83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #47: Ratings Rumble

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

In this edition of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff, Eric reacts to the rumors of CM Punk having conversations with WWE about a potential return. Is there a business upside to it? Plus, a look at Adam Copeland's jump to AEW, and a deep dive into the ratings dispute between AEW and NXT this past week. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at Manscaped.com. PODSTARZ - PodStarz.net - connecting podcast hosts with celebrities and professionals  SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. 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 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's time for another edition of Strictly Business here on the ad-free shows and podcast Heat Networks. I'm John Alba, and yes, I know it's been a while, but the dynamic duo is back together. Easy E. Eric Bischoff is back in the U.S. Good to see you, man. How are you? Good to be seeing it. It beats the alternative, as I always say. How are you, man?

I'm good. I'm dragging just a little bit. the trip with i had an amazing trip over and we went london dublin cork belfast lasgo edinburgh just had a blast and uh but the trip home got home almost two days late so i'm i'm dragging just a bit does jet lag really do a number on you or have you found ways to combat that you know it it not really surprisingly um i time my sleep pattern on the way over to London. And while I was there, you know, I'd wake up in the middle of the night for an hour or two. But I'd, you know, go back to sleep. It was manageable.

And after I'm home for a day or so, I'll be fine. So I guess I've, I don't know, maybe I don't have that great of a sleep pattern to begin with. So it's just not that big a deal. I feel that. I feel that intensely. Well, it's great to have you back here in the U.S. I'm sure everything was great with the inside the ropes crew, Kenny and all of them do such a great job. Oh, just such an amazing experience. Mrs. B went with me and, you know, the tour was five days and we spent five days just kicking around and enjoying the sites because I, as many times as I've been overseas and Japan and, well, not Japan, I've seen a lot of Japan, but so often, you know, especially when I was with WWE, you know, you get to where you're going and, you know, go right to the arena and do the show and then right to the hotel and then on a bus at 6 o'clock. o'clock in the morning or eight o'clock in the morning and arrive to the next town so you never really get to see much but this trip we uh we were able to take advantage of that mrs b being blown away

by how many people still like you these days when they come out to these shows well she had a blast but mostly because you know kenny's team over it inside the rope such a great group of people we had so much fun i mean it was like a five-day vacation before i started my vacation honestly the crowds were fantastic um just it was an overwhelmingly fun time. So that's what she was most impressed with. It was like the Eric Bischoff Express over there overseas. And, you know, speaking of that, Eric, a four horseman is actually joining the stable over here on ad-free shows.com. Three-time World Heavyweight Champion, the total package, Lex Luger is joining

ad-free shows for an exclusive interactive interview series Lex Express. Let's take a little preview into it. is home to a Hall of Fame lineup of legends and icons. And we continue to add to that legacy with a three-time world heavyweight champion. Who stunned the wrestling world on the debut episode of Monday Nightro, firing the first shot in the Monday Night War. What in there? What is he doing here?

From the football field to the wrestling ring, a physical specimen. He's run with the horseman. And the wolf pack? A narcissist. An American hero. The master of the torture rack. He's the total pack. package, Lex Lugar. It's Lex Express, arriving in October, exclusively on ad-free

shows.com. Lex will be joined by Conrad Thompson every month, looking back at some of his most memorable moments and matches. And in this special interactive format, Lex will also be answering questions from the live studio audience, which is you available at the $29 level and up, and top guy members can join Lex Live. It's Lex Express. Coming soon to AdFree Shows.com. Really, really excited about that. Lex is, of all the people that I've worked with in the past and have come to know fairly well, Lex is about as inspirational as anybody I know.

He's such a great person and a great story. And I can't wait. I'll be watching that. I really will. You can catch Lex Express starting this October plus thousands of hours of other bonus series like Tuesday with the taskmaster with Kevin Sullivan, Ask Conrad, The Hacksaw Hour, Jim Duggan, the book with David Crockett and so, so, so, so much more exclusively over at ad-free shows.com. Eric, let's get down to business. It's been a while since you and I have

had a chance to talk shop, so I'm excited to. We got some pretty big happenings in the last week and a half here in the pro wrestling industry. I think we got to start with what's newest, what's most fresh. And that was the report this morning as we tape this on. Friday. Normally we drop strictly business on Thursdays, but as Eric said, his travel was going crazy. Your boy, Dave Meltzer, was the first to report this, but others have since corroborated the rumor and innuendo, if you will, that CM Punk and WWE are in discussions here about potentially trying to mend those fences and bring Punk in. Your former co-host, Nick Hausman, reported that a WWE source told him that it would be a safe bet to say that punk would even

show up at Survivor Series this coming November. So a little over a month and a half from now. Eric, we know all about the divorce between A.W. and C.M. Punk, no legal action seemingly coming and fall out of that. What is your reaction to the potential reunion between W.W.E. and C.M. Punk. My first reaction, quite honestly, was that whoever that high-level executive was that gave that information to Nick Hausman or anybody else, for that matter, unless he or she was directed to do so as a means of possibly wetting the appetite,

