83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 445: WWE's International Power Play

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson examine WWE's growing international ambitions and what they could mean for the company's future. Is Crown Jewel in jeopardy? Could WWE's expanding relationship with Australia serve as a precursor to an even bigger play for Japan? And while international events offer tremendous opportunities for growth, does WWE risk alienating its American fan base by taking more major shows overseas? Plus, Eric weighs in on Aleister Black speaking out publicly, and why it could prove to be one of the biggest mistakes of his career. Then, the guys travel back to WCW to revisit the birth of "Crow" Sting, the mysterious transformation that created one of wrestling's most iconic characters and helped define the Monday Night War. It's business, controversy and wrestling history only on 83 Weeks!     THIS WEEKS SPONSORS UNDRDOG - Get up to 30% off their entire order at Undrdog.com. 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 DRAFT KINGS - New DraftKings customers, sign up with code 83WEEKS, spend five bucks to get $150 in rewards within 14 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 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 Bluetooth.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad the Mortgage Guy, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Fish Off, Eric, what's going on? man. How are you? I'm great. I'm great. I'm down to Miami. Miami's better. I kind of like Miami. I've never really been here for long enough to really get a feel for the for the city or the area. But I've been here for almost a week now and have gotten out. It's it's yeah, there's some great restaurants here. That's my thing. There's a million great great places to eat. So yeah,

it's kind of cool. How far of a drive is that for you from Clearwater to Miami? It was about four hours, four and a bad. No, no. It's, it was, I like the ride. You know, I like road trips. It gives me time to think and it puts me in a different state of mind. And I start thinking about things that I might not otherwise if I was just caught up in my daily routine. So I really dig it.

I had fun and this, you know, I can't say it was, you know, scenic because it's basically you're driving through four hours of swamp. But, you know, still cool, grateful for it. Super cool that we're getting to catch up with you. of course, we are on the heels of an incredible weekend. We're going to talk about a lot of sports. We are eventually going to get into some wrestling news. But our main event today is the birth of Crow Sting.

You know, Surfer Sting was my favorite as a kid. I mean, there's no doubt. I mean, I even had a conversation with my mom over the weekend. She came down to visit and she said, So when you were a kid, I remember Hulk Hogan and the macho man and the ultimate warrior, but I don't remember you talking about Rick Clare. Was he not a big deal when you were a kid? And I'm like, no, mom, that was the other channel.

And he was the bad guy. I was a little kid. So I pulled for the good guys. My favorite on that show was Sting. And she goes, oh yeah, I remember him. And so she knew as a little kid, hey, I like Sting. I like the Oldsmall Warrior. I like Hulk Hogan.

And that was such an iconic character to so many kids my age. But then as we became teenagers, our taste changed. And maybe, you know, the neon and the flat top and the rat tail, maybe that wasn't as in. And so we had a transformation to a darker, more brooding character. And it resonated so well that he's still doing it over 30 years later. And that's what our main event today will be. So stay tuned for lots of sting talk. But first, we should talk about real American freestyle.

It went down this past Friday night in Miami, RAF number 13 on Fox Nation. And man, it looked like a huge event again, Colby Covington. Talk smack and backs it up. What was your experience like at RAF 13, Eric? I loved it. It was, you know, every one of our shows seems to get better in sometimes significant ways. And otherwise, very subtle ways that, you know, sometimes people may not even notice. But as a producer, those are the things that you look for because that combination of little details, when you get them right, when you find tune your production to the point where it just flows and it's at the right pace.

and you're taking the audience through the emotions you want them to go through and getting the reaction you hope to get. All of those elements to what makes a great show are really just combinations of little details. So this one, I saw so many things that I liked. One of the things that I liked best about it, I shouldn't say best, but what really started the show off perfectly was the opening match between Tarzan and Mugsy. You know, that, that, the pace of the match, where it was positioned in the show, just started things off great. It was entertaining as hell.

Tarzan comes out with a big bow and constrictor, hands it to Juliana, who was really excited about it, by the way. We talked about it in the production meeting. It was her idea. It was because we said, Tarzan's going to come out with a snake, you know, have the handler, and, you know, it's all going to be fine. We walked through it, talked through it. And Julian goes, well, could he put the snake on me? I'm like, really? You know, Chale Sanna, meanwhile, is going like, because he's got to sit next to her.

I don't think he was quite as excited about the snake as Giuliana was. And of course, Shane Sparks, our play-by-play guy, who I look at really dig Shane. He's turned into quite the character. And he really understands freestyle wrestling in a great way. He's a great play-by-play guy. He actually interviewed the snake. that was fun. That's a fun way to start a show.

You know, and it's funny because in the press conference, you know, after the thing, Chad and I and Izzy are up there, and one of the media people said, you know, what, you know, your background in, you know, wrestling and WCW and WWE? How has that helped you? Or how does that help in Real American Freestyle? I think, man, did you not see the first man?

You know, a guy comes out with a freaking snake. His name is Tarzan. Come on. But it was a fun night. In it was, you know, you had what we call crossover matches, you know, and the definition of a crossover match is fairly broad. We're working to refine it as we speak. But essentially it's people who, you know, you've got your Kyle Dakes and your Bo Nichols

and, you know, Kyle Snyders and, you know, you're just elite of the world's elite freestyle wrestlers. but there's a lot in between too and it's entertaining to watch and I think I think these influencers Mugsy and influencer that certainly knows how to wrestle but he's primarily known as an influencer same with Tarzan he's 17 million followers I think on Instagram or something ridiculous like that but he he's an athlete and he wanted to learn and he trained himself to wrestle enough to have a match you know that's not to be taken too seriously but still fun to watch So we're starting to find the right balance between, you know, that world-class elite-level wrestler and athlete and things that are entertaining, including, you know, the MMA guys like Kobe Covington,

Val-Mohmahmah, and Hamzat Tomeyaf, and, you know, so many, you know, Marab, or Suedo, Henry. So there's a lot of that MMA, you know, DNA in our show as well as just entertaining stuff and elite wrestling, and we're finding the right balance. sorry you asked me the question man I'm pretty excited about our product we're having fun doing it it is a lot of fun you know and I know that um you know some people you know whenever they would put together like hey Mike Tyson's out of retirement at 50 something years old or whatever the critics would call that a side show and I always thought hey that's not correct it's really a spectacle but if you want to get even more granular it's a special attraction and I think that that has proven out you know throughout you know wrestling history and I'm not just talking about

pro wrestling, but I'm saying any sort of competitive sport like this, you want to have some sort of a special attraction. And I remember way back in the early days of WCW under your tutelage, Slambury became a legends reunion and you would have legends matches. So yes, we're going to have a title fight, but hey, what if we had Terry Funk, wrestle Tully Blanchard? You know, a lot of people wouldn't have expected that at that point. Or you had, you know, Dory Funk Jr. is going to be in singles action on a WCW pay-per-view. People wouldn't have had that on their bingo card. But if you have a passion for pro wrestling or sports entertainment,

I guess we should make the distinction, you want those special attractions. And speaking of that, there's a little rumor and innuendo. I can't wait to pick your brain about. One of the senior producers and reporters for MMA fighting, Mike Heck, posted on X over the weekend, and I couldn't believe this.

I'm here in Miami and I ran into RIF co-founders, Chad Bronstine, and Izzy Martinez, as the head of R.A.F. 13. And they told me NFL defensive great Ray Lewis is in discussion to compete for RIF before the end of the year with Tyrone Woodley helping put together a deal. That would be pretty wild. Eric, I know you're an executive with the company and putting you on the spot. You probably can't talk about a lot of things that are inked yet. But hypothetically, is this rumor an innuendo or should we stay tuned? There is substance to the rumors. It's not a rumor. There's a rumor.

There are, is where conversations that happened over the weekend and probably will continue to happen based on really just a couple passing comments that I heard. You know, Chad and Izzy are pretty, by the way, Chad and Izzy are doing an amazing job. You know, I talked a few moments ago about the balance of the types of matches. I don't have any influence over that. That's really Chad and Izzy. And it's one of the reasons we're doing as well as we are because we're finding that balance. but they did talk to Ray and, you know, we are already working with Turin Woodley. So I'd say there's a reasonable chance.

Well, I'm looking forward to it because I will admit I was totally caught off guard. I mean, no doubt about it. First ballot Hall of Famer, one of the all-time greats on the gridiron. But I thought to myself, self, what the hell does he know about wrestling? And then I threw it in my Google machine and found out, He won the freaking state title when he was in high school in Florida. Now, I realize that that was a long time ago, but I am saying, I thought this guy would be starting an absolute scratch. And I'm like, how in the world is he going to get up to speed even to have something that's not a total embarrassment?

But the reality is he's already there. He's got a foundation. It's in his blood. It's in his DNA. He's ready to go. Ray Lewis and Real American Freestyle feels like a big damn deal, Eric. Yeah, I mean, when you take it, first of all, he's very. Ray Lewis. He's a world-class athlete. Yes, he's a Super Bowl champion. Superstar, but at the core

of that, he's an athlete, which means he understands his body. He knows how to train. He can probably accelerate in terms of his conditioning and strength and timing and speed, probably 10 times faster than any non-athlete his age, right? And there is this thing called muscle memory. and to reach the level of wrestling skill that Ray reached to win state, even though it was in high school, and it was a long time ago, I get it. And it's not like riding a bike. He won't be able to pick up right where he left off. But guess what?

Because he's such an advanced athlete and he understands how he'll be able to get back, not all, time always wins, father time always wins, but he'll be able to get back. a significant portion of his timing, his muscle memory. It won't be like he's starting to learn how to wrestle all over again. He did manage expectations, but I think people will be surprised if he chooses to do it or any other athletic endeavor because he's an athlete. But an athlete with some, you know, wrestling background, folk style, as it may be, could, you know, train with a good trainer.

And there's a lot of them out there or, you know, a good wrestling. wrestling coach and brush it off, clean it up, add a few, you know, turns and twists in there that maybe he didn't know before and see what happens. I think it would be fun as hell. And knowing Chad and Izzy, if Chad or Izzy went, you know what, I think that would be fun. If they put it out into the universe, which they clearly already have, then I would say just by virtue of the fact that they put in the universe, there's a good chance it'll happen because that's the way things seem to be going lately in a great way. Well, I don't know how things are going and saw it. Arabia with WWE's Crown Jewel, but I want to get your take on it. But before we do, I want to brag

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I got to jump in on that underdog. Read. A couple months ago, Lori saw one of their ads in social media for Underdog. And we're, you know, we're, you know, kind of the people that are trying to get rid of plastics in every way, shape, or form, you know, all the glass and refrigerated. That's our house, right? So Lori saw that these shirts were available in the hamph and no plastics and all that.

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Tell them 83 weeks since you. Hey, Eric, let's talk a little bit about. crown jewel you know a thing or two about uh travel problems international events with the u.s. state department and now there is an advisory against traveling to Rodea and of course over the weekend we saw all kinds of activity and not the good kind there's some violence taking place and w.we has a PLE there on november 7th supposed to happen in six weeks I can't imagine that everybody is not scrambling on the WWE side of things and trying to work with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to figure out what the heck are we going to do. Now, I know there's been advisories out there before about, hey, you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that, that sort of thing.

But when we start to see attacks happening six weeks ahead of time, I think everybody starts to say, okay, this is no longer a potential issue. this is a real issue. In WWE, specifically TKO, man, there's such a huge company worth shit tons of money. I'm sure they've got a plan B and a plan C and a plan D. But talk to me about what you think this could mean. Obviously, the plain black and white of it is, hey, if it's safe, they'll go and if it's not, they won't.

