83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business #64: The Vince McMahon and WWE Allegations (ft. Brandon Thurston)

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

On this week's Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba welcome in Brandon Thurston from Wrestlenomics to discuss the developing situation regarding the allegations of misconduct against Vince McMahon and WWE. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on Strictly Business. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with Strictly Business. #WWE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Year's resolutions are hard, but saving money is easy with savewithconrad.com. You don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket, but if you got credit card debt, you can get rid of it just like that and skip your next two-house payments. That's right, no payments until April at savewithconrad.com. The team at Save With Conrad are routinely helping families just like yours, save $5, six, seven, even $800 a month. Find out how much money you can save for free. at savewithconrad.com, NMLS number 32416 Equal Housing Lender, SavewithConrad.com.

How's it going, everyone? It's time for another edition of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff, presented to you by the ad-free shows and the podcast Heat Networks. I'm John Alba, and we have a very special edition of the podcast. Our special guest is going to be Brandon Thurston from WrestleMania as we talk about the crazy week that was in the world of pro wrestling. But of course, man leading the charge, the bald beauty, Mr. Eric Bischoff. Oh, you're hiding something there, pal?

What's the deal? it is. Good afternoon. Every. Oh, what a rush. I had a road warrior hawk kind of thing shaved into my head and they did this, but it looked so ridiculous that I had to have

them, you know, clean it up before I left the room the Royal Rumble watch. So, you know, I don't mind it. I like it. I was walking around with my grandson, Wayjay down in Tampa, out in the sun in the park. I feel warm, the sun. Warm to the sun, bouncing off my noggin. I kind of dug it. Dude, could we have gone better weather for Tampa or what? It was like perfect down there. It was. It was amazing. You guys looked like you had some fun there at the top guy rumble. And yes, you did get your head shaved. But it seems like it was a good time.

Anything you'd like to share about that? Just what a great group of people that turned out from ad-free shows. It was just so much fun. And I've said this before. I hate to keep beating this drum. but for me to be able to sit back and observe and just watch these people who several years ago, most of them didn't even know each other, coming from all parts of the country to have a great time. Some of them bringing family members to participate and just have fun bonding over professional wrestling. And to see the amount of joy that it brings a lot of people to even be associated. with it makes me feel good it's it's fun yeah josh fields was one of the guys who got to shave your head a little bit and i told him to tell eric bischoff that i wish it was me and he said that

you said something along the lines of i bet he does and you're right i certainly did it seemed like it was a great time go check that out ad free shows dot com they just announced a new series with the sandman that's going to be coming to ad free shows wow that'll be wild yes some ecbw stories coming to adfreeshows.com. Wild is the polite way of saying it. He's a great storyteller, too. There's something about Stanman's voice, man. He's got a voice. It sounds like he gets up in the morning, takes a shot of whiskey or two, and then gargles with a fistful of broken glass. He's got this voice. It'll be fun. He'll be, he's a great storyteller. Yes, he's a, I saw a one-man show with him a few years back, and he was great.

So check that out adfreeshows.com. Eric, I know you and Conrad did a long episode about the Vince allegations and everything that stemmed immediately after we dropped last week's edition of Strictly Business, of course, but we're not going to dive too much into that stuff this week. Instead, we're going to turn our attention to focusing on the tangible impact on the business of WWE and the wrestling industry as a whole as far as how a lawsuit like this is concerned. but is there anything else you'd like to bow tie from your conversation with Conrad as far as the Vince stuff is concerned? No, I, look, I reacted very viscerally, emotionally, reacted to what I've read and had been reading. And the one thing I don't want to get lost in all of this is we've heard one side of the story.

There will be more to come, unfortunately, because I don't want to read anymore. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. To be very honest with you, if this would all go away tomorrow and everybody walk away, go to their separate corners and be happy for the rest of their life, however happy they're able to be under these circumstances, that would be great, but that's not real. What's real is this is going to continue to drip out, get more information, and depending how far this thing goes.

I mean, this could end up in front of a jury. I don't think it will, but it could. And the details of the allegations, and that's what they are, they're allegations. You know, the word I used was evil. And if these allegations are true, evil's a good word. If these allegations are not true, evil's a good word. And I just want it to be done.

I know I sound like a six year old kid but I just want it to be over and I'm sure a lot of people feel that same way the only people that don't feel that way are the attorneys that are making money in the process it's not a fun thing to talk about it's not a fun thing to cover but it is a culturally relevant thing

to the industry right now and you know it's I had my own experience covering it this past weekend at the Royal Rumble, and we're going to talk a little bit about that with our guest, Brandon Thurston from Ressalonics, but it's not something that anyone takes pleasure in talking about ad nauseum or at length, because it's a really, a precarious situation, but B, regardless of what the outcome of it is, it tangibly affects a lot of lives, a lot of lives. Well, and I think that's one thing, you know, I do want to, you know, my reaction, you know,

on 83 weeks that aired Monday or drop Monday. There's nothing I said that isn't true, whether the allegations are true or whether the allegations are not true. Innocent people are being affected by this. There's a dark shadow over WWE, and I can only imagine, but I think I can imagine it fairly accurately,

what it must be like working in WWE with this kind of thing hanging over, you and children involved, children of children involved, friends, family members, everybody's suffering as a result of these allegations and we'll hopefully find out or there'll be a resolution one way or the other. But this is so ugly and I just wish I could just make it go away. I could. I could disconnect and I actually thought about it for, I don't know, didn't time it, but maybe moments there was a point in time where i was thinking through all this knowing that i'm going to have to talk about it where i thought maybe it's time to just stop talking about

wrestling i know it would make a lot of people happy if i would most of them in jacksonville florida but you know that was just an emotional reaction and and i got over pretty quickly but I just hopefully I can't wait to talk about like brutus beefcake and and firing honky talk man give me something light and fun. Hmm. I don't know how many times people have said I can't wait to talk about brutus beefcake, but hey, it has been uttered here.

