83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #39: The Bloodline, WWE Layoffs, Sting at AEW All In

Episode Date: August 12, 2023

In this week's episode of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba look at the importance of pacing in wrestling storytelling, including in The Bloodline program. They also discuss WWE's upcoming layoffs as a result of the Endeavor acquisition, Sting's match at AEW All In, NXT ratings, and more! Special thanks to this week's sponsor! Manscaped- Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at Manscaped.com.. 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. #AEW #WWE #EricBischoff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get rid of your credit card debt, get a lower monthly payment, and skip your next two house payments at save withconrad.com. NMLS number 65084, equal housing lender. You don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket to save thousands with save withconrad.com. Find out how much money you can save right now at save with Conrad.com. What's going on, everyone, this is the business of the business. This is Strictly Business, presented to you by the Ad-Free Shows and Podcasts Heat Networks. I'm John Alba, joined as I am every single week by the star of Strictly Business, Mr. Eric Bischoff. Rough week at the Bischoff.

off compound I hear, huh? Yeah, rough week in this part of Northwestern Wyoming. We had some pretty intense lightning here, which is not unusual, but what is unusual is it actually hit my house. And, you know, the house is well built and well grounded and all of the things that you can do to mitigate that kind of an issue. But house, no damage to the house because It was well grounded. However, I think I've fried two, three televisions total. Our Wi-Fi, our, you know, our dishes are, you know, the house has Skylink, which is, I love Skylink, by the way.

Way to go, Elon. But the studio, the guest house on our property where I have my studio has a different Wi-Fi set up, and both of them got fried, the dish. His Wi-Fi kicked him as he was saying that all. Oh, my goodness. I will edit all that out afterwards, but I just wanted you guys to see for sure how precious the situation is. So, all right.

We're back here with Eric Bischoff. Your Wi-Fi really is testing your limits here today, buddy. It's going to be a good one. I'm getting a little hot. You know, I checked my speed and everything to make sure everything was functioning before I got on. That's why I was a few minutes late. I thought okay we're good to go two minutes in boom telling you losing my patience i try i try i try so hard to to be a more patient human being because it's always been an achilles heel for me

for the largest portion of my life have had zero patience when things are not going well i'm trying my best let's see if we get through this especially when you're forced to talk to me here on strictly business i know i push and pushing push and push at that patient sometimes, but we have a good time here talking about the business of the business. Hey, I want to ask you about this because I was listening to your conversation on 83 weeks about the Jimmy and Jay Uso stuff coming off of SummerSlam. And I think part of the business of the business is the execution of storytelling. It's something we've talked a lot about here on this podcast in the past. And I tend to lean more into what you were saying about how you

felt like maybe this was a bit of a fumble at SummerSlam and there's still time to follow it up. But I was curious if you can recall any other time in your career where maybe in hindsight you wish you could go back and hit a story beat differently.

Oh my God. I'm a major program specifically. Major programs specifically. You look back and say, you know what? I don't think we hit the beat here properly in telling this story effect. There's not one. There's so many that it would be hard to pinpoint one. And I don't think that's necessarily

because I love to beat myself up and be too critical of things that we did. But I don't know how anybody who's in the creative business can, especially for live events and things like that, can look back and go, oh, you know what? There's nothing I wouldn't do differently or there's nothing that I couldn't have done better.

I mean, it can always be better. There's always a way to make things better. and just about every story, regardless of how successful or obviously unsuccessful they are. But I would, it would be impossible to pinpoint one. We would have to do an eight-hour show. Isn't it amazing, though, that you can have this great story that has been going on for literally years here? And then you hit a couple beats maybe a little off or you do something that people weren't necessarily expecting in a negative way.

And all of a sudden, now your feet, they're being held to the five. fire here and it's like well are they going to be able to salvage this or are they going to be able to save it oh i know right it was it's it was a blip and and let me say you know i think the jimmy turn on i think brandon thurston who's been a guest on the show um touched on it in a really smart way on social media on twitter or actually whatever it's called twex um you know there were a lot of, evidently, now I didn't see them, I didn't follow them, but evidently there's been plenty of seeds planted for Jimmy's turn, according to Brandon, if I read his post correctly, and I think I did. And that might have been part of the issue, is the turn was

not dramatic, because possibly, I don't know that this is the answer, but it's always interesting to plant seeds, but planting those seeds and getting the audience to start speculating as to whether or not in this case Jimmy Yuso was going to turn or whether he was going to stay with Jay and aligned with Jay. That's an important part of storytelling. There's no question about that. The flip side is that when you're, if indeed a lot of effectively seeds were planted kind of pointing to that possibility. In this case, Jimmy turned, but there was not necessarily the surprise. The, oh my God, I can't believe they did that.

I didn't see that coming. That's part of what makes a turn, especially, but wrestling in general, effective. I go back to something I've talked about often, research. You know, we did so much research when we launched Nitro. T&T did. And I participated in almost all of it. And it was, I don't know, how many different cities around the country, 15, 20, maybe more. Focus groups, the whole nine yards, meter dialing, to really determine what does the general audience feel.

