83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #21: The WWE Sale, WrestleMania 39, and AEW to London

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

In this week's edition of "Strictly Business" Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba discuss all the details about WWE's sale to Endeavor, look at WrestleMania's main event booking, AEW's London show, and more! Special thanks to this week's sponsor! Empiraa- Sign up now and receive free onboarding, your first 14 days for free, and 24/7 support. Get ahead of the game and save 20% on your subscription by using the code 'wrestlebiz' at checkout. Launch your business plan faster and with less effort than ever before. Visit www.empiraa.com/eric today and start your journey to success! 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 #UFC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And you don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket to do this, but check this out. No house payments for two months. It's savewithconrad.com. it's time for another edition of strictly business with eric bischoff i of course am john alba joined by a man of the hour my friend mr eric bischoff anything interesting happened this week dude i don't know man i'm just sitting here drinking champagne out of my coffee cup my steelers cup by the way die hires steelers fan always always will be actually i'm drinking coffee out of my coffee cup but we should be

celebrating here given the number of prognosticators the self-described wrestling experts and journalists and all of those who had a voice when it came to who wwe was going to sell to we my friend you and i right here on strictly business we're the only ones the only ones to predict endeavor and to predict it as you did on russomania weekend outstanding give yourself a big round of applause everybody yeah at yourself on the back buddy no stradamuses i mean listen the russomani week that one you could telegraph that you were genuinely one of the very few people who said endeavor from the start here and snaps all around to Eric Bischoff. I mean, man, what a turn of events. WWE no longer owned by Vince McMahon. Instead, Ari Emanuel and the Endeavor Group now in

control of WWE in a merger for the ages. And we're going to talk all about it here on strictly business. Wow. You were on the road this past week. I was on the road this past week. I was on the road this past week this was chaos man one of the busiest weeks in wrestling history when you saw the news flash across your screen what was your reaction i you know i wasn't surprised and i'm not saying that because i you know i i really felt strongly about the endeavor opportunity i i wasn't uh i just wasn't i wasn't surprised at all it didn't like really register with me it just kind of fell into place it makes sense given everything that's going on wwe over the last eight months or a year it's just kind of seemed like a natural evolution of things a natural evolution with a big plan in place

and we will be talking all about that here on strictly business and if you want to get your plan in place you can sign up with our friends over at impura that you're going to hear about in just a little bit here on strictly business i know endeavor is all in on impura as they're trying to merge WWE and UFC together, so you'll be able to. Can you imagine right now, Ari Emanuel, head of Endeavor, who is now Vince McMahon's boss, is probably sitting in his palatial office somewhere in Hollywood, sitting there trying to figure out Impera. He's about ready to pick up the phone, give our buddies over there a call for some personalized onboarding so that Ari can manage this monster that he just acquired.

amazing i i would not doubt it i would not doubt it for a moment me neither i'll tell you what eric i want to get this out of the way first this is actually as we record this april six yesterday was the one year anniversary of you and i starting strictly business i can't believe that it's been a year already of us it really been that long it's been a year and you know for those of you who are listening to strictly business 83 weeks dot com or on the 83 weeks feed you know you've been getting this show on the main feed for the last four months or so. But Eric and I have been doing this and laying this down on ad-freeshows.com for a year now. And I got to encourage people, Eric, and I'm sure you can back me up on this.

There are so many great episodes that never hit the main feed that people can learn so much from. We do live to enlighten here at Strictly Business. And there is enlightenment in abundance over at ad-freeshows.com. You can pick up some of those episodes. of Strictly Business, the early episodes, the pioneering, the groundbreaking, foundation building episodes of Strictly Business that occurred before we broke it loose and made it available to the masses here on the main feed. But yeah, there's some great stuff there. I'm very proud of Strictly Business. I really enjoy working with you, John. You're great, great, I don't want to say addition,

but, you know, you're kind of like the, people don't realize this, but you're, producer or co-host, you know, you're coming up with ideas all the time of things to discuss and people to discuss them with. So I appreciate all your contributions. I appreciate you. I've learned a lot from working with you, Eric Bischoff. It's changed the way that I've watched wrestling as well for the better. And it definitely was in play this week because we're going to get into the weeds of what happened at WrestleMania week and some of the other stuff as well. 83 weeks.com. If you're not subscribed, guys, make sure you're subscribed. Get access to 83 weeks and Strictly Business right at your fingertips

and leave those five-star reviews because that's how we're able to grow our brand here on Strictly Business as well every single week. Okay, let's get into the nitty-gritty of this WWE sale, Eric. We did episode after episode after episode after episode trying to pave the path on what things might look like and we finally know now. It's Ari Emanuel's Endeavor Company

that purchases WWE. Endeavor is going to be the majority owner here, the 51% owner. WWE shareholders, which of course, Vince McMahon is still the executive chair of, will have 49% ownership. Nick Con will remain WWE president. And the biggest part of this move, Eric,

is that WWE and UFC now essentially are in full synergy together as one publicly traded company, which will be referred to on the market as TKO. UFC, as a result of this deal, is evaluated at $12 billion. dollars and wwee's estimated value 9.3 billion and that's a number that i think a lot of people were maybe on the fence about oh will they get seven will they get eight we heard the reports you and i talked about it that vince wanted nine and they got nine point three billion is the

estimated value of it we talk about these numbers and this merger eric what do you think of this path going forward of utilizing these two companies as synergy with one another. Synergy is one of my least favorite words. I know it is. The English language. It has been used, abused, distorted, and ruined for the rest of my professional life.

That being said, I can't think of a different word. So I'm going to use it reluctantly on this episode, maybe for the last time in my life. But one of the reasons why I was leaning heavily towards the endeavor opportunity was because if, I mean, if you look at WWE and you look at UFC, first of all, for those people who think they're similar, they're not. There is zero similarities between WWE and WCW as properties. Is UFC, even?

