt and adjust to it. Well, speaking of culture, we're all going to adapt to an international WrestleMania. WrestleMania 43, going to be here before you know it. And recently we heard from Mark Shapiro and Nick Conn doing interviews.

over the last week, where they're talking about WrestleMania 43. Of course, we know it's going to go down in Saudi Arabia next spring. And Nick Kahn has even been quoted as saying that Triple H and his team were across the creative for the event, meaning that they've kind of already got it mapped out, barring injury, of course. And Dave Meltzer has reported that I think this is kind of obvious. They're headed for Roman Rains versus Obafinmi as Sunday night's main event for WrestleMania.

And I assume that is the biggest box office match they can make. There's lots of rumor and innuendo that fans want the rock to be involved. But if you believe the shooting calendar for the movies that he's going to be in production with, starting in or including next January, it feels far-fetched to think that he would be able to do that. We'll see. But right now, people think it's going to be Obafemi and Roman Raines for Saudi Arabia.

And I bring this up because we're being told we know the creative and in theory we feel like we have a good idea as fans what that main event is going to be. We've also heard that WWE is going to have watch parties, not just in New York at the Madison Square Garden Theater like a joint show where it's NXT and AAA on Saturday and then the next day it's sort of inversed. So one of those shows will be in the main event position each day. So we're going to double down and super-surface.

the New York market, if you will, and we're being told there's going to be watch parties around the rest of the country and even the globe. So this feels like a throwback for WrestleMania, and they don't want to really abandon their North American roots. If you go back to the early days of WrestleMania, pay-per-view was not widely adopted. If you lived in a rural area,

you had to go to closed circuits. You'd go down to arena and watch it on a big screen. So I don't know exactly what they have up their sleeve, but they've clearly got big plans, including multiple locations and creative. But Eric, the one thing we do not know is when the is WrestleMania. We still, to this day, do not have a fucking date.

We have no idea when WrestleMania is going to be. Now, we've been told it's next spring, but when the next spring is it? We have no idea. And we're in mid-September, and there's still no announcement on that. Chat me up. What's the strategy?

strategy here and is it the obvious? Well, man, calling me dumbfounded, but I don't know what the obvious is. It could be a hundred different things, I think, but, or, but I,

I don't know what for the life man. I don't know what they are. Is there, is there a competing bid? Well, is there another city saying, wait, whoa,

whoa, whoa, whoa, before you sign, before you go public, let's have one more conversation. I don't know. It feels like to me,

and again, I don't pretend to know the ends and outs of the WWE contract negotiation and how that deal would be structured with Saudi Arabia. But I would imagine that WWE's revenue on this event is guaranteed. Sailing tickets is not something they have to be very concerned about because if it was, well, tickets would already be announced and they would be on sale. I don't imagine that they're planning for a ton of fly-in traffic because you would want to give your hardcore fan base an opportunity to plan international travel and time for international travel

and the cost of international travel in advance. Normally by this point, we've got hotel packages and all kinds of travel packages announced. As of right now, none of that has happened. So it feels like WWE knows, to use an old country phrase, the hay's already in the barn. We don't have to go market our ass off for tickets. Like that revenue is sort of locked in. And there's another side of the equation too. And these are the nuanced sides of the equation.

It may not be the way the Saudis do business. you know, they may not feel they need the same kind of lead time. There are a lot of variables when you're putting on events. I mean, we just went through it in not only in Georgia, the country of Georgia, a couple months ago, we just went through it recently in Moscow. And there are unique challenges that each, you know, new international market represents, not the least of which the obvious one is his language here is but there's also kind of business culture barriers meaning it's just not their standard operating procedure it doesn't

need to be there as it the same as it needs to be here in the u.s you've got to kind of learn to dovetail in but it could be anything i don't know what's the speculation what's the what is the internet wrestling community's perspective you know well i don't know what theirs is but i will say that mine is, it's not lost on me. We're at war with Iran here in the United States. And it's like politically, we don't know what is or isn't going to change. I mean,

you've recently lived that where, hey, it may be touch and go day by day at times. And it's like, I don't know what that's going to look like all these months in advance. But do you think WWE has to have a major backup plan just in case the political climate doesn't allow the show to take place? I'm not saying it won't take place

in Saudi Arabia, but it does feel you got to have a backup plan, right? I can't imagine that they don't. I mean, this is a very sophisticated. It's a big company with a lot of smart people. And I think it's obvious that you would. Look, we just experienced it. Again, I'm not trying to compare real regular pre-sell WWER TK.

I'm not, trust me. But we, again, at REO, just went through a similar situation where Chad in particular and my partner, Izzy, were on their way to Bahrain. to meet with a promoter to close a deal and announce an event in Bahrain. Now, this is before, you know, missiles started flying. In fact, Chad got back on a Monday, and the missiles started landing Tuesday morning right after he left near the hotel he was in. So, yes, there are realities that are geopolitically, we have to all kind of recognize

as it affects our business, even if it potentially affects our business. In a situation like this, we've got all your eggs and a big basket called WrestleMania. Yeah, you got to have a plan B. And certainly everybody's smarter to figure out why. And then there is the wrestling version of this. I think outside of the WW bubble, a lot of people, not just AW, but everybody else.