Not the hardcore internet wrestling fan, although they didn't really exist back there, but not the super hardcore fan. but the occasional fan or the lapsed fan or a current fan and when you get a focus group of all of the above so you're getting a balanced perspective with things the one thing that across the board resonated so powerfully with me was that regardless of what bucket these fans fell into lapsed fan current fan occasional fan hardcore fan there were some of those When I say hardcore, I mean every single week, every single wrestling show that was available at the time. The one common denominator that each of them had was they love the element of surprise. And perhaps, not saying this was it, but perhaps because those seeds were planted and effectively,

it diminished the drama that usually accompanies a turn. And perhaps it was that letdown in that match. that left viewers, including me, by the way, underwhelmed. Yeah. I thought, and I know this is going to sound critical, and everybody said, oh, he's always beating up on EW. Look, people ask me my questions, ask questions of me like you just did,

and I give an honest answer from my perspective based on my experience in the industry. For me, that match fell down for a couple of reasons, one that we just explained. The other is, what the hell? hell is a tribal combat match what is that yeah and you know it's it's funny eric you say that because think about all the samoan history that exists in the wrestling industry and how many simoan wrestling legends are out there who could have been present for something like this to really elevate

that match and reinforce the whole story of hey this is about who is the head of the table who is the tribal chief and instead it was more or less just a street fight which is fine it was tables ladders and chairs without the ladder right and it just didn't and i mean anybody that's listened to me for more than 45 minutes knows how i feel about gimmick matches in my opinion gimmick matches are generally a reflection of lack of any better idea it's the lack of creativity is usually in my experience both as a fan and as a producer usually when you lean into a gimmick match, it's because you really don't have anything else better. Gaming match is going to get a reaction because it's chairs and its tables and

it's fire extinguishers and kitchen sinks and garbage cans and garden trials and whatever else you can fit under a ring, generally. But it's just not compelling from a dramatic point of view, storytelling point of view. Yeah, especially since pretty much every Roman Rains match now has the same exact structure at this point where you know that you're going to get a really long match there's going to be some sort of tomfoolery and then there's going to be a major story beat that's every single roman reigns match that we've seen over the course of the last couple years and that's fine but at some point people are going to start okay well what are you going to present

that's different right and i i really want to tee up on this because again i could talk about storytelling and the nature of actually making the sausage when it comes to storytelling with you for hours. But what stuck out to me was in the press conference. If you remember back at WrestleMania, Paul Heyman said, we're just in the third inning here in this bloodline story. And then in the press conference at SummerSlam this week, he was asked, what inning are you in? And he said, well, we're in the bottom of the third inning. And I'm saying to myself, man, that was six months ago. And if he's saying we're still in the same inning here, at some point, Eric, you have to start making sure that those breadcrumbs that you're leaving behind are actually leading to something

that propels things forward in a significant way. That's the way I look at it. Do you have any thoughts on that? No, I think that's a good perspective or a good analogy. You know, I tend to always look at things in a three-act structure, life in general, but certainly when it comes to creative and specifically as it relates to wrestling, because that's where I have, I guess, the most experience in this type of thing. But to me, if there's nobody I respect more creatively right now than Paul Heyman, but if we're in the bottom of the third, let's, let's go from a baseball analogy to a traditional storytelling analogy. If you're in the bottom of act, if you're in the middle of act two, which I guess is as close as I can get to equating bottom of the third,

if you're early in the story, as the third inning would represent in a baseball game, you're still in the early phases of that game, or in this case, story. You've got to advance the story, and you've got to advance it in a way that it's escalating. It's building. That's why they call it an arc. So Paul's analogy of being the bottom of the third inning would suggest that he's just now closing up the first act. And if that's true, oh my gosh, these people should be winning Emmys at some point because they've done such a phenomenal job.

And to suggest that you can't strike out in the bottom of the third, you can't hit a pop-up fly in the bottom of the third, or you can't commit an error in the bottom of the third and still win the game and win the World Series. You know, let's not get too, you know, confused about where we're at and concerned about whether or not they can continue. I think the creative team has demonstrated without question that they have the ability and the understanding. Perhaps they just committed an error

because perhaps they couldn't really think through a finish to this that was more dramatic. Or maybe they just put all of their eggs in the Jimmy turn assuming that that would be the moment, the dramatic moment in the match, which it could have been and arguably should have been, And it just wasn't. It could have been the way it was executed.

Perhaps, you know, it's hindsight, 2020, everybody's got it. It doesn't take a half an ounce of experience or talent or creativity to criticize something after the fact. But perhaps, as they analyze, and I'm sure they are, discussing, okay, that really wasn't what we hoped it would be or could be. perhaps they're looking at the execution of the turn and going, you know, we could have done that better. We could have done that differently. To your point early on in this, um, this podcast is, you know, can you go back and think of anything that you could have done differently? I'm sure they're going back and they're analyzing and even while it was happening. You know, there's a lot of very, very, very experienced talented creative people back there watching in guerrilla. I would not

be surprised if back in guerrilla they were watching along with everybody else going, oh, that was kind of flat. No big deal. An error in the bottom of the third or at the end of the first act, as the case may be. Great. There's another ending coming up. Let's get the team together. Let's focus and let's move on. Look, bump in the row. I don't even know if it was a bump. You know, they ran over an empty can. Yeah. A little noise. All right. Let's move on. So I'm still very, very optimistic. But I was let down. I thought that that matched. to me was the least interesting and compelling thing on the entire card. I thought everything else on that card was better than the main.

I saw your comments on Rhonda and I got a lot of WW stuff to throw at you today. I saw your comments on Rhonda and where she was kind of at mentally at the end of that fight and where you think's next for her. But I'd like to pose this to you as far as the business is concerned. When Rhonda came in back in 2018 after years of. speculation that she would finally get involved with WWE. I think a lot of people figured that this would be a major

game changer for women's wrestling, for WWE in the mainstream, for a major crossover start coming into WWE. Now that we've had five years to digest it, it seems like she might be on her way out, potentially even for good. Did Rhonda Rousey

change the wrestling business, Eric Mischoff? I don't know. It's a subjective question or requires a subjective answer. For me, no. I think, you know, if I had to point to one person or two, I'm going to, in this case, two people that have really had a dramatic impact on women's wrestling, the most dramatic impact on women's wrestling in WWE, I would point to Charlotte Flair. And I probably would point to Becky Lynch, even more so. I think Becky Lynch back in 2018, 2019, put on a clinic on how to use. social media to enhance your character and your story. And she came out of that period six months or so.