unless that was the case that high-level employees should be drawn and quartered. Yeah, I mean, that's what happens when information leaks. It usually comes from people who are high up in those conversations. Survivor Series this year is in Chicago. for those unaware. So there's an immediate CM Punk tie there. Over the course of the past few weeks on WW TV, there's even been small little hints at CM Punk

and references to CM Punk. But the notion that punk would return Eric after a decade away and the run that we saw him have in AEW, the question that comes to my mind is, is this something that WWE needs right now? bringing a guy like punk in given all the stuff that just happened in the other pastures is wwe in your opinion in need of a big spark name like that or what's your take on that multiple takes my first one being that how many times have you heard me say john

creating momentum as difficult as it is is much easier than maintaining momentum Sure. And there is, without question, if you look at the data, um, WWE is, is on an upswing, ratings, revenue, attendance. By every real data point, um, WWE has created over the last really year, year and a half, quite a bit of momentum. So when you ask me, is WWE in need of CM Punk? No. But, but, would CM Punk contribute to maintaining or building upon that momentum without question. Now, I'm going to push back here. And not that I disagree with you, because I don't disagree with you.

I'm going to push back because you have been on the record on dozens of occasions here on this show on 83 weeks talking about punk's drawing power and how it's not what it used to be or once was. So how would he factor in in that circumstance? Well, as I've also said before, there's a tremendous amount of backstory. There's history there. And there's an amazing pool of talent for punk to work with as well as being supported by a highly qualified and talented group of writers, producers, and senior management. I think I said on this show weeks ago when the subject first came up after punk left when you asked me or perhaps a fan asked you know what would you think about punk going to

WWE it would be an entirely different situation the CM Punk that we saw the unprofessional CM Punk that we saw in AEW you're not going to see that in in WWE. It's an entirely different universe. Talking about corporate universe. That's the big difference. Look, I've never criticized punk's talents or abilities. I've been super critical, and I think rightfully so, in the way he's conducted his business and some of the things that he said. I was also not a fan of his debut when he came and essentially had to rely upon cheap heat to get a reaction and appeal to the dirt sheet universe that is so centric to what is AEW. That's not going to be the case in WW. So the same guy

in two separate companies is a totally separate discussion. I don't know, Punk personally. I don't think I've ever, in fact, I know I have never had a syllable of conversation with him. I don't know him personally. I know how he conducted himself in EW and I think he was reprehensible. And that's being kind because I'm still in a good mood for my trip overseas, fatigued as I may be. Highly critical. And he's earned every word of it. But like I said, it's going to be an entirely different situation in WWE.

do I think he is as valuable now as he was seven or eight years ago? Probably not. But he'll still contribute. If indeed this is true, this is still, you know, Dave Meltzer and Nick Hausman reporting. And I'm not saying that they didn't talk to somebody, but it's still at this point secondhand information. Until it becomes first hand information, I remain somewhat skeptical, somewhat skeptical. Not totally skeptical, somewhat. We'll see. But I still think, like I said earlier, you know, creating momentum is really difficult. Maintaining it is even more difficult. And I think S.M. Punk, especially given the nature of the controversy that he's created for himself over the last year, I think, yeah, it will help contribute to maintaining or building upon the momentum that

they've already created. So let me ask you to put yourself in a WWE executive shoes here for a second. Let's play fantasy world. Given everything that just happened with CM Punk in AW and the fallout of all that, what

exactly would be the appeal of bringing him in at this juncture? Bear with me, but I'm not sure I understand it. What do you mean? What would be the appeal? There's audience equity there. There's everything I just talked about. No, but so you think, even coming off of everything that just how you would you suggest that everything that happened

over there in a w essentially is meaningless should he make a jump back over to w we not meaningless because he he kept himself i mean look he was in a w he was the focus was on him they were building the company around him so clearly no one in their right mind would say it was meaningless but in terms of value i think everybody knew who cm punk was before he went to a w it's not like he introduced himself to a new audience. I think if there's any added value, it would simply be the controversy. And also, and I think this was inherent in his initial,

you know, debut in AEW, there's an inherent curiosity. And we saw that in the ratings, the first night that punk showed up in AEW, and then it dropped off substantially afterwards and never rebounded. And that is what I'm referring to, is you know, you're going to get a lot of people going to tune in just to see, hey, what is this going to be? And is it going to be something exciting. And if it is, they'll stick around.

And if it's not, they won't. Right. That's the nature of the product. It's the nature of everything. So when you go to a restaurant, first time a restaurant opens up and you read about it, you hear about it, you can't wait to go and you check it out. If the food's great, you're going to come back. If it's mediocre and doesn't meet your expectations because the expectations were set to, well, you probably won't come back.

Or if you do, it'll be occasional. And that's exactly what happened, in my opinion, with punk and AEW. There was this tremendous amount of fanfare. There was a lot of anticipation. And what the audience saw after the first time out or two, yeah, but it didn't convert to viewership. It exploited the natural curiosity of the wrestling fan. and probably in some respects a positive way,

but it wasn't reflected in attendance or television ratings. Probably sold a lot of T-shirts. So if that's a metric, you're basing your business model around and yay, but it didn't really have much of an impact. I mean, they did strong pay-per-view vise with Punk. When Punk came in their pay-per-view buy rate went up,

and it sustained itself for a pretty significant period of time with them, too. So I do think there was tangible impact on that front. Not nearly the amount that was anticipated. It didn't live up to the, and perhaps unfair expectations. Because there's not one guy that you can bring in that is going to significantly move the needle. This is not. And creatively, I don't really think they made it the second base with Pump creatively. Did he have great matches for those people that love great matches?