But what does the backup plan have to look like, Eric? Because there's more to it than that, right? Yeah, I mean, first of all, right now, Saudi Arabia, at least according to that post, was a level three. When I went to Moscow a couple weeks ago, Russia was level four. And the real issues, and we experienced, we experienced the issue on our arrival into Moscow, we ended up in a holding pattern of about 90 minutes or so, maybe a little longer. And the reason for that,

and because I used to be a pilot and I can, you know, kind of follow along and figure out what's going to happen before it actually happens in terms of navigation, right? If you have that electric map, I'm looking at the flight pattern or the holding pattern that this jet was on. It was very, very irregular.

It just, usually when you fly a pattern, like in a holding pattern, It's a circle, right? Or maybe a figure eight, whatever it is. Oval. This one was just random. It was like a kid with a crayon.

So I thought, man, this sounds a little weird. Well, what it was was, for us, it was a warning that there were drones in the area. Ukrainian drums, trying to bomb Moscow. There was some of that, there was a little bit of that chatter before we went over there, which, of course, made people nervous. Now, can you still go? yes, is their flights still operating? Yes. The real risk is, you know, drones and missiles in this case. And that's something that I don't know, you know, who knows when that potential, because all

it takes is the threat of it and you've got airspace being shut down, you've got carriers. In the case of the streets of Hormuz, you've got carriers who are insured because they're with whatever they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And the insurance companies are No, if you, you sail, you, you sail uninsured. We're not covering you. So that freezes everybody. The same thing can happen in the air if those threats become serious threats. And how is that going to end up?

When will that threat disappear? Next week, maybe a year from now, maybe we don't know. And that's the hard part is how do you plan for something? Your plan A requires a tremendous amount of time and effort and focus. resources just to pull off plan A because it's usually pretty big. But we've got the added workload now of developing a plan B, which by the way, it's that like, well, let's just write it down on a piece of paper. And if we need it, we'll go to work.

No, you're probably already investing time and resources. Now you're doubling up on your, on your resources for this. Now you've got two major events that you for the most part have to plan. Saudi's kind of on autopilot because it's done it enough. Everything is in place. There's very few unknowns other than, you know, missiles. But in terms of production, it's pretty turnkey and stable. But, you know, now you've got another one to do.

Who's that crew? If all your, if your A crew is over here in Saudi, because, you know, it is what it is. It's WrestleMania. But we need to also have a crew, you know, they will, up being able to work together, but this group is also got to plan for this show. So again, you're doubling up on your resources. So that's the kind of stress that I think I would be thinking through, you know, or thinking about.

It's like, man, I'm not going to pull this off because there's a lot of that. Travel, you know, you got to book you travel as far in advance as you possibly can, you know, and I don't know what their deal is. they probably charter people over, so it's not a significant, but you've got to make those arrangements. So, yeah, it's a lot of work, man, but I'm not in the middle of it. Yeah, I mean, listen, there's, there could be potential to Eric's point, WrestleMania implications here.

I know everybody's talking about the Saudi WrestleMania, but this PLE that was supposed to happen on November 7th, I don't know what I would really forecast for that. Of course, we're talking about Crown Jewel, but if you didn't see it over the weekend and I get it, Maybe some of us try to avoid the news these days. I understand that. And again, we're not trying to talk politics here at all.

But as the story goes, Yemen has a militia that launched these major ballistic missiles and drone attacks against Rodea and then Saudi Arabia intercepted the missile. But this thick black smoke obviously has everybody sort of curious about, hey, what does this mean for WWE? And many years ago at this point, as the rumor goes on the internet, There was some sort of a conflict between WWB and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And there was a lot of people who were upset that the talent wasn't able to leave when they hoped that they could leave and all this sort of narrative that exists.

And I think that sort of story compounded with this has everybody on heightened alert. Now, we heard from a lot of people that that was a big nothing burger. That was just internet chatter. We heard from other people who said, no, I personally wasn't comfortable. And I don't think anybody would be comfortable flying into some sort of a conflict zone. But as a reminder, I do believe, no matter what the contract says, if it's not safe for the guys and gals to go, they're not going. Like, WWE is not going to put them in, and I don't even think the United States is going to allow them to do that. So I don't think we have a safety issue, but from a storyline perspective, which is way down the list of things that are important, it is something where you ask yourself, self, if we can't go there, we are obviously going to miss out on the cash because we wouldn't be able to deliver on the terms of the contract.

But I'm sure there are provisions for that that would allow them to reschedule it. But do they try to host that event somewhere else as like a pop-up, Eric? Or do you just, hey, we'll just do it on a Monday night raw and add an hour to the runtime on Netflix. Would that be the logical thing to do? What do you think? I don't know. That doesn't seem logical to me. I don't know.

I mean, seriously, there's so many cause and effect scenarios you have to walk through. I'd have to spend a week thinking through that to even begin to have an idea of how to marry is best. It's a mess. It's really unfortunate. Let's talk a little bit about some good news for WWE. They just did a deal with Australia. WWE has announced that Russell Paloza, which was obviously a big deal last year when they really helped kick off this ESPN deal, it's going to be in Perth.

And a source has said the company is committed to a three-year partnership with the city of So there's going to be a major PLE weekend planned in Perth each of those three years. The same source as one of those weekends could be reserved for a major PLE. Of course, we're talking about maybe things like Survivor Series or the Royal Rumble. Those could all be potential options. 2028 would be a potential target for WWE to bring some of those traditional events to Perth. But this is all from a report from Russell Votes Radio over to our friends at Pipeful Select. I think this is a home run, really.

I mean, I love the international PLEs. I don't know how much you've had a chance to see some of the Mexico City performances that WWB had recently. But the crowd was just white hot for all of those. Anytime you can get in front of an international crowd, it adds, I don't know, as the viewer at home, I enjoy watching international shows much more than I do a domestic show because it feels like, I don't know, maybe we've just grown callous to WW programming. We're spoiled. We take it for granted. But that is not the case internationally.

I love the idea of Australia getting a big event every year. Yeah, I think what you're feeling, because that's what you're talking about here. You're not talking about creative or you're not talking about production or any of that. What you're talking about is the way watching makes you you feel. And the cool thing about an international audience is they're far more excited, even at the opportunity to go and see something live, see wrestling WWE live, because it's unique to them. It's really what you're saying. But to paint the picture a little bit more, you're as a performer, you're walking out there with a crowd that's already conditioned and just willing to jump in and be excited about what you're there to present.

out because it's it's relative they don't get that opportunity too often whereas you know here in the states you know between wwe and a ewe although they don't really tour um and they don't produce as much television as wwe but there's still a lot of if you want to go check out a wrestling event there's plenty of it you can go see here so it doesn't have that same excitement you know when you walk through the door it's more yeah then i do this regularly it's kind of cool it's fun i see my friends versus I can't believe it. They're here in town. AEW enjoys that,

that the benefit of that when they go over to the UK. Sure. Because it's a special event for them. Whereas here, it's not so much. It's like, yeah, maybe next time they'll be here next month.

We'll go better. That's, it is unique. And as a performer, it makes it really fun too, because now you're getting a different, you don't have to work quite as hard to get a great response. I love the international events.

And it feels like WW, does too. As of this weekend, WWE has held 40 branded WWE shows outside of the United States. Here's how that breaks down. They had 11 January European tour stops. They had three stops in Canada in January.

Royal Rumble weekend in Saudi Arabia meant there were two events over that way. The summer tour of Europe were 15 different shows. Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia. was one. We were back in Canada for four shots in August, South America. We hit up two spots there. And we have Smackdown and Raw in Mexico City twice. So we're not including, you know, any sort of AAA type concepts here. But WWB branded 40 events. And when you just look at international premium live events, there's been three so far. You had the Royal Rumble and

Saudi Arabia. Plash in Italy. It was, of course, in Italy. Surprise. Night of Champions and Saudi Arabia. So we've had a lot of major international events. And it does feel like this is probably where

there's the biggest growth potential for WWE, in my opinion. Like they've locked down all the big television rights fees here domestically in America. And there are some opportunities globally. But it does feel like there is an opportunity to get bigger rights fees for a site show, like an event right fee.

But you also could get some tax breaks, maybe some help with some travel. And there's probably just a whole new batch of sponsors internationally too. I think this trend continues. I think we'll continue to see WWB explore and expand outside of North America, outside of the United States. It just feels like that's where the growth opportunity is for WWE right now. Wouldn't you agree? This is an example of what I am very interested in in the wrestling business versus what goes on in the ring.

This was a brilliant move and probably had a lot to do with the calculus on TKO's part in the Netflix deal. Because Netflix, although WWE has always enjoyed a pretty robust international footprint, they've always, I mean, going way back before I got involved in the business side, they were super, of WCW, they were really aggressive on the international front. Once I got into an executive position, an international actually felt under my domain, at least the WCW component of it. I learned a lot more. And, you know, whenever it's the TF1, the main, you know, the NBC of France, if you will,

And same thing in Germany and in UK. And all that did was give me a little taste of what doing business is like over there. And it's difficult, you know, especially for a product like wrestling. Because, you know, for example, in Germany, each little county in Germany has its own kind of thresholds for violence on television during prime time. Right. So wrestling, you know, the biggest audience really is kids, right? at that time in Germany especially. But, you know, the show would only come on at one o'clock in a morning, you know, along with soft porn.

So Netflix lets them avoid all of that. You don't have to program your show locally in order to promote locally. If you think of it like the old syndication model where Bernard Gagne, for example, you know, he produced a show at his expense. There was no license fee. He paid for it out of his own checkbook. He'd produce the show. He'd take it to a local network. This is how I started it in the business.

I would take the show, a copy of the show, to a local network and meet with the program director or general manager in some cases, smaller stations, and try to convince that general manager, program director to our show, you know, and we'll give them 50% of the commercial inventory and we'll keep 50% of the commercial inventory. right. And the show and our commercial inventory is what allowed burn to actually promote live events where he did make money. So television was a lost leader. And to a degree, it kind of, it's no longer a lost leader and you're getting good license fees, but it's a, it's a clunky business. Netflix streamlines it. They've now got a basically worldwide footprint. it just opens the door for so much more in terms to your point of continued growth. I think the growth is exponential.

It's not just, wow, they're going to grow 20% of the year for the next five years. That's a cool stat in a boardroom, but I think it'll be explosive as time goes on. Netflix gets more and more anchored in the market. people are finding Netflix more, it's getting better distribution. Netflix is continuing to grow internationally. I presume, I'm not a part of the company, but you assume it.

And I think the more Netflix grows, the more people are watching Netflix, the more people are automatically going to watch WWE. Because wrestling has always been, since the beginning of television time, wrestling has been on the leading edge. I'm sorry, I've got to talk about this. This is cool shit.

This is the smart part of, of engaging in the discussion about wrestling because if you look at professional wrestling as i just described early on when it was a barter lost leader just so you can promote in the local market right well cable television came along right and all of a sudden came you know Vince McMahon in particular very specifically you know all of a sudden wrestling went from this you know barter deal you know you air my show for free and give me a couple spots so i can and run a house show, it went from that to a national, national kind of platform. You know, wrestling always led cable television in its early days.

You go back and look at the evolution of it. Wrestling was one of the most popular things on the channel on cable. And guess what? Paperview was born out of the success and the growth of cable television. It kind of evolved into pay-per-view, what we came to know as pay-per-view. And guess what, other than porn, was the most successful, consistent programming on pay-per-view? You guessed it. It was wrestling.