Or UFC, sorry. That being said, I mean, one is a legitimate athletic contest. The other is scripted entertainment, much like Succession or Yellowstone, or The Simpsons. Take your pick. Scripted entertainment is scripted entertainment, sports, professional. sports are professional sports and beyond that there's really no similarity other than let's see they both have licensing and merchandising components business units within their respective companies they both make a lot of money on premium live events or pay-per-views they're both

involved in the television distribution business. They're both involved in live event and live event sponsorship. They're both involved in negotiating with major arenas around the country. So there's a lot of similarities within the respective companies in terms of the business units. Now, the reason I think this made a lot of sense for endeavor is because WWE is a mature company it's been around for i don't even know how long let's just call it 35 40 years how long has vince mcman had it since 1980 something yeah a little before a little before the first mania a few years before the first mania all right so let's call it 40 years UFC's been around for 15 maybe a little longer but is a legitimate business it didn't become

legitimate until the Fratita's got it, until Ultimate Fighter kind of made a big splash on Spike, on Viacom, and then, like, all hell broke loose. So it's relatively young, UFC, as a company. WWE has got a very mature and quite sophisticated by anybody's standards. If you wanted to compare to Disney or you wanted to compare to any other intellectual property-based company. WWE has got a very sophisticated licensing and merchandising department. It's got a very sophisticated international television distribution arm. It's very sophisticated and mature in ways that I think can really benefit UFC.

Now, there's some inherent challenges in UFC when, for example, let's compare, right? Just licensing and merchandising. WWE can build a plan for a year or two years. They can identify a talent and go to a potential license or licensee. I get them mixed up all the time. I should figure that up pretty soon. But they could go to a potential licensee and say, look, we're going to create this character called Roman reigns.

Roman is going to dominate WWE for the next two years. And just paint this amazing picture of where this character is going to be and help develop and encourage development of licensing programs based upon that new character. UFC can't do that. No. UFC's lucky if any of their champions remain champions for beyond six months. I think the last time anybody had any kind of a real run.

Oh, my gosh, who was that? oh i can't remember his name on which says a lot i mean there's been there's been several i mean could be we got that had like a horseshoe cutting his head well there's cabib there's mcgregor no not mcgregor um he was a heavy which is obvious i mean daniel cormier now it'll come back to me but there was a guy it was several years ago now and i think he actually started getting some publication he may have even seen the cover of sports illustrated um could be wrong on that one we're going back away now. But the UFC's got a real challenge with that. It's hard to build a licensing and merchandising

program around someone who may or may not be even in the mix in six months. And you, you don't know when they're going to get hot, right? Like, you never know when someone's going to break out either. Talk to him. The nature of UFC, the nature of MMA. You know, the nature of MMA is, it's kind of like, you know, the any given Sunday, you know, theory where you've got to watch because, yeah, you may think you know what's going to happen, but you don't know what's going to happen, right? And that's one of the things that I think makes UFC so exciting and successful as a sports property. But it's also one of the things that keeps it from becoming as successful as it could be when it comes to licensing and merchandising. You know, it's so fascinating about what you said.

You said, oh, well, UFC's about 15 years or so. I mean, UFC's been around since 1993. three, but it didn't become this juggernaut, really. It didn't become a viable business until. Until Endeavor purchases it, and it crosses over into this whole new level. WME purchased it after UFC 200. UFC was doing very well from UFC 100 to UFC 200.

It gets purchased, and then all of a sudden it just becomes this juggernaut, which is ultimately what UFC has become. It's a cultural phenomenon. And, you know, people, I remember taking these, my minor in college was sports studies. And a lot of it was based around like the heyday, the golden era of sports was when boxing was like this be all end all creating larger than life superstars. And it's amazing how quickly UFC overtook boxing as this identifiable brand in combat sports. And I do think Endeavor was a big part of that. now mark shapiro the president of wme has said that they're going to try to follow the ufc model for

w we you said wm e did you mean um endeavor well yeah that that's in coordination with endeavor um so we should we should identify him as well so sorry so william morris william morris endeavor is endeavor um wm for those who are not up to speed with that you're not Hollywood types right sorry So WME is endeavor. Now, Mark Shapiro has said that WWE is going to follow a similar path to UFC in terms of business model. And I think, Eric, there's a lot that each of them can take from one another. You're just talking about the licensing stuff. But when I heard Shapiro say that, there are a myriad of things that came to mind initially.

And I'm curious what your thoughts are. The first thing that immediately comes to mind is the pay-per-view model. UFC in the last few years has moved to the ESPN Plus model where you have a blanket rate for ESPN Plus that houses the content and then you're paying individualized prices for each pay-per-view. The WWE network and Peacock subsequently has totally changed how wrestling fans consume premium live events and pay-per-views. If it were to explore a shift like that,

which I think is very possible, by the way, what do you think a reception would be like to something like that for wrestling fans? oh god i don't know it's hard to predict right um i think they would adapt i think you're going to have anytime you have any kind of change you know like if if somebody woke up like if i woke up and i was a president of the of the world not just the united states who you basically are anyway right but if i was president of the world I'm passing a law at midnight, tomorrow night. Greenwich Mean Time.

