83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 59: Monday Nitro 6-10-96

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

On this week's 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson, the June 10, 1996 WCW Monday Nitro is the topic! Watch-A-Long as Eric and Conrad discuss the famous night where the second "Outsider" debuted, as Kevin Nash was Scott Hall's big surprise, fresh off a run as the WWF Champion! Also on this episode of Nitro, Lex Luger & Sting main evented the show against Ric Flair & Arn Anderson, The Public Enemy took on The Nasty Boys, The Giant defended the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Scott Norton, plus Lord Steven Regal, Billy Kidman, Jim Duggan, Meng, Diamond Dallas Page, Scott Steiner, Booker T, and so much more! Support us on Patreon for even more content from Eric & Conrad for just $9! Patreon.com/83Weeks See Bruce & Eric in a Monday Night War Debate and Eric take on the author of the Death of WCW Book, plus 20 other live events starting at just $4.99 at fite.tv/starrcast  Buy a shirt and get a call from Eric: www.EricBischoff.com  Find tons of new merch at BoxOfGimmicks.com  Interact with Eric live - twitch.tv/83weeks  Ask a question about next week's show on Twitter: @83weeks Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at HideFromRent.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world? Sir in the orange, phone away, please? Um, my Kid a Smart Smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. See, the train monitoring agent is calling now. Hello? The Kid a Smart Smoke alarm sends real-time mobile alerts in the ring app. And with a subscription, emergency help can be requested even when you're not home. A compatible ring subscription is required for 24-7 smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring, sold separately. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff.

Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing great. It's a beautiful Saturday here in Cody, Wyoming, my son Garrett, and his wife, our daughter-in-law, Mary Jane, are in town. So it's a little bit of a family reunion, having a great time. Well, we're looking forward to having a great time today as well. We're going to get in our way back machine and do something we don't do on the show here very often. We're going to do a watch-along from WCW Monday. 2nd, 1996. This, of course, is when Kevin Nash shows up on WCW programming. We've met Scott Hall at the end of May, and here comes Kevin Nash, and this show is pretty significant

because the NWO is here. And we're looking forward to covering this. Hopefully you are too. We want you to go ahead and pull up the WW network on your end. The way to do that, of course, is go to the vault, then go down to Monday Nitro. It's Nitro number 39. from June 10th, 1996, and your main event is going to be Rick Flair and Arne Anderson taking on Sting and Lex Lugar. Booker T. is going to wrestle Scott Steiner. But of course, that's all sort of in the background. What everyone's going to be talking about is Kevin Nash. Eric, when I told you we were going to be watching this show, I guess I should ask, is this the first time you've seen it since it happened? I actually haven't. I didn't want to watch it in

advance, which is what I normally do if you and I are going to break down a pay-per-view or Nitro, and I know in advance what we're going to be talking about so I can remember as much detail as possible. I go back and I watch them. And this one, when I knew we were going to be covering this, I wanted to watch it for the first time, you know, on this podcast since I did it. I haven't gone back and looked at it. I remember the show. It was obviously a big, big pivot point, you know, for Nitro and for, and for what. what was going to soon be the NWO angle, but there was so much going on and I was so excited about breaking down this show and reliving it, you know, since the first time since 1996.

So I'm looking forward to this one. So this should be fine. Fire up your WW Network. We're going to give you a little bit of a countdown. Okay, so without any further ado, we're going to give you a little bit of a countdown. And when we tell you to press play, press play, and you'll be in sync with us. Eric, are you ready? I am ready.

Fire away. Okay. we're going to go three two one play three two one play i got to tell you i love this old open i think so many of our listeners who enjoy this show this is what they grew up on i know we've talked about it briefly before when and where was this uh put together that was put together down in orlando florida Craig leathers i believe uh in his team were the ones that put it together and i believe most of the post production was down down at the Disney MGM Studios. That was the back lot. A lot of those buildings that you saw were part of the

back lot at the Disney GM Studios. How about the pyro that comes out of the corners, the corner posts? Who puts that together? Oh, David Crockett would have arranged for that. I'm not sure who the individual was that handled the pyro. Sure. But that would have been David Crockett's group. So when we see the fire behind the flames going behind the names here, on the little lower third or the kairon or whatever you guys called it. Is that also a Craig Leathers look? Yeah, the graphics again were all built. No, I believe the graphics we built at the TNT Studios.

We built those in-house. But the Open was built down at the Disney MGM Studios. But yeah, that would have been Craig Leathers and his team. These days, we hear stories about how hands-on Vince McMahon is with everything, especially when it comes to the broadcasters. We know he's in their ear and he's yelling. But apparently, he's even dictating what people are wearing. I'm just going to go out on a limb here.

Nobody ever told Tony Chivani what to wear. He wouldn't have dressed like an idiot. You're hard on Tony. I know you two love each other, but you come off as being very hard on him. Oh, I'm just messing around. But how about this double-breasted suit? Is that Annette Yeathers or is that Lois Chimani?

No, that's got to be Lois. Although, you know, I don't know how much fashion influence. Annette would have had over Tony she she didn't come off to me as somebody who was you know very fashion forward so to speak how many around Larry Larry on the other hand is looking dapper especially for 96 I mean he's rolling like a wheel I guess we should mention this show that we're watching is happening uh from wheeling West Virginia you guys drew 3500 fans for 41,000 boy those numbers are going to change when we see more of this and here we go here's a highlight from last week and I'm

I want to play the audio here for the fans at home. Tells me when to do it. Okay, okay, tough guy. I get a little, no, I get a big surprise for you next week. And so there you go. We see the promise of a big surprise next week. Uh, you guys are on the podium when I say you guys, of course, it's Scott Hall. Uh, he's sort of jaw jacking with sting and you're in the middle. And this is, uh, setting quite the stage at this point, uh, what sort of the vibe that you have, I mean, nobody knows what the NWO is going to become,

but how excited are you? We've talked about, you know, when, uh, uh, the moment happened when Lex Lugar, or I'm sorry, when Hulk Hogan was finally revealed, you sort of joked that backstage watching it, you knew you had a hit and you joked you had a Woody about how well it had come off. At this point, you've revealed Scott Hall and now, you know, this is going to start to take shape with Kevin Nash. What's Eric Bischoff feeling about this angle at this point? Pretty damn excited and fair. confident. There's something about the mystery of who the third man was going to be, and I'm sure it had been done, or a variation of that kind of angle or storyline has been done in the

past. But to me, it felt really, really fresh. It hadn't been done in WCW and in recent history, at least not done well, because I couldn't remember it. But I kind of sensed that we had something that was pretty good. And again, like you said, no idea at all of what it was going to become. I had no idea at this particular junction of this idea with Scott Hall coming out first and now this week Kevin Nash is going to be coming out. Had no idea that Hulk Hogan would agree to be the third man. At this point, in my mind, at least creatively, that third man was going to be sting. So just, you know, and again, looking back at the this and knowing what was going on and what was eventually going to come out of all of this,

it's so much fun to watch. Look how young Booker T looks there. I guess we all looked quite a bit younger back then. It's amazing to go back and watch a match like this or a show like this because I think now everybody remembers that Booker T and Scott Steiner were part of very successful tag teams. Of course, the Steiner brothers were an institution for WCW and Harlem. He had been, you know, around for a couple of years and they're going to continue their run on top for a couple more before both of these guys sort of go their own way as single stars but here they're both very much tag team stars and we're way before big pop a pump and these guys would continue their run in wcdb all the way to the very end and i think when i think of these guys in a match i think about the last

nitro for the world title where booker t would get the win and when wcw closes down booker t is champ but here it is happening in june of 96 um the match here to put together two tag guys in a singles match is this is this Kevin Nash or not Kevin Nash is this Kevin Sullivan doing the booking primarily for matchmaking on Nitro in 96 or is that someone else well it was Kevin that you know oversaw pretty much the creative team you know I was going to call it a committee it really wasn't a committee necessarily but there was a team of people, including Terry Taylor and, you know, different people at different points in time, you know, I'm pretty sure Greg Gunia might have still been here by now. I'm not sure.

But there would have been several people on that team, and Kevin Sullivan is the guy that was overseeing the team. I did have some input at this point. I was starting to get more and more comfortable with the creative process, so I was also in there, but it was really Kevin that was in charge. Now, in terms of, you know, the tag team thing, you know, I often got to criticized for not putting a lot of emphasis on tag teams. And a lot of that goes back to 94-95 during the cost-cutting era of my, the beginning of my tenure as an executive in WCW. And if you think about it from a purely business point, you know, if you look at a tag team match, let's just say it's going to take 12, 14, 16, 18 minutes on a television show.