Now we're in the digital age. And I don't spend a lot of time in this. I'm going to throw out numbers. I'm just picking out of thin air. I'm not trying to represent their most facts. But you look at the digital footprint for WWE, where it ranks among websites and traffic, for example. I don't know. I'm guessing they're in a top 20 worldwide. They've got a massive digital footprint because they invested in it early, early on back in 98.

99 is when I heard that, you know, WWE is really building out their digital, the digital side of their business. And I know that because I tried to do the same. It made sense to me. Bob Ryder was in my ear all the time telling me about it, right? And I went, okay, I can see how that may happen. Let's be prepared for it. Turner didn't want to invest any money in it. It was a very frustrating thing for me. Like, how could you not?

Here, you need a story or you need an example of why? Here's what WWE is currently doing. Look at this. Anyway, my point is that wrestling has always been on the leading edge of just about every form of entertainment out there or strategy. And this could be another example of that. Because wrestling translates. That's the other cool thing about WWE international. I was just talking to somebody about this the other day.

Drama sometimes translates pretty easily, depending on the cross-culture kind of experience. If you're an American watching British television, for example, you're probably pretty much going to be aligned with the British audience for the most part. But different cultures have different ways of communicating story and emotions, and sometimes you can't quite pick it up. The cool thing about wrestling is it translates in, every language. You don't need to translate it. You can turn the sound down and watch it and you

still follow along pretty much with what's going on. Not a lot of television fits into that category, but wrestling does. Obviously, sports does, but wrestling as a scripted product and produced product certainly does. And that's another reason why the growth I think will be so exponential. Sorry. It's exciting stuff. I love picking your brain. That's why I ask the question, because I do think that there is a major opportunity here. And it takes me in a, lot of different directions. You sort of teed it up last week and mentioned it, so I want to follow up. China feels like the biggest potential.

Now, there's a lot to talk about there. This is not a new idea for WWE. Clearly Vince McMahon thought, hey, that could be the new horizon to the point that John Cena went and learned Mandarin in the hope that eventually, you know, they would have WWE programming in China. If you're curious, no, Netflix is not available in China, and neither is YouTube. They're both blocked. Now, they have their own streaming services that are eligible in China.

As far as I can tell, there's not a major streaming service over there that has pro wrestling. And according to AI, so who knows if it's real or not, they struggle at times to classify wrestling. Is it mixed martial arts or is it something else? And I know that you've got to overcome those hurdles, but it does feel like, like there are other far-reaching corners of the globe. There's a lot of people that you could monetize, either through a subscription service or through merch, or through live events,

or through these television rights fees. But I want to talk about what they're doing well so far. I mean, 10 years ago, I don't know that many of us would have saw that they were going to just start printing money in Saudi Arabia. Well, they are now. And I don't know that five years ago, we would have thought they're actually going to acquire AAA

and start making money in Mexico in a big way. I mean, people have been trying to get Lucha Libre on American television and across the threshold for a long time. And now WWE seems to be doing that. The question, I guess, is what's next? We've seen them do a lot of European tours. I mean, they've done this for as long as I've been watching wrestling. If it was like right after WrestleMania,

they're going to go on some sort of a European tour. And we've all heard the stories of the talent on the buses and things like that. I mean, it creates a lot of interest and does great business and great houses. Even when at the time, call it the new generation era, WWE's business is on its ass here domestically,

but they could go abroad and really, really do well. I hate to make this really simple, but I'm from Alabama. It's like, hey, the fish are biting over here. I'm not going to go fishing where they're not biting. I'm going to go where the fish are biting,

so to speak. So that makes sense to me. But we've seen them make strategic partnerships and relationships in Saudi Arabia and now in Mexico, as I'm thinking about what's next, the low-hanging fruit is, we know there used to be a lot of wrestling in Australia. Your buddy Jim Barnett used to do really, really well down there.

We have a three-year partnership with Perth. Maybe that leads to something larger. That's what I'm thinking about is that doesn't feel like it's just for the live events. It's to see, hey, we can set a tent pole here, take the temperature, build around it. A series of shows coming into that major event. A series of shows going out of that main event. See exactly what the opportunity is and maybe expand on it as the years go by.

But the other low-hanging fruit, besides Mexico, and every wrestling fan knows what I'm going to say, is Japan. It feels like they're going to make some sort of a acquisition or partnership. Like Japan feels like the most obvious and easiest transition for WWA. Am I wrong on that? No, I think Australia, Australia would be easier, not nearly as significant though. So, yeah, one would be, it would be less friction, making it all work together nice and smoothly. But the other one being Japan would net much, much bigger results sooner to think of it.

You know, I would think of Japan as an established territory with an appetite. and I'd look at Perth is kind of a new territory, a virgin territory, if you will, that has really never had anything local or consistent because it's tough to get to. That's an interesting part of this. Perth is like, it's really hard to get to. I mean, Melbourne, Sydney, that's hard enough. You're looking at an 18, 19-hour flight. Now you've got to fly across Australia to get to Perth.

So it's a trip. So I'm thinking there's something more to that. And here's my version of your low-hanging fruit. And this is probably too big of an idea to be realistic. But what if, just in that kind of vibe, what if the idea would be to think of it as a franchise. So you've got really WWE Japan, where you've got trainers, you've got your performance center, you've got everything you've got in Orlando, for example, or a version of it. and your WCW, sorry, your W.WE Japan is local talent.

It's what you would expect a Japanese promotion to be. It's not a WWE card coming over, you know, on a regular basis. It's a homegrown, developed roster of Japanese so that a couple of times you can bring a couple stars over. Well, if you've got that in Japan and you've got that. that in India, if you've got that in the UK, or it'd be obvious. If you've got that in Germany, you've got that, you could do one in probably Ireland, you know, and get a little bit of rivalry going on. These are smaller, you know, promotions that are promoting locally and developing that

contact with the market that we talked about when we talk about why television is so important because it's the tour or why live events are important because the touring allows you to connect with your audience in a real way, that nothing else. can and it allows you to build on that audience anyway. I think a version of the old territory system with a franchise model attached to it in these various strong markets for wrestling so that your fan base there not only is it WWE but it's their hometown team too. I think you could have a lot of fun with that. I think you can have a lot of fun with that too. And one of the things that we've talked about, maybe it was last week that I just want to remind you.

everybody of is we know there is a new partnership that WWE has just inked and we haven't seen a ton of it although with the parent company we've seen more than we imagine we should chat about hey you know what is in China you know what because there's no Netflix there's no YouTube there's no streaming service major streaming service that shows per wrestling as far as I know but you know what is in China and in Japan Disney and since you already have those theme parts in China and in Japan, if WWE becomes a larger part of the Disney opportunity and there is some sort of an amusement park crossover, I could totally see how that is an easy way to integrate WWE into the culture and into the country because Disney's

already there. And I know a lot of us have that as a blind spot because, you know, not all of us or Disney kids, but we all understand what a juggernaut it is and what an opportunity this could be for WWE. Interestingly enough, there's not a Disney in Saudi Arabia, but there is WWE. So maybe this becomes one hand washes the other. I think the Disney opportunity could be a lot bigger than just a cruise, don't you think, Eric? That is really a brilliant observation.

Boy, it's like the ultimate backdoor deal. It's just. You're literally slipping WWE in through an already established brand, established in the market. That's really smart. Wow. And no, I question, you know, how much is that worth though? Right.

Even in and of itself, what does that really mean if WWE has a, you know, WWE theme within a theme part, right? I get that. Sell merch, I get that. But how much can you really sell? Is it really worth it? Well, here's where I think it goes. And I got this from what you said.

Your comment, once it becomes a part of the culture, WWE China, it may not be marketed as such, but now it's in the culture. It becomes popular. It can start wearing this stuff out in public. It's like the NWO shirt. We didn't market it. We didn't take out ads and sell it, radio's TV spots.

It just kind of took off. It's the beauty of viral things. And now it's so easy to at least orchestrate or attempt to viral kind of marketing campaigns for very little money. But maybe, you know, when you start seeing WWE indigenously in the market, in the population, it makes getting it on television that much easier. right because it's part of their culture and i think that's a challenge people have which with china in particular they're very you know every country has its own unique you know laws and regulations regarding television we've discussed some of them already china's you know exceptionally difficult

from what i've understood from people who have tried to do business their tv wise i think shane mcman experienced that in trying to do business in in china in television it's a very difficult business to navigate there from a TV point of view, but maybe being a part of Disney in China, maybe that'll make that easier. Well, something that can get a lot easier for you is Blue Chew, you already know, this episode and all of our 83 weeks episodes are brought to you by Blue Chew.

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we've spent a lot of time talking about the international opportunity. Do you think when we do that, do we run the risk of alienating the American fan base or is the way to offset that to do more of these non-televised events, some of these house shows? Because it's not lost on me. If we're starting to say, hey, they're going to run more international events. We're also a few weeks away from WWE starting to run more Thursday house shows in advance of their Friday Smackdown television shows. Is that the way you sort of placate the American audience? Because I do see there was some people who were upset that the Royal Rumble this year wasn't in America. And I know there's going to be a lot of griping online that WrestleMania isn't in North America.

I get that. But do we run the risk of burning some of that American audience? or have we just been spoiled and this is the new way of the world? Because I'll admit, I set it at the top of the program. I enjoy at home watching the show more when there's a hot crowd from an international audience. Is there a delicate balancing act that WW has to play here? No. Okay.

I think you go where the, you go where the demand is. And if the crowds are hotter, they're bigger, they're, they sell out faster. Yeah, you focus on that. If it's hotter than, you know, if you're comparing, you know, international events to domestic events, you go where the business goes. It doesn't really matter because those people that are whining and complaining and being little bitches, you know, because Royal Rambles now in the United States this year, they're the lowest form of life from the internet wrestling community. They're always going to find something to bitch and whine about. There's nothing that, you know, if they're WWE or AEW fans, nothing WWE is going to do right. You know what I mean, Conrad.

you're going to always look at everything they do is wrong. Conversely, if you fall into the, you know, quote, anti-AEW crowd, there's nothing they're going to do or say or think that's going to make you change your mind. But what you end up doing is getting stuck in that, that's set the tank of intellect that live to complain about either or. And those are the people that are complaining about, you know, an international Royal Rumble. Are there some people that would have liked to go, that had the money to go and actually would have gone? They're disappointed, sure, but are they going to not watch? No. The only people that are bitching about it really don't matter.

So that's why I say, go to where the demand is. Go to where you get the best, not only the most money, that's a big part of it, but make sure that people feel like, Conrad Thompson feels because he just likes watching his show with more energy. How many times have you heard me say that the audience is one of the most important parts of any television show? It doesn't matter who's in the ring or what they do in the ring as much as it matters how the crowd is reacting to them. It's why guys like Jim Duggan had such a great career well into his career.

When athletically, he didn't start out with a great deal or a great repertoire. Didn't have to. He was a brawling. And he could work that gimmick for a long time because the audience fell in love with him for it. It was relatable. It was simple. It was predictable as hell. Jim Duggan was going to get a huge reaction.

So if a guy like Jim Duggan can get a great reaction from the people in the arena, the people at home are seeing that. They're feeling that same feeling. And that audience that are there live is actually validating their emotion and their reaction. Of course, I feel the way I feel because they're there and they feel that way. None of that is like processing in anybody's neural pathways. I'm not suggesting that, but that is how you brain kind of reacts to things like that. So I think go where the audience is. Go where you get the best show.