They're used to, because I guess AEW really hasn't piggybacked WW, but boy, everybody else in wrestling does. Whether it's TNA or it's MLW or it's the NWA or it's GCW or it's wrestle kind. Like, WrestleMania has become an annual travel pilgrimage for the hardcore wrestling fans. Wherever the destination is for WrestleMania, you have all of these dozens of ancillary events. And that's often their biggest event of the year, certainly like a large independent, like game changer wrestling. Joey Janella's spring break has become a staple that weekend. And it's probably their largest event of the year. But if it's happening in Saudi Arabia,

I just don't think that's going to be the case. So I think domestically, there is a hope amongst those fans who have made it a tradition because there are tens of thousands of wrestling fans who feel like they have like a little family reunion or a second family where they get together with these same wrestling fans in the WrestleMania host city year after year after year. And it's not going to happen this year. Now, I get that they're going to do these little viewing parties and things like that. in New York City. But respectfully, if WrestleMania is in Saudi Arabia and we've got an

NXT and AAA show here, it does feel less than. So a lot of people feel like there is an opportunity for AEW or perhaps a combination of other companies, including TNA, I suppose, to make one host city here to sort of counter program what's happening in Saudi Arabia. And the time would allow you to do that because you could have basically an afternoon here in America, Saudi show. And then that evening, you could have whatever you're going to attend in person. But it's hard for that counter programming to exist if we don't know when the show is happening, right? Yeah, I guess. I don't know that I'd worry about it too much for all the obvious reasons. There's no reason to worry about it. Saudis aren't worried about it. And WWVs not worried about it.

the fan, you know, we're talking about, you know, the American fans are going to want to charge a year period. How many people are really going to travel to Saudi to attend this? And I'm sure there are some, but these are going to be very, very wealthy individuals. Your average wrestling fan, you know, who's been, you know,

complaining about ticket prices in the United States isn't going to spring for, you know, 20 grand each for a ticket to get to Saudi. So some of this is just chatter for the sake of chatter. You're right. I don't think WWE has to worry because of the nature of the business, the way the deal is structured. But I'm sure that, like I said earlier, I'm sure that there is a plan B. I am curious, though, what are those wrestling fans who are used to going to WrestleMania?

What do they do instead? Will it be counter programming that same weekend with a... I got an idea, Conrad. I got an idea. This is something you can do because you're smart. You'd find a way to do this. You know, that... And I'm surprised that they're not doing it already, but you can feed that signal to movie theater chains all over the country.

Sure. Why not have little WWE events in certain markets of the country where you can have some of your local, you know, independent promoters there or Russell was there, signing autographs, whatever? Give it a localized field. But there's got to be a way to license that content or that movie theater application. maybe you only do it in six or eight theaters around the country, but it's something. And you can build your independent thing around it. I think they already have a partnership with Fandango to show some of those

PLEs on the big screen. And I know like Cosm would be a great place to do that too, but they're only in a handful of markets. Yeah, it'd have to be meaningful, though. But it was meaningful and you had either the right big, markets or enough smaller markets, where it's something that you're promoting kind of, it's the next best thing to a live event.

It's a community event. You know, and I think live interaction is where the puck is going. And even though it's not as good as actually being in the venue where it's actually happening, getting together with large groups of friends and having fun and watching something on the big screen is the next best thing. So hopefully to do it with something like that across the board.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think that they should definitely do. that. But I do wonder, will WWB double down next year and sort of make SummerSlam their big domestic event? I don't pretend to know all the details of what that show is going to look like. But if you're going to really try to satisfy that audience who has grown accustomed to traveling with their friends, with their family to WrestleMania, nipping their one major expense, It's like I know dozens of wrestling fans who as a family, I'm talking mom, dad, kids, this becomes their annual vacation.

We're going to New Orleans for the week for WrestleMania. And that becomes what they do. I wonder if WWE uses this international opportunity for WrestleMania to sort of pull up a summer slam and make it feel just as big. What do you guys think? Would you prefer that there be a competitor? an AEW equivalent, an all hands on deck for North American wrestling, whether that's TNA or MLW, can we counter program WrestleMania or will it move to SummerSlam?

Let us know in the comments below. Can't wait to hear what you guys think about that. But Eric, I also want to ask you, and I don't know if you've seen this, but I guess there's a lot more Netflix crossovers. Seth Rawlins has been appearing on some NFL broadcasts, and there's going to be more shoulder programming for the Netflix opportunity like WWE Unreal. We've mentioned, you know, how successful it's been for Danhausen on ESPN. Are there other program, is there other programming on Netflix that you think is just a

natural opportunity for WWB superstars to start appearing in? Because if I'm honest with you, most of what my wife and I watch on Netflix, there are some series, but most of the time it's a documentary or it's a Netflix movie. I don't think that's what we're talking about with crossover from WWE stores or am I wrong there? Do you think we'll see more? I hesitate to say the big screen. I guess the small screen on a Netflix streamer service. Will we see more acting from those talent? I doubt it. This is going to sound so cold and I don't mean it to be.

But the kind of acting that we just take for granted that we see in Netflix series, for example that we take for granted. Let me re-emphasize that. Is at such a higher level than even some of the better sports entertainer combat theater majors. And I say that with respect. You take someone like, I know, I don't want to pick on Cody because Cody's actually had some acting and he's in a category all of his own because of that. But of all of the, to pick anybody you think has a great promo, and I might agree with just about any one of them, right?

That's an easy thing for us to agree on, for the most part, is do these people consistently deliver promos that I look forward to? And if we're honest with each other, it's a pretty small pool, right? Even the best of them, or the best of, you know, what I consider my era, you know, of peak 90s, so to speak. Flair, Hogan, Piper, Savage, you know, who are the guys? In my earlier years, I thought, you know, Nick Backe, but still, to this day, I still think Nick Bacquicklego is the best promo I've ever listened to or watch. But nonetheless, you take any of those, you know, top people and you put them in a movie that requires even a pretty fundamental ability of acting, and they stand out because they don't have it.