If you would have talked to me Monday morning knowing I had to do that podcast with Conrad, I would have probably said to say, I would have said it. Yeah. I've gone to have a personal interview in his garage with him. come bruce let's sit down let's hash it out right here you and me i get it i get it man i get it well we're going to talk about this at length here with brandon thurston so eric let's not waste any more time let's bring in our special guest all right eric i know that our guest on this week's edition

of strictly business is someone you have a lot of respect for he is brandon thurston of wrestlenomics and he's going to join us to talk about just how all this craziness is going to be tangibly impacting W.E's business operations and potential fallout that we could see in the near or distant future. Brandon, how are you, man? It was good to see you in Tampa this past week. Yes, it's good to see you again. And it's good to see John and Eric. Thanks for having me again. I'm glad you're here too, brother, because I didn't want to be the only bald guy here. So that's cool as shit. It's worked out. I've only been bald for like maybe like two years or I realized, you know, I had to let go. I had to get ahead of the game here and get rid of it.

Well, knock on wood, I didn't have to let it go. It was a self-inflicted stupidity on my part for making not just one, but two bets involving CM Punk, where indeed the stakes were my hair. And that's it. Man, I'm making no more bets. I'm not ever betting anybody anything. I bet with my heart, not with my mind. Clearly, that's not working out for it.

Excellent. Brandon, this has been a whirlwind the past week, needless to say. and it's been a situation that's been brewing for some time now. How have you gone about your coverage of the allegations against Vince and WWE and how they're plotting their path forward here? For one thing, reading the whole complaint, which was filed by Janelle Grant, just a few days ago, I guess about a week ago now, reading that whole thing, which is 67 pages long, is an overwhelming experience.

I felt it was important when we covered it, when John Pollock and I from Post Wrestling covered it to give people a warning, but to read through a lot of what's written in there. It is overwhelming and shocking and disturbing, and I think audiences, you know, wrestling fans were interested in learning about what's going on in the business, need to hear exactly what she alleges. It's one side of the story, and Vince will have, he has about three weeks to give his side of the story if there's not extensions, but it's, it speaks to what may be a larger and wider problem within WWE and probably beyond that. It's interesting, you said, Brandon, and I'm going to do this once, and I'm going to hope that

people are listening and understand what I'm saying. By no means, am I coming, to anybody's defense or supporting anything or anybody in this situation other than the innocent people involved because there are a lot of them but you said it clearly man vince has three weeks to tell his side of the story we all of us reacted and are still reacting really to her allegations and her in that complaint we haven't seen the other side of that coin yet and you say it'll take about three weeks to get there that's when things in my opinion are going to really get interesting and interesting in a sad way we're probably going to end up deeper it will probably learn more it this isn't going to go away

anytime soon i guess that's my point and we still haven't heard from the other side of the other side of the table. That's interesting is the only word I can come up with right now. Yeah, it looks like what they're going to try to do is based on looking at the NDA, which is an exhibit to this lawsuit, is that there's an arbitration clause which the judge could decide to push this into arbitration, which is sort of what the contract, the NDA says, is that if there's some dispute, it should go to arbitration. Arbitration means that this would be done in private, that the public wouldn't be able to see what's going on here. She's alleging for a lot of reasons that the NDA should not be enforceable.

She should be invalidated and they should go forward with this lawsuit. Can I ask you, Brandon? And this is your opinion. None of us really know any facts. We're just learning what we're reading and hearing. But she also, I believe, alleges that the NDA was broken, therefore does not apply. Exactly. And I'm guessing, without having done any research, the reason she's taking that position is

because her name was leaked at some point not long ago. That might be part of the argument? Somebody leaked her name to the public. Yeah. So what you're referring to is she alleges in the lawsuit that WWE leaked her name through an internet writer, which was connected to be Brad Shepard. But also, too, to that point, Eric, I believe part of it, and Brandon, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was also, she claimed that the payments had stopped happening, correct?

Yes. So Vince made one, one million dollar payment and the NDA dictated that he was to make additional $500,000 payments each February 1st. He did not make the first $500,000 payment that he was supposed to make on February 1st, 2023. I guess today as we're recording, it's actually the next installment date. But because he's discontinued paying, according to her, that invalidates that there's also something called the Speak Out Act, which is supposed to protect victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment from having to have NDAs enforced upon them. So that's part of what she's arguing as well. What a mess. Yeah. Brandon, you had mentioned you did a great timeline on

Ressalonomics of this where it's wild, first off, because Eric, you and I have been talking about this for almost two years now when then stepped away for the first time. But You reminded everyone, Brandon, that on July 8th, 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that Vince had paid $12 million for NDAs across 16 years to four different women who had worked for WWE. Now, again, that's just a Wall Street Journal report from a year and a half ago now. But I guess this kind of puts into context that the scope of this is so much larger, regardless of what is ultimately true versus what is not, there are so many more moving pieces at hand here are there not brandon so we know that there are at least seven women with allegations against vimsic man if you're going all the way back to rhea chatterton that's one and then there's the spa manager uh there is the the person at the tanning salon

in boca raton there is the wrestler uh the man the employee manager contractor and there's janelle grants that's seven women with allegations not i i don't know if they all have nda's but most of them, at least you do. So when you've got that many allegations, you know, I think at least in the public's view, it's sort of your, you've lost the benefit of the doubt there. And it makes it more easy to believe these stories here. I think that, John, I'm sorry, I think that's one of the things that, you know, I, timing and travel and all that complicated Conrad and my ability to record 83 weeks. So we didn't really do it until Monday afternoon. I was almost grateful for that because, and truth be known, we attempted to do it Sunday,

but neither Conrad and I could really, we're still processing, still trying to figure out how to even talk about this. Right. And reacting really just emotionally to what we read. And I think in a complaint, if you're a good attorney, you want to file, especially if in a situation like this, and especially given the high profile nature of it. Right. Those shocking, hard to read, hard to discuss, hard to even really think about for very long. Complaints, I should say, are allegations in the complaint, creates an emotional reaction.