Well, instead of having two pieces of talents in that period of time, you now have four. And oh, by the way, if you're going to have a really viable tag team division, you've got to have enough tag teams to mix and match those teams in a way that you can keep the storylines fresh. And it's like doubling the amount of talent that you have to have under contract in order to keep a viable tag team division going. So my goal was to eliminate, well, not eliminate, reduce the number of tag teams. back in 94, 95, and certainly even here in 96, because we weren't quite really making the money that we were about to make. So there was an emphasis to put more emphasis on singles matches and less on tag team matches.

This match is going to go nearly six minutes. Talk to me about, you know, and WWE has become a little, I don't know, lax on what they used to say. Oh, fans can't see this. but they can see this now with the network i do feel like they're pulling back the curtain more than ever before and a lot of fans at this point have seen that in the guerrilla position or just outside of it there's often a dry race board and this is still pretty old school but wb still does it they'll put up there hey here's what's happening in each match and it's like a full rundown was there such a posting backstage here where it's like hey here's all the guys on

the card tonight and you know sometimes the position of the way they're listed on the board tells you who's winning or who's not or sometimes they'll underline a name out maybe in the columns on the right they'll put a parentheses and that's the ref and the agent did something like that exist in this era of nitro yeah we we had a big whiteboard and we had basically the run of show uh in television terms that means you know a a short version of the format so at any given moment And if you were the fifth match on the card, you could, while you were warming up or if you were working out the final details of your match with your partner or your agent or whatever, at any given time, you could run over to that board that was right outside a guerrilla position and you could see exactly where we were at in the show in real time in case you weren't able to sit and watch it on a monitor, which was usually the case. When guys had matches, you know, they were working out their finishes or any last minute details right up until probably five or ten minutes before. their match and then you go out you you warm up you get ready for what you're about to do but yeah that

board was there so you could anybody that was on the show could look up at any time and see exactly where we were in the show without having to watch it on the monitor or watch it through the curtain what information would have been on that whiteboard would it tell them how long they had like in this oh yeah oh yeah no you you were basically looking at an abbreviated version of the format so it would tell you you know where you were on the on the show what segments you were in it would tell you how long your segment was it would note it would note who the agent was for that particular match it would tell you the time allotted to that particular segment or match if there was an interview or a promo or some kind of a hot angle either before or after that would have been identified as well so

like i said it was a reader's digest version of the of the television format this is going to be our finish here it was a good match a very good match you know especially for six minutes you know it's a good way to open of course later nitro's going to gain a reputation for opening with luchador's we're opening with the heaviest of heavyweights here with scott stoner and booker t but quite a match what do you think of scott stonters look here well it was it was current back in the 90s almost current you know that was that was a hell of a mullet that he had uh but physically he looks great and i mean look how in this match we didn't really do a lot of play-by-play in this match, but Scott Steiner might have been maybe not at his peak,

but damn close to it right here. Oh, yeah. He was crisp. He was fast. He was agile as a cat and strong as an ox. Pet Boys in the sponsored element here, the power pin of the week. I don't know a lot of fans maybe don't put two and two together, but, you know, a lot of times, you know, ad agencies are looking for, you know, what is sponsorable?

Is there a segment of the show that is responsible? Oh my gosh, look at that early Kevin Green, Mongo, McMichael, as we get a tease for later. What would have? Typically, you know, are your, is your sales team going out and just making calls and then they run into somebody like a pet boys? And they say, you know what? They don't just want to be, you know, run a spot inside the show. They want to be inside the show somewhere. Could we come up with a sponsored element?

Or in this case, is this something where, you know, you guys say, all right, well, we've got. this power we got this pen of the week thing we're thinking about maybe we could find somebody to buy that it's sort of chicken in the egg are you guys formatting the show where it has elements of the show that could be sponsored or do you go have the conversation first and then hey let's figure out how to make it fit pet boys came to us to turn our ad sales out of new york and the majority of the advertising and sponsorships that we had did the exception of course being Slim Gym, eventually EA Sports, and there were a couple others that were developed in-house. Those were very rare, though.

In this case, Pep Boys, as I said, came to us through Ad Sales in New York. Ad Sales in New York knew what our format was. They knew what our sponsorable events were, for the most part. And if there was something special, something unique that a potential client or advertiser wanted us to create, for example, if you remember, you may not remember your T. young, but Coca-Cola came out with a soft drink called Surge. It was their version of Mountain Dew. Well, Nitro was the first real national ad buy that that Coca-Cola product ever had.

And that was a case where Coca-Cola actually came to me directly through Brad Siegel because we had a good relationship with the folks over Coke. And we developed a sponsorship for Surge in-house. And I was working directly with the team over Coca-Cola. do that but for the most part um all that stuff came through us through ad sales that we just accommodated so we see uh debor mcichael here doing a promo with main jean we'll talk about mean jean in a minute but i do want to ask how does debor mcichael get on camera how does that come to be you know it's just it's and i'm sure it's not the first time and it won't be the last in

a wrestling business but probably a little bit like uh brock's wife did sable you know, you're there, you've got a certain look, you've got a certain charisma, there's a certain idea that just kind of makes sense in the moment, given someone's relationship with another piece of talent, obviously in this case, Deborah's relationship with Steve McMichael, you know, she had that kind of Southern Belle beauty queen, which she was, by the way, all of those things, she had that kind of aura about her, and she had a big personality. So I think it was just a matter of time before somebody sitting around coming up with ideas. and hey, why don't we use Debra in this particular spot?

She's funny. She's good on camera. She's got a unique charisma personality. And sure, let's give it a try. And then before you know it, she's a weekly figure. Here we go. This is peak early WCW in 96. Jim Powers out next.

uh the former tag partner i guess with uh paul roma here there and next up is going to be one of our favorites here on the show mr diamond dallas page but yet he was not uh it was not quite yet the uh the cool version of ddp oh god that is putting it mildly look at this just i mean uh my eyes are my eyes ache right now we're chewing gum we're smoking a cigar we've got a gold chain on we've got sunglasses we've got tape all over our fingers we've also got a battle bowl ring uh we've got uh different colored vest and brightly colored trunks and it's like fluorescent green and fluorescent purple this is just hideous this is just just screams state fair yeah i mean it really does look like you know indie wrestler number 42 oh

horrible who would have um go ahead i was going to say jib powers has got a good look i mean this guy looks like a classic you know late 80s early mid 90s you know type of a of wrestler but another guy that you know great look but just never really made it talk to me about you know the uh you know what we've we've seen over the years you know they used to have um little documentaries even here and there for the WWE on the way the costumes were handled for WWE so you've got you know seamstresses who have been with the company for decades do WCW have something like that where guys would have had help with their costumes or does DDP just you know go to some yard sale and find some stuff and

put it together one would assume that he went to a yard sale and found it but you know I think most there were several you know women and and there were several places where people in WCW could get their gear from whether it be boots or tights or whatever they weren't directly they weren't employed by WCW so the talent would often have to have their stuff made that was their expense and on their dime and it was also one of the reasons why there wasn't a lot of really great consistency because we weren't do it internally. weren't watching it as closely as we should have watched and you know to maximize a lot of things but you know another one of those things it was indicative of the kind of growing pains that we were in at this point is there anybody in the back who's watching the matches and from with more of a critical eye um like i'm I'm friends with an older wrestler who gets annoyed when he sees people duck the close line but like there's certain moves that happen on raw smackdown that happened 48 times

a show every show and nobody ever says you guys got to fucking stop with that one move because nobody ever hits it and if anybody ever throws it the audience automatically knows well they're not hitting it does something like that exist is that a great ganya thing or a terry taylor thing or is that really not on anybody's radar as far as putting the message no no no it was on everybody's radar and that was something that was a constant even when you know when I first joined WCW as an announcer. You know, the agents primarily were the ones that would watch a particular match and then critique it when the talent came back, tell them what they did right, what they did wrong.

