83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 446: Stop Panicking Over WrestleMania!

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

This week on 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson ask whether WrestleMania needs a backup plan, and whether the uncertainty around its date is becoming a bigger story. Then Eric turns to the Warner Bros./Paramount merger: what could it mean for AEW, what should the company be watching, and what advice would he give Tony Khan? Eric also shares a lesson from professional wrestling that he still uses in RAF. Plus, who was bigger than Hulk Hogan and the nWo? Eric plays the stay silent game before revisiting the time the nWo took out an ad in a national newspaper to send a message.     THIS WEEKS SPONSORS MOD - Visit http://MOD.com  for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code 83WEEKS WARBY PARKER - buy one pair of glasses and get 20% off any additional pairs at http://WarbyParker.com/83WEEKS . MARS MEN - Get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at http://Mengotomars.com . After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. PLEASE support our show and tell them our show sent you. THE PERFECT JEAN - F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code BISCHOFF15 at https://theperfectjean.nyc/BISCHOFF15#theperfectjeanpod ULTRA - Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code 83WEEKS at http://takeultra.com ! #UltraPouches #ad BLUECHEW - When you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third FREE with promo code 83WEEKS. You will also receive an additional 10% OFF + Free overnight shipping on your first order. Visit http://BlueChew.com  for more details and important safety information CASH APP- Download Cash App today and make your money work for you. Click here to get started: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/j5ojws30  #CashAppPartner Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, (https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement ), Sutton debit flex card (https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/debit-flex-card-agreement-sutton ), and Bancorp debit flex card (https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/debit-flex-card-agreement-bancorp ). Savings provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Parents and legal guardians can open a sponsored account for teens 13-17. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast  for full disclosures. SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing money away by paying those high interest rates on your credit card. Roll them into one low monthly payment and on top of that, skip your next two house payments. Go to https://www.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 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 good. Man, I started my day.

I got up early, had a late breakfast. Garrett and Waylon came over on their rhino, you know, four-wheeler, and now picked me up, and then we went trail riding, and I let, or I didn't let Garrett let Waylon drive going through the, going through the trail. So, yeah, I was pretty exciting. My five-year-old weapon is down a trail and a four-wheeler. Awesome.

But it's, you know, that's what I moved here for, so I love it. Well, we are glad that you were with us this morning. Hope you guys had a great weekend. that subscribe button, turn on a notifications bell. I should tell you that we are recording on Saturday in advance of the A.W. Paperview. So we won't be talking about that, but we will be talking about all the news this week. Maybe a little bit of Paramount discussion.

And of course, we're going to continue our discussion about the 30 year anniversary of the NWO. But Eric, we've been sort of monitoring this Saudi Arabia situation with there being a lot of questions about what is going to happen to the November 7th event. I think most of the chatter has been focused on WrestleMania. Mike Johnson over PW Insider recently reported. There's been rumblings in recent days within the pro wrestling world that the company has locations planned domestically

if they need to shift WrestleMania gears. But WWE sources have stated it's too soon for those plans to have been made but did not concede there are contingencies or did concede rather that there are contingencies that have been discussed for November's crown jewel if the company needs to pivot due to the ongoing issues in the MENA region. So listen, I don't think this is a surprise. We've sort of speculated that they're going to have to have a backup plan. It sounds like WWE is at least acknowledging to Mike Johnson.

They do have a backup plan for November. Maybe it's too soon for WrestleMania. I'm not saying you've ever had this exact circumstance in pro wrestling. We have had some issues with travel and geopolitics and things like that with real American freestyle. How far in advance do you think WWE for a show that has the sponsorship and the scale and just the overall scope of undertaking a WrestleMania? When do you think that plan B needs to be kind of concrete, Eric? How much more of a runway do they have here? For November 7th? No, for WrestleMania next day. Oh, for WrestleMania.

You know, so much of that depends on where the plan B is, you know, in what country? is it? I think you said it might be domestic or is that for the November event? Well, I think there's suggestions amongst fans that, hey, they're going to have to have a domestic backup. We sort of freestyled. Hey, you know, they were going to get a WrestleMania in New Orleans, but it went to Las Vegas for the second year in a row. Perhaps New Orleans could be the site. And since we know next weekend, or maybe it's two weekends from now, yeah, two weeks from now, we're going to have money in the bank. in New Orleans.

Maybe that would be a time. That's what I sort of freestyled. But there was a rumor last week, Eric, that the backup plan may actually wind up being Houston. And a lot of wrestling fans still hold WrestleMania 17 near and dear as being like the greatest WrestleMania, also Houston based.

These reports are saying, hey, it's too soon for them to have a backup sort of contingency plan. And I'm wondering. No, no, I don't think so. And I know I get your question.

Oh, it's a little clear to me now. what can it four we got seven months is that is that the lead time yeah it's april so yeah so let's just say for sake of discussion it's seven months or give or take but and that's not even that's not a lot of time for something of this scale if it was for you know something for raw or smackdown that's manageable it's it's horrible you don't want to have to go through it you avoid it at all costs but if you got to do it you got to do it but but it's doable.

Payful as it may be. But WrestleMania, so much of it, I'm just thinking, you know, what's the first thing you've got to do? Well, you've got to find a venue big enough in a market that's strong enough that will allow you to control that building for,

I don't know, but I'm guessing more than a week, five days, minimum, just to set up the staging and just to get the building ready and start bringing in your WWE infrastructure. Load in, you know, for us, Real American Freestyle, we can do, you know, we can load in overnight, be ready for a show Saturday night, but we're compared to a WrestleMania project or a program or a production.

We're probably a fifth besides of that. maybe smaller. I don't see how you could possibly, shouldn't say that, WWE's got a lot of leverage and resources. Man, if I had any lessons, like working on it tonight, you know, I mean, you have to get ahead of, it just takes time. And now, and again, if you're outside of the country, then there's all kinds of other variables.

Some that maybe make it easier. For example, you know, if my back was up against the wall and I was faced. with finding a replacement for Saudi Arabia for WrestleMania. I had a small window like they have. This is a decidedly small window. Not only from production, but from a marketing perspective, an integration perspective with the sponsors, as you mentioned. That all takes freaking time.

The place that you could probably go to from a risk perspective, you know, not getting a crowd because that's the big risk, right? Play a little rest of me, It looks like crap if you don't have a full house. I think you could probably pull something off in the UK, providing you could find a facility that's going to let you have that much time. Keep in mind, a lot of these venues are booked up 12 months in advance, sometimes longer.

So it's not like these buildings just sit around looking at the phone, waiting for it to ring, hoping to book their buildings. They book far ahead. And depending on what you book, it might not be movable. You might be able to negotiate something. thing if you really need that date. And this would apply to international as well as domestic. But, you know, if there's, if there's a production going in or somebody's holding that date,

has it locked down, there's always an option to go to them and negotiate something where you're putting money in their pocket to open the data for you. You don't want to do that. But I guess it would be a possibility. I've never had to do it. It's just kind of common sense. Building wouldn't care. I just want to make sure the building's full.

You know, somebody's paying for it. So that's an option, but, yeah, but I don't have that job. Eric, I don't pretend to know exactly the way the WWB business works, but I do think that we've all sort of understood for the past several years. WrestleMania has received like a location fee, a rights fee. So these different municipalities, they're actually making a bid. And it may be, hey, we're going to give you favorable rental on the building. We may give you a block of room.

We're going to give you some sort of tax credit. We're going to give you some, you know, free marketing. I feel like that sort of packaging is probably the first step, right? They would want to, I hate to use the phrase, but they would use an RFP or request for proposal from different municipalities who maybe have expressed interest in the past and then probably line up a temporary hold and then communicate to that municipality. Hey, we don't want to position you as plan B, but, you know, we do have a commitment here,

but we would like a backup plan. But it doesn't feel like they would just go to, hey, we're just going to run a show here and hold a building and just forego all the tax credit and everything else. They've got all the other WrestleMania, right? But that's also the thing that would take the longest lead time. I don't think six or seven months gives you enough time.

If you're just starting those conversations now, you don't have enough time. You're talking about the government. You know, and again, a lot of these governments, they're expenditures, their investments,

their sponsorships, all the other things that they give away to attract business, you're coming up at the end of the year. I don't know what the fiscal year is. It's different for every state. But if you're at the, about in April, you'd be the first quarter of their budget. So that wouldn't be as big of an issue,

but still the process when you're dealing with state and local governments. It's just so time consuming. Now, perhaps, again, this is WWE now, we're talking about they have a template. Oh, yeah. The numbers are all pretty much, a lot of the numbers, whether you're putting on an event of Saudi, well, Saudi Arabia's a different deal, different culture, different climate, London or Dallas. You know, you can pretty much project within great accuracy what a lot of your performance is going to be.

You've got a story to tell. And the sponsors are buying numbers. they don't really, for the most part, aren't concerned where those eyeballs and demographics are coming from, for the most part. They just want eyeballs. And if you can perform, you know, you can take that deck to state and local to serve that function to help, you know, find those offset dollars. You can use that same thing for sponsorship. Again, that's all numbers driven. That data is already there.

All you need to do is adjust your attention. attendance figures and a few other outside the arena numbers that you need to play with a little bit. And you can put together a very, very creative and interesting proposal. So there, but it takes so much time. That's the part I don't get. I don't think it would be possible would be that component. 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff is brought to you by Maud. Mod prescribes once or twice daily modafinil.

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plus free shipping with the promo code 83 weeks. That's promo code 83 weeks at mod.com. I'm not saying that they're going to be starting from absolutely scratch, but it would not surprise me, as we're talking now and we'll call it the end of September, it would not surprise me if they're already having conversations with municipalities about next year's SummerSlam, next year's Survivor Series,

like those conversations are already there. So if you know you have one of those, the framework of a good deal, and some of those, or maybe you've even got pen to paper, if one of those already books, say, Survivor Series next year opportunities, were able to then be approached and say, hey,

what if we were able to bring you WrestleMania instead? Yeah. Of course. So you kick the can a little bit. It gives you until next November now to figure out what Survivor series is. And of course, the municipality, even though they maybe wanted it in November for an off season,

they're probably going to jump at the chance. to get a WrestleMania and maybe even get a little bit of a bump. So it is going to be interesting to see how this all plays out because as it is right now, none of us even know is this going to be necessary? Eric, I know that we've made a lot of bets on this show and they usually don't go your way if your hair is on the line. So I'm not going to put your hair on the line and ask you to make that bet. I don't have as much left.

It's not nearly as much fun to shave it up. In fact, they damn near get it done once every three weeks. I want to ask, realistically, do you think WrestleMania next year happens in Saudi or will it be somewhere else? If you had to make a bet at the end of September, what would it be? Saudi. Yeah. What do you guys think?