I mean, it should. And it clearly did. But that's where the rest of the story is going to become interesting. And, John, you said it right, whether these allegations are true or not true or the truth, as unfortunately it often does, lie somewhere in the middle. That's going to be resolved at some point, but now you've got six other people who are in the process or potentially will get into the process based on what we see develop here. And that cloud hanging over anybody's head is, I don't know how you can deal with that strategically. I mean, it's just, it's just too much. There's so much other information that's been made public. It makes it hard not to be biased in believing that the allegations in the complaint are likely true. And that's not fair either.

It could likely not be true just as well. But now you take all of the circumstantial evidence, and I'm not a lawyer and I'm trying to sound like one. all of the other Michigan's surrounding events and these NDAs and all that. What a horrible, horrible piece of business. If you're Ari Emanuel and Nick Kahn, what a horrible piece of business they have to do to deal with. Yeah. And thinking about whether other women will come forward with their stories, they do have NDAs. But one thing that the complaint is raising is it's arguing against some language that's in the NDA saying it's overly

broad and it makes the point specifically it says that if other women and their NDAs are you know they have the same language which they may uh then they're arguing that those NDAs may be unenforceable as well sort of it it points to encouraging other women if they choose to to speak out right and I guess the reason I was asking about that is because there is this contingency of wrestling fans out there as this has evolved over the course of the past week who I think many of them look at it and they're like, well, this happened in the past, it's over and done with, and now Vince is out of power, so none of it is going to ultimately matter with how it affects WWE. But at the same time, culture starts at the top and it trickles down, and there are people who were involved,

who are still with the company or not with the company, according to this lawsuit in particular. This is not something that is going to go away, regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, any time soon as far as I see it, what's your read on that? I think another thing that's that's raised in this lawsuit is that there are four executives who are not named specifically by name. They're described as WWE corporate officer, one, two, three, and four. And she alleges that they had knowledge of the abuse that was happening and didn't do anything to intervene. So the argument that she's making is that there's a systemic problem here. There's a problem with the culture that protected Vince and allowed him to continue to do what he did.

Based on all the NDAs we have, perhaps he was doing this for many. years with many women. But I think that's something that we asked Paul Aveck about a few days ago at the Post Royal Rumble Press conference. And I think it's a question that, you know, all of the major executives surrounding WWE and in TKO, for that matter, need to be asked about, you know, what did they know and when did they know it? And did Ari Emanuel know more than more than than we knew when that deal was made? And it will probably be shareholders very interested in that question too. How do you feel that this situation today, not what's going to happen six months from now or six years from now because we can't look into the crystal ball and figure that out.

We don't know what that'll look like. But in terms of today, how do you think this is going to affect advertisers, sponsors, other corporate partners? Do you think they're going to take a wait in C attitude or do you think you'll see more aggressive positions much like Slim Jim took Saturday and withhold future business until something is done? In this case, Ms. McMahon resigned and Slim Jim jumped back in. But you think there are other advertisers right now wondering whether they want to continue their relationship with WWE? I don't have any reason to think that There's less demand for advertising and ad space with WWE, given that Vince resigned and Slim Jim jumped right back in. Now, there could always be more news that surfaces.

Generally, with these things, you figure the worst news is going to come out at first. But if it is revealed that there were, you know, if there's evidence, if there's emails or communications and other evidence that other executives had knowledge of this and didn't do something about it, I mean, that could reflect poorly on the company, obviously, and that could lead to less interest with advertisers. It seems like Netflix is okay with it. There was a comment from a Netflix executive earlier today, sort of just saying that he's gone and basically expressing that they're satisfied with the fact that Vince has resigned. And that deal, I mean, that's probably a contract that they can't get out of at this point. That's good for at least five years. So I don't see huge things happening unless there's huge news that comes out.

Yeah, the exact quote was verbatim from the executive Bella Biharia said he's gone, so he's not there. He's gone. So clearly, some strong jurisdiction. Well, nobody spent too much time structuring that response. Yeah, I'd say, well, Eric, that's actually really interesting that you just said that, though. You obviously have had a lot of experience in that corporate realm where you have strategic. strategic response to stuff. And, you know, Brandon and I can only speak from our experience in the press conference this past week where Paul Levick didn't come out with any formal, prepared remarks regarding the situation. It was much more off the cuff and from the hip. Were you surprised in any way by the initial response this past weekend when prompted about this stuff, Eric? I found it interesting, but I wasn't surprised because, and I really, didn't want to get into this and create a debate over what should or shouldn't have

happened. But in this context, I was a little surprised, but actually relieved, because anybody that's ever been, anybody that's ever worked in a corporate environment where there is a, where there is pending litigation, and there's a lot of pending litigation going on right now. It wasn't that long ago that the feds rated Mr. Command's home. So you've got the feds over here, they're looking for something that may or may not even be associated with this civil complaint. We jump to the conclude myself. I'll speak for myself. I tend to jump to the conclusion and make an assumption that those two are related. They may not be. And with the amount of litigation and interest from the feds and the SEC and all the other stuff,

and then you've got all the shareholders out there that are sitting on the edge of the seat weight to pull some kind of a trigger. You have to be so careful about what you say that if you're going to make an official comment, it literally has to be structured by a team of attorneys. And the senior attorney representing the corporate attorney representing and leading that effort will have to sign off on that statement. If you can imagine whether John it was you or anybody asking a question that you know. Now, I'm just saying you did this, but any reporter that would ask a question

that they know, Triple H can't answer. He can't give you his opinion. He can't give you his feelings. He can't go into any detail. He has two choices. Either read a prepared statement, and I get it. Some people think that would have been a better way to go

because at least it's addressing. but it's really not you're going to get a bland you're going to get a you're going to get a legal statement from a corporate attorney coming out of triple h's mouth and the audience is going to gag on that that's not what they want to hear they don't want to hear paulovic talking like an attorney they they want to hear his personal feelings about the matter that's why the question was asked so my point is anybody that knows anything about the situation knew including you John not to beat you out but it is what it is you're asked a very good question you articulate you're respectful everything was great about it except for you knew he couldn't

answer that question unless he read a prepared statement and i think that was probably i'm guessing considered do we want paula back under the current circumstances which are really interesting to talk about because i think this is kind of unprecedented almost every respect do we want him coming up pretending he's an attorney or speaking as one, or do we want him to just acknowledge that he's not going to answer it and move on to the next subject and talk about focusing on something positive? So I think under the circumstances, I know this is going to be an unpopular position, don't care. I think Paul Vec handled it the only way he should have handled it. Brandon, you have any thoughts on that? You'd like to add?