It's different. It takes a while to a job. I'm not speaking from experience, I'm speaking from having had conversations with others who have tried it and some succeeded and many didn't. It takes a long time. It's a different way of learning how to sell, so to speak, and when you're listening to something other than the crowd and in learning how to react to what you're listening to. It takes a long time. Do I think, there's a chance somebody may emerge to be while there's that actor that nobody saw coming, there's always that chance given opportunities and there'll be those opportunities, but I wouldn't expect to see that. I would expect to see more opportunities for the guys and gals who can be in that posting, commentary, talking head, talk show, personality-driven content. in the future, whatever that, however that manifests, certainly could see that because that's what they excel at. They're better at that than people that walk off, you know, the south

stages of feature films with improvving live to the crowd in a fun environment. That's the sweet spot. So I think you'll see more of that. That would be natural. Well, something else I hope we see of is more opportunities for smart banking like we get with chime. I mean, here's the reality. Most of us picked a bank back when we were like 16 and then we never looked back. Does that sound familiar? I mean, and let's be honest, everyone hates bank fees, right? Well, that's where Chime comes in. Chime is changing the way people bank. Now, they're not like traditional old banks who charge fees and gatekeep perks and rewards. Chime offers the most rewarding fee-free banking of all, with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, no minimum balance fees. You get 5% cash back on your

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Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. Eric, I can't believe it's real, but we got to talk about a huge milestone that we just passed. Of course, I'm talking about the, and I'm going to feel old saying this, the 31-year anniversary of the Monday Night Wars beginning. September 11th, 1995, six years before the tragedy, is when we saw head-to-head, Monday Night Raw versus Monday Nitro for the very first time. As you'll all recall, the very first Nitro ran unopposed, but a week later, it was head-to-head.

Now, that first show was at the Mall of America. Raw was not on the air that night, but now we've got real counter-programming. WWF is on USA Network, and we, of course, are going to be live on TNT. The true alternative is finally here. And there's a lot of advantages that you have here. You're in Miami and you're live. Raw has been recorded in advance. You're going to have a loaded format show,

headlined by Hulk Hogan defending his WCW World Heavyweight title against Lex Lugar. And Lugar had only shown up in WCWCW. one week prior. I mean, he is fresh off of his WWE run like nine days prior to this. He was working a house show for WWF. And every time I hear that story, it makes me smile. I'm so proud of myself, but I know how much it's still hurts no matter what Bruce Pritcher says, no matter what they say. Same thing with with Jerry, you know, it drives them crazy because I got and Lex

got them. These are guys that never get got. I got. You got them. And you know what? You also, so imagine this too now. I think this gets lost over. And there's a lot of people who, for some reason, hate listening to hit this podcast. And thank you for listening. Be sure to hit that subscribe button. But you deserve some credit for this. You know, you want to talk about throwing stones. You've got their biggest star, the biggest star in the history of pro wrestling. Hulk Coke. defending the world title in the main event against the guy who was just on the other channel nine days prior. And he's only been here for a freaking week. And you're going head to head with him challenging your world champion, their biggest draw ever in the main event. But that's not all. Here's where I think you really deserve the credit.

Alex Wright is going to open the show. And that's not, I mean, obviously we all had big hopes for Alex Wright. but if you are a hardcore wrestling fan, going back to 1994, the underground sensation, the tape trading community went banana, as Paterson would say, for Saboo. And you've got Saboo on this first show head to head with Monday Night Raw. He's wrestling Alex Wright, and he is going to be using a table. Now, that doesn't feel like a big deal in, in 2026.

I get that. But this is a guy where, if you were a mainstream rassling fan and maybe you watched it 10 years prior, you want to see Hulk Hogan. But if you're a hardcore internet tape trader, dirt sheet reader, you're seeing Sabu on freaking national television. There's something for everybody on this episode, don't you think? Yeah.

And Sabu, obviously there are 100% stroke of a pen of, of Kevin Sullivan and rightfully so. Yeah, I mean, the idea, look, we've talked about it so many times, and we also have seen my approach is I wanted to be recognized as, you know, the biggest most, and I wasn't thinking about, I'm struggling with the right words because now they mean something different and they're overused, but I've wanted as much diversity in WCW, not so much because it was the right thing to do. I'm not trying to, you know, score any social credit here, but even just from a business

perspective, I wanted to broaden our horizons and I wanted to do business in places and with people that up until that point we were really trying to do business with. And that starts with, you know, integrating the product into our product and at the same time making our product feel more global as a result of it. So it's, you know, it's one plus one, it can equal three or before if done properly. But that and Kevin Sullivan is the reason that you sell. Samu. It's unbelievable to you. I mentioned that it's a format show. I just briefly want to run through this. This is the, remember now it's an hour long show and you want to talk about,

man, some heavy lifting. Paul Kogan and Lex Lugar in the main event for the Big Gold Belt, nine days after Lugar was working a house show. Crazy. Saboo making his national television debut here against a young upstart, Alex Wright, an international talent that people had really, really high hopes for. Sting is here defending the United States title against VK Wall Street. Now, let's set VK Wall Street aside for a minute. Sting has been the franchise player, the number one merch seller, the top baby face in this promotion from the very beginning.

And now you've got him and Hulk Hogan, sort of the WWF answer for that on the same show. But we're not done. Randy Savage is going to wrestle and defeat Scott Norton. There's going to be some interference from the Dungeon of Doom. But let's just run through it. In WCW, you know, throughout their history, it's been stinging Lex Lugar as your top baby faces, sort of 1A and 1B, if you will.

On the WWF, it's been Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. You've got all of them represented here. And oh, by the way, an international upstart like Alex Wright, and the hottest underground sensation in Saboo, like if you're trying to have the old dusty roads, something for everybody, but you really want to live up to the original Nitro tagline, where the big boys play.

You've got all the stars here, Eric. This is crazy. And the advantage of only having one hour. Yes. You could, you know, I'm in the business of making three hours of freestyle wrestling,

exciting, and entertaining. And there's a lot more. to work with in sports entertainment, trust me. But it's still, you know, the three-hour shows that they do now are a grime, but do you give any one of these people a one-hour show to produce, they'll feel like they're taking the day off. And you can keep the pace.

You can just, everything moves faster. There's more urgency. It's just harder to hold that same level of participation from the audience over a two-hour period of time. So the one hour was a big advantage. Meanwhile on the other channel, we've got the British Bulldog wrestling Razor Ramon. Dean Douglas is going to get involved and so is the one, two, three kid. The smoking guns are going to defeat Rad Radford, who we know eventually is going to be Louis Spacoli.