Okay, great. You can say he did. I won't disagree with that. I didn't watch enough of his matches or impressed enough with his matches to comment on it. The ones I did see and the character that I saw left me uninspired. It was not bad, but it was not what it was made out to be. And I think it did live up to a lot of unrealistic expectations that the audience naturally is going to have when a big name or name they haven't seen in a long time shows up.

I think one of the biggest appeals to punk coming back to WWE would be the idea that you get a happy ending to what was a really tumultuous situation 10 years ago where CM Punk walked away at arguably the height of his popularity from WWE, given his burnout, given his relationship with Vince McMahon, with Paul Leveck, and the fans were still firmly behind him at that point. he walks away, stays away from pro wrestling for seven years, and now has a potential opportunity to come back to WWE, and I hate to borrow the verbiage from Cody, but to finish the story, right, to try to make amends in that canon, in that universe, and end things on a good foot. WWE, Eric, is a very different place than it was when CM Punk walked out. hell Vince McMahon is not their day to day anymore as things currently stand we know that there's much more of an emphasis on the in ring product now than there was 10 years ago it feels to me that if CM Punk did make this move the environment would probably be more

fostering to him than it previously was what do you think on that I have no idea okay I'm not there I'm not in WWE I don't know the process um I don't know fostering kinder gentler and I said that word purposefully that's not thrown out there I think punk is in a situation in life where he's looking for very specific circumstances if he's going to work somewhere

and I do believe that the current WWE infrastructure is probably more enabling of him sliding into a situation where he wouldn't need to be the top guy that he was expected to be in AW he could go in work with who he wants to work with enjoy he's not going to work with you you're making some gigantic fucking leaps there to suggest that cm punk is going to be able to go

into wwee and dictate i'm not suggesting or even highly influence who he works with is i'm not there but i would find that incredibly hard to believe he's i'm not suggesting he's going to dictate no, put me in a program with Roman Reims tomorrow. I don't think that's how it's going to go. But I think if you're going to pay good money for someone, I think he would be able to say, hey, here's a list of people I'd like to work with. Let's see what we can make out.

I don't think that's unreasonable. That's the conversation, and I'm sure that it would be not an unusual conversation to kind of break the ice and get to know each other and feel each other out. But I just want to be careful that we're talking about kinder and gentler and fostering natures and being able to choose who he works with and doesn't work with that's well let's just see if he gets there you know and i i will say and i think i've said this before if if i if i were to be the half glassful eric bischoff i would say

the good thing that can come out of this for phil brooks is that he could end his career on a positive note absolutely regardless if if it happens i'm still you know highly not high I'm somewhat skeptical, but if it happens, I can tell you from firsthand experience that everybody will be on board, professionally speaking. They may have personal feelings, but they'll never, ever get in the way of business. So he'll be welcomed, he'll be supported, and he'll be expected to pull his weight like everybody else. And if C.M. Punks, Phil Brooks, the character, the person, Phil Brooks, because that's what I'm talking about here. If at this stage in his career, if I don't know him,

but if he would like to end his career, first of all, make a lot of money, let's face it, but do it in a way that perhaps untarnishes what is up to this point, Ben, not a great legacy. He walked out of WWE because he was miserable. He showed up in AEW and picked up right where he left off right where he left off at WWE in short order. This would be an opportunity to go and have some great matches, some great stories, first and foremost, for God's sake,

have some great creative work with some extremely talented, talented people in a professional environment and however long in that career, if he's got a year, if he's got two years, if he's got 10 years, however long that is, the opportunity to end your career on a positive note is not to be undervalued. Sometimes I think, again, I put myself in this category looking back quite a while ago, you tend to think, oh, this is going to last forever, oh, this is great, but it doesn't. It goes away. And when that time comes, You want your career to end on as positive note as possible. And this is that opportunity, if indeed the opportunity exists.

We'll find out. I agree with you for sure. And it could provide a great story. You know, you can say that his legacy has been hampered a little bit, but there's no denying how influential he was on a generation of talent and fans. So if he can go out on a good note and provide some great matches, and provide intrigue to Eric, right? Like, we're headed into Royal Rumble season,

not that long from now. We're only a couple months away from that, which is crazy to think about in and of itself. But that's always that hype train season where you start to build a little more momentum heading into WrestleMania. We got WrestleMania 40 this year. So bringing in a big name at that time

might not be the worst thing in the world. And, you know, Eric, I actually want to talk about bringing in big names here for a quick second. That sounds familiar. The following announcement has been paid for by the Podstars team. That it certainly has been because I want to tell you about bringing in big names to your podcast. Are you having trouble getting A-list guests to interview for your podcast? Isn't it frustrating that no one responds to your requests and your DMs on social media or your emails that you send?