Do you think we're going to get our first non-North American WrestleMania? Let us know in the comments below. I mean, I do think it represents an opportunity, Eric, you know, because they're, we don't know exactly when and where this is going to happen still. I mean, here we are just days away from October, and we still don't know what the date of WrestleMania is, which is kind of crazy. And we keep talking about that. Who gives a shit?

Does it really freaking matter? And I know when some people plan ahead and they fly in from London and they're doing this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Small percentage of the audience. At the end of the day, what are you going to do to try to accommodate that particular issue? You'll, you'll correct to yourself in a whole. I don't think that the, we don't even have a date really matters except for the internet wrestling community that is looking for something to kind of whine about. I don't, I don't think at the end of it all, it will have minimal, if any, impact at all on the bottom line results of what that event is going to be.

Well, I'm not arguing that from a WWE standpoint, but I do think there are a lot of families who like to book their airfare far in advance and get that budget worked out. I know that there's a lot of folks who make like an annual pilgrimage to WrestleMania and I don't know what those folks are going to do like they still don't have a plan for next year because I do know those a lot of chatter but hey if this happens internationally maybe some fans will make the trip but others they're going to I just don't believe that Conrad how many people I just flew over to to Moscow I know how much it costs it can't be convinced by you or anybody else that there's enough of a number of people

that are going to spend the amount of money it takes to get to Saudi Arabia for a wrestling event. I don't care if it's WrestleMania. Eric, I'm not suggesting that. Will there be some? Of course there will be, but does it really matter? Well, let me ask you. But there's a war going on.

What about that part? It's not like WWEs is going to ask you it. Well, and that's a date, whatever. the move because we got all this stuff to do. We're doing this over here. We'll get, we'll get to what. We got time. They're not doing that. They're lobbying missiles over there. So doesn't it kind of make sense to be prudent and stand back and say, before you make your plans, you people out there that like to make your plans in advance and you're stressed out because we don't know the WrestleMania date? Oh my God. Take it easy because we'd rather you not spend your money and make

those commitments because there's something going on over there. You don't have anything to do with it. We're not lobbing missile. Somebody else is. But since that's going on, please be patient. And guess what? If you can't make your plans and watch it for free and come next time.

I mean, it's just such a silly conversation. I'm glad we're having it because I'm entertaining myself. But man, some things, it's a little things to get to me, not the big things. You're having a conversation with yourself this morning and making up

issues. That's not what I was suggesting. I'm suggesting that if it gets canceled over there and it's domestic, now you've got a lot of families who would have normally planned a year in advance because they know where next year's WrestleMania is going to be. So they go ahead and they secure that hotel and they secure that airfare. And if you're in the business of booking that sort of stuff, you also know the minute it's announced, the hotel rooms get more expensive.

Like if you're a longtime college football fan, the minute they find out that, oh, Oklahoma's in the Orange Bowl, immediately, you know, airfare gets more expensive, hotels get more expensive. We're in the era of dynamic pricing. So a lot of families want to get ahead of that. I'm talking about domestic travel, the plan B option. I'm with you. I don't think we're going to have 40,000.

Same thing applies. What do you? I mean, not exactly the same thing because the two conditions are different, but it's more or less out of their control. It's related to the central issue. There's a war going on. We've had to make a change in schedule. There's not like there's a lot of options.

So I understand the situation. And obviously, if it was me and my money and my family and my kids being disappointed, I'd be upset too. But I'd also, you know, it's not anybody's fault. You just do the best you can do. It's the same end of the story. It isn't caused by lack of professionalism or caring about the fans or planning ahead or anything like that. It's, there's global, there's global crap going on that has created this problem, and they're doing what they need to do.

I don't feel like, you know, I'm not trying to defend them, but I'm trying to defend common sense a little bit. Is it also common sense that this will be the last non-North American WrestleMania for this reason? Logistically, is the juice worth the squeeze? Say that one more time, please. Well, I'm just saying, I wonder how many, I don't, I'm not saying this is an issue, but maybe it is.

Will there be a certain amount of sponsor? who will not want to be involved with sponsoring WrestleMania because it's in Saudi, because of any sort of political backlash they may be concerned about. And now you're not even really firm on whether or not you can do a date because there is the middle of a war. Respectfully, if this WrestleMania event was planned domestically, we would not have to worry about will they or will they not be bombing Kansas? Oh, no, we're still fine to do it in Kansas City if we want.

It'll be safe. And we wouldn't potentially alienate any sponsors. I'm just wondering, is this going to ultimately be a one and done opportunity for a WrestleMania in the Middle East? No. I don't know. I'm just when I answer like that, I'm just my instinct more than even really a thought process. But common sense, again, you know, they probably already know which sponsors are comfortable with the Middle East. again, the sponsors would understand.

They have to. I understand your question correctly. So are they going to lose sponsorship that won't come back because, you know, we tried to come to Saudi and couldn't deliver? I don't think that's the case. If that was your question. The question is, do you think, because my option is, announce an American date, you don't limit your sponsor field.

You're not going to be at risk of losing the date because of a war crisis. or for a little bit more money, we don't know how much, and that's the question. It becomes a mathematical question, right? It becomes a financial question of, is the juice worth the squeeze? Like, how much more will we make by going to Saudi

when you factor in any loss of potential sponsorship and whatever these contingency plans are? Because these contingency plans are not free. They're certainly a labor cost. They're certainly time consuming. There's going to be a lot of lawyers involved. So eventually, this just becomes a P&L question. question. And that was my real question is from a business perspective, do you think the juice is worth

the squeeze for Saudi? And you think it is. I think you have to take more than the math into equation. What about the long-term relationship with Saudi? What does that represent over the next five years? So if there is a risk, again, I'm understanding the question, if by not going, we're concerned that, you know, maybe we'll, Saudi will never want to do it again because we came up short. No, I don't think that at all. I don't think there's any risk in that. I do really think, as you said, it's just simple math. And I would imagine if they can break even, they'll feel good about it under this situation. If they can meet their expectations or come damn close to it, I think they'd go with Saudi. All right, man, it was that.

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It's been made official. Hey, California got out of the way and the Paramount acquisition of Warner Brothers is going through. And of course, Tony Kahn took to social media to chat about this. and he said, I've made it no secret, dozens and dozens of time. I've gone on the record and said I look forward to a time when. Hopefully it will be Paramount and Warner Brothers together. I think it will make AEW stronger.

I've said it time and time again. I believe we are very close to that time. What a fantastic announcement for AEW and our fans to have the leadership, the great David Ellison coming in. I've said it time and time again. This is somebody who loves professional wrestling and loves sports. It's somebody who I've worked with in the National Football League. whether it's NFL films or now CBS and the great partnership with the NFL.

This is a great TV producer, a great film producer, and somebody who I know is going to be a great leader for Warner Brothers, just like he is now for Paramount. We're excited and what is happening in the world of media, and you should be too if you're an AEW fan, because ladies and gentlemen, this is a great time for us. So listen,

Tony Cohen is saying he thinks this is going to be positive, and I like that he said it time and time. again, I don't think anybody really knows what to expect. Meltzer is saying pretty consistently, hey, anybody who's claiming they know doesn't really know. It could be good, it could be bad. What do you think this merger ultimately means for AW? I think you're uniquely qualified to speak on it. And I know before you even open your mouth, there's going to be people who are saying, oh, I can't believe you're asking Eric Bischoff that. Why would you ask Eric Bisch off that? maybe you're familiar with the AOL Time Warner merger that happened with WCW.

If anybody is qualified to talk about this, it's EZE. Eric, you've seen the chatter, you've seen the discussion, you've lived it before. I'll be at a different time. What do you think this could mean for AW, good or bad? First of all, great, you know, great statement by Tony. That's greasing the skids and he did a great job greasing this skids. and I don't blame for doing it by the way.

It wasn't a shot. It was also obvious. Look, it's the same thing that I said probably five, six, seven years ago. Back in 2019, when I called out Tony Conn and AEW for what I thought it was, and I made certain predictions that have all come true. Based on what I saw back then, it's all manifesting right now. The only thing that's keeping AEW alive right now is the fact that they don't need, need to make any money. That's it. They have a bottomless pit. There's no financial pressure on them

and Tony loves it and his father is willing to support it. So as long as that's the case and that financial pressure isn't there, the only thing it comes down to is what are the numbers? Not what are the ratings? That's what the internet wrestling community loves to debate. But what do the ratings mean to Warner Brothers, currently. And by that, I mean, how much of it can they sell? Because it's not a hot piece of real estate. I mean, advertising across the board is tough if you're in the advertising business. It's really tough for a whole variety of reasons.

So people are really tight. They're looking for nickels and dimes rather than dollars in some cases. That's how tightly they're watching these budgets and expenses in that world. So what it will come down to is somebody's going to be able to look at the ad revenue that is generated by AW. And they're going to look at any promotional opportunities that they feel is unique to AW that may help them support other programming. It used to be leading as you're leading in or leading out. Are you shoulder programming and helping boost the things that are around you? that matters, but it really just comes down to the dollars.

And if they're having a difficult time selling AEW, not because it's AEW, but because there's a lot of wrestling available in the marketplace. It's all got a, it's all far more attractive than AEW is from a demographic perspective. So if you are an advertiser who is interested or willing to advertise in wrestling, and you want to place your money where you think it's going to do the best for you, Is it going to be an AEW? Where is it going to be in a WWE-related product? The answer is pretty obvious to anybody.

Regardless of which one you like more or less, that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the dollars that it delivers to the bottom line, particularly for Warner Brothers, because as we all know, they've been burning cash and losing millions and millions of dollars for the last couple of years. So, of course, the numbers are going to be what's going to decide it. I don't think any Internet wrestling community Dave Meltzer-esque podcast, politics, you know, and conjecture and conspiracy theories and who's, you know, whose friends with you, I don't think any of that shit matters.

It really only matters to the people who live for it. The only thing that will really matter at the end of it all is the math. And that's what I said six or seven years ago. It's all about the math. If you're growing, how many times have you heard me say over the years, you're either growing or you're dying? AW hasn't been growing. As a matter of fact, they probably, depending on how you look at what data, not only are they're not growing,

they probably have been losing consistently. I know they have in ratings. I'm sure, you know, maybe the other parts of the business are growing, and it's just not obvious, but the only thing that is obvious to those of us who are connected to the product is ticket sales and ratings.

That's what it'll come down to. Well, there's no denying from AEW's peak. They're certainly down, but they have seen some incremental growth, but to your point, it's not substantial relative to the overall drop. So that's really the larger question I want to ask you, Eric. What do you think is AEW's strongest argument for its place on television?