And his tag team partner is the Brooklyn Brawler. Isaac Yankham is going to wrestle Brad Hart. That's right, an evil dentist before he was Kane. And then in the main event, Sean Michaels is going to successful. defend his intercontinental title against Sid. So you do have some big star power on the other channel, but I don't know respectfully that as big of a star as Sean Michaels and Sid and Brett Hart were from a mainstream perspective.

It's not Holcogen. It's not Randy Savage. It's not Lex Lugar and Sting. And from a hardcore, I guess we call it dirt sheet narrative, it's not Saboo. I mean, the idea that you gave him a national opportunity before anybody else is

pretty crazy. Now, here's how it shook out. Nitro gets a 2.5 rating. Raw gets a 2.2. Now, I only bring this up because I know that eventually it's going to be old hat, you're going to kick their ass so regularly that we've been doing a podcast called 83 years, 83 weeks for what feels like 83 years now celebrating that. But the first time, talk me through the first time. Like, we know you had the debut unopposed, but now you're head to head. So that was sort of a way for everybody to sample what you were doing. And it was a holiday weekend and you did run unopposed. So any success with that initial rating, you had to still wonder with bated breath, okay, the real test is next week. What is it going to

look like next week when we're head to head? When those ratings come in after your first time being head to head and you see it in black and white, nitro is 2.5, raw is 2.2. Does Ted Turner call on the phone. What do you think in that day? What do you remember? Yes. I definitely got that. That was the first of what ended up being quite a few calls from Ted. Every, was it Tuesday when the ratings came out or Monday night? Monday night, I think. Yeah, every time. And it was rewarding as hell. And look, we knew we hit it out of the park on our first show, having Lex show up and pulling that off as well as we did and literally surprising everybody in a business that wasn't, they hadn't seen a surprise in a long,

long time, at least not a meaningful one. And we delivered a meaningful one, like more meaningful than anything that had ever been done kind of like it in a long time, if ever. But we did it on live television, it creates an urgency, creates a now, it created a buzz, right? So we knew by the end of the night, on the first episode, that we pretty much knocked it out of the park. But you never know, how is that going to translate? Did we capture the audience's imagination enough to get them to activate? Come back next week, make a decision. to join us again, write it down, whatever, tell their friends about it. Have we engaged them enough to get them to actually watch the second time? And you're right, that's always,

in my mind, that's always, it's not what I'm doing tonight. It's what's going to, how the audience is going to react to it next week. It's going to tell me everything I need to know about tonight. I don't care if I'm excited about it, just viscerally as a fan. I may trip my trigger, but if it doesn't trip the audience's trigger for whatever reason and you don't know what that reason is you're you're kind of wallowing around in the dark so you're always keeping your eye i was always keeping my eye on the following week and out letting how i felt about the current week affected too much but yeah it was fun it was fun the first did i expect it i know you didn't ask that question but if i were you i would did i expect it um no

do i thought you would lose he thought they would win the first episode i i thought they would, I thought it would take a couple weeks to build momentum. I didn't think it was possible to create that much momentum that fast because I had never experienced it before. I didn't work for anybody that had that experience before. So I had nothing, I had nothing to point to. And I just didn't expect it to, to register as well as it did, to allow us to come back and break what was up until that point a pretty significant view.

pattern. It's one of the things that has led to Ross's success as a television property over the years is because when it's been in an established time slot like it was on the USA network for such a long period of time, that audience was as predictable as it was more predictable than anything. It was a very stable audience that you could bet on and you could budget around and you could plan on and you could figure out over time how to use to promote other similar kind of demographically related content to, you know,

create those synergies I hate to talk about. But all of that is, yeah, it's part of it. You know, I do want to ask because I know you had to be excited to see that rating and to get that call from Ted Turner, but you acknowledged, hey, you didn't expect it. you had sort of managed your own expectations going in that, hey, this is going to be an uphill battle. It is the number one show.

It is established. But, you know, we're going to, we're going to go to war. We're going to battle. We're going to see what we can come up with. We're going to fight through it.

But you were surrounded by people who had worked for Vince or had at least been in the wrestling business longer than you had. I'm talking about guys like Kevin Sullivan. But there were a lot of people who had worked for Vince. And when you first launched Nitro, it's not like it didn't have its critics. I mean, there's a pretty famous clip of Paul Heyman. I guess he was doing like a cyber slam, if you will,

where he was answering questions like a Q&A at a convention style format. He's at the head of a banquet table, fielding questions. And they asked him, hey, what do you think the prospects are of WCW going head to head with Monday Night Raw? Will it be successful? And literally,

almost every talking head to a man said this was going to fail. and this was not going to be successful. And the WWF had too much success, too much experience, too much of a head start. It just wasn't going to happen. And I know eventually you would get out over your skis and people would credit you with saying things like, oh, I'm going to put Vince out of business and blah, blah, blah. But that was way in the future relative to this first episode head to head and you win. Who from the wrestling bubble, if you will, was most shocked by this rating?

I don't know I can't remember anybody you know expressing to me that they were shocked in any way I didn't see it I saw a lot of excitement

I saw a lot of relief Hulk Hogan was relieved in a way validated right because look he knew Hulk knew he could

hear the audience he could see the buy rates he wasn't delusional in any stress he's one he's a very sophisticated businessman he knew now so he wouldn't necessarily sell it but he knew he was very aware and i think he was he was excited and relieved i was same excited relieved there was a lot of pressure on me here take this show go head to head with wwe what I came here to talk about Chinese. I didn't come here to talk about it. What? Just go do it.

Thank you. Call me when you're done. That was it. So I was relieved. And I think the talent, you know, you just think about it, you know, that on greed, right? What drives most of it? You know, greed always sounds horrible.

But, you know, everybody who's hoping to better themselves or secure their position or whatever. So it became pretty clear. which, you know, even, you know, some of the newer talent that we had on the roster, whatever, this was kind of a cool place to be because it's growing. And we're seeing it grow. And oh, my gosh, we beat WWE. Nobody would have thought of that. Everybody, you know, predicted it was going to fail.