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Hall of Famer, DeVon Dudley, Santina Morella, WWE Hall of Famer and ad-free shows, podcast host, Jake the Snake Roberts, Eric Bischoff, getting big names for your podcast. It adds a lot of equity, doesn't it? It does. And somebody was thinking, you know, I've often thought as I've watched the podcast universe blow up, you know, and especially when, you know, I go to the podcast movement conventions once a year, have been for the last couple of years. actually along with Conrad and the ad ad team from ad free shows and podcast heat and every

convention I go to every time I go to the convention it's bigger and bigger and bigger which means there are more and more and more podcasts it's harder and harder to get guests and I've often wondered how long it's going to be before someone forms what has what will become or perhaps is now an agency you know different than a commercial talent agent for the podcast business. So somebody was really thinking, and if it's a one-stop shop where you can get those quality guests, because that's the other thing I can tell you, especially for people starting out in the podcast space that don't have, you know, a following already or don't have a recognizable name, to be able to bring in incredible talent like that and have great interviews

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weeks if you haven't checked out our archives yet 83 weeks dot com has a ton of great ones to check out right now at your fingertips as well as at free shows dot com let's talk about another man making the jump eric before we get into our last topic which will be about the viewership and dvr discussion that has been taken over the internet uh adam copeland jumps to a w the former edge making in his debut at WrestleDream pops up on Dynamite this past week in an awesome segment. Pretty big deal. And he would go on social media and say, you know, to all you guys out there who feel like this is someone betraying where they came from, this is a sign that the industry is healthier

than ever. And he felt that his character arc in WWE as Edge had been told and he was ready for a new challenge. What's your reaction to Adam Copeland making the jump here? Pretty big name. I'm happy for him. I like Adam a lot. and I congratulated him after his last appearance in Toronto.

He's an amazingly talented guy. And you and I talked about his options. And I think I said, if indeed he chose to go to AEW, likely it was because he wanted to end his career with Christian. And I think that probably, if I had to guess, had a lot to do with it, that in the fact that he's not ready to hang it up yet. And I think here's the thing I really respect about Adam. The fact that he can recognize that the character edge and the backstory and the history

had run its course because it does. And you hate to see people hanging on to the point where they're just not what they used to be. And when you can see that coming, you can feel that, and you can look around you and say, I've worked with that. Oh, yeah, but I could, oh, I've worked with him too. How about, oh, we've already done that. You know, you get to a point where you're just bouncing into walls or off of walls. So the fact that he can go to AEW, work with a very, very close friend,

perhaps have some great matches and stories that we haven't seen before as a different character. Good for him. Good for him. I hope that it ends well. The track record for WWE talent going to AEW has not. necessarily been exciting. I think it's been disappointing for a lot of the characters that have come from WWE to AEW. But we'll see. Doesn't mean that things won't change. I did think a crucial element of it, Eric, was bringing over pretty much all of his IP, aside from the edge name from

WWE. So you're presenting something familiar for the audience. You know, he kept the Alterbridge song Metalingas, which was this iconic entrance for him. he was able to get the trademark, the rated R superstar. Yeah, that surprised me. That really surprised me because it was in use prior. Look, I'm not, you know, Mike Dawkins, the gimmick attorney. So I'm not a trademark expert. But that one, when I read that, I was shocked, not shocked, but I was surprised.

And I want to follow through with that because it was really, you know, to have the rated R superstar, which is only, we only recognize it. it was a part of his character in WWE, and then to be able to take that with him, I found that to be interesting. That's the best way to say it. And I think the fact that he's brought his music with him is going to help substantially because he's no longer edge. He's creating a new character, which is exciting.

Don't get me wrong. It can be a really, really fun challenge. But it can also be a little bit of an uphill climb because you're reestablishing your character to be able to bring back some of that IP, some of the things that people, recognize you for whether it's rated our superstar or his music whatever is helpful very very much so christian cage j reso a guy you're very familiar with from over the years what's your assessment of him in terms of the quality of work that he does i feel like a lot of people look at him as one of the most underrated contributors to the wrestling space of the last 20 years you know what i like about

Christian is he never plays it over the top. His character has always been slightly understated but really authentic and believable. And that's not an easy thing to do, especially in professional wrestling when everything seems to be over the top. Very talented guy. I never got to know him really. He had conversations, and I may have worked with him a little bit off and on, but never really got to know him.

So I only know him, you know, as a result of his character and watching his work. And I wouldn't go so far so he's underrated, perhaps underappreciated. Yeah. Did you see this segment on dynamite by chance? I assume you didn't because you were traveling with Adam and Christian? No, I didn't. This was right out of the school of Eric Bischoff. here this was a great segment i'm really excited for where they're going to go with this

adam copeland comes out he's in the ring for 10 minutes talking about you know why he made the move all these people he can't wait to look forward to working with and he said the main catalyst for coming over was that his daughter said to him it's time to go have fun with uncle jay christian it's time to go have fun with him so he's like christian who's doing all this crazy heel work right now he just main event that the pay-per-view is it's massive heel He's like, come to the light side. Let's get one more run together as a tag team that none of us would have ever expected to happen.

Let's finish this the right way. Let's do things as brothers as we have for 20 plus years, blah, blah, blah, blah. Calls Christian out. Christian comes down to the ring. He looks like he's about to cry. They hug. It looks like they're going to reunite. And Christian doesn't even look up.