That says, when you get up in the morning, by law, you have to put your right sock on before you put your left sock on. Punishable by five years in prison or a $250,000 fine or both. now if i were to pass that law as president of the world even people that put their right sock on first normally would bitch about it people that typically put their left sock on first would go bad shit crazy there'd be riots in the streets it would be insane for about a month and then everybody put their left sock on first and that would be the end of it

It's no big deal. And that's probably what would happen if there's a change in the way that premium live events or pay-per-views, take your pick, are distributed. I think people would, you'd have a certain amount of people that would bitch about it. You'd have a certain segment of the audience and pull out the calculator and do the math and go, I guess it's not really cost to me that much more, maybe a little bit. Maybe a lot. It would be a lot because we're talking about a situation here where right now, you can technically get WWB pay-per-views for $5.99 a month if you pay for the ad version of Peacock. You could get WW pay-per-views 599 a month plus the library. In UFC's current setup, hypothetically if WW were to adopt this, you're talking a

flat rate per month for ESPN plus or some other platform if they choose to change that, plus pay-per-view prices can range between $35 and sometimes $70. So you're we're not talking nickels to dimes here we're talking significant significant let's explore that a little bit because admittedly i'm not i'm not that familiar with ESPN plus or the or actually i have it because i've purchased a couple UFC paper views over the last year or two but i don't i don't pay attention to it i just have it so if i subscribe to ESPN plus what do i get from UFC you might get additional content library stuff it depends on what the offering may be in that particular time but if i go on right now what would be available to me any idea you i mean i don't have it pulled up in front of me

but you would be you would have access to some library content i believe they have the ability to allow you to go back and watch certain events as well that were pay-per-view content at one point in time and alongside that you have their other properties that go directly to there And UFC doesn't really have a show on the air, do they? Like, you mean like a weekly television program? Like a weekly television show? Not in the way that Monday night. Okay.

So there's a big difference there when it comes to value. I don't know. I'd have to think, I'd have to really dig into that a little bit more. I don't want to speak to something that I'm so unfamiliar with because that would make me like Dave Meltzer. So I'll, I'm going to dig into that a little bit. but if they feel for the record Eric Dave Meltzer put me over Dave Meltzer put me over big on a show this past week I don't know how that makes you feel about me but just just saying he's such a douchebag I wouldn't I wouldn't feel good about

that if how were you in fact I honestly now you're going to think I'm joking but I'm not I used to tell people all the time like when I first created nitro and launched nitro of course Dave Meltzer and everybody else like burying me and burying me and burying WCW and predicting our demise and all that. And I used to tell everybody in the office, don't let that get you down. In fact, if he's bearing you, chances are you're doing something right.

You don't have to worry about anything until Dave Meltzer puts you over. If Dave Meltzer puts you over, you need to reevaluate shit. He said I asked a good question in the press conference. There you go. All right. What are the question as you asked?

Oh, I mean, I'll talk about it once we get into the WrestleMania discussion. but I basically more or less in more eloquent words as Triple H why Roman Rainsby Cody Rhodes more or less that's a great tease and we'll save the answer

in his response to later on in the show I love that that's an that's an that's an organic natural tease to hold the audience till later on I love that because we will talk about that believe me but yeah continuing with your conversation you say you didn't want to speculate

on what this would mean for the fan experience and whatnot. But there are so many other factors, Eric, like, how does this affect talent? Talent is a huge part of this. Why would it affect talent at all? Well, here's what I'll say on the surface level first. When mergers happen, when sales happen, acquisitions happen, there's always going to be the questions of cuts and releases at the forefront. Is that something historically speaking that anyone should be concerned about? I would, if I was an employee of WWE, I would have been concerned about it prior to a sale? Because when you're, I mean, this is what WCW went through, as well as so many other

Turner companies. When there was a merger or sale anticipated for six months or a year, Turner executives were hacking, slashing, cutting costs, moving money around, intercompany allocations, you know how they go, moving up, doing everything that they could do to, make certain or as certain as possible that each business unit with internal broadcasting was operating on an EBITA of about 17 or 18%. That was the goal. So you're going to have cost-cutting measures in order to get to that 17% EBITA, you're going to have all kinds of cost-cutting measures and reallocation of revenues and so forth and costs.

That's part of the game. Subsequent to a merger or a sale, I don't, I wouldn't be worried about that. If I was at a WWE employee right now or talent because they're not employees. And first of all, they're all under contracts anyway. Now those contracts, you know, they are what they are, the nature of them. So they're not like, you know, a three-year contract isn't necessarily a three-year contract. It's only a three-year contract if they want it to be a three-year contract. but short answer no i wouldn't worry about it now i would have been concerned about it before

a sale but not after a sale there was one element of this that your gut told you one thing but what ended up happening was different you did say with endeavor you had a gut feeling that wwe would be going private and instead we see this remain a public company under a new name tk o again it's going to be the trading name where as i alluded to before endeavor is going to be the 51% majority owner, WWE shareholders will be the 49% minority, which means in theory, Eric, even though Vince McMahon...

Means in theory, Vince McMahon is going to be Ari Manuel's bitch. And it means that in theory, Vince McMahon could get voted out at any given notice if that were to be something that wanted to be explored. Were you surprised by the fact that they stayed public out of this? I was. I really thought that Vince's goal would be to

take the company private. I thought that was his primary goal, to be very honest. And I thought Endeavor made sense for all the reasons we've already talked about, but I really thought it would be to take the company private. Did you watch the Ari Emanuel interview with Vince? No, no. There was a lot of chumminess between them. And Vince tried to give the impression that he was totally okay walking away in any acquisition

if he wasn't wanted. But Ari kept saying that he wanted Vince to be part of this because he sees Vince as a visionary and that he felt that he would be the perfect person to lead WWE into this next chapter. And Vince reluctantly agreed to stay on. And it was brought up that Vince would be overseeing the creative process. And Vince said that he would be loosely doing so and not in the weeds. Meanwhile, on Monday Night Raw, there was...

This must be listening to the show because I'm the only... only one that uses the term in the weeds. What was that now? Everybody's using it. Not only are we prescient here and we predict the future and we can, we have such an amazing feel for this industry called sports entertainment that we can predict the future, but we're also kind of setting trends in, in American language as well. In the Weeds is now kind of a common.

I'd be thrilled if Vince McMahon's listening to Strictly Business every single a week. Oh, I'm sure he does. I'm sure he does. I know he's an ad-free show subscriber. Listen to Bruce Pritchard's stories every week on something to wrestle. I have no doubt about that. But what I do know is that Monday Night Raw, there were a lot of changes made on the fly. It was widely reported by multiple outlets that the format was changing actively as the show is going on. And that Vince was active in guerrilla during the show. So make of it what you will, whether you want to believe or not, will be out of the weeds of WWE creative. I mean, you know Vince at a larger level than most of us do.