I mean, I was, watching Becky Lynch's social media made me a fan of Becky Lynch. Watching Becky Lynch's and reading Becky Lynch's posts on social media made me, compelled me to seek her out and see what this is all about. She really did a phenomenal job. And I loved her character back then. I'm not as big on her character now or as of late. I haven't seen as much of her recently. But, you know, the over-the-top kind of character, you know,

the way she dresses and carries herself and all that. Oh, not so much. I loved the just hardcore, just tough as nails, blue collar. character that she represented and i'm i'm getting more of a hollywood fluff character now as opposed to that just hardcore what is she scottish or irish i can't remember yes she's she's ours so you you like more of her austin more than more of her rock is what yeah yeah that's a good way putting it absolutely i love becky's austin more than becky's rock perfect i see a serious and well i'll tell you this on the ronda front i do think

think that she added significant equity in making sure that the women were able to main event WrestleMania 35, the first ever women's WrestleMania main event. I'm not sure it happens that year without Ronda Rousey, despite how hot Becky Lynch was, despite how hot there's no arguing that because of timing and coincidence and who Ronda was and where she had been and what she was bringing to the table, no question that that paved the way for that main event opportunity. For that, she deserves credit. Yeah. It's going to be an interesting what if for years to come, in my opinion, of what could have

been with Rhonda Rousey, but she was a UFC star that crossed over to WWE. And for all we know, Eric Bischoff, we might be getting a whole lot more of that as this endeavor deal starts to close. We learn this week that it is estimated to finish within about a month. So we are approaching the business quite literally picking up. And there were a few business notes this week that came out of it, Eric. Number one, first and foremost, and this was to be expected here, but Ari Emanuel did state that they are expecting, I'll read his quote here,

that they are expecting to make cost savings and synergies happen immediately upon the deal being finalized. That's a lot of corporate speak, Eric, for layoffs, essentially. And Nick Kahn stated back in April that the company, WWE, could be looking at up to $50 million in cuts. I know you don't necessarily know, obviously, it's all speculation. But from your history with these sorts of transactions and what you've observed from the sidelines, where do these types of cuts typically happen when you get a big merger like this? Administrative, because that's a lot of. the first place you're going to have a lot of duplication.

You know, I've talked on this show in on 83 weeks about, I mean, common sense would suggest that UFC has a marketing department division, whatever you want to call it. WWE has a marketing division department. There's going to, there's duplication there because it's there just would be, naturally. When you merge two, you've got 10 people over here, you got 10 people over here. Well, let's take, we don't need 20 people in our marketing division or department. So let's take the 10 best. That's the efficiencies of mergers.

That's one of the reasons why a merger can make sense is when you can sit back and go, okay, these are two powerful entities. When we bring them together, how do we take the best of both worlds, combine it into a more effective and more efficient from a cost perspective operation. It's just natural. And I think market, any aspect of the administrative side of both companies are probably going to be the ones looked at first. Beyond that, you know, I think UFC probably has its own production. WWE obviously has its own production. I don't see a lot of duplicity there.

or duplication in efforts there, duplicity wasn't the right word. I don't see a lot of duplication there because there are two different products that require two different types of production talent from a direct, you know, from directors to producers to cameramen, you know, covering UFC as in terms of production. As a cameraman, for example, is much, much different requires a different skill set altogether. then producing professional wrestling where if your experience as a camera operator, for example, in professional wrestling and you're good at it, you've learned how to anticipate what's coming up next so that you can be there and get that dramatic shot. Whereas in UFC, you're covering

the action as it's happening. You can't anticipate much, right? You can't afford to be looking over here four or five seconds before the action gets there so that you can capture. you've got to stay on the action. May not have articulated that well. But there are two different skill sets, same business, same cameras, but require a different experience and talent. So I don't see duplication there. Not to mention WW is basically a production company at this point.

Yeah. So I don't see, I mean, perhaps there'll be some cost savings there or ways to combine those to departments, I don't see much of that, but I would suggest primarily an administrative that would include marketing and promotion and perhaps accounting, you know, all kinds of different areas that are not that sexy to talk about. Obviously, the fans are going to want to wonder, well, is that going to translate the talent layoffs and what does that mean? And I think Nick Conn has stated in the past that they're not necessarily anticipating that. But I also caution at the same time,

we really don't know, right, Eric? No, we don't know, but, and look, I understand what that's the first thing that fans, one of the first thing that fans will be concerned about because that's what they see on television, you know, and that's even if there's talents who aren't necessarily part of the regular weekly television roster, there's still talents there that people are familiar with

that are perhaps fans of and hoping is going to get an opportunity and all that kind of stuff. that's kind of the glue that holds the fan base together and particularly on the social media side or the internet wrestling community side. But look, you know, is there any business out there where you're not constantly reevaluating your talent, whether you're a manufacturing company or a design company or you're in the software engineering business? You're constantly evaluating your talent and looking to bring in better, more experienced talent, and possibly phasing out talent that just for whatever reason isn't moving the needle to the extent that it

should. That's life, folks. I doubt any of us have ever had a job where we weren't under some sort of an evaluation process constantly. It's just life. And look, I'm sure it's going to happen. And there are going to be talent releases, maybe not so much in AEW because they tend to collect talent and just put them on the shelf and pay them, which nothing against that, good for the talent. And if Tony can afford it, which obviously can, no harm, no foul, stack them up. But in WWE, you're a publicly held company. You have a, you have a responsibility to your shareholders, first and foremost. It's a fiduciary responsibility. You have to make decisions and choices and manage your company in a way that is going to grow the value of the company.