He's got a mic in his hand. As he's hugging him, he just goes, go fuck yourself and just walks out of the ring. and that's how at least an edge has this look of despair on his face oh my gosh a cliffhanger in a story oh my gosh shocking and refreshing at the same time so and and he dropped the hard f so it was it was pretty entertaining and adam copeland's going to have his first match on AEW programming against luchessaurus and i think too it's always good when you have a veteran presence in a company like that, Eric, I don't think you can ever have too many who are willing to contribute to help with younger talent and work with them. And I feel like Adam Copeland's the type

of guy who loves wrestling so much that getting a chance to work with these younger talents will truly benefit them, or at least that's what you hope for, right? Yeah, sure. I'm more interested in great story, no matter who he works with. The idea of, you know, veteran talent coming in and helping the younger guys, that sounds really. That sounds really. good. And it's certainly not a bad thing if it happens, but I don't think that should be anybody's primary consideration. Primary consideration. If I'm talented, is this going to be fun for me? Do I have some people that I can really work with that I think I can do some great things with? If the answer to that is yes, that's about it. And if it happens to be some of the younger

talent that benefit from it, perfect. Great. Everybody wins. I would certainly agree with you on that. they are banking on a big number for Adam Copeland in his match with Luchessoros. We're going to talk about viewership in just a second here because I know they were going to have a great conversation. I want to get into the numbers more than the possible creative. Of course. This is strictly business. That's right.

And we're going to get into that. In a second, I'll tell you what, Eric, when people who are watching AW-Ressel Dream heard, you think you know him. And then the Metalingas song hits, I'd imagine quite a few stiffies were popped.

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We got a special deal for our listeners. Try Bluetooth free when you use our promo code wrestle biz at checkout. Just pay $5 shipping. That's Bluetooth.com promo code wrestle biz, W-R-E-S-T-L-E-B-I-Z to receive your first month absolutely free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring this episode of Strictly Business. okay let's get into the business side of thing viewership a hot talking point this week nxte doing

850k viewers a w dynamite doing 800,000 it did beat nxte in the demo however there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding it eric the indication from the a w camp has been that due to dvr issues with warner brothers discovery where people who were trying to devr the episode of dynamite ended up with a copy of the Big Bang theory instead, that that affected the day of viewership and thus the number. Now, Eric, you did predict on this show this year that NXT would beat an episode of AW Dynamite. If this is to be believed, as is circumstantially, that would be correct. What's your reaction?

You know, I did, you know, I was following what was going on in social media while I was overseas and I saw all of the controversy. You and I texted back and forth a couple times, but I think it was yesterday. I've lost track. I don't even know what day it is, to be honest with you. Correct. This whole idea, first of all, and I mean this sincerely, no,

I've been out of the television business for a minute, all right? DVR was a big thing, even when I was producing, certainly when I was in TNA, when it was relatively new, and in terms of it impacting ratings and how to analyze the DVR impact on the overnight ratings. But I'm going to keep this really simple. This is an honest question because I don't know the answer. And it's an important question and the answer really should tell this whole story. But when I DVR, I DVR dynamite, I DVR all WWE stuff and AEW in case I'm ever asked to comment on it the following day. I set my, I go to AEW. I set my, I go to AEW. I set

my DVR. I record all episodes and I'm done. I don't need to go to a channel guide every time I want to DVR dynamite. Am I unique? Or isn't that just how it works? No, that is generally how it works, but I think there was a glitch where it ended up having people, if they, they set their DVR to record the episode of Dynamite as normally planned. It ended up recording an episode of Big Bad See, that's where I think this thing gets distorted. If someone were to go, oh, I think I'm going to DVR dynamite tonight, I wonder what time it's on. Oh, I'll check my DVR guide and I'll set my DVR accordingly. Then I can understand, I guess, how that would have an adverse impact on the overnight numbers.

I'm going to talk about that a little more detail in just a moment. But I would say out of 100 people that DVR dynamite, they've already set that DVR to record dynamite. How many people out of the 800,000, or let's be kind and say 900,000? But we didn't get that last 100,000. We only got 800. We didn't get 900 because 100,000 people went to their guide and decided to program their DVR based on an incorrect listing, I think that number is so infinitesimally small that it's not

even a discussion, but yet it's created so much conversation. It strikes me as out. And there's another aspect to this that people haven't dug into. And I touched on it, I think, with you or maybe I posted it. But typically, with overnights, they stop counting, Nielsen, stops recognizing or accruing, is the best way to say it, I guess, DVR numbers at 3 a.m. the next morning.