I contrast that against what I've only read the text and I think John you were on the call of Shaw Michaels just had a call for the NXT show that's coming up this weekend and just based on reading the text he came off more thoughtful and more compassionate and more protective of talent and staff than Paul did I asked a couple questions after John asked his question whether whether Paul had read the complaint and if he did what his reaction was to it and he said he had not. I feel like that was a pretty easy entry to him to say something compassion or something around the notion that they really care about their talent and whether or not any of this is true that this is not what WB is about. But he sort of left left the viewer, the reader of his

comments to feel like, you know, this is not even that big of a concern to him in that he's not aware of what's in the complaint, even though I'm pretty sure he's aware of at least a surface-level details of what's in the complaint. But I would think that that's, you know, having a thorough understanding of what's alleged to be happening in your company, the highest level would be among the most necessary things that you should do as the number two executive in the company. Yeah. And don't argue that. Don't argue that. You know, my, the other side of it, though, is had Paul responded similarly, and I haven't read the Sean Michael's text, so I don't know what it said there, but if Paul would have talked about how much they care for,

for the talent and safety and protection of the talent and everybody else in the corporate environment and he wouldn't have been sympathetic to the alleged victim, he'd be getting heat for that. Social media would have been accusing him of trying to protect Vince simply by not coming out and speaking about his reaction to those allegations. And I don't know that he did read it. I mean, obviously, nobody knows but him. But I can see a circumstance where he had not at that point.

Keep in mind, Royal Rumble Weekend, major, significant changes to the card. I can see where it would be something that he would sit down and be briefed on. Even if he didn't read it, be briefed on the details. And perhaps that happened before. I don't doubt that he didn't read it. I can't imagine he wasn't aware of the basics of it, though. Right, right. And, and, you know, it's interesting, you know, as far as the Sean Michael stuff is concerned,

it's not an apples to apples comparison because Sean's not on the corporate side of WWE, you know, and Sean is based in Orlando, whereas all this stuff has alleged to have taken place in Connecticut. So there are some layers to that. And I think Sean has a little more liberty to speak more freely about the subject. And I did think he handled it very. well. I mean, Sean was point blank asked about allegations of misconduct and rape against him from the late 80s, early 90s on this press conference. And I thought he handled it really, really well. But going

back to the subject at hand here, it's a really unenviable position to be in regardless if you're Paul Levick. And I think he understood that questions were going to be asked and they need to be asked. You know, Eric, to your point on what you were saying, I didn't know what kind of response we were going get from him. I genuinely did not know. And it was there was a reason that I worded my particular question the way I did because it's something you and I covered extensively on this podcast, which was when Vince wrote to the board asking to be reinstated and saying, here's why I need to be reinstated. They responded unanimously that no, we are not interested in reinstating you. And the question was, well, what was the reason for that at the time?

did it have any correlation to this? And whether he can go on the record and explain that or not, I very much expected some degree as the visual representation of WWE of, at this time, this is due to the pending litigation. This is not something that I can go into. However, WWE takes all allegations of misconduct seriously or something akin to that. And, you know, look, ultimately it doesn't affect us. And what does that get you though?

What does that get you? It gets you the, it gets you a feather in your cap because you get to ask the quiet. I'm not talking about you, Joe, but any report, in any situation. You see this all the time in press briefings. It's just freaking ridiculous. Well, it's, you're asking the question that you should know. He can't answer. You asked a very specific question.

Did you, what did you know and when did you know it? And why was this decision made with regard to a board matter? He's not going to, he's not at liberty to discuss that. It's a question that can't be answered by anybody other than an attorney representing WWE. But I think that, and Brandon, I'm curious your thoughts on this too. I think perhaps that when you're in that position and you're answering to questions like this, the response that people are looking for, specifically employees in this instance,

they were looking for that assurance of, okay, well, at least there is some concerted effort here to look out for the well-being of employees with this response. And that's traditionally, that's historically from experiences I've had in media in press conferences on similar or related matters to instances like this where that's generally what the consensus is looking for. I don't know. I mean, Brandon, were you surprised in any way that there was no sort of sentiment of that in this particular instance?

I think when we have an opportunity. to ask, in this case, WB's number two executives, some questions that are very important at this time, considering the lawsuit that just came out. I think it's our responsibility to ask questions, and maybe they won't be able to ask that, and we can usually predict that they won't be able to answer that. But I think even if they can't answer it, and even if we do know that ahead of time that that's most likely the case, what we often get is something that indicates something about how they feel about the story or how they're handling it even in a non-answer can be informative and i would say second to that that it's important that we ask questions

that that that demand to be asked for the sake of in this case what may be a very toxic work environment because it sends a message to to the industry to the workers to the public that that these are that we recognize that these are important issues and they they need to be addressed um and i how much do guys how much you think and look i'm biased because i have a certain amount of sympathy for corporate executives who are stuck in a hot seat sure and been there done that but do you think the venue the audience in that press i mean look i would guess that if r emanuel or nick con or polo back or a combination of the three of them had a press conference or had an interview on CNBC or the Wall Street Journal