That's that would be my, my approach. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not opposed to that at all. And boy, did they get a great show in Mexico City? Eric, I'm not trying to put you on the spot. but did you have a chance to see Roman Reigns and Penta in the main event of Monday Night Rawls Netflix show? No, no.

An unbelievable match. I mean, outstanding. High fives all around. It had a big five feel. I mean, they had Pinta come into the arena, Eric, on a freaking horse.

I mean, he has been. That kills Tarzan Snake. Holy smokes. It does kill Tarzan Snake. An incredible pyro show for Penta's entrance. I mean, he had the big ceremony.

headdress. It was unbelievable. Regal just heaped the praise on Roman Raines performance and his facials. Of course, Roman Raines retained, but boy, did they have the crowd eating out of the palm of their hand on each and every false finish? Mexico City was hot, hot,

hot, hot. And that's the night after Triple Mania. And it was two nights after we saw the title switch where Sammy Zane beat CM Punk for the title. So they had three monster events in Mexico City. And boy, maybe they saved the best for last for Roman and Penta.

But the reason I'm bringing this up to you, Eric, is we've recently talked about, hey, what's going on with some of the censorship on WWB replays? And we had a few different ideas because we have no inside knowledge of exactly what's happening here. But this really hot crowd, they were pulling for Penta in Mexico City. They did not want to see Roman reigns victorious.

So as Roman is making his way to the ring, fans are fired up and flipping Roman off. and you saw that if you watched the show live. But if you woke up the next morning and you watched it, well, they went to a wide shot of the entrance almost overhead and you could not see the middle fingers waving around. Now, this, I don't think, should impede anyone's enjoyment of the program necessarily.

But if you're an old school wrestling fan, like almost everyone listening to this, we want the heat. We loved back in the day to see fans flipping off Hollywood Hogan and throwing trash at the NWO. and I know the trash in the ring was a potential hazard, and I get while we had to cut that out. But boy, it sure did add a lot to the presentation

in the feel of the program. But when we see this sort of censorship happen, I think a lot of people think back to some of the silliness you had to deal with at Turner, where, hey, we couldn't even say it's a foreign object. We had to say it was an international object, which is just ridiculous. But that was the way of the world.

do you think this is a new thing because of the potential Disney partnership because of the sponsors? Do we just need to get over it because it's here to stay? Where are you on this WWE censorship issue? I'm on the outside looking in less like everybody else. So you kind of look at what are the possibilities? And I think just like we discussed earlier about the difficulties with local, regulations and restrictions regarding television in various markets. I mean, it's all over the map.

One place you can get away with just about anything on TV and another place you've got to be careful. Maybe it's that. Maybe because Netflix is, maybe it's a regulatory issue and they're having to censor to a certain degree in order to maintain regulatory standards. Maybe that's something. I don't know. It could be. It was, you know, violence is a weird thing. It's funny. When I was in high school, I was a student foreign student exchange program for a short while. And I went and lived with a German family in the, in Bavaria, black forest. It was a really cool. Little community, agricultural community, and the host family that I was living with didn't speak any English.

So they were basically farmers. So I, you know, I was kind of. of immersed in it for a little bit. And it was a really fun experience. But I remember, I'm there, I'm 17 years old, and I'm with this German family and we're having a dessert after dinner and the television was on. And this was like the first night or two I was there. And it was like prime time. And I look over and there's like a naked woman like washing her breasts on TV.

Roll Todd. In a commercial. It was shocking to me, you know, because here in the United States, you would never see anything. I mean, Desi and Lucy didn't even sleep in the same bed, you know, for a while earlier. I mean, you couldn't show that on television, right? And I learned, you know, that to them, to the Europeans, the Germans in particular, I guess, every culture probably different to a degree. But for the Germans, like, full final nudity is fine in prime time. You see it all the time.

It's no big deal. It's common, right? But anything that's violent or represents violence, we treat porn the way they treat violence and vice versa. So it could be that because of the worldwide footprint. I don't know. I don't think it's a subjective thing. I mean, I don't think anybody's going, it's just disgusting. saying and we don't need that kind of crats entertainment you know you could you could hear and i

probably have heard is we all have people to say things like that when it comes to wrestling because it is so over the top and sometimes it goes too far over the top but if there's a if there's a regulatory reason i guess that makes sense to me other than that i don't know what it would be you don't really have to be as sensitive to advertisers do you there's really nobody advertising much inside the show it's a primarily subscription service. Well, hear me out. You know, we're just talking about, hey, you know, they're not in China and you can't see it in this country and that.

Maybe they're thinking, hey, if we can remove some of that stuff, they can become more palatable in those areas. I don't know. But it does feel like it is a intentional and strategic decision. That's, I mean, I think we're saying the same thing. You just said it with a lot less words. made a, painted a clearer picture. But yeah, we're saying the same thing.

And I think it is strategic because nothing else makes sense, right? It's not a creative decision. It's not a, you know, moral decision. Right. It's a business decision. What could that be? And I think you just nailed it. Well, and we don't know exactly what it is, but here's what I will say.

And Eric, you recall, when they first launched Raw on Netflix last January, when we heard the rock drop an F-bomb, and I think a lot of us felt like, hey, we're going to get raw without all the commercials. We were way off on that. And we're going to welcome in a new attitude era. You know, there were a lot of people who were sort of anti-PG era, myself included.

I did prefer the edginess of the NWO product, the edginess of the attitude era with the metal fingers and the beer of Stone Cold Steve Austin. I like the promos. in ECW, where they were using foul language. And I understand that we're not really going to be able to do that and maximize our dollars if we're also going to have a children's product. And I think sometimes we all sort of think back with rose-colored glasses

about the attitude era and think about how great it is. I would challenge you to go watch some of those shows. I don't think they stand up to the test of time. But I think the long-term tale of us going so adult has cost us in this modern era because if you were a little kid in that era, your parents did not let you watch Monday Night Raw. So you did not grow up watching wrestling. And almost everyone who listens to this program

grew up watching Hulk Hogan in the golden era of the WWF where it was all about little kid vitamins and sleeping bags and lunch boxes and action figures. And it was catered to kids. I mean, that was easy to see. I mean, Vince had, you know, Jake the Snake Roberts going, from wearing pull-on boots and karate pants to,

hey, now you're going to bring a snake to the ring and wear neon tights and snake-skin boots and lace them up. And Coco, beware, you got a hell of a drop-kick, but you know what, why don't we dye your hair blonde and give you a colorful bird and put it on your shoulder? And I mean, so everything was about how do we make this more attractive and identifiable to kids? Because we know, hey, the British Bulldogs are a great wrestling team,

but why don't we have them carry a bulldog to the ring? Then we can sell little puffy things that, kids can sleep with their little baby, Matilda. It was catered to kids. And so we all fell in love with it as kids and then grew up with it. But when you're the attitude era and every time your mom turns it on for you, here's Sable pulling her boobs out or stone cold flipping you off or here's DX crotch shopping.

She's like, you ain't watching this. Let's turn on Barney or Power Rangers or something instead. I do think that that was a mistake with the benefit of hindsight, but we all enjoyed it because we were adults. And I think a lot of people assumed, oh, they're going to Netflix. They don't have to put up with TV standards anymore. We're going to get a new attitude era. That's certainly not the case now, Eric.

We know for sure that's not coming. You know, no, it's not coming. And, you know, in terms of losing the kids audience, the way you described it, like your mom won't let you watch this, right? And I'm sure some of that probably exists. did. But for the most part, you know what that really did? To make kids want to watch it more. Watch it even more. Yes. So I'm not so sure that there was any

real negative impact on the kids audience by virtue of going PG because I've always been taught and I've experienced that your demos, especially in the younger side of the demo, um, skew up. You know, if you're 10 years old, you, you're wishing you were 12 or, 14 you know because you see all the fun your big brother has or you know whatever you know you you wish you could do the things that they get to do right when you're 14 15 what's next right you're going to get your driver's license dude your world's going to change you're going to be able to pick up women your girls you're going to be able to go places do things be cooler than shit because you could drive so you're skewing up by the time you hit about 14 musically

fashion wise you're always skewing up as as a young viewer. So you're, you're eight and your seven, eight, nine, ten year olds that mom would like not let watch. Um, yeah, first time she says, you're not allowed to watch that. You'll find a way to watch that. Just so I don't think it hurts.

Actually, I think it might have helped to be honest. Well, sadly, but true. I know what's helping me enjoy football a little more. And boy, what a fantastic college football weekend we had. But the NFL is what America's paying attention. mention two thanks to draft kings football season is heating up and every single week feels bigger with draft kings draft kings is now live in all 50 states one app all the football nationwide new draft king's customer sign up with the code 83 weeks spend five bucks to get 150 dollars in rewards

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Limited time offer. Nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contests Availability varies by state. Eric, I'm still excited for us to talk about the birth of crow sting. That's still to come. I do want to touch on two former WWE stars who were in combat sports over the weekend, and it didn't go well. Jake Hager, former WWE World Champion, he was there for like 11 years, and then he

jumped over to AEW. He had a pretty rough night on Thursday night at Power Slapp in Las Vegas. Jake came in and knocked out his first opponent. it and then he lost the second bout. And technically he lost the one Thursday, but I don't even know how the scoring and how all this works and whether he won or lost isn't the question. The question is, will he lose his eyesight?

Dana White called Jack Swagger, his real name, of course, is Jake Hager. Jake Hager's injury, Dana White described to Nina Drama as being the worst he's ever seen, not only in power slap, but also in the UFC. The fear, the belief is that Jake's tear duck exploded. And all the liquid came out, blood came out. Yes, this is from a slap. Jake was obviously not happy with the decision when they called it a loss

because he said, how is my eye bleeding and that was a legal strike? but we have said all along that PowerSlapp was getting a lot of attention, but it did feel like, hey, man, should they be doing this? Is this the right thing to be doing? Can you get CTE from this? I mean, I don't know all those questions. But friend of the show, his Arnie, as we call him, he worked with WWE once upon

a time, great guy. We actually chatted with him over on JBL show and he pointed out that, hey, there's been no major injury and none of this has happened and none of that has happened. but boy, I was watching this live and I went from being, I mean, kind of into it to thinking, oh shit, I hope Jake is okay. Did you have a chance to see the Jake Hager injury? And what do you make of this? Is there going to be implications for power slap?

And more importantly, I think we all, I mean, I think this goes as I'll say. And we hope Jake doesn't lose his eyesight and this is not that big of an injury. It looked unbelievably violent and brutal. What did you think of this? It's just not my cup of tea. I mean, I can understand why it works to a certain degree. It is the same reason that, you know, none of us can look away from a car wreck as we go by. You know, the curiosity of it.

For me, it's, as you talked about earlier, it's a spectacle. I mean, seeing two, you know, big, powerful guys standing across from each other table and willingly taking each other's best shot, that's a little different. different, you know. I don't know if it's aspirational. In other words, I don't think I can see myself hoping someday to be that person or to compete. But it's also hard not to watch. And I did see it. I have a hard time. It's really funny, Conorrent, like watching, like even if it's a scripted series, I don't really like watching violence for violence sake. And I don't like watching, you know, really. well-produced shots of surgical techniques. You know, I don't like hospital shows for that reason. I like to see people bleeding or in pain. I don't mind if it's me.

I laugh at my own stuff. It's not that. I just don't like to see it in other people. So I'm one of those people that do check it out, though, because it's like going by a car wreck out of curiosity. You just got to check it out. I'm one of those people. I almost feel guilty admitting in the public, but there you go.