But it was usually those agents, and particularly the older ones, and agents tend to be more seasoned, more experienced, you know, ex-performers that have that knowledge. And usually the older they are, the more they kind of lament the, the formula that so many people use you know the ducking under a clothesline being one of them but there was always you know each agent had their own particular um bitches about what they liked and what they didn't like depending on their style and their era but yeah there was a lot of that going on back then did it ever get so out of hand that you guys had to like put something on that whiteboard like no more missed goddamn clotheslines underlined well not only that yes to

answer your question, yes, that happened often. And it was a, there was a source of a lot of frustration backstage because you know, guys wouldn't watch the match before them. That's another thing that we always used to try to, you know, convey to the talent is watch

what the fuck is going on right before your match. Because a lot of these guys, you know, their matches weren't laid out and scripted, beat by beat by beat, so you could look at a piece of paper and say, okay, these guys are going to throw, you know, this move, this move and they're oh okay they're using this finish so we better change ours up you know that's

what should have been going on the agents should have been communicating making sure that you know talents weren't using similar finishes particularly you know back to back or too close together on the format but but that you know we didn't execute that well on that particular part of thing so there was a constant frustration when guys would go out and basically use some of the same sequences that that had been used in the match right before them that happened often and that was really just a lack of communication so there you go there was the uh diamond cutter finish let's let everybody hear arne anderson talking here been while was strained at best proven by the actions of the taskmaster at slamberies he

holding him or what but with the loss came a display of mistrust where were you when lost the belt you're supposed to be the enforcer benoit's actions may have confirmed the taskmaster's suspicions of his loyalty to the horseman or does he have a more important concern this hulkomania is not dead by no means he will come back and he'll be looking for some people including the giant including you including me is this paranoia or does the

taskmaster see something else festering deep within the horsemen I know serpents better than anybody in this planet and the way you get rid of a serpent is you crush the egg

crushing anything isn't easy when it involves a horseman but the taskmaster has already proven himself to Rick Flair and Arne Anderson by flushing out a man undeserving of the title. I respect you, Booker Man. I do have honor for two people. That's Rick Flair and Aaron Anderson, because they stood beside me, Jimmy Hart,

when I slapped that Brian Pillman all around the ring and got him out of here. Now I'm gonna do them a favor. When it's over and said and done, we'll all know exactly where we stand. Deal? Deal's a deal. On June 16th, Chris Benoit

may have found himself in a deal without the aid of his comrades in a match where falls count anywhere. Even your own have turned against you. The truth. so there you go we're teasing the chris benoit kevin sullivan match and we're promised uh conan here up next let's talk a little bit about what we've seen here there's a lot to digest in that um first of all how big of a fan of the dungeon of doom were you not at all i hated it i absolutely hated it

I hated it. But as I've said this before, and this is a perfect example of it, you know, one of the things that I learned from Ted Turner, and I mean, it wasn't like he sat me down and mentored me, but I heard him say this in a meeting once that, you know, and he was talking about it with respect to how he programmed TBS and how he programmed T&T and the rest of the networks. And somebody asked a question, you know, about the type of. programming that both networks or all the networks were you know pursuing and Ted said look we some of the stuff that we've got in the network is not for me I don't watch it I don't like it it's not my cup of tea but I'm not programming these networks for myself I'm programming them for the broader audience so even though there were things like the dungeon of doom and gimmick matches which you've talked about ad nauseum here oh look at Cunham this was like a little bit of

the residual max moon thing I think going on um you know you know even though there's a lot of things like gimmick matches and hardcore matches and the Dungeon of Doom, you know, was an example of something that I actually hated, but realized that there were other people that may have liked it. Other people like gimmick matches. Other people like a lot of things I don't necessarily like as a fan. So I recognize that I couldn't program WCW so that all of the matches were to suit my taste. Because not everybody has my taste. said you have to appeal to a broader audience.

I've seen a promo here from Conan backstage. This set is reminiscent of an old WWF set where they had, you know, fake lockers and a pay phone and things like that. Who made this set for you guys, this backstage locker room set? Whoever built a building. Oh, that's not local there.

That's something you guys carted around, had to be. No. Rarely did we cart back. stage sets around unless it was something that was really unique um like the you know the j leno set for example that we used for storyline for a while uh we just grabbed whatever was in the building we got ming coming out next here let's talk about something we saw there uh in that package with uh chris pinot one of the things they kept referring to was the fact that uh kevin sullivan and ran Brian Pilman out of here.

Now, we've talked about Brian Pilman at length here on the show, but I just want to remind everybody, Brian Pilman, WCW believed, according to the observer, they had wrapped up. They had agreed in theory to a money figure on June 1st. As a reminder, the show we're watching is on June the 10th. So nine days prior to this, there is an agreement in principle for a three-year deal,

but there are two things, the contract that becomes sticking points. One is this 90 day cycle that's built in, meaning WCW could terminate him any, anytime they wanted, based on those quarterly increments. And the other is that Pilman wouldn't be flown first class for all of his scheduled appearances. And of course, that was something that Pilman was looking for. The reason this 90 day thing is critical is because Pilman was in a bad Humvee accident

on April 15th. and he's still not healed. So there is a question, hey, now that he's got part of his hip and his ankle, is this guy going to be what he was before? And is he even going to be able to compete at all? And allegedly, according to the observer, you were a little hesitant to issue a million dollar contract over three years or four years or whatever the length was to a guy who might not be able to perform.

So you had to have some sort of 90 day cycle in there. And of course, uh, this has happened. at a time where the WWVF has seen a lot of their talent jump ship, whether it's Kevin Nash or it's Scott Hall or it's Hulk Hogan or it's Randy Savage. So Vince McMahon very quickly makes a deal with Brian Pilman who WCW thinks they have a deal with. So just three days prior to this, the Friday before on June 7th, Pilman actually puts pen to paper for a three-year deal with the WWF. So now that WCW knows that, the very, next nitro, we're going to make sure we let everybody know that Kevin Sullivan ran his

ass out of town on a rail. What do I have wrong there? I don't, well, you covered a lot of ground and I think as is often the case when we're, you know, when we're going back and reading the reports from whatever newsletter we're getting our information from from that time, you know, there's a, as I've said before, there's often kernels of truth, sometimes, you know, you know, In this case, I think most of what you laid out there was probably true. The inference that the 90-day clause was specific to Brian because of his injury is not really fair or accurate. You know, the 90-day cycle clause was kind of a leftover. It was one of those things that Bill Watts introduced into the WCW contracts that, quite frankly,

Turner executives on the legal side, really, really liked because it pretty much, meant that you had 90-day contracts and you could cycle people in and out at will. And the idea was that it was just a way to help manage, for the most part, an unmanageable situation with the guaranteed contracts. When you had people who would try to manipulate the terms of the deals and fake injuries or have drug test issues and all those types of things, the 90-day cycle out clause was a very, very simple way to address a myriad of issues. And it was something that it took me quite a while to make go away because, like I said,

Turner Legal loved it. And Turner Legal didn't report to me. I didn't have a lot of influence over them. I could explain to them sometimes why some of their policies are the ways they wanted to write contracts or whatever either did or didn't work for me. And I would try to explain why. But for the most part, that was something that Bill Watts introduced and I had a hell of a hard time getting rid of ming here going up top against sting they're only going to go three minutes and

nine seconds here by the way did you notice how fast ming was earlier when he with those flurry of punches that he had uh on sting when sting was up against the ropes it was really amazing to watch a guy as big as ming and as tough as ming throw hands that fast now great granted they're you know They're working punches, but it's still a lot of speed on those hands. And what a great guy is. You know, I ran into him at Starcast when I was there, and we got to hang out for about, I don't know, 45 minutes or an hour. We ate together and handsome, what a sweet, sweet guy for his, you know, for the reputation

he has, and deservedly so. He's one of the nicest, kindest, gentlest people you'll ever meet outside of the ring if you don't piss him off. Yeah, I'm just glad, you know, he ate his dinner and not other patrons' faces off while you guys were together. You know, but, you know, and he has that reputation. But I, I think if, if Ming's hot at you, you probably have worked really hard to get his attention. He's not a guy that has a short fuse, thank goodness, or didn't back then. But I think he was one of those guys that when you finally, you know, pulled that trigger, he did go off. But to me, he's just always, He's always been a very patient, quiet, gentle type of guy.

Here we are. We've got another segment with Maine Jean and Deborah McMichael. We're only like 31 minutes into the show and you take out the commercials. And it's Deborah McMichael's second time on camera. And Maine Jean talking to one of the all-time greats here, Bobby the Brain Heena. Let's hear what Bobby's got to say. Now, tonight. Now, I have to talk to them tonight.

Now, all week long and all night long, all week you've been talking to Flair. Now you... I have not been talking all night. Now she wants to talk to him? You want to insult people again, right? Don't start that. Don't get involved in this. You want to talk to Flare?

Follow me, Tuts. All right, Deborah, we're going to see if Rick Blair will perhaps talk to you. This is a dressing room, locker room. Here they are. The gals. I see if I can get some kind of a shot here. Just a minute.

Okay. Hey, she just about took... Took the... Wait, wait a minute. Hey, what is going on? What are you doing? What have you done, Flare? What have you done?

Oh, no. My goodness sakes, what's that going on here? Anderson, Clare, please. Ladies and gentlemen, get some help in here. Peter, stop this. What in the world is going on? The figure four, Tony, Larry, goodness sakes. I tell you, Gene, that's the...