or some other venue that was business-related as opposed to fan-related. And I'm not disparaging or by any way minimizing either press group. I'm not doing that. But that press conference was all about Royal Rumble. reaction to it events leading up to it all of that do you think that that was the appropriate venue to not that i wouldn't have done it if i were in your shoes i would have done it too let me first of all say that okay i'm not not throwing stones here but do you think had that that press conference

taken place in a different venue that wasn't really all about wrestling fans that the answers might have been different brand i'll allow you first on that one of time he had to prepare i mean given the the the gravity of this issue it's it's a it's a wonder to me that he wasn't more prepared to to give some sort of you know some sort of ready answer that would have allowed him to come off better than he did um and i i don't know that it would matter whether he was facing you know wrestling reporters or content creators or whoever they are or if he was sitting down with david favor at cnbc um i mean i i think nick con might have been been coached better and might have been more prepared to give a business answer and nick con is a lawyer

Yeah, I was going to ask you that, too, Brandon, do you think perhaps, you know, looking back, hindsight 2020, you can fix anything if you can look back at it, right? You think it might have been better to possibly have an attorney to handle some of those issue-related questions as opposed to putting it on Paul Leveck, who's head of creative? I think one thing I've been thinking about today is where's Nick Kahn? He is the president. He's the number one officer in the company. It's only been a week now, but it will be nice to hear from him or, if we had a chance to ask him questions or if he did an interview somewhere, which he's done several over the years on various podcasts. So I think, yeah, I mean, number one, I would like to hear

from Nick Conn and have him get asked questions about this. Agreed. It'll be, I look forward to hearing what Nick has to say as well. Yeah. And as far as the arena, Eric, and where these questions are asked, the opportunities to have these open discussions and questions and answers with high-ranking individuals in these companies is extremely limited for any media member, but specifically this realm of media. So when you have that opportunity face-to-face to address these things, I feel like you almost have to. And for the record, like Brandon and I were talking about this too a couple days ago, but you also as a reporter have to ask stuff, who is appropriate to ask these questions to? Like, hypothetically speaking, if they had

thrown Jade Cargill up there on the dais, is it appropriate to ask her about it? I don't know. Cody, however, is the top face of the company and has had a working relationship with Vince McMahon, and he was asked about it. And for the record, I thought Cody did an excellent job at talking about a very difficult subject. How do you feel Cody represent himself, Eric? I think he did a great job, but he was able to, he was able to speak from the perspective of talent, not as an officer of the company. Right. There's a whole different set of rules when you're an officer in a publicly traded company. Yeah, Brandon, do you have any thoughts on Cody being addressed up?

Because I know that's something that as reporters, we've been tasked with this. Oh, it was not the time or place or anything of that nature. How do you feel about that? I think, Cody, if it's appropriate to ask anybody, it's appropriate to ask people who are very high up in the card who you imagine would be more secure in their position and their position of power. So if it's Cody or Roman Raines or someone like that, I think it's just over the line, okay, I'm less comfortable the further down the card we go to people who, who it's, it's them thinking about how to handle the question. It could be more detrimental to them,

depending on how they deal with it. Oh, it could be detrimental as hell. I mean, like a situation like this, probably not so much for someone like Cody because he's genuinely pretty well loved. But, man, and this is probably one of the reasons. I'll speak for myself. I don't know what Conrad was dealing with.

But I just was very insecure about how to even approach this because no matter what you say, unless you walk a bright yellow, line that's so neutral, it's not, it doesn't even matter and makes sense to do an interview or to try to talk about the subject, you're going to offend so many different people on either side of the coin. You know, it's really hard to talk about it. And it's a lot of pressure to put on talent, no doubt. Let me ask you guys, both of you, are you guys surprised that there weren't more mainstream media inattention or in attendance.

I mean, given the nature of this, it's not a secret. There was a pay-per-view going on. It's not a secret. There was going to be a press conference, you know, for a story of this magnitude with this much interest in such a high-profile case. Was there anybody there representing anybody other than wrestling media? There was what, John may have a better handle. ESPN had a reporting there.

there's some of these major outlets they sort of have a wrestling beat and I think some of those people were there yeah I think part of it Eric is that for big events like this credential applications go out so far in advance and they close the window you know probably about a month before the event maybe three weeks before the event now that's not to say if the wall street journal or the Hollywood reporter had inquired about getting credentialed at the last second that they wouldn't be able to but I think it's possible that that partially at least played into it and the resources weren't there to send representatives for that but that's a hard one to believe that's a hard one to no well like i said i if they wanted it they could have probably

gotten it um which i'll ask the question again if if they if they wanted it and they probably couldn't have could have gotten it why wasn't there well it's funny because they were so quick to aggregate from the events that actually happened i mean our our questions brand i know they got picked up by multiple major outlets. Yeah, CNN in New York Times. Yeah, so, and that underscores the importance of asking these questions in these events when you have the limited opportunity to do so, in my opinion. I don't know how you feel about that, but that only shows that further, in my opinion.

Yeah, I don't know if this is what you're getting at, Eric, but I think the reason why more mainstream outlets weren't there, you know, based on, okay, this lawsuit came out, let's go go be there, was because those outlets don't take wrestling with the highest priority, I think, you know, I think in general, the media doesn't know which bucket, for one thing, to put wrestling into. I think for the sports media, they don't want to cover it because it's predetermined. And I think the entertainment media doesn't want to cover it because they see it as low-brow entertainment. And it just sort of gets lost in nobody wanting to cover it. And, you know, and I think that's, that has probably not helped a lot of these issues because

they haven't faced the scrutiny that they could have to perhaps prevent some of this. I'm going to throw in a third option, third choice. I just think they're fucking lazy. and the idea that they're just going to aggregate somebody else's work and not spend the time and not actually do journalists work while they pretend to be journalists or are, but they're just lazy. I don't buy that. I just, I think media, news media today is so sloppy and so lazy. And I'm not talking about wrestling. Actually, wrestling is starting to look pretty good with people like you, Brandon, and Mike Johnson over at PW Insider and Dave Shears.

and others. I'm not going to make a list here of all the people that I respect to it are in the business you guys are in. But nonetheless, I think it's a pretty, it's a strong feeling in my part that the news media in general are lazy and they're sloppy and they're going to jump on whatever side of the issue that polls best because that's going to get them attention.