That's why it works. I can't imagine doing it. I mean, you're a different, you're wired really differently to be able to do that, to know that that's coming. You're going against every instinct you were pre-wired to have. To stand there and look across and see it coming and not react to it. You're a different kind of cat. Again, that's probably why we watch it.

Who they all would do that? Power slap super controversial, you know, a lot of well-respected journalists in the space, you know, guys like Ariel Hawani, you know, they don't think Power Slap is a sport. And then a lot of promoters like Eddie Hearn, they don't think it's a sport. But hey, man, for this attention span, you know, generation where everything is instantaneous. This TikTok world, PowerSlapp does kind of get right to the point. You're going to see violence and you're not going to have to hope that somebody can get out of guard and take someone down and no we're getting right to the action yeah i mean maybe it's kind of like

you know the professional wrestling's version of you know high spot you know all high spot wrestling now we nobody really anything it's just going back and forth with sick you're going back and forth and doing crazy you know athletic shit that we now call professional wrestling um this power slap is kind of like mMA's version of it we're just going to skip all the you know strategy we're going to need strategy get me a knockout i want to see the knockout. I want to see people fall down. Let's skip all the other stuff and just get it right to it. It's, that's kind of what it feels like. I know this is terrible, and I probably shouldn't make this analogy, but it feels a little bit like death match wrestling. Like, hey, we don't

have to build up a series of matches and story for months and months, and then maybe it ends in a last man standing or it ends in a cage match, and maybe there's some, some color, if you will. No, we're just going to start, hey, here's a light tube. ding, ding, ding, hit him in the head with it. And so this is the, you know, the combat sport version of it.

But I don't even know that Dana White. Except for this, this is real, you know, and I know the GCW stuff, the, that extreme wrestling, I know a lot of that ended up being very real,

but still controlled. This is like, you know, this is not that. This is crazy. But, you know, at the same time, if people want to watch it,

if guys want to compete in it yet is it dangerous sure so was jumping off the side of a mountain with a kite on your back you know people do it because it's their deal it's their rush so i you know i think i'm not so judgmental about it in terms of is it moral or not it's if you apply those standards to you know 50% or more of what we watch we probably wouldn't have as much to watch but i just can't imagine doing it that's my point i can imagine watching it because i do but i can't mentioned doing it. Dana White clearly did not plan or hope for this. I mean, he wouldn't even let the production crew show a replay of this. So first of all, I think that we'll say the

quiet part out loud, thoughts and prayers with Jake Hager. I hope he makes a full recovery. I hope he's okay. And I'm not a homer for TKO or Dana White, but I do think he's probably going to take care of Jake and make sure that he's okay through this recovery. So I hope that that is care of first and foremost. We're pulling for him. I also want to mention Gable Stevenson. Now, he made some negative headlines handfuls of years ago, but then he went on to win a freaking gold medal. And then he signed up with WWE and was in developmental for a couple of years. Then ultimately decided, you know what? Sports entertainment isn't for me. He jumps into MMA and knocked a f***er out. And then jumped into real American freestyle and

hey, he's right back at it right at the top of the cards. And this past weekend on Saturday night, there was an incredible card, one of the best UFC cards in a while. I mean, I think it was my favorite one since the White House show. Top to bottom, some stuff I've never seen before, including an R bar submission from a ladies match. You've got to go out of your way to see. But Gable Stephson came in as a heavy favorite. John Jones was in this corner and they even posted a video to social media of them cruising to the show saying, oh, we're going to have to take ahead tonight.

That's just what we do. That's part of it. Gable Stephson was a minus 2,400 favorite. Let me explain that. If you bet $100 on his opponent, or if you thought Gable Steven was going to win, you would have to bet $2,400 in order to win $100. That's how dominant Gable Stephson was with the bookies.

$2,400 is what you would have to bet in order to win $1,400. $100. And he got knocked out faster than any UFC heavyweight in history. One punch, done, slept him, went totally stiff. Who knows what's real and what's not, but he scurried out of the cage afterwards. And the internet rumor and innuendo is that he got knocked out, stiff as bored, and then it's, he, it himself. Now, I don't know if whether or not he's, himself, and I don't think it's even important

if he actually he actually he's going to be rejoicing that he got knocked out and potentially himself. But this is the fastest knockout in UFC heavyweight history

and people were high fives about it which I know that there's a lot of people celebrating but part of me thinks if there was ever a time for Gable Stephson to just embrace being a heel and go full pro wrestling now's the time. I mean he could just pull

a card right out of Hollywood Hogan 1997, where he loses on pay-per-view and comes on Nitro the next night and say, I kicked his ass, brother. I mean, I don't know that that's going to happen, but I know that Gable Steepson has a really bright future on the mats

of Real American Freestyle. I want to remind you, gold medalist, I mean, an Olympic gold medalist, a bona fide badass, but everybody has an off button, and they found his very, very, very quickly on Saturday night.

Did you see Gable Stephson's knockout? And what'd you make of this? I did see it. I felt really bad for it. For him. I don't look at it the same way. Some people do as this being, you know, really devastating for,

look, it was a huge setback. There's no, no denying that. But I don't think it was any indication of what Gable's potential is. It was a, I want to say lucky, it wasn't a lucky punch. It was a skilled, well-timed, well-placed punch. No question about it.

But the odds of a well-timed, well-placed, well-skilled punch that early in a fight without any setup, without any back and forth, is pretty rare, right? Gable just wasn't ready for it. And here's where I think the challenge, challenges and I'm not speaking as an expert here. I'm just I'm talking as a guy who actually wrestled in high school and college, uh, or a little bit after college of freestyle and Greco

and also somebody who pursued martial arts to a pretty high level. So I've got a feel for both actually to a degree, not an expert neither, but a pretty good feel for both. And when you look at somebody like Gable or a Brock Lesnar or a Kurt Angle, you're looking, when they reach that level, and obviously Kerrvers a gold medalist, Kyle Snyder now, gold medalist, you're looking at athletes who have spent their entire life developing that wrestling skill set. It is a part of their DNA, their feel. They can feel their weight and use their weight and leverage and timing and all of that in ways that you can't even imagine. And it's all very instinctive to them. It's part of who they are. The same is true for boxers. Or if they're legitimate martial artists, and there's a lot of

illegitimate ones. You see strip malls all over the country with, you know, people that couldn't fight their way out of the wet paper, black, you know, walking out with black belts. So it, that's a business, really. But there are legitimate, you know, martial arts instructors. Ernest Miller is a perfect example. what I'm talking about that can actually teach very, very street or competitive, effective martial arts. There's a big difference in what you see on TV and what actually works. But even those skills, they call them striking skills in the UFC, even though no skills, boxing or in the case of karate, you're kicking skills and techniques are developed over an extensive period of time. So what happens when somebody like Gable or even a Brock Lesnar come from the world that they've come from?

They've spent years developing those skill sets. And then they get into the ring with someone who has spent an equal amount of time developing a skill set that you're just beginning to learn. And I think that's possibly what happened with Gable is he just hasn't seen enough coming at him, people trying to punch him. He hasn't seen enough of that to react as quickly as he normally would. I think if that fight would have been in two or three minutes and Gabel would have gotten into a rhythm and kind of gotten focused a little bit more. I think it happened so fast. I don't think Gabel's head was where it needed to be, literally at figuratively, to avoid taking that hit. So what I'm saying in a long-winded way is if Gabel, when Gabel has another fight and he will, I'm going to bet heavily on it.

because everybody else will be betting against him because of this fight. I don't think it has anything at all to do with this potential. I think he has the same potential as he was when he was a $2,400, whatever that was. Yeah, minus $2,400. I agree. I mean, he is a bona fide badass and, and everybody has an off button and everybody can get called. I'm not going to say, as you said, it's not necessarily a lucky punch, but,

hey the right amount of pounds at the right amount of pressure on your on on the right spot on your face and especially if you don't see it coming if you don't see that thing coming it doesn't take that much even for a guy like you know gable look at brock you know go back and watch brock when he got tagged early on in his ufc career how many people you think ever punched brock lezner in the head till he got into ufc you think you think he grew up people taking his lunch money smacking him around in the cafeteria? You think Brock ever experienced getting punched? I don't think so until he got in the ring with people that were doing it professionally who had been doing it for a long time. That's a different world you're stepping into.

Yeah. And as you said, Gable Steven, you know, punching is not legal if you're going to become an Olympic wrestler. There are no punches to the chin. That's not a thing. So, uh, they found his off button. We'll see what's next for him. I do want to talk briefly about Alistar Black. I don't know if you saw, but he did an interview recently. It's really, really one of the first times we've heard from him since he was released. And I know that it's no secret that he was one of Triple H's guys down in NXT. But when he made it to the main roster, that was the Vince McMahon era.

And for whatever reason, maybe Vince didn't see what Triple H did. So he winds up leaving. He gets released. He goes to AW. And he was pretty loud and proud about not being happy there. He wanted to go back. And he went back. And less than a year later,

he got released. And there is a lot of chatter about this release because people thought, hey, well, what the hell happened? He was supposed to be Triple H's guy. Everybody kind of agreed with that. And Alistair Black went actually on this podcast and said that the release that he got this time hit him particularly hard because of what he described as a mountain of promises made during negotiations.

He acknowledged that he did work some main events and had opportunities. with established stars like Randy Orton and Sammy Zane, but he said the reality of his return was nothing like what WWE presented to him in order to get him to leave at EW. He described his time with the company, this most recent stint, as a dud of a year, and said he was left wondering why WWE even wanted him back. Specifically, he said, it always sucks, getting released he means. In my case, it sucked harder because of the mountain of things that were promised

and all the other conversation and then being presented with this fucking dud of a year. Despite main events and all these things, it wasn't anything that they said they were going to do. To me, it was like, why did you guys even want me to sign with WWE? And back when he was released, Eric,

you gave him some pretty tough love here on the program. He said he hadn't changed his gimmick in years. And although there were a small but vocal crowd who really loved his gimmick and his, presentation, it was time to change it up because it clearly wasn't connecting or he wouldn't have been released. But now we're hearing black side of the story that, hey, these are broken promises. Now, I know a lot of people are scratching their head because they saw the way Triple H presented him in NXT and he just never really got that opportunity on the main

roster. And I feel like when people talk to you about quote unquote missed opportunities, the biggest example they always go to is Brett Hart. Now, I'm not comparing Brett Hart and Alistar Black by any stretch of the imagination. But I am saying you're familiar with this conversation of guys like Alistair Black. And he's saying, oh, there were these promises made and then none of it came true. What do you make of that? I mean, that feels like something, I'm not picking on Alistair Black here. But I hear that a lot when I watch old-timers do shoot interviews with Rob Feinstein.

These guys from the 80s or 90s, they'd say like, oh, yeah, I was promised the belt. And then it never happened. And they lied to me and blah, blah, blah. you hear that same sort of type of speak over and over and over from guys whose career didn't work out exactly as they had hoped. And I think that's kind of what you were alluding to when he was released. Like, hey man, let's not let this be your personality. Let's pivot.

Let's make some adjustments. Let's find something new that works better and gets over. What do you make of Alstar sort of saying what we all kind of expected he would say? There were a mountain of broken promises here. What little credibility he had with regard to this issue. I don't know, Alistair Black. Well, I've had a couple of conversations with him always found him to be a very pleasant, respectful, gentleman, and an interesting person. My impression of him, the short conversations I've had with him.