What is your honest assessment on what his involvement in this company is going to be going forward? Because that is the biggest question that everybody is talking about and wants to know. Your honest assessment, Eric. First of all, I agree with Ari Manuel, and I don't think anybody in their right mind could disagree that Vince McMahon is. a visionary, above all visionaries, when it comes to this industry. Vince, Vince is amazing when it comes to his vision and his ability to execute on that vision. When it comes to his reluctance to kind of stay in creative, I ain't buying that bullshit. I ain't buying that.

Vince, I think probably, here's my guess. It's just a guess. I think in his mind, like one half of his brain is going, Vince, step away. It's time. Paul Vex's doing a great job. Bruce Pritcher's doing a great job. You know, a lot of people on the creative team are doing it. Ed Koski's doing a great job.

There's a lot of people there that are doing a phenomenal job. And we've seen it over the last six months. It's not even a discussion, not a valid one. And I think Vince recognizes that, and I think that part of his brain is probably speaking to him briefly throughout the course of a day saying, Vinnie, let it go. Come on, there's other things to do.

But then there's a side of his brain that has been living this thing since he was a young child since before he really got to know his father and then working for his father and learning to be in trying to get his father's approval because if you read a little bit about Vince McMahon Senior he wasn't too excited about Vince McMahon Jr.

getting into the wrestling business so I've read. So for the better part of Vince McMahon's life, this thing called wrestling has been the majority of it. I mean, you don't walk away from that. You may want to. It may be like an alcoholic that walks by the same bar every day on his way from his office to or her, on their way from his or her office to their car parked at a parking lot. three blocks away, but every day you've got to walk by this really cool Irish pub.

And one day all winter long, you're walking by this thing and you've been able to resist it, right? You know you're better off not going into that Irish pub. And you're proud of yourself. Each and every day that you walk by, you hold your head a little bit higher because you've knocked down one more day. But along comes May. The doors are open, the windows are open, the sights, the sounds, the smells of springtime are upon us. And as you walk by that Irish pub and you get to the door, you get this overwhelming smell. Great Irish food.

You can't resist it. and you walk into that bar. And before you know it, you're struggling with, should I follow this bangers and mash up with a cold beer or not? It's a constant struggle. And I think that's probably the way Vince McMahon feels about creative. He knows he should walk by that British or that Irish pub. He knows he should.

But as soon as he gets near guerrilla, he sees that big leather chair and goes, damn it! I miss the smell of that chair. I miss those little mints up here by my microphone. He has mints. Yeah. That's cool of them. Tons of them.

Interesting. Yeah. It's just like a candy store up there. So I think as much as he may want to walk away from it, I don't think he's wired in such a way that he'll allow himself to do it. He'll be drawn into it. And his personality is such. She's not a, look, I have nothing but the utmost respect for Vince McMahon as a business

person. And I like him as a person. I mean, he's, I consider him a friend. But he does not play well with others. No. He just historically, he just doesn't play well with others. So I think at some point in time, there'll probably be an issue there. But hopefully, hopefully it'll be down the road hopefully there'll be no collateral damage meaning losing key people because you wouldn't want that to happen there's some great talent there in wd on the creative team great talent you wouldn't want to lose that that's the core of the company i would get roasted on social media if i didn't ask you this question because i have to fox social media who cares no i just i mean it and it would be warranted what are your thoughts on the must

mustache and the dyed hair. Freaky looking. What the hell? What the hell? I mean, the mustache. Vincent Price. In the dyed hair, look, I've got some experience with dying my hair. You do, you do.

And I've got a strong opinion about it. I don't think any guy over the age of 35 or 40 should be dyeing their hair. Now, I know I did it. Well past my expiration date. And I wished I wouldn't have. But I think it looks hideous because you can see a guy, you can pick a 77-year-old that dyes his hair. You could pick him out from across 10,000 people in a parking lot.

Oh, see that guy way over there? See the guy by the blue Chevy? Dyes his hair. It's ridiculous. What about the mustache? And the mustache just kind of draws more tension. to it yeah i don't get it who wears a mustache like that what is it is he howard hughes errol flynn man errol flynn howard hugh somebody with a little tiny thin mustache i mean chicks

don't dig that maybe they do maybe vinces more than i do i don't know i heard otherwise uh on that front um it it almost like gives into this persona though right like vince is the evil business Here he is stroking his little mustache as he makes this deal with Endeavor signing a deal with the devil. And now these two megapowers have combined into one as Vince strokes his evil mustache because you know why Eric Bischoff. He knows he's got a plan. And when you need a plan, you use Impera because you know we're using Empira over here at Strictly Business. You go to Empira.com. That's EMPI-R-A-A-com forward slash.

Eric, and you use the code wrestle biz, W-R-E-S-T-L-E-B-I-Z for 14 days for free, 20% off your overall subscription, a subscription that, by the way, is going to cost you less than a couple of cups of coffee a month. We're talking about the proest of the pros, if you will, when it comes to getting your business off the ground. What would you like to share with the audience about our friends over at Imperial? wow what would i like to share number one it's easy it's intuitive meaning someone like me can figure it out you get a you get free onboarding a real live human being that you can discuss your business with

what's important to you and they'll help you set up your dashboard in such a way that it's customized to your business and pira helps you work your plan A business plan plans your work for you. It lays out what you need to accomplish over the course of a year or three years or five years, depending on your business plan. And it gives you all of those benchmarks that you need to hit in order to be successful and execute that plan. But you need a tool.