Is it the idea that it's live, that it's year-round, you know, unlike other sports that are kind of seasonal? Is it streaming value? Like, what is the feather in the cap for AW programming do you think? If I put on my AEW salesman's hat, I had to go out and pitch that product right now. I think probably the thing that I would talk about the most is consistency for the wrestling product in general and then try to point to some high points, periods of time when AEW has been consistent or discuss how you're going to become more consistent. But wrestling in general, I've talked about this a million times since the beginning of television time.

Wrestling has been a very consistent performer on cost per program basis, meaning it's cheap programming. That's been its wrestling, everybody's wrestling, not everybody's wrestling, not just AEWs, everybody's wrestling. WWE became WWE because comparatively that studio wrestling show, when it was WWW, whatever it was, how many Ws were in WWF at the time. Those numbers in a local market back in the 60s and the 70s were some of the biggest numbers in the market. So your local advertisers loved that stuff. And they did extremely well. Same thing happened to cable.

Same thing happened to pay-per-view. Same thing happened in the digital world, right? Wrestling has always worked. And for your investment, Mr. Network, my God, this stuff continues to deliver and always will. It's predictable and it's relatively stable. For programmers, that's important. If you're programming a network or you're the general manager of a network, you've got to project numbers, you've got to project ratings,

you've got to project, oh, you've got to project all the numbers you need to project in order to attract advertisers. You can't project numbers that you know you may or may not be able to deliver. And that's the case with a lot of content. That's why people like to buy old reruns of stuff because it's very predictable. The numbers go down year after year after year, but they go down gradually because the audience still is there for it. My point being that if your job is to maintain an overall rating for your network,

an average throughout the month, whatever, however they measure, your job is to deliver a stable advertising vehicle for your advertisers. You want product in there that A, you can afford, and B is relatively stable. You don't want to hope this reality show hits or doesn't because 95 out of 100 of them, crush and burn. You're looking for things that can have two or three or four cycles or seasons as it used to be called because that's when you make your money. You don't make your money in the first one. If you make your money, if you're breaking even and making a couple bucks on your first one, you're happy. When you start building and growing that audience is when you start really becoming

stable. So I would pitch that. I spend a lot of time talking about the potential and stability of rustle and the cost of it. Beyond that, you know, what is the AEW's distinct advantages if I had to sell out number two? Would that be tough? I would probably, you know, focus on cost. If you compare out wrestling to WWEs programming, look at the advantages that you have here. So you're still getting a stable audience and not spending nearly as much money. I would, you know, I'd talk about that.

Beyond that, honestly, there's not a lot to work with here because there's not a enough of a difference between WWE and AEW that a non-w wrestling fan. I'm not talking about somebody that lives on the internet and believes everything Dave Meltzer says. I'm talking about an executive that only is interested in numbers. You know, there's just not a lot to talk about. There's not enough differentiation in WWE and AEW to have much of a conversation about it because the other person on the other end, they go, well, wait a minute, they're doing the same

thing. But wait a minute. This guy's called, they got similar names and every one's pretty and one's almost pretty. I don't know. What's the difference? Tell me, Tony or tell me, Eric, you've got your salesman's hat on. What's the difference between AEW and WW because I don't get it from a fan's perspective because I'm not a fan. So tell me why fans see the difference. I don't know. By that time, I think you've lost them. I think to stability and and cost would be what I would probably focus up. All right. If you're a guy, I know I'm not alone when I say this.

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I'm talking about Turner when you were with WCW and then sort of post-merger, how things started to change a little bit. And I'm wondering, what do you need to be on the lookout for? Is it changes in scheduling if they're asking you to promote things differently? If there's executive from or if there's some sort of executive messaging, I mean, I remember it feels like standards and practices became a new conversation. And they really started to sort of clamp down on what you could or couldn't do.

So I'm just wondering with the benefit of hindsight, you can probably look back and say, oh, when they started doing this, I should have recognized, oh, here comes the changes that are not going to be good for WCW. What are those things that AEW could be on the lookout for? It's a little different.

I get your point. It's a great question. I'm really glad you asked it. I've never thought about this before in this context. It's different, though, Conradap, because when I was running WCW, I was an employee of Turner. So they could push buttons and pull strings and make things happen and call me two days later and tell me about it. Right. Whereas Tony's got a contract.

So there's a limit. Now, could they ask them to schedule or reschedule? Things like that may be, depending on what's into contract. Usually you kind of protect yourself, but, you know, if you're really interested in growing a relationship, perhaps you allow some flexibility and perhaps that's something that could happen potentially. You're not going to mess with this budget. I mean, his contracts coming to an end here within a reasonably short period of time here, whatever it is, I don't know.

So there's no need to enter into anything that would end up in litigation. So I'm not going to try to force anything on Tony that's outside of the agreement. So I don't really think Tony will have much visibility into most of the changes that start happening in the beginning. When it becomes obvious and we're reading about it in the news, that's one thing. But the little nuance kind of maneuvering and things that you would see if you were inside the corporate tomb, so speak, Tony won't have visibility into that. How much of a,

I don't know, an ace up the sleeve, is it that Tony's family owns an NFL team and obviously, you know, his family, you know, is a power broker

when it comes to that sort of thing. Like there's lots of billionaires. There's only a handful of billionaires who own an NFL team and everybody who's in the media business knows that the NFL is a huge juggernaut. So is it, you know, for lack of a better phrase, a Trump card that they do have an NFL franchise?

Maybe. I mean, that's a world that I have no visibility in. Sure. That's a level of kind of power play that's fun for me to think about. And I know that kind of stuff happens, which is what makes it fascinating because you never know if it really is or not. But I could see it. But there's other factors in that if we're going to open up those doors and start looking at the what ifs and could be's and who's associated with who, now I can turn into a maze

because there's a lot of that kind of opportunity for people to, now you're talking about politics. Yes. That's a political move to have some kind of favorable outcome on a discussion involving one of your partners in a sense, sons, you know, wrestling project. Do I leave it on the air? if it's not delivering numbers. Now, if it's delivering numbers, that's a different situation.

But if it, if it's below the threshold of what they believe is sustainable or growable, um, that shouldn't matter. And if it does matter, then that's politics. So if we assume that politics are at play, there's a whole lot of other politics that would probably trump that trump card. How big of a deal is it, if Ellison is actually a wrestling fan? I only ask because what's the point of time, you know, we've heard the, stories that maybe there was pressure from Turner corporate to do away with wrestling.

But as the old story goes, oh, no, but Ted was a big wrestling fan. He wanted it on the program. He felt like it added value to the network. Does Ellison being a wrestling fan matter at all? It sounds like you don't think so. Not a bit. That's wishful thinking. And it's a good public statement because it shows support and team play.

And you're excited about the merger. you're not on the sidelines bitching about it like a lot of people are right you're a team player you want to project that you you're you're you're guilty of male practice if you don't if you're tony con so i'm not criticizing it but at the same time it is what it is i don't again think that look ted was unique ted was very very unique and ted also lost control of his company so I don't you know because he stood up for wrestling no but because he operated in kind of an old school media way in a very new school because remember this is you know who bought it out AOL time Warner they had that they had their name on the door not Turner um I don't know you can't really compare the two but I don't think the fact that Ellison reportedly according to Tony is a wrestling fan really matters. Doesn't hurt.

Could be the other thing. He could hate that shit. He could be one of those people. We know they exist. I know they exist at the executive level. I work for them, unfortunately. So sure, it could work for him,

but it could also work against it. So who knows? We'll find out. I hope it works for him. You've expressed in years past, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, you wish that maybe you would have handled

some of your professional interactions differently, sort of post-merger, where you were like, hey, I just didn't have the maturity at the time to recognize that I should have handled this a little differently. Now that you're older and wiser and have sort of been there and done that, I don't know that Tony Kahn listens to the show every week, but hypothetically, if you had his ear and you were going to give him friend-to-friend advice about the sort of message to present

and what the messaging and just the presentation of his first, interactions with new management, what would your advice to him be that you could say, boy, I wish I would have approached it differently here. Can he learn from your mistakes? And what would your advice to him be? I don't know that it,

here's what I would do. If I had his ear, that's where you got my attention. I would have a plan. I would have a believable, plausible plan for how I'm going to grow this brand over the next three years. But you've got to have a plan. And it can't be, you know, a wrestling internet community plan based on what wrestling fans like.

Because that's what gets the reaction on the internet. It's part of the problem that they already have is they're satisfying a group, an audience that is not ever going to be significant enough to sustain. or grow the brand long term. It's just not going to happen. But if you've got a plan, so when you have your first meeting with whoever is going to be the decision maker, I don't think it'll be Larry Ellison at the end of the day. But if it were to be Larry Ellison, you got an opportunity to walk into the door with the guy that has the keys to your future as a product.

So go in freaking loaded from bear with a real plan. and point out why this plan is going to grow your brand in ways that previous efforts didn't. You're going to have to acknowledge the fact that the brand hasn't grown. Yes, they've changed ratings, dynamics, and a couple of times it appeared, but I'm guessing when it's all said and done, if there was ever a way to measure it, the audience didn't go up and down. The way they measured it did. So the whole up and down thing, and this applies to the media crash too.

It wasn't real. Neither is the big jump up. Probably the answer is somewhere in the middle like it always is. But I would just have a plan. I would make sure that plan talks a lot about story and not Tony Kahn's version of a story because I don't think he understands what the story is, to be honest with you. I know his largest vocal supporter, Dave Meltzer, absolutely does not know what a story is.

And it seems to be that kind of core audience that really is very vocal about AW on the internet. They certainly do not have a clue. This is the lowest form of Ventelective everybody's exposed to probably. So I would look for somebody that understands story and wrestling to help you come up with something that is plausible and doable. And take your best shot.

unless your numbers, when they finally analyze your numbers, are so favorable that you don't have to have a plan. Then you're going to emphasize how you're going to stay consistent and keep doing what you're doing. Maybe talk about a couple of the improvements in a couple of areas of growth. You won't have that much work to do if your numbers are there. But if your numbers are not there, Tony, as your friend, get a plan, get ahead of it. be in control of things and not wait for meetings or conversations. Put the plan together and ask for the meeting before you get the bad news or the good news. Either way, have a plan.