So that makes the possibility, at least in my unfamiliar mind at this point, in terms of how this could somehow have adversely impacted the number that I think a lot of AEW fans in particular and Tony Khan and everybody else want people to believe in order for that to happen since Nielsen quits accruing those DVR plus three numbers at 3 a.m. the next morning and then you have an even smaller pool of people that for the first time in their lives or don't regularly DVR but decided they were going to do it this night and went to a guide to find out what time they

should do that. I think we're talking about, I guess there's about a dozen or so people that might fall into that category. So unless I'm missing something, which is possible, I don't see how there's any significant loss of audience due to a glitch that. a small percentage of people would be impacted by i'm just giving you back what i was told directly from high up in a w i'm reading it directly here when i inquired about it um it was that same day dvr so same day equated here to what you're stopped at three o'clock in the morning makes up a big

chunk of the audience and we lost almost all of ours that's bullshit I don't care if it's higher up or if it's someone in catering, that makes no sense on the surface based on everything we just discussed. Now, I don't know if what you described with the error is exactly what happened. I'm not entirely sure. My understanding was even if people had set their AEW Dynamite pre-recording, as you suggest, where you set it to record all the episodes, that the glitch made it so that even though they had planned ahead and pre-recorded it without going through their guidelines, it still was creating issue. Well, you know what?

Here's how we're going to find out. When we're done with this recording, I've got one or two things I have to do. But this afternoon or early this evening, I'm going to go to my DVR guide and I'm going to see if the latest episode, if it devoured correctly. I was overseas.

I didn't do anything. It just does it automatically. I'm going to go see. And if it's there, I'm going to call bullshit. And I'll do it on social. media and I'll let the world know. If it wasn't there, I'm going to admit that there's a possibility I'm wrong. Yeah. And I have no idea. I mean, none of us are going to have any way of knowing. We're going to find out shortly. No, what I'm saying is none of us have any idea if we know

if this was one size fits all where it affected everyone who tried to do it or if it only affected a certain segment of people. I don't know. I don't know. We're never going to know. I think it's semantic. It's semantics at that point. They did have issues. They had audio issues. with Warner Brothers Discovery, too, two weeks in a row where Sean Ross Sapp reported that there were a lot of people very unhappy in AW about some of the stuff from Warner Brothers Discovery and that even a Warner Brothers Discovery source had stated that it was unacceptable that they were dealing with some of these technical issues with them. Do you ever recall having any technical issues like that that were consistent and ongoing over a period of time? Not consistent and ongoing. Fortunately, if you go back and you look at all of the live. episodes that we did with the exception of acts of God like loss of power during a thunderstorm down

in Florida and things like that. And that was on my end. That was on the production side, not on the network side. I never had an issue with TBS or TNT as far as them delivering what I was sending. That I find peculiar, but I never had that issue. And any technical issues we did, have one-offs and they were very rare. Yeah. And it came from the Warner Bros. Discovery side because the feed that was being sent internationally, the fight was fine. They didn't have any issues with that. So it did come from the Warner Rose Discovery and Turner side of things. Let's talk about this number, though, man. NXT doing a really good number. And we know this week, they are going to be head-to-head

with AEW. So Dynamite and NXT will be running head-to-head once again on a Tuesday this time. WWE loaded up. John Cena's going to be on this show. Cody Rhodes on this show. It was reported as we record this today that the Undertaker is going to be at the performance center that day. It's going to go head to head with a strong episode of dynamite in terms of matches, headlined, of course, by Adam Copeland's debut match with AEW. I think it's a great thing for the industry, man,

to have these special one-off nights where everyone's kind of throwing everything at the fire and see who comes out on top for a night. How do you feel about it? I think it's interesting. I'll probably, if I'm in town, I'll definitely be watching. Curiosity, see what they're going to do. I think it's fun.

I'll be more curious what the numbers are the next day. That's really what I'm most curious about is the business of the wrestling business. That's what gets me excited, what intrigues me and what I'm most interested in. The on-camera product is certainly entertaining for me because it's people that I've know. I've worked with John Cena. actually been in matches with John Cia. Paul Hammond is a good friend of mine. Obviously, I'm going to be very curious to see what they're going to do.

And it is exciting. It gives people something to talk about and wonder, what's that number going to be? Should be interesting. Are you willing to claim victory on the NXT prediction this week? Are you going to give it to next week? No, it's a half-ass victory. Okay. And we've been, look, it's been getting close every week, right?

We've seen, we've seen NXT get closer and closer and closer and grow in the ratings. And we've seen AEW remain largely flat. So, I mean, we've been watching that since, well, for a while. And which is why I made the prediction I made early. I think it was back in May or April or May. That was the beginning of the year. It was our preview predictions. Yeah.

So I'll claim a half-ass victory, but I'll spike the ball next week. Well, it does show, too, what happens when you put a lot of equity in a show with Star Power because NXT, the show right now, is so different than the show that it was at the beginning of the year. Sean Michael's got a little more control over the show in the direction that he wanted to take it in. And now I think you're finding this really nice. nice mixture of if you want to see a really good wrestling match, you can turn on NXT every week and you're probably going to get one or two pretty damn good wrestling

matches. But if you also want to see the stars of tomorrow really develop into their own in this very character-driven show, you're going to get that too. Now, some people will say maybe it's a little too cartoony for them, but I think they're finding this really good marriage. And the way I look at it, Eric, and I'm curious what you think, because you and I haven't had chance to talk about this since it happened, I really think they're starting to try to find a way to position NXT to be picked up as part of a rights package, not quite equal standing to Monday and I raw, because the brand values are totally different. But I think they really wanted to get picked up as a show that is a featured program on whatever platform it ends up on with these