And if that includes cutting some talent loose that despite all their best efforts or the company's efforts just isn't, doesn't have a future, really, you're going to let them go. And I think that's a constant process that isn't necessarily directly related to a merger. Now, maybe the merger will provide an impetus or become a catalyst to make those decisions a little faster than they would have otherwise been made. Probably. Possibly. I don't know. But I don't think anybody should overreact to it. It's just part of life, man. We did get a little more insight as to how the TKO Holdings structure is going to look. WWE, by the way, this week, the stock price hit another record high, reaching $114 per share, giving it a company market evaluation of nearly $8.5 billion. At the end of the day, there's going to be six individuals from Endeavor and five from WWE on the board side.

That will be Vince McMahon, Nick Kahn, Steve Coonin, Nancy Tellium. And I believe there's one more individual. I want to make sure that I've got this right here. One more yet to be named at this point in time. The rest of the group will consist of Ari Emanuel, Mark Shapiro, Jonathan Kraft, who's the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Egan Durbin, who's the chairman of WME, Kerry Wheeler and Sonia Medina,

Paul Levec, not part of the executive board anymore. And I was making a joke. I was like, oh, the palace intrigue, but this seems to be more or less something that was probably expected when you're combining these companies, isn't it, Eric? Yeah, you've got some major horsepower there. Yeah, no disrespecting. intended at all to Paul Aveck. I think he's done from what I can see. And what I've heard,

he's doing an amazing job and will continue to do an amazing job and continue to grow. But let's be honest, giving the list that you just went through. Paul Levick doesn't have a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the experience that the people on that group have in terms of managing operating a public company. It's a different kind of world. And it's also, it's a little bit of casting. You know,

when you put it together aboard, you're not only looking for the best and the brightest of the people that are, you know, potentially able to really help contribute and guide based on their experience and, and your understanding of the industry that is entertainment. But, you know, you're also casting for perception. Sure. For the stockholders, for other potential investors,

it's a bit of casting. And I think on that list of people, Paul Levec probably had the least amount of experience in being involved in operating a public company at that level. Sure. There is one more board member to be named by WWE. in the immediate future that will What do you think it'll be? Let's speculate. Who do you think it'll be?

Maybe he'll end up being Paul of Eckus to say, but I... Or maybe Stephanie. So, okay, so let me tee that up to you. So I was going to follow that up. We found out that Vince will loan 16.4% of the stock for the new company. Stephanie will own 1.1% even though she's not involved with WWE in really any capacity right now. and Linda McMahon who's been going through her entire situation with Vince as we know

will have 0.3% of the company stock no word at this time as to how much Shane may or may not receive but that's the breakdown of that I think Stephanie flying back in here it seemed like there's an open opportunity wouldn't it well and I don't know what the significance is of 1.1% of the company. I don't know if there is any in terms of what that, what that actually means beyond just the value of it, dollar value of it. But take that out, put it off to the side. And I think Stephanie is one of the most likely, she's very, very smart. And she's had a lot of experience on the corporate side more so than paula veck has much more so because that's where stephanie has spent her time in w w primarily as she was a talent and before that you know probably

as a teenager she did all kinds of things you know that were a part of the business but stephanie has been instrumental in the public facing portion of wwe now for a long long time and has done an exceptional job. To me, if I got to vote, Stephanie's name would definitely be on the table. She's incredibly bright. She has an amazing feel for this industry. There are a lot of people on that board probably don't. Now, the only one that I know is Steve Coonan. I actually worked with Steve Coonin, when Steve Coonin was an executive at Coca-Cola, and Coca-Cola was coming out with a new high-sugar, high-energy, I think it was to compete with Mountain Dew, a new soft drink called Surge, yeah.

And Steve Coonan and I worked very closely together on the integration of that Coca-Cola product into Nitro. Interesting. So I got to know, Steve, a little bit. I mean, it's like we didn't go out to dinner and hang out or anything like that. But, you know, worked fairly closely together creatively and also logistically and strategically to launch that brand. And it was a pretty successful launch, I might add. I believe he's the owner of the Atlanta Hawks now.

So that was. Yeah, I believe. Or he's either the, let's see, CEO. I remember reading, he was an executive with the Hawks. Yeah, part of his D. I mean, it's the owner of it. Unless there's a new ownership group and he's part of it, I don't follow the hawks or basketball for that matter. So who knows. But I just know that Steve is a very, very experienced guy who is at least had his foot in the water. Yeah. With regard to professional wrestling. Beyond that, everybody else on the board, I'm guessing, brings all kinds of other vast and incredibly valuable experience to a board because that's why you have a board is to have different perspectives, different areas of expertise and experience. and you combine that to come up with the best answers and solutions and directions for a company. That's what a board does. I think Stephanie brings a massive amount of successful corporate experience to that pot.

I'd love to see it, to be honest with you. I agree. I'd be curious, too, if Kevin Dunn would be the one to get the nods. I don't think so. Kevin is not, again, I think I know Kevin pretty well. We've hung out socially, occasionally. I don't think Kevin has the temperament or desire. to be anywhere near that type of environment.