Eric, you mentioned a few moments ago that, hey, wrestling has always been considered cheap content. It was recently something that I wanted to bring to your attention because it was a bit of an eye-opener to me. We're talking, of course, about the cost of producing wrestling and that it's, unquote cheap content. But there's a JP Morgan chart that doesn't necessarily support that. It basically estimates that AEW is $2.16 per viewer hour. Now, when you compare that to the UFC on Paramount, that's $2.23 per hour. So this measure is actually comparing what a distributor pays with how many hours

viewers actually watch. So it's different from the total cost of filling a schedule. but in short, AEW's strongest negotiating argument is that it has dependable year round live wrestling when AEW, or I'm sorry,

WWE is unavailable because we know that WWE has contracts with seemingly everybody and their years long. So now you've got to decide if you're a potential buyer, does this justify the price? And I'll admit,

$2.16 per hour, based on J.P. Morgan's report versus U.S. UFC's 223 with Paramount, that's a lot closer than I imagined. I just assumed that AEW would have been much more affordable than what they're paying for UFC on Paramount. That difference of 216 and 223, does that shock you a little bit? Need to understand it better.

So that the formula, the $2.16 cents per viewer hour. That's right. So you take your, you take your total viewers, let's say, 600,000. for AW. It's just a number. And then you're figuring out how many hours those 600,000 are watching. And it breaks down to every hour that someone watches AEW. Warner Brothers is basically paying $2.16.

Versus Paramont paying the UFC $2.23 per viewer hour. So for every hour that a viewer watches UFC, the investment from Paramount breaks down to about 223 an hour. I assumed that the UFC asked with Paramount, because we've all heard what a monster deal that is and how much money it is. I just assumed, well, that's got to be way more expensive on a cost for the average viewer. I just kind of assumed, and I understand that what we've usually talked about in the cost category in conversation,

Eric, is how much is the cost to produce? So we're talking about the satellite time and the trucks and the production. And that is a different conversation. Go ahead. No, I was going to say that. And I'm glad you clarified that because in my mind, I'm trying to compute cost for production. That's not what we're talking about here.

You're talking about the retail cost of the program. Yeah. And the reason I'm talking about it that way, just so everybody can understand, I think the point of this chart that we showed, and hopefully you checked it out at 83weeks.com. the idea is, hey, how much, you know, what is the, you know, ads are always sold, Eric, you know this on a CPM basis. So when we really figure out, hey, how much revenue and ad revenue is coming in and now how much is going out,

there is going to be a real P&L, black and white that you can see like, hey, what is our return on investment here? We had a good idea. We had a good plan. But an execution, what ad dollars could we associate with AEW? but that's not even the that's more of the credit column this is the debit column right so for every viewer hour every hour watched of AEW the investment is $2.16 and I know we've always talked about this for years and years that wrestling is hard to sell advertising to we got that and we also know that there is a perception and I don't think it's accurate that that wrestling fans are on the lower level of you know socioeconomically I think you would say, I think most people would say, your demographics for wrestling are going to be not as educated, not as much income, blah, blah, blah. That is certainly the perception amongst the media buyers. Now, I've been advertising my mortgage company here on our podcast for 10 years. I can tell you that's

not true. Our average customer has like a 740 credit score. So that's a pretty doggone great credit score. And they make pretty good money and they live in pretty nice houses. So I know there are a lot of doctors and lawyers and people who, you know, tried things with the Supreme Court. And, you know, tried things with the Supreme Court, worked for freaking NASA. They listened to this program. So I know that the wrestling audience is not what the perception is amongst media buyers.

But I do wonder is the gap as wide as we thought? Like, I just assumed that the UFC would skew higher. I assumed it would be higher education. I assumed it would be higher income. But when I look at the investment side, and this is totally different,

216 or 223, that's not the delta I expected, Eric. me neither I have to think through that a little bit to try to to try to answer the question as to why or explain why not why isn't there a bigger difference

but I'd have to give that some real thought because it is a bit of a head scratcher it feels like to me it's because there's a lot more people watching UFC I mean I don't know that there's another way to talk about it so while we have been pretty consistently saying here hey wrestling as a rule a program a wrestling program is cheaper to produce well that may be true but how many people are watching it you know so when you really drill down into yes it is cheaper to produce

you know at a macro level but if you get to i hate to use the analogy but i know in your days in wcw you would do like a per cap for merchandise it's like okay for every head that came in here they spent x number of dollars on merch on average well if we're applying that same sort of methodology here for the viewers at home. It's like, hey, is it really that much more affordable? Yes, the top line number may be different, but we're only paying seven cents more per viewer hour for a much richer contract, which must mean a lot more people are watching it. I don't know.

It really made me rethink the whole, hey, wrestling is cheap to produce. Yeah, but is it really? But we've both been saying this for a long time. It does just come down to the numbers in the math. Yes. It's, what's your CPM? At the bottom line, you know, what's your average CPM in wrestling? What's the average CPM in UFC?

I'm guessing, particularly because UFC's, I mean, they got a lot of really blue collar sponsors, or blue chip sponsors are meant to say. You know, they got beer support. You know, it's okay to advertise in UFC for advertisers in some respects. They couldn't advertise in AEW because of the traditional kids' content. in that part of their demo. It's always been, and I've, I tried to fight against it. You know, when we were high at Nitro, I tried to get beer sponsors in desperately

because there's so much money. If you could lock down a beer sponsor, a major one that really believes in your product, that changes your world. And I tried my best. And we had the numbers to support it. I could walk into any room with, with anybody and say, here is actual. watching our shows. I don't who you think is watching it because of what you grew up thinking. Here's who's actually watching it according to Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen.

Take a look. And it would be right there in black and white. Not sure the board would like it. Because there's too many people that make decisions that fall into that category and that perception of what wrestling is. But when you can break through that and get to some of the the advertisers that aren't afraid of it, like UFC has. And it surprises a hell out of me that beer is more comfortable in the UFC than it is in WWE. I mean,

I understand the whole kid's thing, but, you know, the NFL's got beer. Come on, what are we talking about here? And wrestling's more harmless in a way than, you know,

UFC, I mean, it is what it is. It's why UFC is so successful because these are real people really trying to hurt each other out there. WWE's drama. It's fun. It's scripted.

It's cartoon. at times. It's not meant to be taken too seriously, but it is. Not too much. And don't be funny, but it's kind of funny. Not too much drama, but it's a little bit of drama that I kind of like. I mean, that's what makes wrestling work. Um, anyway, off track. Sorry. No, I love it. I love hearing the way your brain works. All right, man, let's talk about it as big guys, I have always hated buying jeans. It feels like you just wind up settling for something that will do. You know, you need new jeans, but they're not comfortable. That is until you find the perfect gene. You see, here's what you're going to realize. These are as comfortable as wearing sweatpants and they're good

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And the promo code is Bischoff 1.5. And the thing that's not lost on me is Eric, you know, we're talking and having a lot of conversations about television, based on the way television used to be. but with streaming becoming more and more prominent, it's really the Wild West right now, is it not? In a fun way, it is.

And now that I've been involved, because I've never really produced anything for a streaming platform before. And in Real American Free Sale, obviously, over a Fox Nation, who I just, by the way, shout out to Gavin, Lauren, thank you very much. You know, Chad, my partner, yes, big shout out. A lot of good things happening there.

but I had never produced for a streamer before. And, you know, everything's different. And you have to think differently streaming than you typically think when you're producing television. When you're producing television, you're really thinking creatively about short segments in between commercial breaks. And it absolutely controls everything you do when you're producing for television. The format rules. Those network breaks, they're in the format. You build your show around them.

You don't get to play with them and move them around and do twice as much over here and half as much over there because you want to run a full second, whatever. You don't get to play with those numbers. And that just really changes the way I've had to think about producing the show because you want to sustain the audience's interest throughout the entire show. So one thing, I mean, there's a few things that I've learned producing wrestling and watching other people produce wrestling as well that I've learned that I've really been able to transition over into real American freestyle in terms of its entertainment value without going too far into the sports entertainment realm. So I've been able to find kind of a very comfortable zone that the traditional wrestling audience loves, which was my biggest concern. and now was attractive to newer viewers that wasn't really interested in watching wrestling on TV because it was always produced so poorly.

So we found that sweet spot. And I learned that really through, again, watching other people produce from Vern to Vince, before I went into WCW, certainly working at WCW, watching WWE, working in WWE, watching the things that work, watching things that didn't work, and having my own bag of things that work. and didn't work. It's been fun to get a feel for it, but streaming is decidedly different.

But it's fun. It's also fun to see the growth from, and I'm not coming in at the early, I mean, streaming was well on its way before RAF came along. But for me, I get to come in at a time when rest when streaming is still in a huge growth phase. It's not like it's, it's peaking out. We've barely seen the tip of the iceberg. So it's fun to see those, it's fun to see how entertainment is evolving as rapidly as it is. Because it's like everything else, it's never evolved as quickly as it has over the last seven years. You go back, you know, early 50s or late 40s, whenever the first TV made the market. Mid-50s is when it became kind of semi-wily available.

And by the 60s, it was part of our culture. But it was essentially the same thing. Everybody was doing the exact same thing. And it's been that way, really up until, what, the last 10 years, whatever, eight years, I don't watch it that closely. But now streaming is such a big deal. It's fun to watch it and be a part of it. Eric, I think the greatest thing that could happen for wrestling.

And again, I'm going to talk a little futuristic here. And people are going to think I sound like a crazy person. But I think we are going to see a great research. in wrestling if and when we can figure out how to integrate AI advertising through a streamer. Now, I'm going to put on a crazy idea here for you, Eric, but follow me here. I'm not saying they're going to throw their hat in the ring, but we all know that Amazon has been spending a lot of money on things like NFL and other products. They're making a significant investment.

And I don't know what your house looks like, but at least every week, Mr. Amazon rings my doorbell for my wife. We have Amazon packages come in every single week. And I know that there are a lot of conversations. Hell, we've talked about it earlier in this show. That, hey, it's hard to sell advertising to wrestling fans. I think what it is it's because the biggest issue is it's hard for us to identify who the target demo is, who's actually watching wrestling.

And because we don't really know who's wrestling, it's hard for us to guess what should we best market them. but that's because I think a lot of the marketing is just a shotgun approach. But if you could get a rifle approach, and I think AI will close the gap on this for Amazon and other places, but if those streaming services could deliver the person who's viewing that content, ads that are just for them, very highly intentional, these are things that we know you've looked at on Amazon, it's been in your cart, it's in your save for later.