That being said, I find it hard to believe. Do I believe he felt as though, or the implication. Maybe he interpreted as promises with regard to what they might do creatively. Sure, that happens, especially when you're frustrated or in this case maybe concerned about how you're going to make a living. Because let's be honest, there's not a lot of places for a character like Alistair Black to work that's going to satisfy him. He's not 20 years old in the indie seat. So at some point, that reality starts to make you pretty nervous. And sometimes nerves turn into fear and fear turns into anger and anger turns into bitterness.

And before you know it, these people lie to me. It's not that you're fabricating it for other people's benefit. You're fabricating it to yourself because you want to feel better about your situation or you don't want to take responsibility for your situation. And I go back to, I forgot that we had that conversation about, you know, suggested he can go back to a different committee. as you were setting this up and I had forgotten about that conversation. I'm thinking to myself, what did you expect to happen?

You've been at the plate three times. You've swung and missed three times. Maybe there's another solution for you here as opposed to bitching about, you know, a promise someone allegedly made you, whether they did or not. You know, do you give up total control of your life the minute someone who makes you a promise? Whose fault is that? You know, I mean, you've got to take some responsibility, even if the responsibility like, you know, mine, I made a bad decision going to work for WWE.

I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't think it through the way I should have. So the fact that it didn't work out wasn't Vince McMahon's fault. It was my fault. And I reconciled that five minutes after day before let me know I was done and asked for my security credentials. You know, it's life. It happens.

Move on. And when you hear people with a bitter, angry, it's everybody else's fault. And to some degree, it's probably true. But living in it, wallowing it, wallowing in it, and making that part of your personal brand doesn't do a lot for your future. Speaking of not doing a lot for your future, I guess the biggest head scratcher of this entire conversation,

at least to me, Eric, is. What's the upside in saying this and being critical of WWE and Triple H now? Because I don't want to speak for anybody in AEW, you and I don't pretend to have any inside information or know exactly what goes through Tony Kahn's bond. If I knew that, boy, I'd be hitting the lottery every chance. But I feel like he's probably burned the bridge there. I mean, it wasn't exactly a secret that he was loud and proud that he wasn't happy there.

So it's hard to sort of go mend that fence of, hey, sorry I was difficult to deal with the negative for years and he paid me every week. I would really like an opportunity to come back. I'm not saying. Especially kind of around. I don't interrupt it. especially if what you're bringing back or hoping to bring back is a character that's had three swings at the plate and missed. Now I'm really not so inclined to sit down and have a conversation with you because you're not bringing anything that I'm really that interested in.

We've tried it. It doesn't work. Thank you very much. I don't need an apology. Let me move on. J.R. used to talk about when he ran talent relations for WWE, the number one thing he looked for was reliability. And I think my number one rule in sales, and you've heard me say,

this a long time is you've got to be what I call easy to buy from. And if someone develops a reputation of being difficult or not easy to do business with, you're not necessarily going to go out of your way to extend an olive branch and work with those people. You want to do business with people who are easy to do business with. I'm not saying he wasn't, but I am saying there were a lot of reports that said that he wasn't. I've never had a negative interaction with Alster Black before in my life, but that is what the chatter was. So if seemingly you have burned the bridge with AEW, by immediately saying when you sign with WWE, oh my God,

it feels so good to finally be home. And then a year later, you're on the outside looking in, you get released. And now you're being critical of WW. Okay, if we can't make money in WW, and we can't make money in AEW,

because we've managed to burn those bridges, however we did, what's left? Is he going to go to Mexico? I mean, I don't know what the opportunity is with TNA, but if you're TNA, it's not like you have to pay him a King's ransom,

because you know he has no leverage. It's not like a lot of guys make a lot of money in AEW because there is a concern that, hey, if I don't pay this number, they're going to go get it from WWE. And I'd really like to have them, but I'd also like for WWE not to have them. But if you remove WWE and AEW's options off the chessboard,

all that's left is like TNA, MLW, NWA, Indies, and GCW. those respectfully are not in the same financial stratosphere as AEW and WWV. And I don't pretend to know his personal situation. But when you get used to making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as a lifestyle, you kind of have a lifestyle that you have to maintain now. You've probably got debt obligation now that fits that lifestyle.

I don't know what he does from here now. That's what I mean when I talked about the kind of the scale, know it starts out fear turns into anger turns into bitterness you know and it's i'm guessing i don't know alister he may have a he may have a trust fund that he he's he doesn't have he never has to worry about anything financially i don't know i've been in his shoes i know how that feels like really well intimately i know how that feels and that's when you start saying and doing stupid things that's when you really, it's a weird form of self-medicating is when you can kind of offload some of the responsibility for your situation to somebody else or something else, whether, whatever, you know,

just get it off my back. That's what happens in my experience, at least. I again, don't know what Alistair is going through, but for me, it's easy to relate to because, like I said, been or done that. And you, you know, and hopefully give him some grace. If that is it, he's feeling the pressure, you know, I don't know where Tony's head is at, you know, or anybody in WWE, but, you know, kind of understand where the cat's at, put himself in that position. He's made these choices and he can make a choice to turn it around. But in the meantime, it's a pretty shitty spot to be in. I will say this, and I want this to be, I know what we're saying here is going to be aggregated.

I hope this part is too. I hope somebody rolls the dice on Alistair Black because if I was an independent promoter, meaning I'm not AEW, I'm not WW. I would be betting that that guy has a chip on his shoulder and he's going to work his ass off to prove that, hey, they made a mistake and I'm going to prove the world wrong. Like, I like his style of work. I like the character presentation.

I know it wasn't your cup of tea and you think he should pivot. And I can't really argue with what you're saying. The logic proves out. The history proves that maybe it is time to try something different. But the guy who came up with that that I thought was interesting, I think he could be highly motivated right now, and I think he could be a megastar somewhere. Maybe it's New Japan.

I mentioned my short run of WWE. When I was there as a director for SmackDown, Paul Heyman was doing the same thing for Wall, same exact titles, right? Both of them were brand new titles. We essentially or supposedly had the same type of job. And Paul was like, Paul wouldn't it was hard to get Paul to stop talking about Alistair Black.

Yes. So excited Paul Heyman was about Alistair and pushed for him at every opportunity. You know, so I mean, Paul's a pretty good judge, right? Nobody's 100%. But Paul can usually pick him pretty well, as well as anybody or better than most. And he was all in for Alistair Black. So there's something there that, you know, maybe we just haven't seen yet for some reason. I don't know.

I'm pulling for him. I think he's going to have one hell of a run if he really works with that chip on his shoulder somewhere. I hope he proves everybody wrong. I just don't know that he does himself any favors by coming out like this and being critical of WWE. It feels like you remove some leverage. But we've seen, you know, Triple H even made a living saying it on TV a decade ago, WW does what's best for business.

what do you guys think? Would you like to see Alistair Black in MLW and GCW in New Japan and Mexico? If you were Alistair Black and you woke up tomorrow in his exact circumstance, what would be the first thing you would do? Where would you want to work? Where would you want to apply your craft next? And to Eric's point, would you try, as Bruce would call it, a fresh paint of coat on your character?

Let us know in the comments. And let us know what you think about Ultra. Eric and I have absolutely fallen in love with this. Everywhere I look, it feels like people are talking about Ultra, and what are they talking about? They're talking about instant focus in a pouch. First off, you should know these pouches are completely nicotine and caffeine-free. That begs the question.

Hey, if they don't have nicotine or caffeine in them, what the hell is in them? That's a great question. Ultra has partnered with leading neuroscientists to design these pouches, and what they've got are clinically proven new tropics and adaptogens to deliver you immediate focus and smooth energy that lasts an hour or two. More specifically, they use infinity PX. That's a cleaner, smoother, energy boost than caffeine. They use L-Pia-9.

That's an amino acid promoting calm energy and attentiveness. They use alpha-GPC, which is a new tropic for enhanced mental processing. And they've even got some vitamin B6 and B-12. These are truly clean, plant-powered pouches that are designed to sharpen your mind and lift your energy all without that caffeine, the nicotine or the crash. And I want to give you a heads up if you're fasting or you're on a diet, Ultra Pouches really help quiet those cravings and suppress your appetite, keeping you locked in so you can achieve your goals.

You're going to continue to see Ultra blowing up. I mean, that's the reason these trusted top MMA fighters like Nate Diaz and Rampage Jackson. Hell, even Larry Wheels is using Ultra because what they're seeing is the same thing over 90% of users are seeing significant improvements in their overall focus levels. you're going to get that calm, steady, flow state focus. You're going to get enhanced memory. You're going to get smooth energy. You're going to get mood balance and all with zero nicotine and zero caffeine.

They've got five really great flavors, too. Cool, man, that's my go-to. Wintergreen is a favorite, especially if you like those other guys. Tropical is what Karen Jaron loves. It's juicy and vibrant. My wife really rocks with the watermelon is sweet and punchy. Dave Silva loves the blue razz. It's sweet and tart.

But here's what I love about it. You pop this in and back. Bam, 15 minutes later, you've got that energy that you've been looking for. It's going to last an hour or two. It's exactly what you need. I consider Ultra the ultimate guilt-free pouch, delivering you instant focus and mental clarity, all without nicotine or caffeine. And right now, new customers can use our code 83 weeks.

You get 15% off at take ultra.com. That's take ultra.com. You'll get 15% off with the code 83 weeks. And after you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. please support our show and tell them we sent you. So Eric, we're finally here, man. I have absolutely loved talking about the build for 30 years of the NWO. And it all came to a head six days before fall brawl 1996.

We talked about that here on the program last week. Check it out in the archives. But that's where Sting, or so we thought, jumped out of the NWO's limo and attacked Lex Lugar and left him laying in the rain. Stingwood protest that that was not him, and you could trust him, but he's going to do that during the War Games paper view six days later

in a backstage interview. Blair doesn't trust it, Arne doesn't trust it, and Lugar doesn't trust it, but they're already committed. This is the War Games. It's WCW versus the NWO. Mongo and Benoit are furious.

They wanted it to be the horseman versus the NWO, and we are in horsemen country, We're in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. There's 11,300 fans. And yes, there's a fun undercard, but what everybody's really talking about is, did Sting betray WCW? Now, as a reminder, Sting that jumped out of the limousine a week prior was actually Jeff Farmer. The actual card itself will run through briefly. DDP is working with Chavo Guerrero Jr.

DDP catches the diamond cutter and he's really starting to heat up here. He gets the win in 13 minutes and seven seconds. You get Scott Norton versus Ice Train in a submission match. Probably not the best booking. WCW's shifting gears here more into cruiserweight. This is not exactly what they're looking for, but boy, in an alternate universe, Scott Norton would have been a man and a half in WCW.

He gets the win after seven minutes and 17 seconds. You get Conan here. He is the AAA. champion and he's going to pick up a win over Hovintu Guerrera. Mike Tene is going to join the affair here and we go 13 minutes and 45 seconds. But take a look at Conan here. You start to see a bit of a transition. You know, earlier in the year, you're seeing the very vibrant and bright colored Conan. Now we're starting to get into the wife feeder T-shirt era of Conan. That's going to continue to evolve. But really what we're talking about throughout the entire show is the NWO.

and that's what the commentary is about, the main event. So I think it's important to just reconcile that while you do have WCW introducing some international talent like Conan, and really leaning into the cruiser waits for the first time for the American audience, the newly debuted Chris Jericho, Ray Mysterio, Hovintu, Guerrero, Dean Malinko, Eddie Guerrero, these guys all just got here at 1996, and they're tearing it up. And then in the main card, of course, it's all about, you know, Hogan, Flair,

Savage, oh my. Next up, match for 14 and a half minutes, it's Chris Benoit versus Chris Jericho. This, in fact, is Chris Jericho's WCW pay-per-view debut. This is a big deal, especially because it's against Chris Benoit.