Yeah, I was just going to follow up by saying, I'm not sure if they'd be looking for someone with necessarily his background to fill that type of position. Like you said, I think it's a very corporate-oriented executive board, this new TKO Holdings Company, based on the resumes of those that were just listed. So we will see how that all unfolds within the next few weeks here, Eric. We are not that far away.

One more thing I would like to get into on the WWE front. I know this probably piques your interest a bit based on your prediction from earlier this year. Well, NXT this past week, Eric, did 776,000 viewers. It's the highest average rating for the show in two years. The 18 to 49 came in at a point two three, third week in a row. and the average yearly viewership of NXT is up by about 25,30,000 viewers for the year. The show this past week was headlined by Dominic Mysterio, defending his North American Championship against Dragon Lee,

and Ray Mysterio was on the show in Dragon Lee's corner. Clearly, Eric, this paid off big time for NXT. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the integration of more and more main rock, our stars here, including the likes of Ramis Serial and what kind of equity he would add to a brand like that. I'm surprised we haven't seen it before this. I'm glad we're seeing it. I'm surprised we haven't. And I think people have to remember, NXT is a developmental organization. It isn't their biggest, brightest stars, WW's biggest brightest stars, as it is with AEW. You see their top talent on that show regularly. and XT is a developmental company and I wouldn't expect it to get the kind of ratings with people

who are trying to become stars as it will get when it has people who are established stars on the show right now arguably Dominic Mysterio is probably not the hottest talent in WWE on the roster. He's still relatively young and new to the industry and building. He's probably in the bottom of the first inning in terms of his career. But he's pretty hot. Now you bring Ray in to support that story, to augment the reality. The storyline is not reality, but the storyline that's going on inside of the on the main roster and the main shows. Brilliant idea. I'm surprised we haven't seen it sooner but i'm glad we're seeing it and i think you're gonna if if we continue to see it i can see and i in fact i predicted it last year early this year i think i said to conrad

that at some point in time nxte is going to outperform dynamite and they're within about a hundred thousand viewers or less of doing that i predicted it would happen this summer i'm going to stick with that let's get to work guys come on that was your pre-year prediction here on strictly distant. I'll tell you, you remember the old story they did back when you were in WWE with Dominic and Ray and Eddie, the custody battle

story? Oh, yeah. You probably didn't see this. There was a segment the other week where they had Dominic reading mean tweets to him. And it was him being asked, how do you feel about disappointing your father? Don't you ever want to make amends with him?

And he's reading the tweet and he goes, you know, this weighs on. me every day and i really wish there was something that i could do about it but unfortunately there isn't i miss you every day eddie i miss you every day and i awesome that little shit you know he's just got that baby phase like he looks like he could still barely grow stubble and then there he is making claims like that and you know what eric it's fine if you can't grow stubble because with our friends over at Manscaped, they've got you covered for keeping things clean.

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From Razors to Shower Care, this package goes above the gold standard for your body hair. So treat your beautiful boys to the world's finest toys at Manscape.com and use our code wrestle biz, W-R-E-S-T-L-E-B-I-Z for 20% off plus free shipping. Eric, the Manscape Platinum Package 4.0 is the one-stop shop for the man who deserves it all. they designed this package to allow you to fully align your entire hygiene routine with elite products. We talk about them all the time here on Strictly Business. What is your personal favorite Manscape product there? Well, my favorite would probably be the product that I use most frequently. And I would say it's the, uh, they got the lawnmower, they got the weed whacker.

No, the weed whacker, the weed whacker. When you get older, hair starts growing in places that it didn't grow, or at least not to the extent that it does. So, yeah, I've got to, you know, I get to trim my ears and nose hair and eyebrows every once in a while because you get those, you know who Carl Maldoon was? And he had eyebrows. You could, like, hide a body in those eyebrows. Like, he could have, really.

And I used to look at that, go, How does that happen? Well, again, as you get older, all of a sudden, your eyebrows start growing faster than hair on your head. So, yeah, I use all of the product. Obviously, you've got to keep the junk clean. Mrs. B. digs that. There you go. You know, she likes that baby, baby soft, baby smooth kind of vibe.

I'm happy to provide it to her because if you make happy wife, happy life, all that good stuff. But it's the, yeah, it's the weed whacker that I probably, it's my go to. Well, thankfully, this platinum package 4.0 has more than just the weed whacker. It's got the lawnmower 4.0. It's got the weed whacker. It's got the ultra premium body wash, ultra premium two and one shampoo plus conditioner, ultra premium deodorant, crop preserver, anti-shaping ball deodorant, crop reviver, ball spray toner, anti-shaefing boxers and the shed travel bag to hold all your goods while traveling. This is the ultimate all in one premium kit that you got to get your hands on. And don't forget to apply

their aluminum-free ultra premium deodorant for that cologne quality scent on the go. you're done shaven by the way the platinum package 4.0 covers all bases from head to toe and even hair to ball fro get 20% off in free shipping with code wrestle biz at manscape.com that's 20% off with free shipping at manscape.com use code wrestle biz use the platinum package because the gold standard eric well quite frankly it's just no longer good enough hey guys tony shabani need to call the time out real quick wanted to tell you your listeners what I've been telling what happened when listeners for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad-free shows.com. Conrad sits down with a pioneer of wrestling television

production, director Dan Bynum, who discusses his journey through WCW, R-O-H, MLW, and where it all began for him, world class. What really was the thing that catapulted it was one, working with Rick Flare, He came to the territory and wrestled with the Von Erick Boys and gave us so much gravitas and two, the greatest feud in the history of wrestling, the Free Bird Von Erick feud. So we were there at the hottest time with the hottest show and we took over the world. The Yetay, Ron Reese, sits down with ad-free shows members to talk about his infamous night at Halloween Havoc and how it was received by the boys in the back. Oh, no, I remember, like, Arne Anderson told me that that was the drizzling shit and Dusty Roses. Like, that was the worst thing I've ever seen. I'm just like, hey, thanks.