When AI allows marketing to become very, very granular and almost a one-to-one, versus a one to many approach. No longer, but we have to sit through some of these drugs that nobody in our household would be served by subscribing to or being prescribed to. I think we could save a lot of money and waste,

and we could get very, very focused. And that advertising becomes, instead of a whole bunch of products that we don't care for, they are things that we just, the computer knows that we're interested in. And so it's going to deliver us those ads. I think when they figure out how to monetize wrestling fans that way, someone like an Amazon,

they'll be surprised to see, hey, it's really easy to sell to wrestling fans. It's just not easy to identify who that demographic is if you're not in the bubble. So if you don't have to do, hey, here's a national ad and everybody's seeing the same commercial at the same time, but you can get more granular. And your advertising for your household is based on what they know you're buying habits are in that household. And AI will bridge the gap here. I think that's when wrestling can really,

I think they will have an increase in rights fees once someone figures out that AI advertising component. Because I think it'll be the first time that the media buyers and the sellers, all the agency business, they'll finally understand

hey, who the hell is watching wrestling and how easy is it to get the wrestling fan to open their wallet? If you're selling them the wrong shit, then it's not that easy. But if you're selling them more of what they already want, boy, it could be incredibly easy, I think, Eric.

The technology must already exist. I mean, it's such a brilliant idea. But in a way, that's what happens when we're online. Yes. It's exactly what happens when we're online. Now all we're trying to do is and you're watching your streaming on your devices. Yes.

Through a device. So the information is already there. Yes. It's just a matter of distilling it. And here's, that's really brilliant, Conrad. I'll be shocked if it isn't already happening, and I wish I had the time to bed with money and in the relationships to pursue it, because this could be a game changer.

Your CPMs would go from a mid-level, what it used to be, a mid-level CPM for wrestling of $15 a thousand or $25 a thousand, somewhere in that category, if I remember right. That would jump to about $500, $500 a thousand. Yes, sir. Because of the waste, as you alluded to earlier, you don't have. I'm not advertising to 15,000 people that don't need my acne medicine or whatever it is. Whatever the drug is.

I mean, I've always learned. I talk about this all the time on the weekends when we sit and watch TV in the mornings together. It's like, I'm seeing advertisement for drugs and prescriptions for things that I don't even, I've never heard of before. Right. I'm sure that there are some people out there that need those medications, but how expensive is it to advertise to 3 million people to find those four of them over there in a corner? Yes. It's insane, right? You just solve that.

I think it's going to happen. And I could argue, and I don't know what's next for AEW. I hope they're, you know, they get the best deal ever and everybody makes a bunch of money and the wrestling business continues to flourish. But it's not lost on me that somebody like WWE, you think about if they had an opportunity to do something with Amazon, and I know they're not right now, and AEW does have their paper views on Amazon, good for them.

But think about all the merch and all the different, you know, collectibles and all the different, I don't know, shit that WWE sells fans. If you could do that through Amazon and like, you know, as Tiffany Stratton is walking to the ring,

you could just click a button on your Amazon. app, your prime, but oh yeah, I want, they could show the new shirt. Here's the new shirt. We already know your size because you've ordered from us before. Click the button on your remote. We'll get that shirt on the way. Like a company like Amazon is built to sell stuff. And if you have and what you loved about wrestling and you said this loud and crowd when you first got into the idea of being in the wrestling business is that it was the first great infomercial you saw. Like they are doing a basically a commercial to sell you tickets to the live event. but what we're suggesting is if you bring that same attention span from those wrestling fans

and put them in an ecosystem where they already have their credit card on file because everybody already knows the one click to buy Amazon thing like whoever figures that out with the wrestling space I feel like is going to level up the value of their their property incredibly because it'll be the first time hey they're already on Amazon they're already spending money now they're watching this and we can integrate pieces where they just hit a button and it's on the way. I know that's not happening now, but in five years, Eric, that's happening with AI. I just really feel that way. Yeah, I agree with you.

I would say probably a lot less than five years because, again, the technology is already there. Now it's a matter of adaptation. How do you take the technology that already exists and put it in a cute little package that delivers exactly what you're talking about? I don't think it's that much of a stretch. I'm part of this thing from somebody that should be talking about what's potentially capable when it comes to technology. I'm not that guy.

This is just common sense to me. It's already exists. Somebody's going to put, just got to connect the wires. It's ready to go. All right, guys, it's time to focus because I want to ask you a question.

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And what we're going to ask you is we want you to stay silent until you hear someone who is as historically important to the business of professional wrestling as whole COVID. So that's going to be a big one. And I'm going to run through a bunch of names, but I just want you to stay silent until I say a name and you're like, okay, they are as historically significant to pro wrestling as whole Cogan. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay. We'll go first with Tony Conn, Brock Lesner, Roman Raines, Dave Meltzer, Rick Flair, Vince McMahon. Vince.

Okay, I was curious. I was like, all right, I'm going to save Vince for last. But, yeah, I mean, I really do feel like it's a two-horse race, right? I mean, it's got to be Vince. And then probably Hogan, am I off on that? It's Vince Han Hogan. I don't care what anybody says. WWF would have never reached the level of success they did when they were at so much risk if it would not have been for Hulk Hogan.

Conversely, Hulk Hogan would have never become Hulk Hogan were it not for the risks and the support in the partnership of Vince McMahon. That was a two-man team. there's and I don't care all the family revisionist history you tell yourself whatever you need

to tell yourself to feel good about your last name if you can't admit that that was a symbiotic success story yeah you're not being real I mean as much as I loved Halt

and still do in many ways talk to him on a regular basis by the way he would not have been Hogan without Vincevick but I guarantee Vince McMahon would have never become what Vince McMahon became in terms of WWF without Hulk poker. Neither one of them would have survived without the other.

Okay, we'll try another wrestling one here. Eric, I want you to stay silent until you hear a pro wrestling storyline or angle that was more significant than the NWO. The WCW invasion of WWE in 2001, Cody Rhodes, finesse, finishing the story at WrestleMania and winning the world title. The Bloodline with Roman Reigns, Stone Cold versus Vince McMahon or Mr. McMahon. All right. Throwed a flag in that one.

That was a pivot point. I would say it's on par with the NWO. I might want to take that back, though, when I think long term. But it was such a pivot point for WWE. That was the result of Vince McMahon getting his ass kick for as long as he did, almost two years, and going, wait a minute, we got to quit this teen and preteen stuff. We got to go live every week. We got to do what they're doing, go after that 18 to 49 year old, but we need to go after it more aggressively. That's exactly how the attitude era was formed.

But this was the first shot. This was the first move to get into that attitude. There's the first time we saw Vince McMahon. He's involved now as a character. He's acknowledged his owner. Stone Cold Steve Austin. Ms. McMahon. Oh, power struggle. Shocking story development. It's the same thing we were doing. They turned up the volume. They did it better. So I think because they did it bigger, I should say, I think because even though it was a result of the format change that we created for Nitro, because it had such a profound impact on WWE as we know it today, if it were not, if it would not have worked, if it just for whatever reason, that story would

have never come together, WWE wouldn't be WWE today. Absolutely would not have been. That was a huge, huge pivot point. And I think historically, if I'm really being honest about it, they're still here because of it. WCW is that simple. So I'd have to, I got to tip my answer to that one. Well, to me,

it's always going to be about the NWO. It made me fall back in love wrestling, and that's why I'm so excited that we're continuing our conversation about this week in the NWO 30-year anniversary. We're going to be talking about the 54th episode of Monday Nitro today. This went down on September 23rd. heard 1996. It's a fascinating week to take a look at the show too because a lot of the major stars

are doing an appearance over in Japan. So the NWO is going to use their absence to do exactly what they've been threatening to do, takeover Monday Nitro. What's fun about this one is it's right up the street for me in Birmingham, Alabama. And this is the night where it becomes official that six, Sean Walt when he becomes member number six. This is also the episode where we learn about Vincent. Of course, we've seen him on the other channel as Virgil,

Virgil of course was the real name of Dusty Rhodes, Virgil Runnels and Vincent of course is the legal first name of Vince McMahon. So a little bit of fun that we're going to be having here, but we're starting the show right where we left off. You know, at fall brawl, WCW didn't believe Sting. Sting proved his loyalty, but he walked out of war games and essentially to

playered himself a free agent the very next night on Monday night, uh, nitro, but now WCW has a pretty big problem here. One of their biggest defenders of WCW. He's now gone and there's not a lot of the other major stars on nitro tonight and the NWO knows it. So I guess maybe the narrative here is, Hey, when WCW is away,

the NWO will play. Tony Shivani is going to tell the viewer something disturbing right at the top of the program. that the NWO has apparently purchased an advertisement in USA Today promoting Nitro, but they've placed the NWO logo over the WCW logo. And the message basically says is when WCW is away, the NWO will play. This is in the freaking USA Today. Now, I'll admit, it feels like we're talking about a rotary phone here

because nobody talks about newspapers anymore. but boy 30 years ago USA Today was a big deal it was the largest newspaper in the United States and had the widest distribution and it was something that you saw a lot of value in through various points in your WCW tenure there was a presence in USA Today but let's talk about this one in particular you know that you've been threatening this hostile takeover from a storyline perspective and you do know that scheduling-wise you have committed a lot of your top stars in a co-promotional event, if you will, or a crossover event for New Japan. So some of your WCW stars are there.

This makes total sense, but it's a real stroke of genius to have the perception of the million-dollar man buying this ad in USA Today. This is a fabulous piece of business. It's often been forgotten about or glossed over. But man, in the moment, this was really good. cool stuff, Eric. You know what that was and why I, and I did, I had to work in convincing people to spend money in USA today. And the way I did it is by explaining to them how I love morning drive radio, right? Back when I lived in Minnesota, it was Tom Bernad and KQRFs. You know,

every local market has its, you know, morning drive, you know, kind of sports, rock, comedy, over the top shit, you know the format. And that was, it was so hot back then. And I listened to shows early on when I started, when I was with AWA, I listened to Tom Bernardar show, KQRS. It was a hugely successful show. And one of the reasons I like it is every morning, I'm driving to work or doing whatever,

and I'm listening to the radio, and every morning, Tom Bernardar's talking about sports. And he'd always reference USA Today. So he'd use USA Today for his material. on his talk show. And then whenever I would travel, I would notice that a lot of sports jocks did the exact same thing. So I'm thinking, wait a minute.

You know, they're getting all their material based, you know, the sports rock kind of formats. They're getting all the material from USA today. So let's talk to them. Let's put some shit in there that'll make them go, hey, this is fun. Let's talk about this. And that's why I was focused on the USA.