You need a tool that every single day, when you get to work in a morning, the first thing you do is go to your computer, you log on, you go to your dashboard, And right there in front of you, Impera has your entire business laid out and you can go back and you can check performance in any category you want. Check your pillars. Check your pillars. Damn it. Pillars are important. And you can look at those pillars. Oh, my gosh, so important that somebody's calling me to say hello. I think that's Impera right now checking in on you, making sure that everything's going all right. Holy cow. See, all you need to do is talk about Empira and the business starts rolling in. I love how that. that works. Now seriously, Impaird gives you the ability to, to work your plan. And every day, whether you're self-employed, you're a sole proprietor, it's just you in your office,

like kind of like me in my treehouse right now. It's just me. I'm here by myself. I'm with you digitally, but here, this is my, this is my cockpit. This is where I fly my plane every single day. And I'm by myself, but I can check. I can go on a pier and I can see, okay, how's, how's our advertising and marketing doing? What's our response rate? We just put out a couple new videos last week. What's our response rate on those videos? I can check.

And if it's not what I want it to be, you mean I can call somebody and say, hey, can we up the volume, up the frequency, if you will, on some of those spots? Or if I'm over delivering, can I afford to take that down a little bit and put those resources somewhere else? And here it gives you the ability to do just that,

to not only track where you are, but to adjust where you are. And almost more importantly, to communicate with other members of your team. Let's say you're not a sole proprietor like me. You're not flying solo in the cockpit of your own plane. You've got an entire, you're flying a 767 and you've got a whole team of people. Well, guess what? You've got to communicate to those people. You all have to be on the same page.

Right? Empir gives you the ability to do that. Why would you not do that? It's affordable. it costs less than two cups of these damn things and you can manage your business whether you're a business of one or a business of 51 or a business of 5001 you can manage your business it's all about accountability right like accountability to yourself accountability to your employees that's how you find success in the business world nobody finds success by just skating by

and hoping that everything works out okay with impura you're making sure that you're holding yourself and your employees accountable. Can you imagine when Ari Emanuel calls Vince McManups? Hey, Vinny, how are you, pal? Hey, have you logged on to Impera yet? Come on, Vinny. Log on. Let's kind of track and see where we're at.

You know they're doing it. They've got to be doing it. Successful as they are, they've got to be taking advantage of Impera. That's because Imperial allows business. owners to work on the business and not in the business. And that is the difference in having a mildly successful business and a very successful business. And we want to help you out. Empira.com, EMPI-R-A-A-com, forward slash Eric. Use that code, wrestlebiz, get 14 days for free and then 20% off your subscription.

They are so good to us here at Strictly Business and 83 weeks. And we know that they will be good to you as well with their 24-7 support. That's a big thing, John. I hate to interrupt you. Yeah, go ahead. It's such a great job of these. But look, I've tried different services. I've tried to subscribe to different things in my life that I thought would make my life easier.

And they don't. The thing that really put me over the top with Empira is not only because it's such a smart solution and tool, right? And I've been an entrepreneur for the majority of my life. I love things like this that make me better and, make up for things that I don't know. But the onboarding process, when you got a live human being on the phone saying, okay, let me help you set this up. Let me, and walk you through setting up your dashboard so that it's specific to your business.

I just don't know of many companies that do that. They literally walked us through our onboarding at 5 a.m. local time for them. So. Yeah, there you go. I mean, that's legit. And they're huge wrestling fans. So if you own your own business, if you're thinking about starting your own business, by all means, check them out.

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Hey, guys. It's the hardcore legend Mick Foley here. And I need to call a quick timeout, a brief timeout, because I wanted to tell your listeners what I have been telling fully as pod listeners for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad-freeshows.com. The wait is over, as an all-new conversations with Conrad is finally here. He created the soundtrack to so many of our childhood memories,

with iconic themes like The Undertaker, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Ultimate Warrior, and many more. The legendary Jim Johnston sits down with Conrad for a two-hour career retrospective, available now only on ad-freeshows.com. Literally started, I was watching some tape up the guy, and I just started doing this to kind of what I felt like was the tempo of him running. And then I recorded that, and then just over that, you're just doing. You know, it's so.

simple but that's what felt like him that's just a small taste of sampling if you will of what we have waited for with four levels to choose from four see for yourself why ad free shows is the best value in wrestling today sign up now right now at adfree shows dot com so eric this merger is going down we're trying to move forward here but one of the things that is still unsettled and it's something that this new regime is going to

have to embark on is the television rights agreements and there are a myriad of opportunities now for WWE to move forward. Nick Con is going to remain president of the company in this new structure the WWE side of operations what's your read on how this type of acquisition may affect that

how often do you hear me say i don't know i usually have an opinion one way or the other but this is one i i just honestly i don't know i can only imagine that it's great i mean look and i don't expect you to know this because i don't know it but what what is the total what's the estimate for the total number of viewers for in the United States? Like on each show in particular? I mean, I can pull that off to tell me. So you're looking about five to seven million viewers each week, right? I'd say probably a little less than that. But yeah. Right. It's called five

just for a sake of discussion. I don't know how many fans of the UFC there are in the United States? States, but you've got a combined audience. You've got a combined demo while they're two separate products. You've got a combined audience there and combined demo in the 18 to 49 that is massive, massive. At the very least, that gives you a lot of leverage in a conversation. That's at the very least. Who's not going to take your call? Who's not going to be interested in the possibility of having what has become the number one weekly show original on cable television 52 weeks a year and then have the UFC and all of its potential who is not going to be

interested in having that conversation if you're a network i just i can i just can't imagine it's going to be anything but very very positive yeah doesn't mean that's necessarily going to bring more money because the market is what the market is. The market's different now than it was in 2000, what, 19 when the Fox Steel was consummated. Yep. You know, it's a, you know, we're, we're a different world now than we were. Then we're in a different economy now than we were back then. We're different from a technological perspective than we were back then.

There's a lot of things that have changed. So who knows where the valuation for programming will end up? I don't know. I don't mean to, you know, I don't want to sound like I know something I don't. But I can't imagine that it's not going to be a fun time to be negotiating in behalf of WWE. And then you look, you got Ari Emanuel, his influence over Hollywood. See, there's all these little things, too, you know, the things that don't show up in conversation or in public documentation. how much influence you think Ari Emanuel has in Hollywood

quite a bit Nick con quite a bit it's not I mean it's not like Nick con's just like this little guy hanging along for the ride Nick con is a powerhouse as is Vince McMahon I just can't imagine it's going to be anything other than a really fun period of time negotiating those rights

Andrew Marshan of the New York Post sports media reporter speculated that ESPN could be in on WWE given the proximity to UFC net and wanting to get in on that. You stoff the end blows. That network blows. That is just, I wish they would just pull the plug, let it circle the drain and start over.