That's just a small taste of what we've got waiting for you. With four levels to choose from, see for yourself. My ad-free shows is the best value in wrestling today. Sign up now at ad-freeshows.com. Hey, before we get going, I just want to follow up a little bit on Dan Bynum. Dan Bynum was the director for WCW, the lead director, primary director, before Craig Leathers. So when I got to WCW, Dan Bynum was the man in the truck. And I used to, you know, I'd have a couple of interviews to do it whatever.

I wasn't very busy during the show for the most part. And I'd always go into the truck, like right after I first started. And I would just hang in the back just to listen to Dan Bynum. call a show. The most entertainment I've ever experienced in a working environment, Dan Bynum was so animated

and great, when he was calling shots and directing the show, it was the most entertaining thing that happened to WCW. Unfortunately, it only happened in the truck and nobody got to watch it, but me and the people Dan worked with,

but amazingly talented guy. But beyond that, one of the most interesting people i've ever worked with love loved i ran into him at rick flares last match was the first time i'd laid eyes on dan and god knows how many years decades and he's just a cool cool cat i don't think people know if you've never worked in production or television just how challenging directing a show is and calling shots and when you have someone who's really firmly in control and if they're doing it with the animation that you're insinuating here they truly are some of the best in the business and i don't

think they're honest john not to cut you off but if there was some way to have captured that on a go pro you know audio that would be some of the most valuable footage right now available anywhere because he was so god hey he was funny yeah funny for me because i didn't have to work directly with him but i'm sure the people around him were like oh my god but man he was he was fantastic very talented but funny as fuck well when cm punk debuted in a w a w released the like three minute video from the production truck of them calling the entire scene and kevin solvin the director at the time was the one calling the shots and it was amazing to watch i'll have to send you that video if you've never seen it is really really cool and i think there's some of the most underappreciated people in

all of productions so i do too man you talk about having to juggle hand grenades that's that's what being a director for a live show is it is literally juggling hand grenades i'm all about giving them their flowers let's let's talk a little a w here before we wrap up on strictly business they're going to break 80 000 tickets eric for all in it's pretty amazing right now they're in the high 79000 range they've surpassed the tickets sold for summer slam 1992 which is the iconic event at when the original wembley stadium just all around a monumental accomplishment for pro wrestling in my opinion

and it really encompasses just how special that a night like this is going to be but it really boils down to how do you harness that and build on it, doesn't it, Eric? What does? You want to put your best foot forward. You want the buzz after the show, after the event to meet the buzz going into it. You know, you've got a lot of great buzz and people are excited and there's anticipation

and support and all that. And you want to make sure you maintain that and come out of that event with the same level of excitement, support, and enthusiasm. And I touched on it. I don't know where I did it or I did it with, but to me, it's all about, you know, the star of that show is the audience. That's who you should be focusing on the most. Because the more the audience reacts, the more powerfully the audience reacts, assuming it's positive.

But the more powerfully the audience reacts, the more this event is going to resonate into the future. And that's one of the things that I, you know, I said it and I said it in kind of a snarky way intentionally. But Tony, do not book for the internet, book for that audience. book for the emotion and the drama you know like either the the the blood and all the what everybody thinks in the the locker room of a ewe or in tony's case tony you know the blood the gore and the extreme stuff man if you got to do that on your weekly tv to satisfy that portion of your audience do whatever you think is right even though your audience is clearly not growing like wwees has grown over the last year but yeah keep doing that but when you've got a live event

audience you've got 80 plus thousand people there if you can provide the drama that will get the most reaction the most positive reaction if you can provide the drama in motion that keeps that audience alive throughout that event it almost doesn't matter what happens in the ring it does clearly because what happens in the ring is what's going to create that emotion but the most important star on that show is not CM Punk, it's not John Moxley, it's not Chris Jericho it's the audience

and if that audience gets your show over bingo, home run bottom of the ninth World Series home run if you don't prioritize the audience and maximize the emotion

and the drama all you have are numbers on a page to brag about and you don't have have the benefit of the buzz and the emotion and the credibility that that audience can provide to you if you tag them in as the star of the show. One thing they do have working in their favor right now, and I'm not sure how much you've paid attention, but the main event story that they have between Adam Cole and MJF has been one of the best stories told in AW so far from a character development standpoint, and the

two of them are going to be main eventing the show. And we also found out this week, they're going to be wrestling on the pre-show as well for the ring of honor tag team championship that's weird to me that that is freaking weird to me there you go there you go well my my belief is that it's there's a story beat that's going to be hit there but it is it is it is it doesn't matter it doesn't matter even if it's a good story it doesn't matter they've done a great job of building the anticipation let it be let it be i don't whatever who know hopefully i'm wrong hopefully i next time we do that after that shows over we'll go see eric he should have been so hard on that decision unfortunately mucker fathers i'm right about 80% of the time

whether you like it or not that's different but the fact is i'm right about 80% of the time and in this case i didn't even know that by the way But in this case, if I was sitting at the table and somebody said, hey, I got an idea, let's put arguably two of the biggest names on a roster. And then you're taking your position because I haven't been following it, maybe one of the best storylines going. And let's have it in the pregame show because it's a ring of honor. First of all, nobody fucking cares about ring of honor. Why would you dilute your event and your two of your, at least from my perspective, valuable. pieces of talent and in your perspective one of your best storylines on the pregame show if you

haven't advanced your story by now mucker fathers you're dead in the water but you have advanced it they i you know i saw the clips mjf's promo and it is it's i think the world of mjf i think he's i think he's probably the most important talent on that show and i think he's the most important part of the future of AEW. Eric, there is one person week in and week out. I was just looking at the quarterly ratings for Dynamite this week. There's one person week in and week out that the audience goes up for.