And it succeeded. So that gave everybody, I think, overall, a sense of pretty good feeling. But I don't think anybody was shocked. Well, we were all shocked. Nitro 52. We're full circle here. You know, we've mentioned that the very first episode where you guys are head to head is September 11th, 1995.

Well, a year later, it's September 9th, 1996. And we're about to have one of the most historically significant episodes of wrestling on television, maybe ever. It was live from the Columbus Civic Center in Columbus, Georgia, of all places. This tells you kind of where WCW is. disrespect to Columbus, Georgia, but when they're at their tippy top peak, they're looking for bigger buildings, brother. And this is the go home nitro for fall brawl.

So to sort of catch you up where we are, Hogan drops the leg in July and he becomes the third man. He wins and takes over the big gold belt spray painting it in August. Now it's time for September. Savage is furious with the giant for losing the belt. Now he's even more mad because he's sold out to the million dollar man Ted DBI and joined the NWO, revealing himself to be number five. But what we're going to see tonight on September 9th from Columbus, Georgia,

is really centered around one question. Can WCW trust Sting? The number one baby face. Now, let's not forget, Sting was once upon a time slotted in July, just two months prior to this. He was going to be the third man, should the real life Terry Belaya say,

that doesn't work for me, brother, from a Hulk Hogan perspective. Hogan went with it, and boy, it's caught fire. So now we can tell this story. Can WCW trust sting? And by the end of the Nitro, but we think we have our answer. We're going to start the episode of Nitro where we sort of recap what happened seven days prior.

Of course, I'm talking about the giant joining the NWO. But what's clear here is now they're recruiting WCW wrestlers. The giant was really the first time there was a defective. from WCW and we've now answered all our questions around Ted DeBiase. He's not just an observer. He is involved with the NWO. Our first match though, check this out. Supercalo making his Nitro debut clearly became a cult favorite during this era.

People love Supercalo and still celebrate him to these days. This is the first time we would see him and he's against Pat Tanaka. Mike today is going to join Tony Chivani and Larry Zabisco on commentary. And it's announced that Supercalo is going to challenge Ray Mysterio Jr. for the cruiserweight title at Paul Brawl. It only goes a couple of minutes and Supercalo gets the win. But what's interesting is what's going on outside? WCW cameras discover there are people outside of the arena wearing NWO shirts distributing flyers. Yeah, they're walking around flyering with a street team.

This to me is a brilliant little detail. it shows you that the NWO is not behaving like a typical wrestling faction. I mean, they're out here promoting propaganda. They're behaving like a rival wrestling promotion. I mean, it's not that long ago. We would see independent organizations paper WWE events. So if there's a big WWE event in town, when you come out, you got a little placard on your windshield or they're handing you

flyers saying, hey, scan this QR code and get a deal and go see some more wrestling. The NWO is now doing that on Nitro. They're marketing themselves. They're selling merchandise. They're recruiting. It feels like they're doing this in a way that's really never been done before, Eric. Who do you remember being an advocate for there being a street team and the NWO passing out

shirts and flyers? This feels different. Yeah, it's, you know, couldn't tell you who initiated that idea or what that idea sounded like when it initiated. This sounds to me like something very, very collaborative because there's a lot of detail, you know, even in the way you summarized it. And the concept itself,

to pull it off, you would have to give it some detail and so the audience understood why it was relevant and made sure that it created that sense of anarchy, which is what the overarching theme of the NWO at that time was, was anarchy. So this was another kind of example of an anarchy moment, if you will, where we could just visually show the audience that, hey, this is not your, you know, it's not your big brother's wrestling company anymore. So thematically, that was kind of like

the mission overall and everybody knew it. But then you have the good stuff where probably six or eight people sat in the room and that idea probably stepped that out as one thing and ended up at something else. The point being that everybody had probably something to contribute to that idea. I just absolutely love the presentation. We should remind you, last week we saw the Steiner's versus Sting and Lex Lugar, but that damn Nick Patrick was inadvertently bumped into

when Rick Steiner pushed Lex Luger, and it drew a lot of questions about, hey, what the hell's going on with Nick Patrick? Is he with the NWO? Well, now we're going to see Mean Gene talking with Rick Steiner, and they're going to be laying out that he's about to wrestle Lex Lugar. Now Lugar enters the conversation, but the attention isn't really on Rick Steiner.

It's on war games. We're driving home that fall brawl is six days away, and we're going to have WCW and the NWO locked in a cage. And Lugar knows that WCW is relying on him, and Sting and Rick Flair and Arne Anderson to stop the NWO. And Rick Steiner and this match tonight is basically another test for him before he walks into the cage. And now we get another paid advertisement from the NWO.

We used to love these. The following announcement has been paid for by the New World Order. And this is one of the first times we're going to see Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and the giant advertising the official NWO shirt. Now notice if you're watching with us at 83 weeks.com, what do you think of the shirt? Like we love the shirt, right? That's not the logo they're going to go with long term.

Remember eventually it's going to say new world order underneath, but not this first version, which I think is interesting because this is easily the most popular wrestling shirt in history. But the first version was a little different. But they're even joking in this renegade black and white, you know, underground, gritty, gray scale, hype video that, hey, the proceeds are going towards a Rick Flair retirement fund. This is super fun. I just love this presentation. They're buying commercial time.

They're trying to sell bootleg merch outside of the building and even running these commercials on the program. Obviously, you knew that you had something cool. Did you or anybody think this shirt would be the hit it was? I mean, nobody could have predicted the huge success

that the shirt became, but did this feel like at the time, hey, we'll sell a couple thousand shirts and it'll be a fun storyline piece? Or did you realize, hey, we're going to make some money with this? I it was ancillary. Meaning, you know, for me, the coolest thing about it was that it was a cool shirt, people were wearing it.