So, Flair's putting a figure four on the renegade randomly. trying to come to rescue Deborah McMichael who when she finally got into Flair's dressing room Bobby slammed the door and we heard Deborah scream I've got to assume that Flair showed her the balloon trick. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha maybe oh my gosh I do want to mention something else that we sort of glossed over what's a balloon trick oh okay so back in the day um allegedly i never saw it but i've heard multiple people say that flare would be holding court in a bar and then he would disappear and he would go upstairs oh my gosh

look at this and he would grab a uh a robe and he would take off all of his clothes and put on the robe and then he would have a balloon with a string i don't know if he had like a box of gimmicks in his bag or what but he would tie a balloon to uh part of himself and he would hide it under the robe and then he would go make the big reveal open the robe and the balloon would float up but it wouldn't get too far because it's tied to something wow yeah that would cause a reaction would yeah yeah flier has a story about Kevin Sullivan the way he had a unique way of uh showing off birthday candles So I don't even want to know, bro.

I don't even, it's probably not fit even for this podcast. It's not. It's more of a, it's more of a Tony Chirvani podcast conversation. All right. But you save that for Tony. Dave Taylor and Jeeves.

What can you tell everybody about Jeeves? I don't know. Why did we do that? Conrad, why did we do that? It was so ridiculous. Yeah, it was. It was horrible.

Now, I know, and I can't remember G's real name. Maybe it'll come to me before the end of this podcast. I don't know. Was it Gary Hedrick? Yes. Oh, he was Wildcat Willie. Yeah. So Gary, Gary was Wildcat Willie and Jeeves.

Yeah, he was doing double duty. He was Wildcat Willie before the show during the dark matches and so forth. And then he'd become, that's it. Yeah, we were getting two fers out of them, two for the price of one. so how did you find gary and and talk us through i know we've talked about it once before but explain the the rationale behind a wildcat willie well actually that was bob do uh bob do was the executive vice president when i was first made executive producer uh i didn't report directly to bob i reported to bill shaw and bob oversaw live events um he bob bob bob

Bob do oversaw everything but television production when I was first hired. And Bob, you know, Bob had an extensive background in arena management. He oversaw the Omni for Turner Broadcasting, which is why he ended up as the executive vice president of WCW. Obviously, the logic there, so to speak, was that, well, since this guy manages arenas and WCW wrestles in arenas, he should be the boss. that's how that came about but bob did have a lot of great relationships and knowledge of the theory industry and i think just from going to the different events and being exposed to things the way bob was he saw other sports teams have mascots and figured why shouldn't wccw have a mascot there's no i mean it's not a bad idea really um i think it could have

been executed a little differently maybe would have been a little better and less childish but it worked for the most part I don't think there was anything wrong with the idea it was not a lot different than the logic behind the nitro girls you know the nitro girls came about because sports teams typically NBA

NFL typically use cheerleaders or dancers to kind of entertain the audience during slow moments whether it be commercial breaks or if there's a injured player on the field or whatever and there's no action. That's when they'll send out the cheerleaders to kind of keep everybody's

attention. And I think, you know, the nitro girls were the same thing. And so was Wildcat Willie, aka Jeeves. AKA Jeeves. Uh, look, I guess we should tell everybody if you're not watching with us, you should be, but Jim Duggan is going to, uh, get a win here over Dave Taylor. Uh, they only get two and a half minutes. Um, one of the things we, we sort of gloss over was conan we were covering something else when when conan was out there and they not only did an interview backstage with conan but then they did like a music video and i think a lot of our listeners probably remember conan more from his

w o day's where he was k dog and yo yo let me speak on this and more of a a street hip-hop type persona but we saw a much more colorful conan and that was the conan that became You know, I've heard a lot of people make this comparison. He was sort of like, you know, Mexico's answer to Hulk Hogan, you know, in the, in the early 90s. And he achieved tremendous success down there. You know, I've read that, you know, he was driving a Ferrari when he was, you know, 20 something years old, all from, you know, his, his Conan persona in Mexico where he did,

um, you know, like, like their version of soap operas. And I mean, he was a big star down there. how big of a coup was it for wcw to land conan with all due respect to conan who have you know closer to them now than i've ever been um it wasn't and not not taking anything away from conan but the connection to the Hispanic audience we really didn't start making progress till later on in 96 and 97 it wasn't a focus for wcw in 92 93, 94, 95. So there wasn't a need, so to speak.

And we didn't feel that, although we were well aware of Conan's success in Mexico, we didn't feel as though it was somehow going to translate here. We felt like we had to really introduce Conan to the domestic audience because as big as he was in Mexico, probably 95% of the wrestling audience didn't know who he was. I mean, I'm talking about the average wrestling fan. I'm not talking about the hardcore dirt sheet reading, you know, internet chat room living fan. I'm talking about the passive viewer, which is probably 80 or 90% of the audience, didn't know who he was. So I don't, again, not taking anything away from Conan, but there was no sense of, wow, this is a really big deal.

Well, what is a big deal is we just saw a promo promoting Ray Mysterio Jr. versus, by the way, that's totally a fake. out. Ray Mysterio Jr. versus Dean Malinko at the Great American Bash. And we got AAA footage. That's kind of fun to see on a Monday night trail. What was the nature of your relationship with AAA here? It was off and on, you know, with Conan. Because I think Conan may have been primarily with with Triple H at the time. I had a couple meetings with Antonio Pena with Antonio Pena and I got along very well. Antonio was really interested in expanding the relationship

between WCW and AAA, so was I, as I stated just a few moments ago, and you're right, that probably I don't know if that's a fake set. See the vent in the upper left? See the seam, though? See the seam between the lockers? Look right above Bubba's head. Yeah? It's up against the wall.

Yeah, there's a crack though. Like, that's two pieces pushed together. Yeah, but we wouldn't have. I mean, there's too much detail. WCW wouldn't have attached a fire extinguisher to the wall. We just wouldn't have done that. That vent in the upper left would have been too hard to fake and fabricate. So I know you feel

like this is a fake set, but I don't think it is. I'm going to find other footage. All right. Find other footage. It's fun to me that you've got the former earthquake and the former big boss man in a hair feud

now. And we just saw clips of that and I know you conveniently wanted to gloss over that. It was like a tale of two WCWCWs right there, my friend. You know, Dean Malinko, Ray Mysterio. Oh, look, not earthquake and not boss man. And they're fighting over who gets to cut off the other person's hair. No, but we, you know, and I'm not defending or or deflecting here. But I've said to you before, you know, this and this is why this period here, you know,

in 96, was so exciting, especially as we. we went on further into the year and we actually, you know, saw what the NWO, you know, was going to become and had the success from that, that angle of the initial success. This was the period of time where I was really, me personally, individually, was transitioning. And again, in my mind, out of the late 80s, early 90s creative, which is basically, you know, a cheap WWF ripoff, for the most part and transitioning into more reality-based

kind of adult-themed stories and not the kiddie type characters and the kiddie stories that we were emulating in the WWF. But this is the period of time here where it was really becoming clear to me how WCW, Nitro in particular, really needed to change the tone of their show.

And there was a lot of residual silly shit. You know, 80s silly shit, as I'll refer to it. It worked. at the time. And it was very successful at the time for the WWF. And WCW did a piss poor job of trying to copy that formula all the way up until right about now. Myself included, by the way. But this is where we were really beginning to see the transition. There's some just Miami vice-looking fans. Holy cow.

So we've got the clock running in the bottom right-hand corner with a stick of dynamite. that's counting down 26 25 24 what's the concept for do you remember I don't remember but maybe it's the top of the hour that is probably it and I think back then we were formatting the show so it almost felt like two shows so we'd have an additional there we go we'd have an additional open at the top of the hour for

people who were just joining us so it felt like a fresh show he would switch and it was also it was also good for the audience because it was kind of a reset got them all excited again but from a business standpoint the wvf would say oh this is you know the raw zone and this is the war zone or whatever um or this is raw as war and this is the war zone so they had they could say oh we've got x number of shows in the top 10 and and they would even you know throw a little graphic up that made you think the show was over but of course they didn't go to commercial or anything they kept you tuned in so that crossover that could count that second hour they could count as a new show when they were talking to bragging about how many shows

they had in the top 10 i think you guys here it took that to another level in that you would even switch announcers so hour one was tony shivani and larry zibiscoe and i think our two here is going to be eric bischoff right and that was not so much there wasn't a programming strategy so that we could make each show feel different for the purposes of Nielsen. It was, you know, the big concern about going into a two and eventually into a three-hour show is just audience fatigue. No matter how good an announced team is, you know, two hours of the same people, you know, call in action and listening to the excitement of the drama and telling the stories,

you know, two people can get hard to listen to week after week after week unless they're really, really good. And I thought, you know, and again, you got to remember, a two-hour format was a new concept at this time. Up until this point, everything had been one-hour shows. And it just felt to me like it would be easier to

avoid audience fatigue if we just refresh the show at the top of the hour in every way possible. So we got the giant here taking on Scott Norton. The giant here is, of course, your world champion. I guess we should

mention that it's been announced here that because of the backstage attack, we're going to have a substitution now. Joe Gomez and the renegade will no longer be taking on Flair and Arne Anderson. Now it's going to be Sting and Lex Lugar. Talk about an upgrade. Joe Gomez. Joe is a great guy. What a colorful character he is. Character is the right word. Let's talk about two other characters. Messaroid report there was heat with Pierre Willett and Jacques Rugeot, who were scheduled to start in July.