So USA stuff, if a full-page ad cost me $50,000, I'd probably get $450,000 with the free advertising because morning drive time jocks would be talking about it because they saw in USA today. It's really that simple. I wasn't advertising to the readers of the USA. I was advertising to the sports radio guys that used it for reference. It was awesome. And I love the idea of not only buying it and hoping that the radio talks about it,

but by showing it on TV, you all. also make it a part of the storyline. I mean, really think about this. How often did we see one of the broadcasters, the voice of a program like Tony Chivani here with Larry Zabisco on camera, holding up a USA Today and pointing to the ad. Just great stuff. I want to talk about something else you did here. We're going to see footage of, I guess, what we would call NWO representatives around the

building on the outside of the building, passing out, I guess we'll call it propaganda to fans. And the distinction that we're drawing here is this is not like any other, quote, unquote, bad guy faction from pro wrestling history. I love the four horsemen. I think most of our listeners do, but this is not like the four horsemen where it's, hey, we're the bad guys and we're going to beat you up and take the title belts. We want the title belts. No, this feels like, you know, an old outlaw promotion trying to take over a territory like Randy Savage and his dad trying to take over Memphis. Like this is a competing wrestling company where they have advertising, they have merch, they have branding.

They've got a financial backer in the million dollar man. It looks like they even have a street team. So it looks like it is a rival organization. That is a totally different approach to the bad guys. Like this is not just another faction within WCW. It's a third party competing with it. That distinction makes all the difference as far as believability. Does it not?

It does. Just because it was different. You know, you mentioned the four horsemen. You know, they had, you know, the internal takeover, internal power struggle in however way it's been, you know, it's manifested over the years, one way, shape, or form. It's been a kind of a central story in wrestling or a go-to story. And wrestling is probably from the beginning, you know. I remember watching AWA in Minneapolis and it was always Wally Carbo. And they came in and finally settled things.

You know, there was always, and then he was a dirty dog. Whose side is he out? I mean, that device, the storytelling device, Power Strong has been around forever. But we did it differently in a way that made people go, what? This must, is this true? Like, feels real. Damn, I've never seen it before. This is interesting.

Or people just jumped in with both feet and believed it. A lot of people did. I was glad to hear that. It was kind of intentional to make it feel real. So I was such a fun story. It's why we're still talking about it. Well, there's no doubt about it. Let's talk about when the show really gets going.

We've got Kevin Sullivan teaming with Conan to take on Hovintu, Garera and Brad Armstrong. Conan's going to do a lot of the work before Kevin Sullivan eventually tags in. And he's going to pin Armstrong with a double stop. about two and a half minutes. But this is when something weird happens. Sullivan and Big Bubba attack Conan, Sullivan's own tag team partner.

So it looks like the Dungeon of Doom is turning on Conan, but in reality, they're treating this like it was an initiation into a gang. So Conan has basically been initiated into the dungeon of doom. But while all of this is happening in the background, you see NWO fans and people just showing up in the crowd with signs. So this propaganda, this effort to take over, that's happening as almost the backdrop to this initiation for Conan. I mean, listen, the dungeon of doom served its purpose.

You needed a band of heels to battle off, you know, a good guy, red and yellow, Hulk Hogan and Hulkomania and all of that sort of stuff. But now with him being, you know, an edgy heel in the NWO here, the Dungeon of Doom is probably like Dale bread at this point. Is that fair to say? it was so bad. Yeah. It just, it just. And for obvious reasons,

I don't want to say much more than that, but looking back at it, it's like, oh my gosh, how did I let that happen? It's so bad. Desperately bad. What wasn't bad is Randy Savage.

He is one of the lone holdouts. A lot of the other top stars from WCW. They flew over to Japan. Savage is going to make it clear. He canceled his trip. And why did he do that? The NWO. He's backstage with Mike today and saying he's a marked man,

but he's going to position himself as one of the last major defenders who's still here on Nitro defending WCW. And you got to really process what's happened to him. Hogan's betrayed him. The giant has betrayed WCW. The NWOs beat him down. They've humiliated Miss Elizabeth. Now Sting has withdrawn.

And we're showing Savage to become, increasingly isolated and increasingly crazy. Like, I know that, you know, we've talked about macho madness since probably 1988. But this is when we start to see some real evolution of, hey, why is he paranoid and why is he behaving this way as a character? And he's actually got some justification here. Like, it's not just, oh, I'm a crazy, wacky wrestler. No, I can't trust anybody from a storyline perspective.

This actually makes a lot of sense. and I was thinking while you were laying this out he shouldn't feel weird because he's wearing a green hat with a pink shirt I mean just visually studying he's he's a delta Zeta he's he's in a sorority oh my god by the way does that not look like Jay Lethal right there from the side I mean that was exactly like Jay Lethal I can almost hear his voice no it was look you know Randy just had to turn up the volume a little bit he was inherently a slightly paranoid person everybody that knew him well knew that so he didn't he didn't require a lot

of acting just turn up the volume next up we've got Chris Jericho and Mike Enos this feels like a bit of a transition period for WCW Enos feels like he's from the way WCW used to be Jericho is from the way WCW is going to be with the Cruiserweight division. Clearly, Enos is a heavyweight, but this is early Jericho. And he doesn't look like a lightweight there either. He was packing up some pounds. Chat me up about Jericho. I know that he's going to be positioned to be a cruiserweight star.

He's going to have phenomenal matches there. But to your point, it's not like he's a small man here. I mean, he's definitely, this sounds weird, but he's got some muscle on him. He's thick. I don't know what you're going to say. He's not he's not Hovindu, too, Guerrera. He's not Ray Mysterio. He is bigger.

No, he was working at getting himself as big as he could. He wanted to be, he wanted to be recognized as a heavy week. Well, that's my question is when you bring in a guy like Chris Jericho, who I know you, you laid eyes on in Los Angeles as part of that AAA show, you're familiar with some of his stuff in Japan.

You had seen him wrestling, the Jusian Ligers and all that in Japan. did you think when you brought him in, hey, this guy can be, you know, an American in the cruiserweight division, sort of like a Dean Malenko.

Or did you see that, hey, that could be where he starts, but it could evolve into more. No. I only ask because you're so loaded down with other established top stars, not just the Hogan and the Rick Flair

and the eventually Roddy Piper and Randy Savage, but now you've got Hall, you've got Nash, you've got Sting, you've got Lex Lugar. Like, It's really crowded there, at least in your minds. Was Jericho always destined to be in that cruiserweight spot in WCW?

It's not like, kind of right, it's not like I said, I'm going to bring in Chris Jericho and he's always going to be a cruiserweight champion. He's never going to be a heavyweight. Right. I didn't put any limitations on them. I was passionate about the cruiserweight division. It, it was important to me. And I was determined to do it because I knew it was going to work.

I knew it was different. You know, this is really because I had, you know, two hour show every week was a heavy task for me then. Because we weren't used to doing it, put a lot more pressure on everything, you know, booking everything, to put a lot of pressure on. Because you're just doing twice as much of it during the same period of time. And I knew that if Nitro was going to be successful,

it had to have, it had to feel like two separate, shows part A and part B. That's why I changed hosts in the beginning as an example of how I was trying to make it feel different. So the audience didn't get bored hearing the same announcers over the course of two hours because that was a real concern. Regardless of how good they were, just the idea of listening to two of the same announcers for two hours to me back then because that wasn't usually done, except for pay-per-views, was a challenge. So I thought, We got to do two hours. We'll have two separate amounts teams.

We'll also have different styles of wrestling. All the big stars I needed in terms of star power, and they were all big, massive guys that could fill that larger than life casting call, but I needed something else. And I knew that the action, the visible, visual dynamic of the Cruiserweight Division because of the time I spent in Japan,

And it's just, it was Moorai Cup of Tea. I just loved it more. I knew it would make Nitro work because it would make Nitro completely different than WWE. Because I could provide something. So we're talking about, you know, Tony talking to David Ellison. I can deliver something to the wrestling audience that they're going to love that my competition isn't doing.

I believe that. Still do believe it. So when I saw Chris, I saw a star in that category. It's not that I saw that star in that category and said, well, I hope he never asked me to be a star over here. I'm never going to do that, Chris. That wasn't it. But man, did I see a star in him for the Crucible Weight Division and Ray and, you know, Conan even and others, you know, the Huventutes, just all of them, all the Japanese. I remember.

I knew that style of wrestling would work. And I knew I was right with some of the other stars, the big stars, right? The main eventers, well, how are we supposed to follow that? That was a tell. That's what I knew. The idea was a good idea. All right, listen up. For all those parents out there with teenagers,

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It was like, well, what are we going to do now? it was acknowledging it was good so it's not a if i'm not picking out the name it's not because i'm trying to protect anybody could have been ddp yeah ddp actually told the story like that once i don't mean to cut you off but he said he remembers when ray mysteria was walking around in the backstage area and he's like are you freaking kidding me we got this little kid this is this is this is a shame i can't believe wcw is doing this this is so unbelievable like this is stupid like what are we do it like we've got a little kid wrestling like this isn't believable we we've lost all credibility this is the worst decision and then he saw the match and he's like well i was wrong and i don't want to

follow that and so ddp was loud and proud about he was way wrong on great mysteria yeah and he wasn't alone i mean it wasn't just one or two people i mean there was a general acknowledgement and it wasn't you know some were more concerned about it than others obviously but yeah it was It was a fun time. So, no, when I saw Chris, I saw Cruiserweight Star, and I didn't look beyond that. Well, let's talk about somebody else that you had high hopes for here in 1996. We've talked about it for a while. Timing is everything.

Glacier only had a minute and 11 seconds with Pat Tanaka. Tanaka's trying to use his own martial arts offense, but Glacier overwhelms him spinning kick, a minute and 11 seconds. You know, listen, in 1994, this would have been awesome. in 1996 in the NWO era, it feels a little old dungeon to do. I was going to say it's right up there with Dungeon to do. Speaking of something else that feels like it was a moment in time,

let's talk about the public enemy. We know that they were over like Rover in ECW. I feel confident this was a Kevin Sullivan hire, but now they're going to find themselves wrestling Harlem Heat for the WCW tag team titles on Nitro. And given what we all know, this level of success, that Harlem Heat achieved in WCW.

Even I watching this back this week was surprised. I kind of forgot. Harlem Heat dropped the titles to the public enemy? I don't remember seeing that, but it happened. It took 11 minutes and 15 seconds. It feels like a legitimate surprise. Was Kevin Sullivan, the primary guy who was sort of waving the public enemy flag? Did you see it perhaps as a merchandise opportunity?

Or what do you remember about the public enemy? I liked working with them, and they delivered in the ring. These guys, I mean, I don't know why. I had a bad perception of them before they came in. I'm sure just subconsciously based on things I'd heard about or whatever. So my expectations were not really very high when they came in. It was kind of like, it was Kevin, you know, that really wanted to bring them in. And we needed, you know, tag teams.