So visually as a television product, again, I'm a television producer. I'm not a wrestling fan. I'm looking at fans, you know, wearing NWO merchandise in the seats. And it just makes for good story support because it's not just Hulk Cogan, Kevin Ash and Scott Hall. we're just taken over it, right? You can see it in the stands. That's the kind of stuff that would get me excited about it.

I didn't, you know, the money part, of course, because, you know, the bottom line was my responsibility. But by this point, we're doing pretty well. And even in great success, our merchandising numbers were not what they should have been. If we would have had a more sophisticated setup logistically, people running it, really. we would have been able to really maximize it much more than we did as as it was it was a nice little ancillary line item but not as big as it could have been or should have been i love that it was a nice surprise but not as big as it should have been and if you've been looking to save

money let me go ahead and give you a nice surprise you can save more money than you think you should have been just asked brandon he's a long time listener to 83 weeks appreciate you listening he went to save with conrad dot com he listens to our program he listens to our program because he's a UPS driver. He's got plenty of time and listens to the podcast and I guess I wore him down. And he decided,

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Keep more of your own money at save with Conrad.com. Hey, Eric, I do want to talk to you about this next tag team match. I absolutely love the nasty boys. They're a guilty pleasure of mine. They're wrestling the amazing French Canadians. And this is actually going to be the nitro debut of the amazing French Canadians. They're going to come out singing, oh, Canada. Of course, the nasty boys aren't interested in listening.

This match only goes like three and a half. minutes, but the nasty boys have a long-standing tie to Hulk Cogan. And so since the NWO is recruiting people, there is a question. Can WCW trust the nasty boys? You'll see this as a theme. Anyone who's been Hulk Hogan adjacent is now someone who can't be trusted and at least has to be vetted. But speaking of that, I do want to ask, how the hell did Jacques Rugeot and Carl will that wind up on your radar. Were you thinking about expanding into Quebec or did you just need another tag team? Talk to me about how the amazing French Canadians become WCW contracted talent.

Yeah, that was more tactical than creative, meaning, you know, we wanted to get into the Canadian market. In order to do it, you have to have a certain percentage of Canadian content, both on the screen and behind the screen. It's very, very difficult, or at least, let me put it this way. It's not as straightforward as one might expect in terms of going over there and producing television in Canada because their unique Canadian content regulatory rules make it difficult for outside producers.

But we wanted to try because we knew it was a good market force. WWE had been doing it, but they addressed that problem by having an office in Toronto and I think Carl Willett perhaps was his name. I don't remember Carl DeMarco. Carl DeMarco was the, and he was Canadian, he was French Canadian, citizens so that he was the president of WWE Canada. So there's some infrastructure that the WWE, because they've been doing business in Canada for so long, had set up to work with the Canadian content issues. WCW hadn't done any of that, you know, precursor work, right? So we were

going in cold and trying to acquire some, you know, Canadian talent was a part of that attempt to check all the boxes we needed to check. Let's talk a little bit about the, the next match here. This is another one that it feels like it's a different time in WCW.

Scott Norton and Sergeant Craig Pittman. It's a submission match. It only goes about three minutes. And we're trying to set up Scott Norton for his match with Ice Train and Fall Brawl. You know, when you take a look back at this era, it does feel like you had big plans for Scott Norton. And obviously he was a successful part of the NWO,

vicious and delicious with Buff Bagwell. But you saw that, you know, he was positioned much differently in New Japan. Did it just not translate to the American audience? Was it a different promo style, a different working style? It just feels like the timing was never exactly right for Scott Norton to move up the cards.

What do you think kept him from achieving more in WCW, Eric? Well, Scott was hugely successful in Japan because Scott not only understood the Japanese style, but he was so powerful and durable that he could go out there and connect with the Japanese audience from a psychology point of view in ways of very few Americans could consistently. But it was that definitely that strong, strong style, if you will.

Didn't sell much, right? Not a lot of depth in terms of offense. So visually, you know, impressive because of the power, but not visually engaging, if you will. like a belly to back soup like for example it's very visual right but that's that was the strength in Japan now Scott couldn't bring that same character

over to the United States because who would he work with I mean you can't just have him come in and squashing you know we don't have a lot of guys on a roster that were believable you know in a way that you could set up with Scott Norton that he just wouldn't eat alive in order to keep his character alive. So it required that Scott had to adapt to a more American version of the property,

which was more storyline-driven and more character-driven. Certainly you saw that was vicious and delicious. That was absolutely all character-driven. I don't think you could have gotten more opposite of the Japanese strong style that Scott became famous for over in Japan. I don't think you've got to come up with something a whole lot different than what he did here with Marcus Bagwell. And I think the NWO was, you know, a transition in there to that in the sense that, you know, Scott was part of a team. He was part of something bigger and he wasn't just out there, you know, crushing people.

Next up, we've got the war games team falling apart. It's a backstage interview with Maine Gene and he's talking to Lex Lugar, Rick Flair and Aaron Anderson. Somebody's missing. Sting. and Flair wants to know where the hell is Sting. Benoit and Mongo show up and remember now it was supposed to be the horseman versus the NWO, but Flair and Arne made an audible and decided to

bring in Sting and Lex Lugar to the team. But now Sting's not here. Mongo is basically saying, See, we can't trust these guys. And Sting's absence seems to prove the point. And Arne Anderson delivers an incredible promo. he says that he's prepared for violence to the point that he's already called ahead to Winston-Salem and reserved a room at the hospital because he expects that that's where he'll wind up after war games,

but he advises the NWO to make sure that they've got some hospital beds ready to. Just a fantastic promo exactly what you would want. It's a go-home promo from hell from Arne Anderson, but it's all about where the hell sting. Now we're going to see Hovintood continuing to establish himself in W. WCW. He's going to wrestle a friend of the show Joe Gomez. It only goes about two minutes and 12 seconds. But what we're really unearthing is what the WCW cruiserweight roster is going to look like. Ray Mysterio, Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Huventoo Guerrero, Billy Kidman, Supercalo,