media rights. I agree. And I think, you know, a lot of the chatter that I've seen on social media is oh i can't believe it w w is so afraid of it of excuse me w w is so afraid of AEW they're stacking the deck and all that i think this has way more to do with negotiating for rights fees and i think it's the

timing is somewhat coincidental don't get me wrong i think there's some people looking forward to it for the same reason i am but i i don't think it's driven as much by oh my gosh we're competing against AEW as it is oh my gosh we need to we want

to, because it's good business, increase the value and show the potential. And that's why I think, you know, Becky Lynch, we've seen, you know, some pretty significant star power in the last several weeks, which had nothing to do with AEW. They're just building upon it. But I think a lot of it has to do with increasing the perception and or the potential, the perceived potential of NXT as a result or as a part of, you know, a rights negotiation. The timing is just, you know, good social media chatter. And I think it also makes for a much more intriguing television program

where you don't know who's going to show up. You know that you're going to have. That's always been, you know, the wrestling audience, one of the things that I learned, I've talked about this ad nauseum, but I'm not going to do it again. But I learned as participating in some pretty significant research around the country over an extended period of time that one of the core values, I guess,

for lack of a better term because I'm kind of half brain dead that wrestling fans have across the board is they love to be surprised they love that part of professional wrestling where you didn't or something happens that you never saw coming and this is a great opportunity to do that that's that's how you create appointment television by doing things different and in creating that message that you can't afford to miss this episode because you never know what's going to happen based on what we've seen the last two or three weeks, right? That's how you do it, especially in wrestling. It's how you do it with everything, but that's especially true of professional wrestling.

I also think it's twofold where you do have this opportunity to help some of the younger talent by working with the more established veterans per se, but also it's a fresh coat of paint for some of these established veterans, get a chance to do something new, maybe add a little spice, a little Genesequois-tier character that can then be leveraged back onto the main roster. I think that keeps things exciting in the grand scheme of things for the talent themselves too and keeping them fresh. I had a hypothesis that I put out, Eric, that got a lot of traction. I'm curious what your thought is on this as far as this current edition of NXT that we're seeing in the purpose of the Performance Center. We know that the black and gold brand

NXT from 2015 to 2019 was very successful in terms of in a vacuum as a brand, right? They had great matches and it was exciting television. They did good numbers. They did these great NXT takeover shows. Awesome. Not a ton of the talent that came from that brand were homegrown, developed stars who became meta stars on the main roster. Some of that's due to creative, but there are other elements at play.

My argument, Eric, is that this version of NXT, where there really is this hardcore emphasis on taking homegrown, developed talent and turning them into the mold of WWE superstars, this era is going to produce more WrestleMania main eventors and big time players than WWE has ever produced from a developmental perspective. What do you think about that? you could be right um you know i don't know how to respond to that you could be right you know there are certainly there has been talent that have come from n i see and made the main roster and are now enjoying tremendous success of course whether or not there will be more of that remains to be seen half glass full says absolutely half glass empty makes me go it's too early to tell i don't know maybe probably perhaps how's that i just think that there's more focus right now on developing these guys and gals into the mold of a wwee star and they're

going into the bag of indie wrestlers where you're finding good indie talent that you're acquiring and those people like the carmello hayes types they they have their place and they're going to do very well but you combine those guys with these athletes that you're bringing in who are naturally adept to the industry, the Tiffany Strattons, the brawn breakers, the Creed Brothers, these types. I think you're going to find yourself with talent who are more ready for the WWE system than ever. Oh, I absolutely agree to that. I agree with that. I mean, every week, well, not every week.

That's exaggerating. But I bet you once or twice a month, I'm asking myself, whether I'm driving down the road or whatever, when am I going to see Braker on the main roster? Because he's, in my opinion, as a, from the outside looking in, man, he's ready. He's just, you know, he's just bursting with talent and he's got a strong character. And I'm guessing, I don't know him. I know his father really well. But, you know, as a younger talent, you're probably chopping at the bit.

We need to get that opportunity. And I think one of the things that WW is doing so well with that I see is, as you just pointed out, really developing that talent. So then when they do make that jump to prime time to the big show, there is close to being, you're never going to be flawless, but you're as close to that as you can get. You're not learning on the job in front of a massive national television audience. That's what NXT is for. but they're getting that experience, they're getting that confidence, they're developing instincts and timing and finessing their characters and maybe discovering new ways of presenting that character

because that's what happens with reps, repetitions. You just get a little more insight into what can work. And that discipline, first of all, it's very hard to be disciplined in that regard because you're constantly wanting, you know, to put some great talent on television. And I'm using Braun as an example. It's probably more. But it will pay great dividends.