And it's Maxwell, Jacob Freepin. How could it not be? He is without question the most entertaining character on that show. I'll argue. I don't care about anybody else's opinion. If you think differently than me, you're not thinking at all. You're reacting emotionally because you're a fanboy. Listen, MJF is the most valuable man on that roster.

And to put him on the pregame show? Well, he's also in the main event. I want, huh? He's also in the main event. Who cares? He's in the pregame show. That's a silliest damn thing I've ever heard. Whoever came up with that idea should be beat.

Like wrap a baseball bat in a tile so you don't do any permanent damage. my goodness but inflict some discomfort if you will even coming up with an idea like that and who said yeah i like that put them in a corner tape their mouth shut take their laptop away don't let them communicate for at least a month speaking of bats your boy sting is going to be on this show too that was announced officially this week, him and Darby Allen versus swerve Strickland and A.R. Fox. I just wanted to ask you about this. We got one more piece of business on the AW friend that we'll wrap up, but you have such a history with Sting. He's, you know, on the last whole of his career here. This will probably be the last major show that he ever works. Will you have any

extra? Why do you say that? I just don't see A.A.W. doing another 80,000 person show within the next year and a half or so that because he's pretty much said that he is rounding third headed home here if we're using baseball analogy okay i wasn't aware of that so yeah i mean i think he recognizes that he has very limited amounts of matches left so there's a good chance that this could be his last major major show i hope it is okay so go ahead why because of what you just said I want Steve Borden to experience the highlight of his career. And that's subjective. Only Steve can answer that.

But undoubtedly, having the opportunity at this stage of his life in his career to go out in front of 80,000 people and get that reaction. And that love and that energy and that support has to be. the highlight of his career, at least in one respect. And if not the, I mean, for me, it would be that, that would be it. To be able to go out in front of 80,000 people who are supporting you, reacted to you, you know, exchanging that energy and that love and that support, that has to be the highlight of his career.

Has to be. And why not go out on a high note? Why would you want to go from that to wrestling in front of 5,000 people on a dynamite show for TV. That's not the best way to go out, go out, go out on a high note. And if indeed he's rounding third heading for home, and if indeed AEW was unlikely to, to be able to, you know, create an event like this anytime in the next 12 months or 18 months or within the time frame of Sting's plans for his career, then my God, man, embrace this moment, cherish every fraction of a second of this moment and then wave goodbye and go out with the biggest smile on your face

you possibly can not wishing you would have done something a little different you know it's amazing eric i'm i'm trying to pull up the research right here but i am pretty sure that this will be sting's largest it might be it might be largest ever but this will be the largest crowd he's wrestled in front of, at least since WCW closed down, because WrestleMania 31 did 76,000 fans, this has sold more. So at 64 years old, in what could be one of his last few matches here, Sting will wrestle in front of maybe the biggest audience of his career. And if it was me, and look, there's no right answer here. There are multiple right answers. There are multiple correct decisions on how the finish should go for this.

You could argue them all, and everybody arguing it would probably be correct, right? For me, I would make this all about Sting, and I would give him that moment because he's earned it. and the audience will appreciate a moment like that with Sting prevailing and whatever the storylines ends up being prevailing in the finish, not used as a means to an end or step along the way, but I mean make this about Sting and let him get that moment because if you do, the audience will respect not only Sting and give him the love he deserves and he's earned,

frankly, that it will also indirectly benefit AEW for giving Sting that moment. Respect begets respect. And there would be no, I would not even have a conversation with anybody about whether or not that's the right thing to do. The only conversations I would have is what's the best way to do it. I got one more thing to throw at you here. This comes from Warner Brothers Discovery this week, the report via CNBC, claiming that Warner Bros. Discovery is targeting the beginning of the Major League Baseball postseason

to debut a sports tier for Max streaming. So this would be live streamed. The report indicates that the company plans to simulcast games from Major League Baseball, the NBA, NHL, and NCAA, including March Madness, which is one of the most valuable properties in all of sports in the entire world, Eric, on the Macs platform. It also intends to add content from its sports media outlet, Bleacher Report, such as highlights and interviews.

Warner Brothers Discovery plans to brand the new tier using the Bleacher Report name the people said. The company wants to target a younger audience that increasingly skips the traditional pay TV bundle and would be more aligned with a digital sports brand such as Bleacher Report. This comes as speaking with your friend, Mike Johnson, a P.W insider, Tony Kahn specifically mentioned that he would love to land on Max, specifically saying that it's his dream that the AW library lands on Max. Your reaction to Warner Brothers Discovery seemingly jumping into the live sports streaming property at this moment in time, Eric.

I'll tell you what, going back to what opened up the show, and I know we're trying to wrap up here, but bear with me. Take your time. Take your time. Obviously, you know, this is, B and I, you know, we watch a lot of streaming product, but we also have cable as a backup until this past Sunday, whenever they got five. But we have yet to get our streaming back up. We do have our direct TV up.