Does anybody even watch ESPN anymore? Yeah, I mean, I'd say I'd say a decent amount of people still watch ESPN But we're no longer in the sports center age of ESPN Oh, it sucks. I mean, when I stumble across it, I'll be looking for somebody Stumble across it's like, oh my God, you people all suck There was a great tweet from Richard Deich,

who's a fantastic sports media reporter for the athletic. And he said, uh, Nick Kahn's, Damaggio referring to Joe DiMaggio like streak of making wealthy people wealthier continues and I said I responded I said who will be the Brock to his taker and he said no one he'll be on a beach in Maui by then I knew that would pop you that's uh Nick Con is unreal man he it is I don't think this sale happens without Nick Con doing what he's done for WWE I don't think a lot of things happens without Nick Con I mean that was this you know it's And I sound like I'm, you know, putting Vince over more than I should, and I don't mean to do that.

But you can't help but admire the guy. And some of the decisions he's made, I mean, the decision to bring Nick Kahn in. And Conrad Thompson called that a long time before I did. Conrad saw the sale coming a long time before I did. I resisted it. Even with the addition of Nick Kahn, I'm not going to sell. They're not going to sell. I was stubborn.

I didn't think Vince would actually let go of the keys. and let somebody else technically drive the car. But Nick Conn was instrumental in all of this, man. He's been baking this pie for a long time, a couple of years. You expecting to see a lot of crossover between UFC and WWE now? I don't think so. I don't think any more than we've already seen. Because that would be obnoxious, right?

You know, a little bit here and there, sure, because we get a little bit here and there now. But I think if all of a sudden we're seeing a ton of crossover, I think if you start seeing a lot of WWE talent in UFC, you're going to get pushed back from the UFC fans. If you start seeing a lot of non-participants from the UFC, other than sitting around at ringside, that's cool. That's just a sign of respect.

But if you start seeing backstage stuff with UFC people and hot shot angles and things like that, I think that W.W.E fans have probably pushed back. So I don't think you can see a lot of that. For all intents and purposes now, Dana White and Vince McMahon are partners. And that is just a wild world we live in. How'd you like to be the server? How'd you like to be the waiter or waitress that sits down with Ariame,

this serves Ari Emanuel Dana White and Vince McMahon. And you've got to bring their food. Can you imagine that, you know, overhearing those conversations? I mean to be a fly on the wall just wild just wild let's talk about WrestleMania here for a second Eric I don't know how much of WrestleMania you actually got to see zero none nada but I do know you had your finger on the pulse of some of the things that happened on it and I was in Las Vegas with my daughter and her boyfriend my daughter ran in her sister she did great she

had a personal best that's great she's about eight minutes off of qualifying for the Boston Marathon, so she thinks she'll probably get that in the next six months, and that's her goal. So we went to, it was my wife and I and our daughter and her boyfriend and my sister. My sister also ran on a half marathon. So we had a great time. That's great. I ate my way through. You know what I had, dude? Let's hear it. I've never had it before. Peking duck. Oh, what did you think of it? I was amazed. Oh, yeah.

And I went to this restaurant. I can't remember. It was called Hakasan. I don't remember what casino it was in, but it was like one of the best Chinese restaurants I could find. That's standard. And that traditional Peking Duck. It was so good that now I'm on a mission to learn how to make Peking Duck at home. That's good shit, pal.

I'm about that. I'm about that entirely. So you had a great time there. I was in L.A. at WrestleMania. um first off i did you see pictures of the set have you seen what all that looked like no i've seen nothing oh dude it looked unbelievable i mean legitimately unbelievable i'll try to pull a picture of this while we're rocking and rolling here but um cody roads didn't beat roman rites i know man i can't i'm i don't know sammy zane and kevin owens beat the usos

night one ended tremendously there were so many i mean 80 000 people going nuts to see these guys win and it looked like the cracks in the bloodline were cemented and it was going to piggyback perfectly into the main event of night two and roman rains pinned cody roads it's a mystery to me i hope there's a really good plan you know i said in the weeks leading up to russomani and by the way i'll check out russomania probably not tonight because i got some stuff I've got to do tonight, but more than likely before we again, I'll check it out. But I've been saying for weeks that I'm really looking forward to not only WrestleMania and the results of WrestleMania, but I was really looking forward to where the

stories go post-Resslemania. In fact, I think you and I discussed that on the last episode we did. And I really, really hope they've got some great plans laid out. I truly do because if they don't this is going the decision to beat Cody will not go down as hard

as Sting losing to Hogan because he didn't have a tan it won't be that bad but it'll be close people are going to be really to now if there's a great story and Cody's back in the hunt or or there's a story that is compelling or close to

as compelling is what we've seen over the last four or five six months then I'm I'm going to be ecstatic but I fear that that's probably not the case possibly not the case and if I'm right it's going to be nasty in W. I'm going to be real with you Eric there were 80,000 people there who were ready to see Cody Rhodes become the WW universal champion the story had been set up so perfectly Cody had overcome hurdles on his way here he had to overcome that injury Sammy Zane and Kevin Owen won the night before and there were just 80,000 people ready for this moment and then it didn't happen and based on the press conference and on tv the impression that i get is that

they're going to try to draw this out another year where cody now like his father dusty has to overcome more hurdles to claim the prize and listen maybe that can be an effective story but you're asking for people to a hold on for a long time b you're hoping there's no injuries see, you're hoping nobody else gets as hot as Cody because if someone else gets as hot as Cody, then you've got a problem there. It just makes me think that sometimes when the moment is there,

you only get that moment so few times to really elevate someone to that next level if you pass on it. Like, think about this, Eric, I'll pose this to you. Remember, WrestleMania 21, Triple H is facing Batista in the main event in Los Angeles. That's the chance to make Dave Batista, right?