Apparently the Quebecers are upset because they believe WCW hasn't been giving them the support and agreeing to do a large stadium show in Montreal. And WCW doesn't want to take the risk of running in a 60,000 seat building in a market they have no history in. Rugeot has been wanting to do a show at the stadium ever since he sold out the forum for his retirement show in 94. and the WVF nixing doing a show at the stadium was the prime reason for his split with the WBF. What do you remember about them wanting to run a stadium show?

Yeah, you know, what I remember. They were both kind of a pain in the ass. You know, they had a much higher opinion of themselves and I think what was probably justified. And that's not unusual. They were living off past accolades. They were very, very popular. You know, in Quebec, there's no doubt about that. not taking that away from them, but it just wasn't that important of a piece of business for

WCW. Again, at the time, and it's just, you know, a little weedy, but anytime we would, you know, go into Canada, you know, you'd have issues getting talent across the border. You know, we hear a lot about, you know, border security today as it relates to the southern border here in the United States. The Canadian border was way tougher to get through than the American, I mean, Canadian immigration laws are so much. more stringent than American laws. For example, if you had a DUI in your history and your

background over the past five years or seven years, one or the other, you couldn't get into Canada. I mean, and they had all that stuff. So when you would go through Border Patrol, you'd give them your passport. They had a database. So if you had a DUI in the United States, it would come up. If you had been arrested for any number of things that normally was not that big of a deal here in the United States, it would prevent you from getting into Canada. And you can only imagine with, you know, 50 or 60 wrestlers on your roster for a television show, an entire production staff that you'd have to bring over the border, there were a number of people that couldn't even get across the border.

And it was really expensive doing television in Canada, probably 40 or 50% more expensive than it would be to produce it here in the United States. So as important as Quebec and a lot of markets. Toronto, Montreal were very important markets for us. But when you put a pencil to paper and did a budget for it, it was brutal. What's Lex got to say here? What's listening in? Does feel pain. One for you. One for me. The gloves are off. The rulebook is out the window at the Great American badge. Giant, you do feel pain, don't you? And I got a lot more surprises for you for the total package. I'll see you there.

so we're getting hyped for the great american bash and um something we're not exactly hyped for jeff gerrit gave his notice to the wbf this is reported by wiggler and he received a conditional release he can't work for wcd until the end of october when his contract expires and mcmahon actually acknowledges jarratt's departure on the wbf 900 line uh of course jerryt wasn't happy with his push upon his return to the WWF late last year. Talk to us a little bit about how Jeff Jarrett came to be. Here's Jeeves again. He's doing triple dody.

You guys got your money's worth out of Jeeves. No kidding, right? That's what do they call that? Economies of scale. Yeah. There you go. Talk to me about Jeff Jarrett. Bruce Richards told the story where he was not happy with the creative at it

in your house in Nashville and, rather than doing the angle where it was going to be revealed that it was actually road dog oh look it's a young billy kidman in there as an enhancement talent he looks like he's 12 he looks like the fucking karate kid he looks like ralph macho he does um does Jeff Jarrett reach out to you guys does Jerry Jarrett redo it instead I mean does it come to you does it go to Sullivan or somebody else or chat me up about Jeff Jarrett no I think it went to Sullivan or Terry Taylor, one of the two. I didn't deal directly with Jeff.

I didn't negotiate his deal. Somebody else would have done that. But, you know, I can't remember, honestly, if it came through Terry Taylor, if it came through Kevin Sullivan. But it didn't originate with me that I do now. Wasn't Billy Kidman trained by the Walsam Owens? I don't know.

I'm not sure I ever knew who he was trained by. But he looks great here. And this is early, early Billy Kidman. Oh, my gosh. I mean, he looks like he weighs about 145. pounds here but he's bouncing all over the place but he's in there he's in there with a master too i love step and regal's work i really do he's what's weird about steve regal as you go back and you see footage and steve regal's one of those guys and and we've joked about this on

other podcasts before like j jay dillon and arn anderson have both looked 40 forever you know what i mean yeah um and i think steve regal is one of those guys too like steve regal today is 51 but Steve Regal here could have passed for 51, and goodness, this was 23 years ago. And I, you know, I saw Steve Regal over WrestleMania weekend, and I think he looks better today than he did back then. He's a better shape, or at least when I saw him, he was. I think he looks better. But what a great wrestler.

I mean, his facial expressions, you know, one could argue it's a little over the top, but that's what creates emotion. You know, he's got a great reaction. Yeah, and you got to say a 28-year-old. Steve Wrigal. And coming up, we're seeing a promo or preview here of the nasty boys attacking the public enemy. The nasty boys feel like they're from another era. But I got to tell you, they were always a guilty pleasure for me. I enjoyed some of their, I don't, not their TV matches, but when they had a pay-per-view match and it was going to be a brawl, and those guys were

going to bring it. You know what's so funny. And there's, I mean, even today as we speak, they are probably in some city at some wrestling convention, and they are exactly the same. In fact, they wear the same gear. I'm sure it's exactly the same gear. They're the same characters, and they have been since the AWA days. Back in 1985, 86 is where they really developed this character, and it hasn't changed to this day. They're still doing it. And here comes Ted Petty, one half of, oh, there he is.

already missed johnny grunge who would have thought johnny grunge was the faster of the two uh this is you not you you'd knock these guys but i i kind of liked them listen they were over in w in ecb for sure and i think it's one of paul haman's better tricks because i mean he positioned them as main event guys and and the ecb crowd was with it man they were in but i don't think they ever replicated that success anywhere else certainly they got closer in wcd than they did in the WWF I don't think I mean I think that was just doomed from the start well the talent pool and this is not a knock on ECW but it was a much smaller lower budget you know the talent pool wasn't the same in ECW and I don't want this to come off as a shot but it's a lot easier

to be a bigger fish in a very small pond in an ECW or in a small independent promotion than it is when you're playing on the same roster with some of the talent that we had at this time I mean, there was some, you have to admit, there was some great talent on the WCW roster. Oh, my gosh, absolutely. And one of those pieces of talent that people could have seen, but they didn't see, was Brett Hart. And he did an interview with the Saskatoon star Phoenix around this time. And he said of WCW, I've been offered pretty good money to jump. They double what I'm making now, but I don't want to sell out my name or my performance on a second rate show.

Ooh. that was a zinger yeah you know i want to get you fired up are you ready to get fired up sure david melzer would write i think they're going to keep the identity of the third member of the nash and hall team a secret until the july seventh show there are things that lead me to believe it may not be lex lugar after all which is a mistake rumours are flying it'll be jeff charrett since vincent van the wbf hotline brought up jarrott's name with Diesel and Ramon as expecting him to join WCW. Jarrett gave notice the Titan and is working at his notice in USWA and he is

WCW bound. However, his WVF contract doesn't expire until the fall, so it probably won't be him. The WCW team will be Sting and Savage and either Flair or Lugar. So everybody's trying to guess who it's going to be. But as of yet, no one has revealed what it's actually going to be and i mean this has got to be you know i know we're talking about kevin nash right now because of this show we're covering but turning whole cogan heel it's got to be the number one thing you did in your career right in wrestling um creatively i don't mean

like creating nitro or business i just mean like on camera i mean it's got to be yeah right uh yeah i don't think there's any questioning that you know and i I tend to think the cruiser weights and a lot of the international flavor that I've kind of brought to the mainstream probably should be right up there too. But I think as far as what people remember, and, you know, the big moments that they remember, that was certainly it. But going back to Dave Meltz's reporting in your weak-ass attempt to fire me up, notice, you know, he was speculating, no, it was kind of weak. That's not something that was going to fire me up. You know, Dave's speculating that Lex Lugar was going to be the third man. where the fuck did that come from i mean that that was never a thought at this point in time

again as we talked about at the head of the show it was going to be staying because you know hogan was off on a mountain top doing a movie called santa with muscles i think or one of those movies um he he only owed us four paper views a year and i think we had already done two or three at this point so i didn't expect halt to come back he wasn't a factor in my mind, storyline-wise, I didn't think we'd be using them again until probably the fall. Maybe bash at the beach, but there was no immediate plans at this point for Hulk. So at this point, in my mind, all of my conversations about the third man, it was going to be sting. Hulk didn't call me until after this episode aired on June 10th.