News media, I said this in a TED talk back in 2018 or whenever it was. news today is more like professional wrestling than professional wrestling is in that news is not designed to inform you so that you can make a rational choice or an informed choice based on your world the news media is created to get you to feel to react to get emotional to either cheer for the baby face and boo the heel it's become so formulaic along with being sloppy and lazy that that's the reason there was no mainstream media there and head tip of the cap to you guys for doing it you know it's unfortunate that wrestling and i agree with you brandon i've talked a long time john has heard me talk about this you know wrestling isn't sports but it kind of is it's not comedy it's not a sitcom kind of is it's not a drama series kind of is so when you explain the product to someone who's not a fan how do you describe it it's kind of hard and I yeah that is a big issue but at the same time we had the announcement

of a five billion dollar streaming deal with one of the largest streamers on the planet that made headlines everywhere else why would all of a sudden they not be interested right in this that that was so fascinating it was like you're so quick to jump on one thing right it's like oh wow we're going to be all over this but then not something because it's easy you don't have to do much research that's true True. It's very true. I want to ask you guys this, and this is something that Matt Hardy and I talked about on our podcast this week, wrestling historically in WWE specifically, it has taken for major events to become catalyst for change. When Eddie passed away, all of a sudden, opiates and painkillers started to be more under the microscope. When the Benoit tragedy happened, all of a sudden we're starting to care more about head trauma. What do you think an event like this, Regardless of whether or not these accusations are true or not, what kind of change do you think this could spur throughout the rest of the industry?

Eric, I'd love to start with you on this one. I don't think that this is eye-opening in the sense of, wow, we never heard of anything like this before. Ladies and gentlemen, Congress, members of Congress have a slush fund. that's created exactly for this purpose. Politicians, unfortunately, participate in this kind of behavior and have structures in place and programs in place to help them mitigate it in management, including members of Congress.

That's not news. I don't think there's any corporate environment in the country that hasn't had similar issues in one way, shape, or form. it's the royal family for crying out loud has got these issues so i don't think anybody's going to go wow i didn't know this existed i do think as a result of this and probably even more so once the dust settles and the outcome is clear because it's going to be nothing but commas and decimal points and it's going to have a massive financial impact one way or the other it's going to have a massive financial impact. And I think anybody in any company, whether it's a wrestling company or

a six-person shop, you know, making t-shirts out of the garage, are going to have to start being extra careful to not become entangled in anything that could even be remotely by the most evil attorney on the face of the earth end up in a complaint that makes anybody look. I mean, you just can't go near it. It's just, I think people are going to become hyper aware of their vulnerabilities in terms of the behavior. And I guess they should. At the end of the day, why not? Is it a bad thing?

It's an unfortunate thing that we've gotten to this point in our culture, in our society, and our morality as a species that we have to have these, you know, guard rail, in place and keep a microscope under everything we do. That's unfortunate, but it is what it is, and that's the environment that we live in today. So I don't think anybody's going to be shocked in terms of this is new. I've never heard of anything like this before, but probably become more aware that you just have to be extra diligent and not be involved in anything that can create a perception of something that could lead to a sexual harassment case or something is, is insane. sane is what we're reading about.

Brandon, do you see any more ramifications, especially on the business side of things? So, like, the two examples you brought up when Eddie Guerrero passed away, there was a wellness policy that was created in reaction to his passing. When Chris Benoit died, part of what the reaction was to that is we sort of got a culture of, like, let's not do chair shots to the head anymore. And I don't know what the simple policy solution is right now. Like, I'm sure W.E., you know, in their HR has some sort of policy.

against sexual harassment and i don't know what they could change to to make it more more strict than it is not even knowing what the details of it are um because this is this is a problem that is not around you know simple choices of like to take steroids or to do or to do drugs but like this has to do with people's relationships and the power that people have you know within the workplace. I think in part that some of the change has already happened and this happened regardless. And I'm thinking of like 2018 with the Me Too movement and having more people have conversations about this and that has sort of tilted the momentum towards having people believe women who bring up these accusations. And wrestling sort of had its own movement in that

sense in 2020 with the speaking out women where so many stories came to light that made it clear that this was a problem in wrestling too. Again, both of these things happened, and then the Janelle Grant story happened after that. And I think pro wrestling in particular has this disparity of there's more men than women in it, and basically all the people in power are men. So I don't know how you fix this overnight.

And not that this, I guess it is relevant. You know, it's not that WWE, didn't have, not only did they have a policy in place, but for example, when I was there in 2019, during that brief four-month cup of coffee that I was there, I was asked, no, not asked, directed to attend maybe two seminars, but it's just been one. I was doing a lot of onboarding at the time, so I'm going to call it one. It was several hours, and it wasn't just me. I mean, it wasn't a class for me, it was, there were directors, there were managers, there were department heads, men, women, and it was, and I've been through them before. I was through that type of thing at Turner Broadcasting. I organized them and hired companies to come in and take my employees at the time through that course, right? So it's not just a policy that was in place. There was an active effort to help educate, managers, department heads, directors, whatever, on the implications and the complications of

interaction in the office place that could be misconstrued or worse. I don't know how much more. It's kind of like you can't legislate morality as much as we would like to. You can't make a law to make people abide that will make everybody a good person. This is never going to happen. And you're always going to find situations where people work around, ignore whatever, policies, educational programs, whatever you want to do when it comes to human nature. It's just, it's unfortunate. Again, I keep saying this.