And they did. Dave Batista won and Dave Batista became a made man. He became a top guy in WWE. What would have happened is Dave Batista lost to Triple H and didn't get the comeuppance, all in the name of having to overcome even more hurdles and clear more hurdles. Would that have been as effective as a crowning? I mean, we don't know.

No, the answer is no. The answer is no. It's just not. it's just not and and i asked triple h about in the press conference more or less i i said you know you clearly had an opportunity here to make somebody but instead you chose to continue telling this story what's the rationale behind that and he said it all comes down to feel it's feel sometimes you feel it sometimes you don't sometimes you're right about it sometimes you're not but if they didn't feel that this wouldn't have produced the ultimate best outcome at the end

they wouldn't have done it. I mean, give us some of your perspective here as a guy who's been in that position. And you mentioned the Sting Hogan stuff. I mean, how much does feel play into a situation like that? And what's your general assessment here? Depends who's feeling it was. I, look. And maybe it's because of the Sting Hogan thing, you know?

Maybe there's still a little bit of that. PTSD left over, not to make fun or the light of PTSD, but, you know, maybe because people still continue to remind me on a regular basis of how great that story was between Sting and Hogan, but how badly it ended up. And that's all that people remember is the disappointment. But you still did, you still, the right guy still went over at the end of the day. Yeah, but it was, it was messed up. It was best up. I'm glad you're admitting it, but still.

It was, it was a mess. And I just, I don't know, man, I, I'm, I'm agreeing with you. I really hesitate second guessing creative, especially when the creative has been historically pretty damn good, at least in the last six months. So it's hard for me to be critical of it because I'm not there. There may be things going on that we, We don't know. There may be some really great ideas as far as Cody overcoming the, you know, more hurdles to make, to make it even more meaningful when that time finally comes. There may be some great ideas floating around out there that we don't know about, or there may not be.

And that's the question. What are they going to do? Where's it going to go? How do you build a guy, and I'm, this is a rhetorical, question. I don't expect you to answer it, but how does one build somebody like Cody create such a great story, connect with the audience to the extent that the audience wants it as bad as the performer does, and then take it away from them? Yeah. And give them something else instead how do you do that without disappointing your audience to the extent that they may just go yeah i'll come back over it right i'm over it you know because it's just i was about to give a crass analogy here but it it's a little bit about like you know you're getting really excited you're really excited and then the girl you're sitting there's sitting there

they're talking just sorry i got to go yeah i'll be back in an hour she goes back in an hour okay things are going great sorry i got a phone call after three or four times you go fuck it i'm out of here i'm over it oh and i don't know how you get the audience to that point that the w w we did w we did so successfully and then not give them what they came for and expect them to stick around. You better have something good. Yeah. You better have a great plan or be prepared.

Yeah. And listen, you know, Roman Range is on like an all-time heel run right now. He is. He's just killing it. But there were so many people that left that stadium just so disappointed. I was looking at the reactions around me. 80,000 people were ready for that moment, Derek. They were right.

And John, that's the, that's the part right there. And this is old school. You know, I used to hear this all the time. Always leave them when it comes to the live events. Get your heat on TV because that's what TV's for. Get your heat on TV. That's fine. But man, when you get to that live event,

when you get to that pay-per-view, when you're taking money out of their pocket, and they're not just sitting around flipping channels drinking a warm beer, but they've actually made a commitment, a financial commitment and a time commitment to go and participate. you better send them home happy and if you don't you're in trouble yeah you know that that lesson that wrestling life lesson is ricocheting around in the back of my head going oh man i hope they got a good plan so many people left disappointed and it was it was sad to see but uh here this is the set by the way eric look at that oh yeah is that something or what whole kogan colors i love that

that's all the is basically the oscar set it's red and yellow amazing beautiful it was insane to see in person it was it was a spectacle of a show the main event was fantastic it just the ending was what it was and you know you make of it what you will uh i know look roman rains he looks like a star he he looks like the guy he's the man right now in w he's on this historic run and you know one of the reasons Eric Bischoff that Roman Raines is looking good is because you know, you know that he is using Manscaped to make sure that beautiful Samoan beard because they got their beard products now. He's making sure that Samoan Beards is just saying that Roman Reigns had a beautiful smelling

beard. Samoan beard. Maybe he does have a beautiful smelling beard because Manscaped and the beard hedger package comes with a ton of great different add-ons that you can use to make. sure that you're smelling great every single day i think you misheard me but i'll take it all right no it's fine you know maybe he does i don't know i've never smelled this weird hey listen the elephant of the doubt with russomania season also means the nflb draft is here and the most exciting prospect is the prospect of being perfectly groomed head to toe with our friends over at

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Show up prepared. It's key to success. Now, as you know, I'm a sports guy. I'm keenly in tune with the NFL draft. It's an event that I've covered many time. You know Tony Khan is ready for the NFL draft. And the Jacksonville Jaguars, they had a great season. Oh, God.

Is he got a big announcement? Is there a big major Tony Khan announcement that's going to change the landscape of the NFL forever? I think he has one. And I think it's that he knows that the lawnmower 4.0 is making sure that even the poorest managed grass can look good at the end of the day. This elite electric trimmer is a lock for first round talent. Just look at its explosive talent with RPM. With all that power, the lawnmower is still the most nimble on the field with its skin save technology that reduce your nicks and snags while making all the ripe cuts on the hair in the process. And now that you've done all the dirty work down there, Eric,

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So we want to help you out here at Strictly Business. get 20% off and free shipping for Manscape with the code wrestlebiz at Manscape.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at Manscape.com. Use code Resselbiz. Go from Mr. Irrelevant to a first round pick with our friends over at Manskate. Let's hit on AW before we wrap things up here. Big announcement last night, Eric Bischoff. This was actually, I can't wait.