It has been a long time since we've only had direct TV. We've been streaming now for a long time. And increasingly, like the rest of the world, more often, it hasn't been until the last couple of days that we really miss streaming and recognize just how much we really watch versus how much I thought I watched. Now, there are a couple, you know, some of the things that I still watch that are based in cable, you know, news primarily. Yes, but man, do I miss my streaming platform? And I think the move to streaming is an obvious one. Now, Max, I don't know whether or not they're set up for live streaming yet. It may be library. I don't know. But I can understand why

Tony is so excited about that opportunity because that is. I've never argued this. I've never defended against it. But I've clearly streaming is the future. In fact, when AEW was first announced or the intention to launch AEW's first announced before the Turner, before Turner picked him up and TNT picked him up before it was announced. Somebody asked me, what would you do if you're Tony. I put all my eggs in a streaming basket. This was four years ago now I said this because streaming is where it's going to go. Why not be the biggest and the best and the most attractive entertainment platform out there by establishing yourself in streaming and then get acquired as opposed to going to the TV road. Obviously, it was successful for EW going the TV route

first and then building towards streaming. But that is the future. That's where it should be going. And I certainly understand what Tony's excited. you make of Max's strategy here in terms of integration with live streaming being the sports properties? I can see it. I mean, for the same reason I just said, that's where the future is. The future isn't streaming. Why would you not want to put your most valuable properties where the future is as opposed to where the future was? Very fascinating because they're going to be branding it according to this report under the Bleacher report name, which will almost give Max a brand identity within its brand identity,

which is going to be fascinating. And I'm curious how they view AEW in that property. Would it be a sports entity or would it be? I honestly think, John, that this was probably, if there is a, if there is one reason why Warner Discovery is supportive of AEW, it's in anticipation of the streaming platform because you know, professional wrestling and other

sports has as well, but sports are seasonal, right? You know, college football is going to, and I want to talk a little bit about the effect of, of, uh, of WWE and SummerSlam on the collision ratings because it was a substantial hit. Collision went from whatever it was the week before 700, 700, and change because they were going head to head with SummerSlam. Well, that's going to continue to happen. College football is going to continue to happen. There's going to be a lot of things happening on Saturday nights coming up in the next several months. And in the case of WWE throughout the year, they're going to go head to head with a collision. My guess is that are going to have, and it's going to have, as we saw, substantial impact on collision's

viewership. But if Warner Discovery is looking long term at AEW, I would, I can't imagine that the reason they're not supportive of it isn't because of its success on television. television because you know, you've been number one on Wednesday nights in cable. You know, like, I'm the youngest guy in my neighborhood. Well, everybody around me is in their 80s, so who fucking cares? I'm still 68. Doesn't matter, right? But strategically, it makes sense for Warner Discovery to look at the success, limited

success, it's had on television, and recognize that the wrestling audience is one of the most loyal audiences in all of entertainment and that has a tremendous amount of value to a new streaming platform when you're trying to get subscriptions so that it all makes sense to me it really does i hear melb postseason NBA march madness those are substantial substantial brands that would be streaming contest, especially March Madness, one of the most popular sporting events in the world. And college football. I think if you, you know, I'm a big college football fan.

I started getting interested in college football, maybe a year and a half or two years ago, probably is a little bit of, you know, hanging around Conrad and, you know, watching Alabama play, you know, done in his home with his dad and his mom and his family. I became a college football fan probably because of that. But college football is becoming more. I mean, college football is starting to feel a lot like professional football to me. With the NIL program and the amount of television coverage, the rearrangement of the conferences and things like that,

to me, it's starting to feel a lot more like professional football than college football. And I say that in a positive way for me. Now, I understand why some hardcore, loyal college. fans are against it and have issues with it and the pack 10 and all i get it but for me as a television entertainment product showcasing talent you know i i'm becoming more and more interested and i think college football is going to become more valuable as an entity than the next three to five years even today massively i mean tv and media deals have single-handedly shaped the conferences in college football that's why the pack 12 is destroyed

It's gone because of how media rights agreements have completely changed the landscape and shaping of other different conferences. So it is fascinating. Water Brothers Discovery, to my knowledge, off the time of my head, doesn't have any college football properties, but they do have college basketball. And that will be valuable for them when March rolls around, especially. So lots to be seen there. Eric Bischoff, good stuff here on the podcast this week. Anything else you want to throw out news-wise that piqued your interests? No, I'm going to take a horse up the top of the mountain behind me a little later this afternoon.

Spend about five hours on a horseback. Sounds good. We have a friend that's coming through Sturgis. She was in Sturgis. She had a very good friend of mine. Actually, he's the host over at the Buffalo. He's the MC at the Buffalo Chip Campground at Sturgis. Hey, Tumbleweed.

How the hell you doing, brother? Well, his wife, Rhonda, is coming through town with a couple of friends. Very nice. They're going to be hanging out with us this weekend. So other than recording 80s. three weeks Saturday. I'm going to be doing some horseback riding and hanging out with friends. Very nice. Well, we'd love to have you on our team here at Strictly Business. Head on over to advertise witheric.com.

Get your product out in front of thousands and thousands, and I mean thousands of listeners and viewers every single week with Strictly Business and 83 weeks. We would love to partner with you here on this program. And make sure, of course, you're heading out to 83 weeks.com. That's where you can subscribe to Strictly Business on the 83 Weeks feed or ad-freeshows.com where you will get early access to Strictly Business. Fun stuff this week, my friend, get to your horseback riding. This has been Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff. We'll see you next week. Yehaw!