None of us have a crystal ball. We don't know how it's going to turn out. But, you know, I live in my own bubble, you know, here in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, which is I'm really grateful for it, to be honest. The only contact I have with the wrestling audience. is through social media, and for me, that's more fun and entertainment than it is real interaction. What's been your impression of the wrestling audience with regard to WWE is the broader subject?

Not Vince. I mean, I know collectively everybody's pretty well said in where they stand on Vince, but how do you think this is going to affect just the feeling that fans have towards WWE? Do you get a vibe for that yet? Brand perception. Yeah. I mean, obviously it's a negative in terms of like actual results. We saw the raw after Royal Rumble did a really strong rating and usually does after the Royal Rumble. But I don't, I don't see like fan interests going down. Again, obviously it's a bad thing for the brand. But I don't get the sense that this is going to lead to a lot of fan disengagement. I mean, like even looking back to like the Benoit situation in 2007, I don't know that that led to like a really strong immediate withdrawal from, for. from wrestling fans, but I think, you know, I, I think it's something that needs to be covered

and scrutinize is how much of this is a systemic problem in the company. I don't know that the general wrestling fan is super concerned with that, though. I think everybody sees that this is a Vince problem that, you know, gotten to their periphery, you know, through the news and through whatever information they're consuming. And now Vince is gone and that's probably enough for the typical wrestling fan to feel like it was sort of dealt with. Let's hope because while you and I both agree and I think John, you probably do too, wrestling is this weird duck, you know, it doesn't quack, it doesn't well, but it's a duck and a duck is a bird, but it doesn't fly, you know, it's wrestling.

It's hard to really, to describe it. But I'm hoping that Brandon, everything you said is true. I believe it probably is. But what I would hate to see is wrestling as a category, whether it's WWE or AEW or TNA or NWA, whoever, whatever set of letters you want to throw out there, I would hate to see them kind of getting splattered with some of this muck as well because it's unfortunate. But I agree with you. I think wrestling fans are going to look at this, isolate Vince, isolated as a Vince problem, and not have it reflect their feelings towards professional wrestling in general or WWE specifically i hope you're right about that brandon before we let you go i want to ask you on one more thing here that you know you've got your ear to the ground and you're very well

researched and i think that's one of the best parts about wrestlenomics and everyone should be checking out wrestlenomics if you are not subscribed already but uh are you manual you know he made this acquisition happen almost a year ago now and when it happened everyone remembers the interview with him and Vince there sitting side by side and I think a lot of people have speculated deep down that maybe he was looking at pretty much every avenue

possible to distance himself from Vince. We know that Endeavor openly discussed about how Vince could be a financial liability to the company. What do you foresee Ari's path going forward with this incident being and how he goes about

directing WWE's business ventures going forward? I feel like they've probably have been exposed to some sort of shareholder lawsuit, which isn't the end of the world. I mean, I've seen something like three or four shareholder lawsuits down in the, I don't know, eight years or so I've been covering wrestling. I think they'll probably be that eventually. I'm really curious to see if this lawsuit continues to go forward. There's three defendants here. Keep in mind, there's Vince McMahon, there's John Laurenitis, and there's WB, the company itself, is also being sued because it's being claimed that they had.

knowledge and did nothing. It'll be really interesting to see if their interests all align and they are all defended sort of by the same set of lawyers were all on the same page or what I could see happening is sort of the WV side turning on Vince and and sort of blaming Vincent and possibly even suing Vincent for exposing them to this liability if it costs them something or if they can claim damages here. But to John, what you're saying about the merger happening, it's really interesting in the filing that we got that gives this narrative about how this TKO deal came together, there was an initial offer from the Endeavour side to give WWE, I believe it was 43% of the stock. This was an all-stock deal. And it was renegotiated.

And a second offer was made by Endeavour to say, you know, we'll give you not 49% rather than 43%, but Vince McMahon has to stay. In other words, it was at least on paper, what is being being told to the SEC in the public is that Ari insisted that Vince stay. And, and that that he had to give up more stock for Vince to stay. And that's consistent with what we saw in the CNBC interview that they did the day after the deal was announced. That's really interesting, Brandon. That's a new piece of information that that's interesting. Yeah.

And Ari Manuel was sitting there next to Vince in the CNBC interview the next day saying, oh, my God, yeah, we needed him. And I mean, I could cynically read that and think maybe they arrange things just so so that they that, so that it would. be disclosed that way when in reality, perhaps, Vince was insisting on staying and would not stay because that was an issue that was in the air and was in the media that people were talking about, you know, people thinking, including me, that Vince is never going to leave this company. So who knows? But that's what's been disclosed to the SEC, that it was Endeavor's move to say, we will give you more stock, but Vince has to stay rather than what we would all think that Vince would insist on staying and, you know, maybe you'd have to give up

something to do so. So probably, you know, maybe there is. some shareholder liability there in terms of shareholders getting together and saying you insisted that this guy stay here we have the SEC filing saying so and he exposed us some more liability because of that but but bernan what's going on with tkow stock today uh last i looked over the last several days it's not not moving in any really remarkable way um as we speak today it is up 2% on the day um i don't know what the indexes are doing but that's you know it's up by 2% So that would kind of mitigate shareholder damages. I mean, you're going to sue somebody for making money for you?

Yeah, I suppose it would have to, maybe we'd have to coincide with some sort of decrease in the, in the value of the company. Time will tell, guys. Time will tell. Yeah, I'm really curious, especially in the court of public opinion, how Ari handles this. And, I mean, Nick Con is going to be the driver for WWE going forward here, especially with Vince permanently gone. At least it seems that way on the surface. February 27th is the next TKO earnings call.