Chavo Guerrero. We've got a lot of stars here and this is starting to pick up steam. Speaking of picking up steam, the NWO is outside. The WCW cameras. are going to catch them outside. It's raining. And what we're going to see is Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and the giant. And now they've joined in with the street team and they're actually flyering cars. They're putting NWO flyers on your car. By the way, if you happen to have been in Columbus, Georgia, and you came out to your seat from your seat to your vehicle that night and you had an NWO flyer, God, please tag us on social. I'd love to see it. It's something silly, but just knowing that I can only imagine being in the

arena and then getting home and realizing that the thing that was on your windshield, there's footage of Polk Hogan putting it there. That's just crazy to me. But what we hear is Ted DiBiase talking to someone inside the black limousine. Now, the last detail is critical because WCW doesn't know who's inside. We just know Ted DiBiase is talking to someone in the limo. Meanwhile, back in the arena, it's time to kick off Lex Lugar versus Rick Steiner. It's a competitive match and they go about.

about seven minutes before once again the NWO interrupts, but not in the way you think. Nick Patrick is going to run down to ringside and give Lex Lugar a heads up. Hey, you got to get to the parking lot. Lugar's attention is, of course, pulled away. He leaves the ring. Scott Steiner, I'm sorry, Rick Steiner winds up winning by countout, but Lugar doesn't care.

He wants to know where the hell is sting and what's going on outside. This is the era where the NWO has been running roughshod. But when he goes outside, remember what we saw a moment, ago. Ted DiBiase, the black limousine, him talking to someone inside of it, and all of a sudden, we hear Sting. Now, when you watch this footage back, you can tell that this is piped in audio, but at the time in 1996, we're all wanting to know, where is Sting and who is DeBi talking to? So when we hear Sting's voice talking about, can I trust him? Can I really trust him? we have to wonder is that sting.

Now you see Lex Lugar in the rain approaching Ted DiBiase and as he gets closer and closer Lugar has his back to the opposite side of the limousine and out emerges sting. Same face paint, same hair, same gear. He's even got the long robe so you can't see all of his physical form. But it is sting. Or so we think.

Sting is going to participate in beating down Lex Lugar. I say participate because now, buddy, it's five or six on one. Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Hulk Hogan, the giant. And now even Sting are all taking turns

beating the snot out of Lex Lugar. Ted DiBi Biasi even gets a few licks in. When Lugar starts to recover, Dibiasi Hall's ass and everybody else jumps in the end, jumps into these NWO limousines. Now, we know in real life, That's not Steve Borden.

That's Jeff Farmer. He's portraying fake sting, bogus sting, NWO sting, whatever you want to call it. But I'll never forget this episode of Nitro, Eric. I was just getting back into wrestling in August. I couldn't believe I was seeing Hulk Hogan wearing all black. And when I saw Sting and Tack Legs Lugar, I was hooked. This to me is as good of storytelling as you can get. This to me is the WCW equivalent of the evil twin.

Hebner referee angle with Hogan and Andre on NBC of main event. And I know that people are going to argue that, but let's remember what we're seeing right now is the beginning of the end of Surfer Sting. He's been the franchise and what they're about to transition to is so successful. He never goes back to Surfer Sting ever again. Talk to me about this. Hey, what if we find a guy who looks like him, similar build, paint him up, have him wears costumes and do an imposter deal.

This feels like it's right out of a movie. Is that a Kevin Sullivan beat? Is it old school Hulk Hogan? Who deserves the credit for fake sting? I wish I knew, right? Again, what came first to chicken or the egg? Did we all sit around a table and say, boy, I wish we knew somebody that looked like sting.

We have this great storyline where we have a fake sting. It plays out over the course of it. six months. That's not true. I don't know. Here's what I would, here's the possibilities. Don't exclude Andre Fritas because sometimes Andre would see something that perhaps he could create in his world, prosthetics of some kind of mass to create illusions and, you know, diversions and surprises and that type of thing. And Andre knew that I was always looking for those opportunities. So it could have been Andre to someone to Kevin Sullivan saying, hey, Kevin, I know a guy that looks just like saying, you know, is there any way you could use

him in a story? Could that have happened? Absolutely. Could it have come up in a room and just evolved in front of us like I described before? Most ideas do. So that could have been it. I wish I knew because it's the kind of idea that that deserves special attention. and in credit to whoever it was that came up with it. It certainly wasn't me. And like I said, my estimation was probably a number of people. Well, here's what we're doing really, really effectively here. We're destroying WCW's trust in Sting.

I mean, let's remember as long as he's been in WCW, he's never been a bad guy. He's never even been a tweener. There were times where he was teaming with Lex Lugar and they were the tag champs where Sting was just, a, you know, regular old white meat baby face. And Lugar was kind of an arrogant asshole. And he was Sting's friend, so Sting couldn't see it.

But Sting's never even flirted with this. So the idea that we can't trust Sting is a brand new fresh idea for WCW. Well, it was. And that, that angle, that part of the story in particular, that was mine. And I say that only because I remember being excited about the creative that it would open up down the road. You know, betrayal, and that's what this is. The essential element of this story is betrayal. And everybody in almost every age group can relate to that feeling of having been betrayed or maybe a fear of betrayal.

So it's a really fertile piece of ground to develop stories on. And I thought if we could create the situation where seeing, you know, people were doubting him and be basically betraying him because they believe he betrayed them. That yet we'd have acres and acres of fertile ground to plant some pretty good story seeds on. Here's why it works in my opinion. Hogan has betrayed WCW. The Giant has betrayed WCW. Ted DiBiase appears.

The NWO is promising additional members. Nobody really knows what the hell is going on with Nick Patrick. He's becoming suspicious. So when it looks like Sting's jumping out of the limo, and this is who Ted DiBiase has been talking to, it feels believable. But that's not the end of the show. We're going to go right into Ray Mysterio versus Billy Kidman for the Cruiserweight title.