They get nearly 15 minutes. Recommend you go check it out. You can see the growth in WCW as we talk about the next match. Ray Mysterio and Supercalo for the Cruiserweight title. Ray is the cruiserweight champion, as he should be, and they get nearly 16 minutes here. I know that we're hammering the cruiser weights here

when we talk about the 30-year reunion, but I challenge you to go watch what's happening on the other channel. They're not doing this sort of style of presentation from an in-ring performance standpoint. Now let's talk about Harlem Heat and the nasty boys. The WCW World Tag Team titles are on the line, and this is very much sort of the old-school era of WCW, but Harlem Heat, they're the most decorated tag team in all of WCW history.

And the Nasty Boys, a guilty pleasure of mine, I'll watch them every chance I get. They get 15 and a half minutes and the nasties have another storyline hanging over them because let's not forget they're longtime friends of Hulk Hogan. So yes, Harlem Heat is wrestling the Nasty Boys, but there's at least whispers of can WCW trust them? And I know once upon a time it felt like the NWO grew to be too large. and we had everybody in their brother grabbing one of those black and white shirts

had Jerry Sags not been injured do you think there is a way is there a universe where Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags who already wrestled in black t-shirts could have been NWO members and I know some people are going to say well that's silly but let's not remember let's not forget

Bubber Rogers and VK Wall Street they joined in an alternate universe, would the NWO have accepted the nasty boys? Could that have worked, Eric? No. No. And you're pointing about VK. Wall Street and whoever else you identified that the big boss man who became a part of the NWO. That was horrible casting.

Nasty boys would have been as horrible, maybe even more. At least with VK. Wall Street and Bubba, it was random. this would have seemed like, oh, are they trying to convince this because of their longstanding relationship? It would have been predictable. It would have,

if it would have not been received well, from a storyline point of view, even if the storyline could have survived the idea that it was just horrible casting. And I can't imagine the conversations I would have to have with Kevin and Scott. Oh my God. No,

that alone would have prevented it from happening. even though there were friends of Hulk and that certainly did bring some some gravity to the conversation. Let's not be dishonest about it. It was a deal. But the casting couldn't even over, you couldn't overcome the bad casting idea of it,

no matter how hard you tried. It would have been horrible. Scott and Kevin would have lost their shit. I'm not arguing that at all. I totally get what you're saying about Scott and Kevin. Let me just play devil's advocate for a minute, though. The NWO's running around, spray painting guys.

That feels kind of like a nasty boy thing. You're already wrestling in black t-shirts and brawling and beating people up and ganging up on people. That kind of feels NW.O. And when the trash is coming in because the fans are pissed, that also feels like it can be a backdrop for the nasty boys. I'm a homer. I like the nasty boys.

I know people are going to say, it should have never happened. But I almost wish, hey, the nasty boys should have been in there instead of VK. Wall Street and Bubba. No, no. No, if you look at it through that lens, of course, I agree with that 100%. And yes, as you talk about it visually, but the nasty boys were so branded, and they were like a violent cartoon character. You know, they were, you know, yes, they had wrestled in black t-shirts,

but for the most part, they had that spray-painted mess of a top that they wore it. It sounded like to be critical on it. It was colorful that. I just think it would have been a square peg in a round hole. Well, the NWO was cool and the nasty boys were not supposed to be cool. That's that's it. That's it. So let's talk about the storyline beat that we really want to spend some time on.

This is, I guess we'll call it segment seven of war games. The real thing, Steve Borden, is going to confront Team WCW. This is the heart of the show. He's confronting Flair, Anderson, and Lugar. and Sting is just telling it to him straight. That wasn't me. He wasn't the man who attacked Lex Lugar on Nitro. And the man they saw with the NWO was an imposter.

But after what happened with Hulk Hogan, turning his back on WCW, the giant turning his back on WCW, and Ted DiBiasey showing up and proving that he's writing checks, well, WCW doesn't know what to believe, especially Lex Lugar. And Sting basically tells him,

here in this backstage promo, this backstage segment with me and Gene Ocrowlin, fine, if you don't believe me, I'll see you in the ring. And he leaves. And I think that's a critical piece of this story because it's almost like he's, okay, you don't believe me, I'll show you, I'll see you in the ring. I love this little piece because it's going to explain what we're going to see later. At this point, had you already sort of mapped out what was going to happen with Sting, that he is going to feel alienated by WCW, but he still not, go ahead.

That was, this I remember pretty specifically, because the idea of the visual character, right, crow, hanging up in a rafters, moody, pissed off, that was the idea that was pitched into room that I've talked about so many times, Pete, Kevin, Sting, and obviously Scott, Scott was the one that was painting the picture. We were just all sat there and listened.

That's as far as the idea went. We fully embraced it right there and then. We're going to do that that I just described. That's all that was described. There was no next step in the arc. There was no act two. There was no act three. There was just a brooding, ominous dark character who didn't speak.

because because because he couldn't trust anybody that's how far the concept went so the whole backstory and the setup that we're seeing was created after the character was actually created does that make sense

yes it's it's like instead of sitting down with a pen and a paper and writing a story and then going hmm who would be good to play this character we did it in reverse it was here's the character Now, how do we tell a story with it and why? So it was an interesting process, and I was very much involved in the front end of it. Not as much after it took off, but setting it up from the act one and having an idea where it was going to go.

I was pretty involved in. And it was fun because it was, and because I saw it selfishly is my opportunity to finally deliver a long-term story. And I really don't give two shits about, you know, the emails and the messages I'm going to get about, oh, he screwed up to finish. Fuck off. The storyline itself, I thought, was really, really good. And more than that, it was, finally, I get to figure out if I can do this. Because all I ever heard about from anybody that had worked five minutes in WWF was how much of a genius Vince McMahon was because his storylines were all long term. Gene Oakillam was the worst.

And I say the worst. I mean, I loved hearing, you know, Gene talk, and he was a big, great guy. But he would constantly remind me, you know, of Vince's long-term storylines. And I thought, you know, I got to do one of these things to see if it actually feels good or if I can even do one. And Sting was our opportunity for that. So that's why I got so excited about the front end of it and developing it, because I want to see how far could go. Did I think it would go as long as I did?

No, I did not. But it just kept getting better and better and better. So we kept adding, you know, scenes within the arc, so to speak, and extending the story because we could. And the ideas kept getting better and the opportunities to do something unique with that character because it was such a unique character. There was all kinds of new ways to do silly, fun, exciting, dramatic stuff. You know, we didn't sit down at the beginning of the sting character and go, oh, and then, he's going to come down out of the sky. But no,

that is part of what I'm talking about. It's one of those things that evolved with the success of the story that we just kept adding in to keep it exciting and to keep it feeling like it's growing because the goal was long-term storytelling. Well, there's some long-term storytelling with the giant Randy Savage. That's the next match here. As a reminder, two weeks prior to this,

we saw the giant claim he wants revenge against Hogan for taking his WCW title. And then, of course, he shocks everybody and joins Hogan. So now Savage just seems like he's fighting the entire NWO single-handedly and get the win over Randy Savage at 747. Of course, this is allowing Savage's hatred for Hogan to just reach another level. This is September of 96 now. Remember, the next month, it's Halloween Havoc, sponsored by Slim Jim.

So it's Hollywood Hogan versus Randy Savage for the world title. But now it's time for our main event. And you guys made some minor changes to this presentation that I really love. In years past, we would see, you know, the bad guys come out and then the good guys come out, and they're both on different sides of the double cage. There's going to be a public coin flip, and then we're going to decide who wins and what do you know, the heels always win. I don't know why.

It's like they've got a double-sided coin. But somehow the heels always win, so they get the advantage. one good guy, one bad guy, and then after the coin flip, here comes the other bad guy, and now what do you know, the good guy has to overcome all lots. So that's always been the story, and it's always usually been the case that the baby faces win, because typically war games was reserved to blow off a feud. This is really helping just jumpstart and establish one. But we're not introducing all the characters up front this year, Eric.

Instead, we see Scott Hall come out. not to NWO theme, but to like a war games themed song. It was the pay-per-view theme song. And then behind him here comes Arne Anderson, who started seemingly every war games ever. And they're going to go one apiece. And then we hear from Tony Chivani. They've done the coin flip backstage,

first time we saw it this way, and darn it, the heels have won. And here comes Kevin Nash. Now, what I like about this is, how did we first become introduced to the NWO and this hostile takeover? We started with Scott Hall and then we followed up with Kevin Nash and that's the way they come in. I think that's really fun.

I kind of dig that. And I like that we're not allowing both teams to be out there. Why do I think that's important to point out? Because if we had seen Fakes thing come out right away, we would have all had another opportunity to lay eyes on him and say, hey, that's not really him. So the third guy, of course, is Hollywood Hogan. And the fourth guy is going to wind up being Jeff Farmer. So now we've got NWO Sting, and they have a four on three advantage. Lex Lugar was doing his best and taken down both Hall and Nash,

but when Hogan comes in, he's at a disadvantage, flares in now, but now who is the fourth guy for WCW? And commentary is even suggesting, do we even have a fourth guy since we know Sting's out here? Jeff Farmer is running around wearing identical Sting paint, sting tights. He's even got one of Sting's jackets. The boots are a little different, but you've got to really be paying attention to that. They're careful not to get a lot of close-ups of him walking to the ring. Just very briefly, you see him coming to the ring.

And then he's in the ring, and he's doing all of the Sting signature stuff. He's beating his chest. He's hitting the Stinger splash. He's even putting on the Scorpion Deathlock. But now all of a sudden, here comes the real sting, and the crowd gets with it. I mean, a big pop for Sting coming down. Sting's not walking, Sting's running down.

He's furious. And when he steps in, it becomes one on four. Sting's kicking everybody's ass. He starts, of course, with fake Sting. This is a great thing

like right out of a movie or a comic book as they get nose to nose. And Sting is absolutely saving the day for WCW. He's fighting off Paul Cogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash,

everybody. And everybody on the WCW side is kind of surprised by this. Luger's taken aback, Arnd and Flair don't know what to think. And Sting says it loud enough for us to pick it up on the mics for the ring. Is that good enough for you? And then he, you know, does the whole up yours movement with his arms and turns around and walks out of the cage. He slowly makes his way back to the backstage area.

He's out of here. He has just proven his loyalty and he's pissed off that they didn't believe. believe him, that they didn't trust him. But he showed them who the imposter was, and he's proven, I'm not with the NWO. Now, he didn't attack Lugar. He also doesn't help Hogan. He just decides, I'm done. And then fake sting puts Lugar in the scorpion. Pogan starts doing something like a front face lock. And Nick Patrick basically says, he gave up. It's over. Now, remember, we don't even know. As Nick Patrick on the NWO payroll, it certainly feels that way. But that's not the end of the show. The NWO has just beaten WCW and the horseman in horseman country in Winston-Salem,

and now the cage is going to rise. And as soon as the cage comes up, the NWO continues to attack Lugar, Flair, and Arne. And here comes Randy Savage to save the day. He wants Hogan and he wants him bad. But here comes the giant and he's going to grab Randy Sassivar and. and Shope slam him. They're going to try to humiliate him. Hogan is doing that. When Miss Elizabeth comes out and she tries to make the save, she's trying to throw herself over Randy Savage to encourage the NWO to not attack him anymore.