And based on the first one that they did already, it's just going to be R.A. Manuel and Mark Shapiro, who's the COO and for both TKO and Endeavor. So it's not like we'll hear from NICON then, but we will hear from R. Emanuel and Mark Shapiro. And I expect that the stock analysts who are on the call will be interested enough to ask questions that relate to this issue because of the things we've just been talking about.

out like the value of the stock, the value of partnerships, does this affect advertisers and all that. Brandon, before we let you go, I just want to thank you for joining us, dude. I learn a little bit of something every time I look at one of your posts or follow you in any way. And love having you on the show. You bring much needed credibility. So, I'm happy to get that raw. But thank you, man. You're a fascinating guy.

I love the way you treat the business and nothing but respect. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to talk with both of you. And I learn a lot from John, who's a real journalist as well. That's good to know. Wait a minute. You come on my show and you put John over? Dude.

How long have you been covering wrestling? Come on. And it's a pleasure to be here with the architect of the Monday Night Wars. There you go. All right. I'll take whatever I can get at this stage of life, brother. Thank you. Thank you, very much.

Thank you, Brandon. I want to thank Brandon for his time. check out wrestlingomics if you haven't already it truly is one of the best wrestling patreon services out there he does a fantastic job uh eric when they say breaking news it means stuff is always evolving right and the situations are always changing fluidly and as we wrapped our interview with brandon we got some breaking news regarding the vince mcman lawsuit and that comes via vice Vice reporting that John Laronitis, co-defendant in Vince McMahon sex trafficking lawsuit, of course, says that he was a victim, too, with his attorney, Edward Brennan, saying the truth will come out. Quote, earlier today, Vice News reached out to Brennan, an attorney in the Tampa area to confirm that he represents Laronitis.

He did so, adding as an aside quote, Mr. Laronitis denies the allegations in the misguided complaint and will be vigorously defending these charters in court, not the media, like the plaintiff. if Mr. Laronitis is a victim in the case, not a predator. The truth will come out, end quote. In a response to a follow-up question seeking to clarify that he was indeed saying that McMahon was the predator and that Laronitis, like Grant, was a victim, Brennan wrote, quote, read the allegations, read the federal statute, power control, employment, supervisory capacity, dictatorial sexual demands with repercussions, if not men. count how many times in the complaint Vince exerts control over both of them, end quote.

Pretty explosive allegations there. You know, and we just got done talking to Brandon. And I think Brandon Thurson brought up an observation or question as far as who's representing, there's three plaintiffs at this point, WWE, corporately Vince McMahon and John Laurinitis. And I think Brandon was wondering if they're all represented. by the same attorney and therefore all on the same page. Right. Presenting a somewhat united front.

This clearly suggests that that is not the case. And what does that mean? I'm not an attorney. I've never played one on TV. But it's kind of common sense with a little bit of understanding how shit works. Divide and conquer. If you're going after somebody, divide and conquer. If the feds are looking after you or going after you, divide and conquer.

You want people turning on each other. Wow. This is, and I was just having a conversation with someone this morning wondering this very thing is John Laurenitis represented by the same attorney because that creates one type of scenario as this thing progresses. This scenario portraying or alleging that John Laronitis was also a victim, changes the dynamics of the process going forward dramatically. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, professionally even Eric,

John Laronitis was essentially Vince's right-hand man here. He's the head of talent relations. We know how closely they work together. That's taken it a little far. That's taking it a little far. I don't think, you know, I don't know that, I don't know. I'd go so far as to say John Moranitis was Vince's right-hand man, clearly. Well, a trust in the executive.

Right. In the inner circle. Wow. I don't know what else to say, man, but I felt, I mean, literally I was walking out of my studio, getting a fresh cup of coffee on my way into the house to care some other business, and I get that text to me, and I go, well, we can't. Not, yeah, I mean, we want to be first. We want to be good.

We want to be clear, but, man, we need to be first. And there's no way I was going to walk away from the opportunity to share this bit of information with our audience. Because this is big. I mean, this is, again, I'm not an attorney. And I don't want to sound like I wish I was one because I don't. But this, this changes so many things as far as how this moves forward. Well, and just even on the surface, right, of, of hope. hoping, if you're in the Vince camp, hoping that this lawsuit goes away or you settle

or whatever it is, this makes that a whole lot more difficult now right away off the onslaught of that. And if like we said, you know, when I just, we were talking about with Brandon Thurston just a few moments ago, you know, if the, you know, as the, we all know, the FBI, the feds rated Vince's home, took a bunch of shit, whatever that was, don't know. But if the feds are looking, it. And if the feds and their interest in Vince McMahon and the reason for getting a search warrant to search his home, if that is related to this case and now you've got Vincent and Johnny at this point, Johnny Laurinitis, taking separate sides of that battle line. Oh, gosh, this is going to be ugly. Ugly and interesting.

and even by him claiming to be a victim too in this circumstance it adds a degree of credence to the allegations in the Vince lawsuit where he's saying yeah well you you clearly read what happened in that lawsuit i was a victim too so he he's corroborating some degree of these claims yeah i don't want to go that far brother i think that's that's a step too far i don't this could all be one job giant money grab. Well, I mean, certainly so. And when things are incentivized by a money grab, corroboration and truth and facts become victims themselves. I'm not saying he's saying this is all true.

I'm just simply saying that, I mean, come on. I mean, look at this right here on the service, right? He's saying, no, you saw what's in the complaint. I'm a victim, too. So. Exactly. agree on that. Well, brother, let's just wrap this up and I'll let you get to work. Let's get this out ASAP. Our listeners, the most intelligent. Everything. Did you look that up? Ariadite? That was Conrad that we're going to look it up. That you've used that term here before.

Yeah. Airdite listeners, anywhere in the wrestling universe, listen to this show. So let's get it out to them and be the home. Breaking news. Whenever we're certainly going to do that. We want you guys to get on board with us. Advertise with Eric.com. Get your product. Get your business out in front of thousands of listeners every single week, the 83 weeks feed is one of the largest wrestling feeds in the world. We would love for you to be a part of our team here. Advertise with Eric.com. He's Eric Bischoff. I'm John Alba. We'll be back with you next week right here on Strictly Businesses.