This was actually a major announcement. This was a major announcement, too. to Tony Kahn's credit. This is probably the biggest major announcement that he's actually come through on. And that is at the end of August, AW is going to do AW All In from London's Wembley Stadium.

A 90,000 seat venue. It is A.W.'s debut in the UK, almost five years in the making here. Major stadium show, AW's first true major stadium show in New York. Of course, they have Grand Slam. That's about 20,000 people. This is a chance to sell much, much more.

than that you know firsthand how hot the uk market is for wrestling this is a w's first time there what's your read on an announcement like that i think it's a great thing a kidding aside because tony's fun to make fun of gives you so much opportunity but i think this is a good move uh look the the the uk market is a big market a ew their television product sucks in my opinion It's creatively vapid. I don't think Tony Kahn knows the first thing about producing a television show or booking. But despite that, AEW's done very well in a lot of major markets, especially the first time they go into a market.

There's still that new car smell that is associated with AEW as a live event. And I'm guessing, it's a pretty safe guess, that they're going to do extremely well in the UK. So I think it's a smart move. Do I think it's going to change the landscape forever? I think that's a lot of hyperbole and bullshit. How is it going to change the landscape? It's going to improve AEW's position internationally, but that doesn't change the landscape. Not reinventing any wheels here, folks.

But I think it's a good move. I think it's going to, it will certainly help AEW's international distribution, which I think is very important. It's an important part of the business model. And I think it's going to be a big, big boost when it comes to international television distribution. So I think it's, it's smart business, but I'm sorry. I just don't agree on the change the, it's, Tony, Tony, Tony, Don't Dixie Carter are like related

somehow i don't know how but i've never been around two people who are so full of hyperbole than dixie carter and tony con what do they call tony he's tony carter or dixie con or something like that i don't know who they is but but i've heard it i've heard it i've heard it i've heard it from i've heard it from people in a e w and so yes it's true okay uh listen i i don't think you can take anything away from it being significant for the company at the very least that this is going to, in all likelihood, be the largest gate that they've done to date. And they're, I mean, what do you, what do you think a realistic number could be for something like that? They're not drawn 90,000 people to Wembley Stadium. But for the first time in the market, in the UK,

AW's never been around there. It's easy to get to London from all these different countries within that territory. I don't think it's unfathomable to suggest that AW could do between 40 to 55, thousand people for this show eric yeah i i mean what does his wwee been in the last year or two did clash at the castle last year what they do that i mean that was a legit sellout in in that stadium i can look up the exact attendance for you right now but keep in mind that that's a market that w has run before it's not like it's not this is the first time a w they did 62 000 296 i think a w will beat that you think they'll beat that yeah okay so you think they're going to do more than 62,000.

I think the new car smell will work in their favor. I think, you know, and they've also, look, I mean, I don't, I don't know anything about this. But, you know, the cons own a football team. They do. In the UK, they've got relationships. They've got press relationships. They've got, there's a lot of infrastructure that AEW is going to be able to take advantage of. over in the UK. That will help to the degree that they need it. But I think the new car smell

is going to take them over the top. Now, WWE's been going to the UK and doing Wembley Stadium and doing big events for, what, 25, 30 years. So this is the new kid in town. And I think people are going to want to check it out. They're going to want to experience it firsthand. So I think it's going to do very, very well. I wouldn't be, would not be surprised if they exceed w i'd be surprised if they didn't actually yeah i think they're going to draw pretty well too there's a lot of people that don't think they're going to i think the new car smells certainly part of it i know you're not watching it right now but i will say credit where cred's do i do think a w's television show has improved uh pretty substantially in the last few weeks especially the last

month there's been some structure i hope that's true i you know i'll try and check it out i was going to last night but i've just been super busy since i got home we got home sunday night and i haven't been able to catch it i thought today was Wednesday, by the way. When you call me this morning, I'm thinking, God, why is he calling me? We don't have to record until tomorrow. Why is he calling me so early? And I went, Lori, what day is it?

And my wife, Lori said, dipshit. It's Thursday. Damn, no wonder John's calling me. There was an all-time great MJF segment that is right up the Eric Bischoff Alley of Sports Entertainment that I'll have to send your way from. He did a full-on musical number in his hometown town of Long Island. So it is with a full live band, with a live band and everything. It was,

that's awesome. I got to see that. I'll check. I did record it, so I'll check it out when we're done here. Right in the Eric Bischoff Wheelhouse there. Man, WWE Sale, WrestleMania, this AW News, so much happening. Anything else you want to bow tie here as we wrap up strictly business? No, man. I just, it's great to be back in the saddle. I know if, you know, all I did was go to Las Vegas and hang out with my daughter and my wife and my sister and her boyfriend and have a great time. But I feel like I've been gone for a month. So I'm anxious to be back home and get back into my routine and look forward to next week's show. I'm going to record a fresh 83 weeks this weekend. The weather's getting nice outside here in Wyoming. It's supposed to go up to

62 on Monday. So I know, I'm just enjoying the idea of being outside for a few days. I love the sound of that. Bring strictly business with you. outside where you go for your walk, your run, whatever you do, 83 weeks.com, hit that subscribe button on YouTube as well. And then, of course, add-free shows.com. That's the place you want to be. And if you'd like to get on board with Eric, I'm still trying to get us this new graphic, Eric, but we've got the advertised with Eric.com. That's A-D-V-E-R-T-I-Z, A-V-I-S-E-I-S-E-W-E-E-R-T-I-S-E with Eric.com. And you can be part of strictly business and getting the word out about your business within our business that's what impira

does every single week and you see how much we put into them and we'd love to put that effort into your business as well let's put some effort into spelling that correctly we will have a new graphic next time we do this show i've i've the inquiries have been made erika you know they have so there's there's going to be a loud inquiry here in about five minutes i got to run john thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been strictly business. We'll see you right here next week.