So I was like, okay, whatever. But I wasn't very excited about it. But let them do it. And then got to work with them. a little bit and got to watch their work and they were both of them uh were really pros and in easy and enjoyable to work with and they delivered in the ring tough as hell so uh no resistance and if kevin needed any support for me i don't know that he would have needed it to make the decision but if he did i would have given it to him because i realized these guys were really

talented and fun to work with i'm going to make the craziest comparison ever i'm not comparing their style of work or their style of matches at all. But I am going to say the public enemy, just the whole gimmick, the look, the persona, uh, the whole presentation. It feels very mid 90s and there's nothing wrong with that, but it feels like it is almost like the rock and roll express in the mid 80s. So the rock and roll express had a great gimmick for the 80s and public enemy had a great gimmick for the 90s, but if you fast forward 10 years, I feel like most of us would say,

Yeah, I don't know. It just, it feels dated now. It doesn't work as well. Is that the craziest comparison ever, the Rock and Roll Express and Public Enemy? Yeah. Damn it. That'd be it.

Yeah. Let's chat a little bit about Randy Savage and Greg the Hammer Valentine. Obviously, Valentine's a big established name and a star and we're all familiar with him. But Randy Savage is having a bad day and he's paranoid and he's going absolutely crazy. In this match, he is angry. He's paranoid. He's looking for the NWO. And eventually he goes and grabs a steel chair and he starts blasting Greg

the Hammer Valentine. But even crazy enough, he climbs to the top rope with the chair. We almost never saw this. He comes down on Valentine. Of course, that's an immediate DQ at just under three minutes. But then Savage gets exactly what he was hoping for. Here comes the NWO. Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, six, Ted DiBiasey.

They're swarming Savage. Hall's going to hit him with the outsider's edge. Nash is going to hit him with the jackknife power bomb. Savage is destroyed. Miss Elizabeth is going to appear from backstage. She's seeing what's happening. She's retreating. And then the giant takes the microphone and he introduces Hollywood Hogan.

Hogan's here to humiliate Savage. And there's enormous booze here in Birmingham for Hogan. Who's got, as you see there, the big gold belt spray painted with the NWO. And don't forget, we're in late September. So the pay-per-view we're building after fall-braw war games is Halloween Havoc. Of course, Slim Jim is the sponsor. We know it's going to be Hollywood Hogan and Randy Savage, the macho man in the main event of Halloween Havocke 96. I like what we do here in this segment.

You know, you got Hogan delivering a bunch of leg drops. Then you've got Kevin Nash getting a slim gym that somebody has thrown in the ring. and he's going to start using it to mock savage. He even starts whipping Savage with a slim gym. Hogan is going to point out Savage's thinning hair. Now, this to me felt like something that you never saw in wrestling. It feels like if a guy has some sort of a physical limitation like this, like I remember the old story of,

hey, you don't call your opponent fat or out of shape or old or any of that stuff. Because, hey, what does it look like if you beat him? but when we're pointing out Savage's thinning hair, Hogan pulls out the spray paint and spray paint Savage's head black. So this not only feels humiliating because we're spray painting, which has become a staple for Hogan in the NWO, but we're not just spray painting Miss Elizabeth's dress. We're not doing a yellow streak down Savage's back.

We're spray painting is head black. So now it's humiliating. It's personal. This is a really, really cool segment. I got to ask, do you remember Savage having any hesitation about spray painting the bald spot? It might have been a rib. I don't know.

But, you know, Wallham McDaniel used to do it every time we went on TV. So it was a huge while we had the worst hair diet in the world. It's horrible. Ever soon as he starts wet, but he start running a dumb's face. Oh, gosh. Let's talk about what happens next.

And I don't know if this was a clue. I'm going to ask you here, though. Paul and Nash after this segment start heading towards commentary. We've seen this before. When they start to make their way towards the desk, Mike Teney and Bobby Heenan bail. So we're in hour two. So there's been a change.

It's no longer Shivani and Zabisco. Now it's yourself, Mike today and Bobby Heenan. But when the outsider start heading towards the desk, Teney and Heenan hot tail it out of there. But you stay put. They're going to quote unquote trap you at the desk. They put on the headsets and it looks like, hey now the NWO is going to be calling Monday Nitro.

And so this is the payoff to, I guess, weeks of buildup here. Notice too if you're watching with us at 83 Weeks.com, check out these NWO shirts they're wearing. Now, I know at a glance, it looks like it's the same shirt you're familiar with. It's not. Notice inside the rectangle underneath the letters. It doesn't say new world order. It's just the rectangle in the letters. This is the first version of the NWO shirt.

But let's talk about the progression of the table. takeover here at the past several weeks. They've attacked WCW wrestlers. They've vandalized the production truck. They've hijacked interviews. They've taken over the broadcast booth. They've recruited the giant. They fooled WCW with Fakes Thing.

Now it looks like they're running the show. And the NWO has another surprise. Scott Hall is going to introduce Ted DiBiasey's head of security. And we knew him in the WWF as Virgil. Now we're announcing this is Vincent. Of course, it's very deliberate. As we mentioned, Virgil was named that as a rib on Dusty Rhodes, who was the head booker for Jim Crockett promotions.

And now it's been widely understood that Virgil is now Vincent, because that is Vince McMahon's first name. Who do you remember coming up with that idea? It is hilarious that you would name the real-life Mike Jones after Vince. Is that a Ted idea? Is that a Hogan idea? Is that a dusty idea? Who gets the credit for coming up with Vincent?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember. I remember, wait a minute, you didn't do what? Why? And it made me chuckle.

I just don't remember who, who it was. If I had to guess, I would say, Kevin, because I wasn't really talking to anybody else on a regular basis about these types of things.

I didn't just sit around a room with, you know, a room full of wrestlers. And this to me, and I think it kind of came up at TV. It was almost spontaneous, like within hours. It wasn't like it planned a week in advance or anything like that. Came up at the building. I just can't remember the scene, to be honest with him. Eric, I want to give you a pop quiz. The NWO had a race car.

Any chance you remember who the driver was? Steve Grissom. It was Kyle Petty. Oh, well, we had Steve Grisome, too. The NWO is going to unveil a new piece of their expanding empire. A race car comes into the arena on Monday Nitro. A NASCAR in the building at a wrestling show in the south, not just a NASCAR, an NWO NASCAR. Kyle Petty is the driver.

I guess we're going to call it the number 49 car. And again, this is important because we're no longer saying the NWO is just confined to wrestling. No, they're trying to take over. They're presenting themselves like a brand. They're running freaking newspaper ads. They're in motorsports. They're taking on TV. They've got merch that they're running commercials for.

Remember what I said I was trying to get beer? If you go back a couple of shots, you'll see Bush beer on the side of that car. Sometimes you got to sneak through the back door a little bit. There you. I like that. I like that. So the giant is going to take over as ring announcer on this program. This is kind of fun.

Normally, you know, we have Dave Penzer out here, but not now. Now we've got the giant. And Hogan is going to explain what the NWO wants. He's going to ask the obvious question, what exactly does the NWO want? And Hogan looks right at the camera and says, we want it all. and the entire angle is they want WCW. They're not here for revenge. They're not here for a feud.

They want to take over. Then we get a match with the giant and Jim Powers. As you may imagine, doesn't go very long, 52 seconds. That's all it takes for the giant to look more dangerous than he ever has before. I mean, obviously when when Hogan was champ and Giant was WCW,

Giant was a threat to Hogan. But now Hogan's got. his own giant. And then we see something that I remember fondly. Six makes his in-ring debut. I was a big Sean Waltman fan, really excited to see him as a part of this presentation. Little did we know he was going to become one of the straws that stir the drink.

But what an interesting first opponent for him. When you think about Sean Waltman in 1996, his first match in WCW, I know what you're thinking. You probably think, did they have him wrestle Dean Malinko? or was it Mr. JL, Jerry Lynn? Maybe it was Sabu.

Well, he hadn't been around in a while. Hey, it could be Hovintu Guerrero or it could be Ultimo Dragon or it could be Haxaw Jim Duggan. Because yeah, that's what it was. Six, Sean Waltman, the former one, two, three kid. He's now here wrestling Hacksaw Jim Duggan. It goes two minutes and 20 seconds. But the NWO is no longer just a handful of guys. now the sixth member here is Sean Walton.

Now there's been a lot of discussion about the name through the years, Eric. We're talking about S Y X, X, X. Some people thought, hey, is it because he's the sixth member? Or is it because if you add up the numbers, one, two, and three from the one, two, three kid, that also is six. Is there a right answer from your perspective? It was the one, two, three kid. And I was the one and one.

And let's have some fun with this. and six came from the way sticks the band used sticks okay s t y xx i think so i just did six really cool next up we see sting return or so we think sting's music hits and the crowd responds but it's the fake sting and now the n w o is just calling him nw o sting and this is kind of fun especially after what happened last week, because as you'll recall, the real sting, he withdraws from WCW because nobody believes him. So even though he's not here on the program, well, the NWO's just going to keep using his identity. It would have been really easy, Eric, for you to use this NWO sting as kind of a one-off just through war games and then that character disappears.

Why was it important to have Jeff Farmer continue to portray NWO's thing after the reveal was finished? usually when there's a fake like this, hey, they get rid of that character and then we move on. He's actually going to be a part of the presentation moving forward. Why was that decision made? Because it was just a way to continually piss off Sting fans. Okay.

Just by bringing them out every week. All it did, there's so much psychology involved in when wrestling is done right. You really got to kind of put yourself in the viewer's heads. and make them feel the way you want them to feel. And, I mean, I was just looking at those shots, I'm thinking, man, that was such a good idea because it just would make, if you go back and look at one of those shots, there's a lady, you can just see the hatred on her face.

Every time the fake sting would come out, it's a reminder that we ran the real sting out. It was a victory for us for NWO. Sting, you know, packing him his stuff and looking for a vulture to hang out with. But good news, he's out of here until he started showing up at baseball batts. But this was just a good way to keep that storyline kind of ever present and everything else we did without really having to do too much. And the big thing is we didn't have to use Sting.

So we can keep the Sting storyline alive, keep reminding people week after week after week. And building on that story, building anticipation for what Sting is finally going to do when he gets a hold of the fake sting. That's the psychology. What's Sting going to do when he finally gets a hold of the fake sting? Well, we all know what he was going to do or what he wouldn't do in that case. So that's what it was. And I think it was pretty effective, actually. So let's talk a little bit about the match here.

NW. Sting gets a quick win in about a minute and a half. And then we're on to a tag match with high voltage and the amazing French Canadians. Now, that doesn't feel like an hour or two match on Nitro. And it's because it's a backdrop for Hall and Nash coming out. Immediately the French Canadians are going to leave. and the outsiders simply take their place in the match. So this is kind of fun because it shows the NWO,

just changing the WCW format for the program. Like who's really running this show? If WCW schedules a match, but then the NWO decides, nah, that's not the match we're doing. We're doing a different one. Who's going to stop them? This is kind of fun.