It's a quick match because everybody is now really focused on WCW and the NWO storyline, but still, through commentary, it's all you guys are talking about. WCW believes that I can't believe Hulk Hogan betrayed us and now Sting. Sting is with the NWO. And you're also thinking about Lex Lugar because Sting has been his closest ally, his best friend, his tag team partner, and now Lex believes that Sting attacked him personally. Arne Anderson is furious and in his mind, it's no longer. longer WCW versus the NWO. Now it's personal.

And we're seeing Lex Lugar saying, hey, I know where he lives. I know where he works out. We own a gym together. He's been my best friend for 10 years. I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Next up we've got faces of fear versus public enemy. It's quick.

I guess it's not that quick. It goes 10 minutes and 42 seconds. But public enemy had been a huge success act, a hugely successful act. in ECW. And now they're here to represent a little bit of hardcore, and you've got two classics in there with Ming and Barbarian. But next up, it's another paid NWO announcement.

And now Ted DiBiase's role is becoming clear. Hollywood Hogan is going to introduce DeBiase officially as the group's financial power. And DiBiase is laying out what he wants if they defeat WCW at war games. They want their own television segment. They want an NWO tag team tournament. The NWO wants their own championships and programming, and they want it paid for by WCW. But this is where you get this hostile takeover sort of talk and chatter. I think it's a fantastic storyline because the NWO is basically saying,

we're not here to win your championships anymore. We're starting to suggest, we don't need your titles. We'll create our own. Chat me up about this little pivot here with the NWO. Setting us up for what we thought might be. it might be a great angle. How do we set up, how do we create the perception that there are really two companies?

Can we give each brand its own network? I'm not, I'm not sure where that thought process was at this point. Um, but certainly this was either by design or default set up for it. The main event here is similar to what we planned the prior week. Remember it was Randy Savage versus Ron Reese. And the reason we had Randy Savage,

wrestling a giant is because at fall brawl he's going to be wrestling the giant well this time we've got john tinta who wasn't that long ago was in main events on the other channel against holk hogan so it's another big guy versus randy savage savage is still consumed by hogan and the giant has joined the nw o savage starts taking control he hits the flying elbow and then another and then suddenly teddy long appears and it looks like something's happening backstage that something, of course, is the NWO is back. Savage immediately abandons the match, so Tenta wins by countout in about three minutes.

Savage doesn't care, though. He wants Hogan. And now WCW, they're going NWO hunting. Savage is going to join the horsemen and other WCW wrestlers. They start searching the limousines. One limo escapes, another remains, but they open it up and there's nobody there. But what's on the inside?

Spray paint. So WCW decides to send its own message, and in the pouring rain, WCW wrestlers spray paint WCW across the NWO limousine. This is the first time that WCW has turned some of the NWO's own symbolism against them, and Arne Anderson is going to declare war. He's going to come to the announce position. We almost never sell Arne here. He's on the desk, and he says, well, he's furious,

and he's talking about how Hogan is surrounding himself with every thug and cutthroat he can find. And now as far as Arn can tell, he's got Sting too. But he promises, I'm taking Sting's head off inside of war games. And I think this is interesting because you've now got Flair cutting a promo and he's sending a shot across the bow to Hulk Hogan. But it's all about Winston-Salem this Sunday night, North Carolina, horseman country. and Flair makes it clear he's not trying to win a wrestling match. He's walking into horsemen's territory.

And Hogan, you're not leaving war games alive. And this is how we hard sell the pay-per-view and we go off the air. All four horsemen united on the nitro set. We feel like Sting has turned his back on WCW. He's attacked his best friend, Lex Lugar, and the pay-per-view is six days away. Next week, we're going to talk about what happened at war games. And we're going to talk about the promo that followed the very next night.

Because we're at the very tail end here, Eric, of Surfer Sting. The implications of that are going to be meaningful not only for WCW and the NWO and Nitro, but Sting's career is about to change forever. And I don't know that people always give enough credit to the story that sort of birthed the Crow version and the idea that his integrity was questioned. can we trust thing? That's the entire episode here and we weave it into a way

to really hard sell the pay-per-view. I just think you guys are clicking on all cylinders here, man. It is. And I think if you look back now, you know, with the benefit of hindsight and more experience, a different way of looking at things,

didn't know it at the time, but a perfect example, I think, of how critical a good story is to a good character, is to a successful merchandising platform. I mean, you can't just be visually impressive. You can't just be, you know, have a great backstory or character.

You know, it's got to be, you've got to be the complete package. And I think what we did, by the grace of God, it wasn't by design, was we came up with a really fascinating, relatable, easy-to-believe story for Sting, which made that pro-character. The audience felt for him. They felt him feeling betrayed, you know, people he thought was his friends, looking down at what he sees now as an illusion because these are not the people that I thought they were. I mean, you've felt all of those feelings watching this dark character from up above

in the spotlight who never said a freaking word, but communicated all that just through the physical presence of the way that character was design slash ripped off from Brandon Lee in the crow. But nonetheless, it worked and it connected. And it's, I think, a fascinating to your point, underappreciated example. of how to use a great story to build a great character. I'm so excited for us to continue this conversation. I love talking the 30 year anniversary of the NWO. I think this is one of the most significant episodes of Monday Nitro in history. I mean, it proves that, hey, the real threat to WCW,

it may not be Hulk Hogan or the giant. It may be paranoia. Who can we trust? You've got to question everything. And I think there's so much intrigue that's built here. There's so much mystery that's wrapped up in it. We couldn't get enough of it and we can't get enough of talking about it. Can't wait to talk about it next week.

Hit that subscribe button. Turn on your notifications bell. And don't forget to check out the brand new real American freestyle competition show, a reality show, debuting two days from now on Fox Nation. And this coming Saturday, of course, Real American Freestyle coming your way from... Friday night.

Friday night, we're coming at you. My apologies. Friday night, Real American Freestyle. Eric, hope you have a blast in Miami. Can't wait to chop it up and talk a little wrestling next week. All right, buddy. Thank you guys. I'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Fishaw.