This is right after this episode aired, well, the episode aired, I think Jimmy Hart sent him a V8, oh my god look at what don't you talk over blood runs cold no no no no we're gonna talk girl smith no but it's actually pretty cool let's talk about this from a production value point of view tell me this isn't badass this lives up to today's standards just production value how dare you fucking laugh at me now you want to get me fired up what was wrong with that let's go back up now let's not go back and look at it'll screw things up on this podcast but from a production value point of view that tease was as good as anything you'll see on television today for a video game or any kind of a new sci-fi show come on there was nothing wrong with

that let me just pause before we get into this is is is ray Lloyd not one of the nicest guys ever he's the best i mean i'm about to shit all over glacier and i want to be clear i'm not cheating on Ray Lloyd. He's one of the nicest human beings I've ever met. I mean, really a salt of the earth dude. And I know that that sounds silly, but if you meet him, you'll know exactly what I mean. But my gosh, what a tale of two WCWs it is here where, you know, we're about to have Kevin Nash come in to do an invasion angle and that's going to lead to the NWO. And then we've got Glacier. But again, it's, it's the buffet mentality. You know, not everybody is going to go for that type of character or that type of presentation but some

people are just like this match i fucking hate this i mean this to me as a fan would bore me to tears but a lot of people like this kind of hell now you were just putting this over like you were putting over you're you're kind of hard on these guys about the public enemy now you like it no i liked them. I thought given the right opportunity, they worked pretty well. But this is another just hardcore, no psychology, big bump, ooh, ah, that was awesome kind of a match. And those matches never really appealed to me. I like stories. I like a three-act structure. I like a beginning and a middle and an end. And I like two characters that I really give a shit about one way or the other. These guys, you know, when I look at the nasty, but this is me personally as a fan. I'm

looking at, you know, the four guys in the ring, and I'm trying to decide which ones I want to like. If I have to decide which ones I want to like, you've already lost me. You know what I mean? This is just a, this is a big bump, power guy, crazy, hardcore style match. And they just, eh, for me, they don't work. Other people love them. And that's the same thing.

We're going back to Glacier now, and you, you busted me on a glacier and the whole creative concept behind that. there was a younger audience that we were really trying to appeal to that liked that kind of a presentation well specifically and the for younger fans or maybe way older fans they may have missed this but the hottest arcade game in decades because arcades had sort of been you know a really really big deal once upon a time but then when home gaming systems like Nintendo and Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis and all these different you know home systems these game consoles become sort of commonplace arcade started a sort of died down but one of the

games and those a handful of games that really gave the arcade business new life the biggest of which was probably mortal combat and mortal combat was one of the first games that had a lot of blood so you would it's a fighting game with two guys and uh one guy had ripped the throat out of another guy, rip his heart out and there's blood everywhere. And that was really new. And so it became controversial. So, you know,

your 10 o'clock news, your 6 o'clock news, or there's lots of people debating, you know, should this exist and should they put an age requirement on it? But it was making major bank. And the hype led to, you know,

all these other opportunities where now this arcade game became a movie. And that seems sort of silly when you think about it in reverse. but that's just where pop culture was at the time. So I totally get the idea behind, let's make it a thing, but it does seem rude. Out of place. Yeah, but at the same time,

you know, we've given a pass to the WWF for that forever. You know, so here's this realistic stone cold Steve Austin character, and he's just a badass beer drinking redneck who wants to kick your ass and flip you off and, you know, chuck a bunch of beer.

And then there's also this dead man who can summon lightning. And he's dead, but he's not really dead but he does want to sacrifice your daughter and like there's some of that silliness on the other channel as well but glacier may be a miss and glacier was patterned uh loosely i guess after a mortal combat character named sub zero and if you go throw that in your google machine you'll sort up see what i'm talking about why was ray lloyd the right guy for that actually and and like you I love Ray Lloyd.

He's a genuinely great guy. And I hope he doesn't hear this because I don't want him to take it the wrong way. But he wasn't the right guy. Right. The problem with Ray was that he was so big. And he was a great martial artist. I mean, a really good martial artist. But he was a big guy.

And when big guys try to throw spinning kicks, you know, kicks have to be fast. They have to, you know, Sonny Ono, could throw great kicks, working kicks, right? He could throw a kick that would look like it would crack your head open that would barely touch you. Smaller guys have the ability to do that. The bigger you are, the more steam you have to throw behind those kicks. And the more steam you throw behind them, the slower they look,

especially when you're 240, 250 pounds. They just don't have the visual kind of crispness that most people associate with the martial arts they see on television in the movies and things like that. It doesn't mean he wasn't legit. He was. He was very legit. Ernest Miller had much the same problem.

You know, Ernest Miller, there's not a better martial artist, probably even today, associated with sports entertainment than, technically speaking, then Ernest Miller. But even Ernest, as good as he was, when he was trying to throw working kicks, he'd have to control them. He'd kick your brains out. And when you start trying to control a kick when you're that big, it's slow. slows everything down and it takes away from the martial arts kind of presentation. And I actually think if we would have done Mortal Kombat with a character that was a Billy Kidman size or, you know, somebody that was a really great martial artist like Ray was and probably still is, but somebody that was a little smaller.

So the presentation just looked more like, you know, the average viewer's expectations of what a Mortal Kombat type character would have looked like. it may have done better i say may i don't know but that was a part of it even now when i go back and i watch um you know some of ray's matches as the glacier character he tried so hard but his martial arts just didn't come off i think as effectively as it needed to yeah i think that was the point i was getting to is i feel like ray lloyd was was miscast as glacier and maybe if glacier had come about and you know of 94, 95 as opposed to 96. Maybe that would have made all the difference in the world.

Did you prefer Coach Buzz Stern instead? Coach Buzz Stern? Help me out. Help me out. That's what you repackaged Glacier as in 1999. Did I do that? Yep, right before you left. It was August of 99.

Maybe that's why I got sent home. Harvey Schiller said, buzz stern what in the name of fuck i'm sending him home he's clearly lost his mind he needs to go fishing take a long nap maybe come back next june this is horrible i can hear it now uh is it just me or uh it feels like coach buzz stern um somebody saw bevis and butthead and saw the character coach Buzzcut on that show and said, man, he kind of looks like Ray Lloyd. So, so who did that have been? Now, I'm asking you.

Now, keep in mind, I was, I was crispy as a tortilla chip at this point. And I probably, right before I left, I probably wasn't paying that close attention to creative. So who would that have bet? I'm going to freestyle. It was Kevin Sullivan. I don't know, man. That's kind of, you know, Kevin Sullivan wasn't really that current when it came to pop culture. He kind of lived in the 70s and 80s.

So if that was something that was hot in the moment. Kevin Nash? I'm thinking maybe because Kevin was pretty current. I'm just thinking who's sitting home smoking weed watching cartoons. And those are the first two names that came to mind. Yeah, maybe. I mean, who knows? They might have been blazing away watching Saturday morning cartoons and chat.

each other up on the phone coming up with ideas. Well, Beavis and Butthead was not a Saturday morning cartoon. I mean, that was, it was a very adult themed cartoon. Hmm. Another, another really controversial you know, cartoon, you know, in this era probably 96, 96,

95, 96. It was what people were talking about. All right, here we go. We're getting our main event now. Thank goodness. Lex Lugar and Stinger here to fill in as our tag champ. No more Joe Gilmanus and renegade. And noticing has already lost the surfer blonde hair.

You know what I mean? This is obviously before scary nitro staying and all of that. But he is already looking to kind of change direction here. And I think that's one of the reasons why when I came to him to talk about being the third man, he was pretty open to it. Because, you know, much like, you know, we talked about Hulk Hogan when he first got WCW in 94, 95, and by this time even in 96 in particular, the red and yellow baby face 80s, early 90s, Hall Cogan just wasn't resonating, you know, the way he thought it should,

the way we needed it to, and that's why him turning heel was something that I approached him with eight months probably prior to this time. But Sting was feeling the same thing, that surfer, you know, WCW, you know, early 90s WCW Sting, as powerful as that character was and as successful it was, it really wasn't working quite the same way by this point for him either. And I think that, like I said,

that's one of the reasons why he was interested and willing, and I think to a degree excited to be that third man, if that's the way things would have played out. Rick Flair here rocking the old school pink robe. I think that's the one that, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the one 2K cut up.

And putting their Rick Flair edition of their video game a couple years oh wow going to be team in here with sting or with arnd anderson rather to take on sting and lex lager to me these are four guys when you think about wcw i mean these are the names that you associate right i mean these guys are stalwart's the company absolutely i mean this is you know other than dusty roads uh if we would have put them in there as a special referee or something this is really the the brand value that that had been WCW, really since Ted Turner purchased the company in 1989, 88 or 89, whatever it was.