The NWO doesn't care. Hogan winds up a new spray can and paints NWO down the back of her dress and even signs at HH like he used to sign his tweets. He's made it super personal. and war games goes off the air with the NWO standing high. WCW has not only lost, but WCW has seemingly lost Sting. Sting's not committed to WCW because they didn't believe him.

They beat down Randy Savage, they spray painted his ex-wife, and now Hogan is spitting at the camera, and Giant is saying, thanks for that Hollywood contract, Hogan. And that's how the show ends with the bad guy standing tall and this is not normally the formula for these things.

Like usually the good guys win war games, especially in horsemen country, the horsemen are going to lose. And you've said for years, Eric, that Kevin Sullivan knew how to book, Keith, and is this not a prime example of that right here? Perfect. Couldn't have framed it any better.

This has Kevin Sullivan all over. This is what does, when I first heard Kevin Sullivan's name mention, the very first time, it was Dusty Road. who mentioned it. And it was in a conversation Dusty and I were having about booking and what he needed or what we needed in WCW at the time. Dusty felt strongly we needed real heat and he felt even more strongly that Kevin Sullivan was the guy he wanted to work with to help deliver it.

And this is a manifestation of Dusty's impression of Kevin. This is Kevin Sullivan Heat at the end and doing it different. You know, that's the thing about Nitro. Well, I made a list on a yellow legal pad. I endeavored to be different from WWE in every way possible. And this was Kevin Sullivan's contribution to that strategy of just be different. Their take, we're alive. They're teens and preteens were 18 to 49 year old men. You know, they're cartooning characters. We're going to be reality based characters. You know, every way possible we could be different than WWE. And as I said, this is Kevin's contribution to it. Neil Hapruitt had contributions to it and the way we developed the black and white kind of video montage promos that nobody had ever seen before. You know,

everybody had some contribution to new ways of being different than the WWE. And this, like I said, it's just one of them. I love this particular pay-per-view just because of the story. You know, the matches are fine, but the story is what I really love. And I know me and you have talked about this show for years and years. The following event, Halloween Havoc 96, you've said that's probably when you were having the most fun of your entire WCW tenure. We're going to be talking about that next month. But that's when Roddy Piper is going to come in and he's going to be the next guy to stand up to Hulk Hogan.

Sting has sort of taken himself off of. the team WCW, I guess. He's saying, hey, I'm taking my ball and going home. Yeah, this is the end of act two for Sting. Sting. Stey's three act story begins next week. All right, Eric, got to run a timeout right now to tell you how to save some money. Yeah, I'm talking to you.

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Carolina and the entire theme of the show is hey sting was telling the truth tony shivani and larry zabiscoe are going to open the program and they're going to acknowledge that they were wrong sting was actually in japan last week and that was an imposter who attacked lex luger and betrayed wcdrae bray mysterio and hovintude are going to hook it up Ray is going to retain. DDP gets a win with a diamond cutter over ice train. Conan gets a win over Supercalo. Brad Armstrong picks up a rare victory on TV over Hugh Morris.

Randy Savage is totally unhinged and Norton is going to win by DQ because Savage has just gone out of his mind. But what I want to talk about before we talk about the Sting promo is right in the middle of this realism of the black and white of the NWO, who can trust after many, many months, Glacier debuts on Nitro. And he beats Big Bubba Rogers, but we get the light show,

we get the lasers, we get the effects. And I know we say it all the time, timing is everything. And this is probably the best example of that in all of WCW history, don't you think? No doubt.

No doubt. It is, you know, we learned a lot, obviously. And one of the things that we learned, is the lead time.

You know, when you're doing something as sophisticated at the time as the glacier entrance was, because it was a new lighting package. It was a new effects, you know, package with the smoke and the ice, snow and all that shit. The special effects was new and had to be developed. All the graphics were new and had to be developed. And then you've got, you know, the outfit itself, you know, Andre Frettes, walked us through, you know, how that was all produced. All of this stuff takes time.

And all of that time at the point when the whole mortar of combat thing as pop culture was actually beginning to die off a little bit, it was still strong, don't get me wrong. But it wasn't as new as it once was when this idea was formulated, right? So the timing and then you, oh, of course you add to that, somebody gets a great idea. yeah, let's just go after, you know, 18 to 49 year old man and forget about these gimmicky characters. And it wasn't forget about them. It was reduced them, de-emphasize them. You're still going to have it.

Dusty Rhodes, you know, wrestling is a buffet kind of analogy or metaphor. We still wanted to have things that were for kids, but really put the spotlight on the 18 to 49-year-old male stuff. And Glacier came right in that decision-making process. he came at the worst possible time. Had he come six months earlier or a year earlier in particular, I think that character would have gotten over. I think it would have been beneficial to WCW long term. I think there would have been licensing and merchandising opportunities,

which is what the character was originally designed for, by the way. That's how I was backing my way into licensing and merchandising with characters like this. And the Kiss character, blah, blah, blah. So there was some logic behind it, although the time. was just freaking horrible. Well, the timing was great for Sting's promo. We're finally going to hear from Sting. I want to encourage you to go out of your way to find this promo.

It is posted to YouTube. I know WWE's made it a little more difficult to find all their archives, but some of our wrestling friends have posted this. Sting's going to come out and cut what I think might actually be the most important promo of his career. He comes to the ring alone. He's not bringing the energy like he normally does. he's not hooting and hollering.

He's going to grab a microphone, turn his back to the hard cam and address the crowd, but not the television camera. And he's explaining that he's been away, but he watched what happened. He heard his friends were accusing him, and he didn't expect the people who knew him the best to not give him the benefit of the doubt. Particularly, he's disappointed in Lex Lugar. He was my closest friend. and the message here is, hey, after everything we've been through, you should have known me better than that.

And then Sting announces that he's made a decision. He's essentially telling all of WCW, you doubted me. So I'm stepping away. I'm now declaring myself a free agent. And he says he's going to disappear for a while. Where is he going? Nobody knows. When will he return?

Nobody knows. Who will he fight for? Nobody knows. But ladies and gentlemen, this. This is the death of Surfer Sting. Now, we've already seen a bit of a transition. The blonde hair is gone. The flat top with the rat tail is gone.

We've been rocking this darker hair for a bit. But we'll never see him like this ever again. He's going full crow sting. We don't know that yet, though. But the bright colors, the blonde hair, the energy, the high-fiving fans, WCW's superhero is no more. and his sentiment, I think, feels real. Hey, I'm loyal to WCW.

So WCW should be loyal to me and they weren't. So Sting withdrawals. When you think about the Sting character, obviously there's lots of big moments. You know, when he has his first match with a Clash of the champions with Rick Flair and goes to a draw. When he wins the world title, a great American bash,

when he unifies the belt with Flair, when he has the amazing feud with Vader. I mean, there's so many fun beats along the way of the story of Sting when he's taking on the dangerous alliance. But I think this transition is probably the single most important promo of his career because what we've become established and fallen in love with, really for the last 10 years, this is the end of it. And it's very rare that you see someone almost announce it like this.

Like when The Undertaker came back as the American badass version, there was no promo. We just had new music and then here he came and he's not in all black. He's in jeans and a motorcycle and a trench coat and it was a different thing. But Sting is really announcing, hey, this is it. I'm a free agent. And the next time you see him, he's dark and moody and brooding. And we'll talk about that later. But this particular promo, where do you rank this, Eric?

Is this the most important Sting promo ever? Now that I've listened to you frame it up, yeah. I mean, you did an excellent job because you were right on all accounts. That set up was beautiful. And, you know, I'm listening closely as you're setting this thing up and filling us in on some of the backstory that I had forgotten about, really. one of the things that makes this so beautiful in a way, creatively speaking, is Sting turning his back not only on Lex and I say turning his back.

Sting obviously addressing Lugar, addressing him down for not trusting him. You should have known better. You verbally addressing the situation, but symbolically also turning on the fans. he's turning us back to the fans as well because they didn't trust them either. And betrayal, you know, I don't know what the basic temples for great stories are, the basis of great stories, but, you know, greed is certainly at the top of the list. Lust will be at the top of the list. Envy will be at the top of the list.

Betrayal is right up there, maybe not on any official list, but betrayal is a human emotion and everybody can relate to one way, shape, or form. we've all gone through it, some in really, really profound ways, others just in the course of everyday life. Either way, you know what it means and you know how it feels, so you can put yourself into a storyline that's built around betrayal. That's easy to direct connect to people's emotions, right? And that's what the premise of this character really and the story that came with it.

was betrayal and to symbolically also turn your back on the fans because they didn't trust you. They didn't support you. It was a pretty cool thing. And balzy, to be honest, because that's, who's ever done that? And what's really interesting is I don't think, I don't recall us making a big deal of it. Notice it, but not make a big deal of it, which made it. How many times we talked about the things that one of the things of the many things that allowed Nitro to just leapfrog WWE the way we did in a relatively short period of time is because

we were alive before they made the transition to go to live every week too because live TV is special. Live TV feels like you're there. There's an urgency. There's a danger. There's a risk that's associated with live TV. you never know what's going to happen that that kind of undercurrent emotional undercurrent exists when you're watching something live whether it's the NFL on sunday or you know wrestling something can happen you don't expect to happen you're hoping that that's the case that's why people are attracted to live television and when sting goes out there and turns his back to the crowd and the hard camera um it's so awkward for the viewer at home it By default, it must be real. I love it.

They couldn't have rehearsed this or would have happened. Therefore, it must be real. Subconsciously, not a conscious thought in people's mind, but I guarantee you subconsciously, the vast majority of the audience went, what, what, what's going on it? What's he doing? Oh, and he's pissed.

That's a beautiful thing. I love it. I hope that if you're listening to this, you will go out of your way to find it on YouTube. It's there. Let's briefly touch on the rest of this nitro, and then we'll pick up the story for NWO30 next week. We've got Flair and Arne.

Remember, they were in the main event the night before defending WCW against the NWO. They're part of the four horse one, and they're here to show that, hey, they may have lost last night. They're still spry and ready to kick some ass, and they do. They pick up a win over Chris Jericho and Marcus

Alexander Bagwell. We're still a ways away from Buff Bagwell. But the main event is Chris Benoit and Steve McMichael. Now remember originally they were in that War Games match the night before, but instead, Flair and Orange chose to go with Sting and Lex Lugar. So Sting was supposed to be Lex Lugar's tag team partner in the main event here of Nitro. He's walked out on WCW and specifically Lex Lugar. So it's up to Lex Lugar to take on Chris Benoit and Steve McMichael on his own. I love this story. You're by yourself.

You didn't believe me. I'm out of here. Luger, of course, in a handicap match against Chris Benoit and Steve Mungo, McMichael, the horseman. It's not going to happen for him. And we go off the air.

The entire story is built around Sting. Can we trust him and Sting now proving, hey, you didn't believe me, I'm out of here. I think this is fabulous what you guys are doing. It's going to birth the NWO version of Sting and Pro Sting. And we're going to be picking it up next week here as we start our march towards Halloween Havoc.

It's great stuff, man. It's my favorite storyline in wrestling history. I hope you guys are enjoying it as well. And Eric, I hope you have a safe trip back, man. And I want to remind everybody, Real American Freestyle has another event coming up next month. And this time in Las Vegas,

the fight capital of the world, right? Yeah, we've got some big announcements coming up. I mean, big, big, big announcements coming up in terms of where we're touring the rest of the year, some international news, some other growth related news. A lot of news coming out, Real American Free Style. Check us out. Hit that subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell, and I can't wait to talk about Halloween Havoc 96. Buckle up, Buttercup. The NWO is just heating up. We'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Fish, y'all.

Thank you.