I like that. It's a little storyline beat, but a cool one. Yeah, it is. Very cool. And it sounds like Kevin Sullivan, and say maybe Nash. Sounds a little Nashish.

And Nash and Kevin used to spend a lot of times. It could have been a collaboration, but it sounds like something that would come out of them. What we're going to have is Ted DiBiase announced that the outsiders versus high voltage

is the opening match and what they're going to call the NWO tag team title tournament. So think about the arrogance. WCW already has tag team champions. We just saw Harlem Heat drop the belt to the public enemy. but the NWO doesn't care.

They're essentially saying, we're going to create our own championships. They are behaving like a separate promotion operating inside of WCW. And wouldn't you know it? Surprise, surprise, high voltage did not beat the outsiders. The outsiders were successful.

It took about 10 minutes to win. And then the NWO is going to close Monday Nitro. The final image of the show, isn't WCW coming back to save the day and regain control? No, it's the NWO surrounding Eric Bischoff at the announced position. They're laughing, they're joking, they're humiliating WCW,

and Nitro simply ends. Like WCW never gets an opportunity to make a comeback. And it does feel like that was the formula for television wrestling for a long time. But we're going off the air and it looks like the NWO is completely dominant. You've said for years and years, you give a lot of credit to Kevin Sullivan for booking heat.

This is maybe one of the better examples of that because we're not going off the air, but the hero standing tall, the good guys prevailing over evil. No, this is just, it's over. The bad guys dominated.

See you next week, right? Yep. And it was different. Again, it's just we broke the formula. We took the typical wrestling formula that we've been conditioned to expect from the beginning of time.

And just went, yeah, we're going to turn it upside down, try something different. Nobody ever went off the show like that. it would have been you would have been thrown out of every booking room in the country for the previous 20 years if you would have tried to suggest a finish to a show like that but if because it was unique it felt plausible could be true might be true not really sure

let's soon as we can find out that's kind of the psychology i love this episode of nitro it does feel like it is establishing what the scope of the NWO's mission really is. And Eric, that final shot of Nitro when the NWO is surrounding you at the desk, you know, Hainon had hot tailed it out of there,

Mike Tenae hightailed it out of there. You're there the entire time. At this point, are you sticking around and putting yourself in these spots because it's a tip of the cap in the way that Vince McMahon would at other times where you never said, it was

ever said explicitly that Vince McMahon is the owner of the WWF and he runs it. He was just the lead commentator. But every now and again, if you were paying attention, you could see the champions and some of the top stars be deferential to him. Are you sticking around because you're thinking, hey, this is kind of the Vince way of positioning it? Or did you already know at this point, I'm going to be a part of this, and this is a logical way to tell that story?

Or was it simply, hey, I know what I want to sell here in the story I want to tell. So I'll, I'll be the one to communicate that best as opposed to one of the other announcers. I guess there's three different valuable options and way of looking at it. What was the real deciding factor for you here? Did you know you were going to be involved in the NWO at that point at all? No. No. Okay. Did not know. And it's the, the answer is your third possibility there. I did it for the same reason I wanted to do caller and play by I wanted to do play by play because I knew I could tell the story better than anybody the story was in my head I had a feel for the story any of the announcers I just knew I could I knew I could do it

best not to put myself over I wasn't as good of a play by play guy as Tony Chavani never was as good as Tony but I could sell this story better than Tony could because I saw it in my head and he did not that he couldn't have done a great job but I could do it better at all And it, the whole becoming a part of it just evolved and start making sense of things that didn't make sense all of a sudden. You know, you're looking at things. Well, wait a minute. And when you get to the point where you go, when you hear someone say, yeah, but how do you explain why the camera is there? And how did that camera catch that moment?

Like when you start breaking things down that much in wrestling, you're painting yourself into a corner. because at the end of the day, none of it makes any sense. There's nothing that happens today on any professional wrestling show ever that is plausible. It's all over the top. It's done well.

Some of it's fun to watch and you get sucked into it, so it still works, right? But it works for different reasons today. You see very little real believability. And it was little things like the finish of that show that made it just feel believable. Well, I absolutely loved it.

I can't wait for us to talk about it next week. A lot of the top stars from WCW will be back. Of course, in the coming weeks, we'll be talking about more about that bill, the Halloween Havoc 96. And as a reminder, it's Eric Bischoff's show that he identified and said, that's the show I had the most fun at.

I was having the most fun running WCW around the time of Halloween havoc, 1996. If you haven't seen it in a long time, I encourage you, go out of your way to check it out, It's a fabulous show, and I still think it holds up to this day. We'll be talking about it in the coming weeks as we continue this conversation. And Eric, I want to give a cheap plug here. But first, I'll ask you a question.

When you think about historically significant wrestlers, like the lure of WWF and WrestleMania as a whole, I mean, obviously we know WrestleMania, the very first one, very, very significant. Vince took a big risk. It was closed circuit. It was a big success. Mr. T.

And Mohamed Ali and so many other celebrities were involved. But that's probably not the one that wrestling fans really celebrate and hold is like, hey, this was the WrestleMania. From your perspective, when you look at WWF and WrestleMania from a macro perspective, which one do you think was the most significant? A WrestleMania is? Yes.

Oh, God. I couldn't begin. Would it be? Castlemania three with Hogan and Andre, do you think? I think the first one. I mean, they're both so important because, again, you know, Vince broke the mold. He did something that had never really been done at that level before in an emerging platform, much like he did with OTT.

I mean, there's a lot of parallels there. And I think from a business perspective, the move was so significant and they had so much risk. WrestleMania 3, though, branded the company. I mean, it, it certainly launched Hulk Hogan. I don't know, man. It's so hard. I think it launched their arena business, if I'm honest with you.

I remember seeing ads of Hogan wearing blue trunks and, and, and the title that I guess his son, Nick Balea owns to this day. And he's doing the double bicep in front of the 93,000. or however many it was at the Silver Dome, but it sold out. And it was an ad for industry trades about, hey, bring the WWF to your market because they had just set an indoor attendance record for that event. They beat the freaking Pope being there. So it feels like that's when you saw the WWF go from running,

you know, an A tour, a B tour, and they even added a C tour after that. So there's three touring companies that are running around. And of course, you had the Hogan card, but the other card, the B-Town, if you will, That was the Intercontinental title on top. And I think when people think about those WrestleMania images and they come to your mind, I think more often than not, they think about Hogan and Andre as a visual more so than the tag match with Mr. T at WrestleMania 1.

I think that becomes the iconic legendary moment, Hogan slamming Andre. But I think Mike Johnson actually wrote an article about this recently, that maybe the first WrestleMania moment, not the main event, but the moment, But the moment was Ricky the Dragon Steamboat and Randy Savage with their fabulous match for the Intercontinental title at WrestleMania 3. It won the Wrestling Observer match of the year in 1987. It won the Pro Wrestling Illustrated match of the year in 1987. It was actually at a taping in October of 86 that aired in November of 86 where Savage would attack the larynx of Ricky the Dragon Steamboat with a ring bell. and they showed that on replays ad nauseum for months building this match up. And we've all heard the story.

You know, Ricky Steamboat said he had more than 6,000 matches, but this was the most special one because they literally laid it out on yellow notebook sheets of paper, 160 steps, 21 false finishes, and still probably the most significant historical title change in WrestleMania history up to that point. I'm saying all of that because Eric, If you go to WrestleMania belt.com, the title belt that those guys wrestled for,

the WrestleMania 3 belt is up for auction with Heritage Auctions. And it's going to come to an end about a month from now on October 22nd. But you can see it at ha.com over at Heritage Auctions or find out all about the belt, the entire history and the significance of it, Reggie Parks and who made it. This is probably going to be the most historically significant ring used title belt ever sold. Earlier this year, Heritage Auctions auctioned off Hogan's boots from

WrestleMania 1. They went for more than a million bucks. This past summer, they auctioned off his world title. The Hulk Hogan title from WrestleMania 2 went for over $400,000. And now we've got our first ring used belt from WrestleMania 3. Eric, there's going to be a lot of hype, a lot of excitement about this. As a belt collector, I can't wait to see how this all shakes out. but yeah a piece of wrestling history from WrestleMania 3 feels like a big deal Eric

that is a big deal it is you should get it Conrad you got a lot of cool belts well this is my belt Eric and I'm selling it WrestleMania belt.com I was just going to ask you who owns that belt who's putting it up for sale I do I saw what happened with WrestleMania 1 I saw what happened with WrestleMania 2 and I thought to myself self

let's let this one go I actually got it in 2020 when Paterson passed away, I guess there was a meeting, as it was told to me, and Vince said, hey, who's got, where's Pat Patterson's old belt? Let's show that on SmackDown.

And the office had to say, well, we actually don't have that. And Bruce offered, well, I know who does. My buddy Conrad Thompson has it. So I get a call for Bruce.

Hey, they want to buy the first intercontinental. And I think this is the coolest thing ever. I have the first ever intercontinental title. I said, well, respectfully, it's not for sale.

I don't want to sell it. Would you trade for? it sure give me the russomaniah three intercontinental and as the story goes vince didn't hesitate so i traded the first intercontinental paterson's belt and then they the wb has that to this day they wanted to show it on smackdown and celebrate pat's legacy and vince made a personal call there to trade randy savage's russomanii belt for his great close personal friend paterson's belt so as a result for nearly seven years i've owned the resslmania three intercontinental but i saw what happened with the WrestleMania 1 boots.

I saw what happened with the WrestleMania 2 World Title and I thought to myself self, let's see what the Intercontinental from WrestleMania 3 will go for. Go check it out at Heritage Auctions. It's ha.com. We've got all the information including some videos, some pictures,

some newspaper clippings. You can actually see every significant event this belt was a part of. For instance, the megapowers, the Polkogan and Randy Savage, those were formed in the aftermath of an intercontinental title bout between Honky Talk Man and Randy Savage. This belt was on the first wrestling challenge.

It was on the first episode of superstars. It was at WrestleMania 2. It was at WrestleMania 3. It was at the first Survivor Series. And it can be in your man cave. Check it out. WrestleMania belt.com. Eric, this is going to be fun.

I can't wait to see how this shakes out. Yeah, I'll be following along. It'll be great. It's fun to watch. It's amazing, really. The amount of interest in wrestling collectibles is just, it's fun. Well, it's fun chatting with you about wrestling every week. I hope everybody will continue to support Real American Freestyle.

You've got a big event coming up in Las Vegas. Tickets are on sale now. Real American Freestyle.com. We'll keep that NW.O. conversation going next week. Hit that subscribe button. Turn on a notifications bell. Check us out right here on 83 weeks with Derek Bischalk.