While we were talking a few minutes ago, they showed a package of Hulk Hove. And of course, Hulk is not here, but they're trying to just keep him in front of everybody as a reminder. Hey, by the way, we've still got Hulk Hogan. So we saw a bit of a highlight package for him. And one of the packages or one of the clips was an extended period of him just beating the shit out of Vader in the corner. and Hulk never pinned Vader, but you got plenty of footage of him beating him up here.

And they're using that, of course, because Vader has now jumped ship and he's on the other side of the fence. That's old school wrestling, you know, I mean, I think Jerry Lawler was probably most famous for this. Whenever, you know, he was in the Memphis territory and, of course, that's his home territory. If someone was getting really hot on one of the other shows, whether it's WWF or WCW or whatever, He would be sure in that next episode, let's show clips of Jerry Lawler beating that guy up. That's sort of old school wrestling 101, is it not? It is.

I was never really comfortable with it. And I've done it. You know, I'm not saying I didn't do it, but it always felt, I don't know, it just felt cheap to me. And I'm pretty sure that the audience gets it.

You know, it's one of the reasons why I told Brett, you know, when he was to Brett Hart to come over, to WCW that it that the title and him doing a job didn't matter to me because the audience knows it's not like they're not aware they're certainly aware and they understand and I think too much emphasis was put on that sometimes I think a company would have actually gotten over more if they would have sent talent out the right way instead of trying to diminish them myself included I think

if there were there were times that we did it you just pointed one out i think we probably would have done ourselves a better service by either just not acknowledging it at all or acknowledging it in a positive way for the contributions that a talent made and now you know take that last parting shot because that makes you look like the heel no matter what let's talk a little bit about um the ratings at the time i feel like we should mention everybody that because i do think the narrative becomes oh well scott hall showed up and w shabby never lost another ratings war that's not exactly true even on this night raw's going to draw a 2.7 and nitro's going to do a 2.6 something that we haven't spent a ton of time talking about on this show though is that nitro

did a replay and some of our listeners may have forgotten that but a few hours later there would be a replay of nitro for the west coast and here this nitro replay got a 1.4. Whose strategy was it to do a nitro replay and do you ever remember it being debated as to whether or not that actually hurt the show?

It was Brad Siegel's strategy. It was something that we talked about, but when you had, you know, we joked about economies of scale with respect to G's a few minutes ago. Economies of scale here really

mattered. It took, I'm guessing the budget. Now, this is excluding, we didn't allocate talent to the shows. So when I'm giving you these numbers, I'm talking about just specific, you know, hard production costs, including travel. These shows cost us about $350,000 to $400,000 to tape, or excuse me, to produce live. And for TNT, it If they could get four hours of programming out of that $400,000, as opposed to two hours of programming, that was a good deal for them. For us, you know, the additional West Coast replay was kind of a, it was a double-edged sword because you certainly want to pick up that additional audience. You know, it didn't really matter so much from a ratings point of view because this was non-original programming on the second airing. So it really didn't matter all that much, and the rating wasn't that high.

But what really helped us was on the pay-per-view side of things because we're hitting a West Coast audience that we might have otherwise missed if we didn't have that replay. But we also felt like it kind of gave viewers an option for the original play. So in other words, if I'm on the East Coast and I know that I'm going to be able to watch, you know, Monday Night Show after the Raw live event, and I'm not sure if Raw was still taped here or not or live. but that second replay gave viewers a choice that I really wish we wouldn't have given them but at the same time like I said we were picking up a West Coast audience that we might have otherwise missed so it was a double-edged sword our main event here again is Rick Flair and Arne Anderson taking on Sting and Lex Lugar

who interestingly enough are your tag champs in this era Flair was coming to the ring with both a woman and Miss Elizabeth. We haven't spent a ton of time talking about them. It's unfortunate that they're no longer with us and neither is our referee. Do you have any good Liz or woman stories we haven't talked about on the show before? Not really. You know, I never associated with a woman outside of the little bit of business that I conducted with her backstage. I didn't really work with her very closely.

at all. So I had, I mean, we knew each other. We were cordial and things like that, but I didn't spend any time with her away from the business. Elizabeth, on the other hand, actually became a very close friend of my wife's. And, you know, because Janie Engel was, she was my assistant, but she was a part of our family, was a part of our family. You know, my kids growing up called her Auntie Janie, and she would, you know, come, Lori and I would go away for a weekend or, you know, go out for an evening and, you know, Janie would always come and stay with the kids or the kids would go and stay at Janie's house. So she was very close to us and her and Liz were close. As a result, my wife and I, or excuse me, my wife and Janie and Liz became very, very close friends. And Liz would come out

here to Wyoming. You know, Lori would have what she would call girls weekends where her and Janie and Liz and a couple other girls from the office and, you know, some other of their friends would all come out here and, you know, hang out and chase cowboys around Cody and party to up for the weekend and you know liz was out to the house a number of times so i i knew her more through my wife than actually any direct relationship i had with her one of the uh fun nitro innovations was the way you guys did the ring skirts where you would put a light under the ring so uh during the big intro or whatever when all that lights are down you'd uh shine that light through And there would be a piece of, or some cutouts, I guess, of that skirt that then would sort of shine through in this big, bright red color that would coincide with the pyro out of the posts.

A really cool innovation that I think maybe gets overlooked because nobody's doing it now and I don't think anybody's done it since. Yeah, I'm not sure whose idea that would have been. I always kind of hand things off to Craig Leathers when it comes to that type of thing. But David Crockett was also pretty creative and was looking for new ways to, you know, fresh in the show up. So it was a guy by the name of Wilburd, who was very, very good and worked with David. So there was any number of people that could have come up with that idea, but at the end of the day, would have always come down to Craig Leathers approving it.

At the conclusion of this match, of course, is when we're going to see more from Kevin Nash. I guess we should smarten everybody up about that now. uh, Nash is going to be diesel in the WWF when he leaves WCW the first time. And of course, when he was through here before, I think he was a master blaster. Uh, and then he was Oz and then he became Vinnie Vegas. Uh, he winds up becoming Sean Michael's bodyguard and then a tag champion and then intercontinental champion and then the world champion and becomes a top guy with the world wrestling federation.

And allegedly that happens because Vince McMahon, fresh off of a little trouble with the United States government about steroids is looking for mass but mass that can be achieved clean and Kevin Nash at the time was so now you know greener pastures and Eric Bischoff has offered a lot of cash to come down south so Nash is going to finish up with the WWF on May 19th at Madison Square Garden most people remember that show as being the famous home of the curtain call incident um when you first have a conversation with nash about coming in that creative of the invasion we've talked about before maybe it was in the back of your mind nobody could have ever predicted that it was going to be the NWO did you have another way or another idea to perhaps debut Kevin Nash than what we're about to see no no and again you know Scott and Kevin became available almost simultaneously, and I didn't see it coming. It wasn't like, you know,

I had conversations with these guys six months before their contracts were up. I mean, it all happened very, very fast. And as I've said before, the idea, you know, to create a more reality-based kind of storyline and premise was something that I've been searching for for about two years, you know, since I've been kind of watching what was going on in Japan and how believable and realistic their storylines were so when scott and kevin you know became available and i think you know this is june scott came in in may i don't think scott and i started talking until april first part of may so i mean that deal went down fast right it came up fast and it went down fast um so the idea of of scott and kevin coming in again based off their real storyline since scott

all. You know, the diamond stud had been in WCW. Vinnie Vegas, Master Blaster, Oz, at all was in WCWF. Those guys did go on to become big stars. So the simple premise of the NW storyline was two guys that didn't get treated the way they should have gotten treated, who proved it by going off and becoming big stars, are now coming back to WCW to take revenge on all the people that didn't treat them right the first time. That was the simple premise that occurred to me when those two guys became available now we built on that and the presentation you know grew and grew and eventually became the NWO but that was the simple premise and to me there was no better storyline I didn't need a plan B I didn't want a plan B I felt like with those two guys because of the

timing and the backstory that's that was the only story I wanted to think about I guess we should mention here that the phrase used in the wrestling business is certainly between Kevin Nash and Scott Hall was quote unquote sting money. Had you heard that sting money was a descriptor before Kevin Nash and Scott Hall? No. No, I didn't hear that reference until sometime afterward, months afterward. but yeah certainly not going into the conversation and believe me you know and again you know how tight Scott and Kevin I are at this point and you know we've had to address some of these issues

relating to money and contract terms and things like that in a couple that's my son Garrett in this commercial oh my gosh that's awesome that's crazy I had no idea that was him I had no idea he did a commercial I forgot all about it that's awesome um everybody's got different recollections of things and I write a lot of the discrepancies in people's versions of stories off to just oh god that's commercial's too funny I write a lot of the discrepancies that I hear in stories to you know time and we've all we all saw things from different perspectives right but Scott and Kevin were not hard to negotiate with it wasn't like these guys

came in with big chips on their shoulders and you know know, not really sure they wanted to make the move to WCW or not. They were very, very easy to negotiate with, let's put it that way. And the money wasn't that big of an issue for me. Again, these guys were making big, now they weren't making guaranteed money, and they might not have been making quite as much as I offered them initially, but I didn't offer them that much more than they had previously been making. I don't believe.

Some somewhat more, maybe 25, 30% more. which is not unusual, but it's not like they were making 200 grand a year and I offered them 750. They were probably in a five or 600 grand a year and I offered them 750. The big difference was the dates. They had 300 dates a year in WWE. I capped them at 180. So it really, you know, and you set it up when you said they came in, you know, Eric Bischoff was offered big money. It wasn't that big of money compared to what they had been making. The difference is I had to guarantee it because I couldn't share pay-per-view revenue. with them. We didn't have enough to share. I couldn't share licensing and merchandising with

them because it was non-existent. I couldn't share house show revenue with them because it was non-existent for the most part at the time. So we were forced to give them a guarantee. But the guarantee wasn't that much more than they had previously made. Chris Harrington, who's now with AEW, once upon a time, just dug into the business economics of professional wrestling. And in 1996, he would report that Kevin Nash made $336,261 from WCW. And 97, he's going to hit that number you're talking about, 756, 87, so 756 grand in 1997. And of course, 98 comes around and WCW's on another level, my friend.

So 1.5 is Kevin Nash's take in 99, 1.4. And in 2000, 1.8. So a ton of cash rolling around well beyond traditional sting money. Yeah, but now again, you put it in context. You know, at the time, I'm guessing by 1998, 1999, whatever your time reference was, WW's probably gross revenues were in excess of 350 or 400 million. You know, that, you know, you look at WC, you look at WWF and their top line, I can't compare them today because they're much bigger than we were back in 96 and 97, 98.

But you look at some of their compensation packages, although they were laid out differently, look at their compensation when they're doing $400,500 million with the revenue. There's a lot of guys making an excess of $1.5 or $2 million. Much more than we're making that much money in WCW at this point. the giant is freaking on another level here they're nailing him with these wooden chairs and these two these chairs are not gimmicked as soon as i saw a wooden chair i thought well this is going to splinter into a million pieces then when i saw the guy swinging i'm like wait a minute uh that's a real chair and they really hit the shit out of him there so yeah uh the giant's

going to interfere here and we're going to be doing a promo here i guess we'll let everybody here as we're getting set for the Great American Bash. Don't forget, we're not this debut in Kevin Nash. We're trying to sell some pay-per-views. Luger! You're a dead man. I mean, Paul is an amazing shape here. No, he's in great shape here.

And of course, he's on a collision course with Lex Lugar. It was just cutting a promo at the desk earlier saying, oh, you do feel pain. And of course, his buds, Scott Steiner and Sting are there to support him. And, um, Yeah. This is an interesting way to end the show because normally you want to end the show with or Nitro would get into a rhythm where they end the show with, you know, a lot of it, a lot of in ring action. All right. You know what? Let's just play the audio here for a minute and let everybody hear what's about to happen as we see Bobby Hean and cutting a promo at the desk seated right next to you. Hands around my body at the great American bash. You, you, and this whole world is wrong. I don't have any beef with you.

I didn't take money from Flair that was filtered through your ex-wife to give to me. You're badly mistaken. I wear glasses. I don't want to be touched or bothered. We missed the beginning, but Bobby Heenan is concerned that Randy Savage is going to try to beat him up. And now he sees what's coming and he runs away. Here we go. Wait a minute.

wait a minute I don't want any trouble with you I don't want any trouble with you here now but I have to point out you came out here last week where is it the big surprise I mean I heard a lot of talk but where's the walk What? I'm here. Where is it? You've been sitting out here for six months running your mouth. This is where the big boys play, huh?

Look at the adjutant. play. We ain't here to play. Now he said last week that he was going to bring somebody out here. I'm here. You still don't have your three people. And you know why? Because nobody wants to face us. This shows about his interesting. is Marge Schott reading excerpts from Mind Cough. Yeah, no trouble here tonight, man. Speak your peace and mid-blood. Yeah, no trouble because, you know, I'll kick your teeth on your throat. Where's your three guys?

You want, you couldn't get a paleontologist to get a couple of these fossils cleared? You ain't got enough guys off a dialysis machine to get a team? Yeah, where's Hogan? Where's Hogan? I'll do another episode of Blunder in Paradise? Where's a macho, man, huh?

Doing some Slim Jim commercial? Hey, we're here. You want to say something? Look, I don't have the authority right here right now. You want to fight? fight isn't with me. You want three guys tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock. I'm going to be in Atlanta. I'll be in the offices at WCW. I'll try and get you your fight. And you know what? Live this Sunday in Baltimore, Great American Bash. You guys want to show up? You want to fight?

You show up. I'll see if I can get you your fight. I don't know about you, but they love us in Baltimore. Hey, Big Man, I say me and you. we'd be at the bass. Maybe these punks want to fight. Yeah. I'll be there. Bring what you got. The measuring stick just changed around here, buddy.

You're looking at it. What a cool way to end the show. What a great way to end the show. and man the stage is set but you know for better or worse for years and years people have made fun of Kevin Nash's promo there he says look at the adjective talk to me a little bit about that promo and who put it together or was it just all off the cuff uh we talked about it as we typically did uh at that point you know Kevin was pretty good pretty good on the mic so Scott so was I so we for the most part we kind of bullet pointed it we knew we knew how we wanted it to end right we knew what

the premise of the interview was we knew what the story was for the most part it was improv once we went over what the goal was and what we were trying to accomplish then then it was pretty much improv this conversation that you have with nash here is really one of the first times that it's acknowledged to the viewer at home uh that you're more than just a regular announcer i mean it's not explicit it, but it is sort of implied there. Was anybody hesitant about that piece? No, not at all. I mean, this is where we really, really started doing things differently.

I mean, Nitro, the format was different than what people had been used to seeing in WWF and previously in WCW. We just were beginning to really start changing the presentation up quite a bit. so I think people were for the most part excited you know we were having quite a bit of success not ultimately not the success we were going to have you know in the months and years to come following this episode but even at this point we were feeling very confident in the direction we were going we were feeling very confident in trying new things and just doing things differently from shooting a lot of scenes backstage which you never really saw before

nitro that was not typically something you would see in the wf everything kind of happened out on the arena floor we were taking the stories and telling them in the locker rooms in the backstage areas in the parking lots you know off premises so to speak um those are all things that have never been done before giving away finishes so there there were so many things that we were doing differently than it had ever been done before people were not necessarily afraid of anything they were feeling very confident and you know my attitude was look we'll try it if it works great if it doesn't work as long as nobody's when he dies, we'll try something else next week.

That was the overall feeling, you know, in 96 and 97, and it's the way we approach things. And by the way, you know, I don't want to get too corny here, but that was Ted Turner's philosophy, is try things, you know, do something different, you know, go ahead and experiment. If it means you fail, that's okay, just don't fail at the same thing twice, you know, move on to something else. And that was the spirit, I think, that we attacked Nitro with at this point. Which is why people didn't really feel uncomfortable with doing something that was unusual. Well, we did something unusual today with the watch along.

We haven't done a lot of these, but I had fun doing it, and we hope you did too. I think this was one of our low-key, better episodes. I really enjoyed it. And I'm looking forward to next week when we get together. And we talk about the Great American Bash 1999. That went down on June 13th from Baltimore, Maryland. for whatever reason you guys love Baltimore. Your main event there

is going to be Kevin Nash and Randy Savage underneath. We've got Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Canyon taken on Chris Benoit and Perry Saturn. We've got Rick Steiner and singles competition against Sting and a False Count Anywhere match. We've got Rick Flair taking on Roddy Piper. Ernest Miller

is in there with Horace Hogan. The No Limit Soldiers are going to take on the West Texas rednecks. Buff Bagwell will be in there with Disco Inferno. Van Hammer is working with Mikey Whipreck. That's right, Van Hammer, and Hack, the former Sandman will be taking on Brian Nobs in a hardcore match. That's what we're doing next week here on 83 weeks. And we appreciate your support here. Hope you're digging what we're doing. We'd love to get your feedback. So if you haven't already, follow us on Twitter at 83 weeks.

He is at E. Bischoff. I am at Hey, Hey, Hey, it's Conrad. And we are out of time. We'll see you next week right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Thank you.