And you won't see a learning curve that you would otherwise see if someone is coming from outside of the WWE system and learning what works best in WW. When you had the PowerPoint, the power plant, would you have enjoyed the added tool of having a television show? show to showcase those people? Of course. Of course. We had many, many, many conversations and probably attempted a time or two to create live events, non-televised live events, specifically two and for developmental talent and giving an opportunity to those talents to develop their skills in front of a live crowd. Because no matter how extensively you train, you're if you're training in front of four walls and the rest of the people on the roster you never really connect with the audience you don't learn that finesse that instinct the timing

you just can't learn that in in a training facility no matter how hard you try or how hard your coaches try to teach you that you have to get out in front of a live audience whether that's a live television audience which is ideal or a live show which is not as ideal but still valuable but yeah we would have loved that the reason we didn't do it was expense to be very honest about it yeah well the beauty of the performance that is that they've really turned it into a production facility and that saves so many costs as is right out of the bat when you can broadcast from home and you don't got to rent out a facility it's not only that but it gives you the opportunity when you have a production facility and i don't know what that setup looks like i've never been

to the performance center to be honest and i don't know what their training protocols are or formats. But I would imagine learning how to do an interview is probably one of them and what are the aspects of their training. And now you've got a production studio where you can go in and give a talent script and work with them and direct him, put them on the scene, hit the cameras, hit the lights and let it rip and sit down and analyze it and discuss it afterwards. You can learn in that respect much differently and much better than you can doing out in front of a live television audience for the first time that's like fucking horrible certainly is we will see what next week brings i i have a feeling we will have a spirit hey but i'm not i'm not going to let you off the hook

man i do and you always bit out but i am the nostradamus of professional wrestling at this point with an over 80% accuracy right when it comes to my prognostications according to according to me i keep track with this i do i write this shit to i write this shit to down, put up my wallet. Okay. But what's yours, dude? What do you think the rating will be next week when they go head to head, NXT and Dynamite?

Do you want the numbers or who I think will come out? I don't think of fuck who wins. I only care about the numbers. I think, I think next week, NXT does 930,000 viewers. Under a million. Under a million, but that's a huge number for NXT.

and I think AW does 900,000. I don't, and I'll tell you why. One thing that I've, and again, I'm not Brandon Thurston, and by the way, I really love Brandon's analysis. Brandon also talked about in social media very briefly, briefly how there's no one has any idea. no one has a clear idea of the impact of the DVR glitch, okay? That's just, he's being honest, and I really appreciate when the analysts are honest. But that being said, I'm convinced based on the PLEs,

when we have a PLE on a Saturday night, for example, it absolutely crushes the collision audience. Yep, yep. And I'm convinced. based on that data, because we've seen it now a couple times. There is so much duplication. I'm not talking about on Twitter. Talking about people that watch television

because a Twitter audience and a social media audience is still a small, albeit much more important to AEW than WW. But I think there is so much duplication in that audience numbers for both companies. There is. I do not believe that there are more than, a couple thousand people that watch AEW that don't watch WW. My thought process is simply that it's Adam Copeland's debut match. I think there will be a lot of intrigue in that.

I think that's first. Yeah, but they're splitting the audience. There's also going to be a lot of intrigue and see how Paul, and Paul Heyman is a massive star. John Cena is a massive star. There's a massive talent in there. There's going to be, because of the curiosity factor, I don't see AEW breaking five.

500. 500? They went head to head for a year and a half in NXT, one, one time. You think there only is a bunch of talent, nobody knew. Still, though. No, no, no, no, no, not still, though. That's, it's a developmental, you're talking about putting your first team in against your no third strike.

I mean, now the one, the one thing that I will say that Dynamite does have going against it, is that it's not on its normal night. It's on Tuesday. And habit is a big thing. Because you're already making excuses. I'm not making excuses, but 500,000? I'll revise my number from 900 because thinking about that being on Tuesday, I'll go 850. But 500, no way.

I see no way that Dynamite does 500,000 viewers. Well, we'll find out, won't we? You want to put a wager on it? I'll put a wager on it with you. What do you want to bet? I'm not bed in my hair. I can't do that. Chicken shit.

Hey, I've got a network gig now. I got a... Oh, that's right. And congratulations. Tell us a little bit about that. Come on now. Yeah, no, I'm a contributor to SNY Sports Night, Sportsnet, New York, which is the home of the Mets. So if you are in New York, Connecticut or Jersey, you can get that.

And it's available, I think, 12 million homes around the world. It's the home of the Mets. I'm talking New York sports, man. Good for you. Congratulations. I appreciate that very much so. It's a blast so far. And I'm on again tonight, actually, as we're going to be.

record this but um yeah i can't wager my hair um you can buy me dinner or i'll buy you we'll do a dinner next time we're in the same city sounds good all right dinner dinner dinner on the loser i like it uh i eat sushi i eat a lot of it and i only eat the good stuff i'm not talking about i'm not talking about cucumber rolls and all that's shit fake sushi stuff i'm talking about old toro high end and the good stuff so what's the way the wager is going to be 500,000 over under? I'll go 5 to 575. It'll be under 600.

Okay. So the under 600 is the waiter. You're going under. I'll go over. There it is. Okay. 600. And if it's a push,

then we'll try something else. But I'm looking forward to it, my friend. And I appreciate your kind word. I'm glad that we got to get back in the saddle again here on Strictly Business, and I'm appreciative of all of our listeners every single week on Strictly Business. This is an absolute blast to do with you. We want you on our team folks. Head on over to advertise witheric.com. Get your business, get your product out in front of thousands of

listeners and viewers every single week. Strictly Business is one of the top pro wrestling podcasts in the world. Why would you not want to be part of our team? You heard Podstars for the first time earlier today. We would love for you to join up with us as well. Anything else you want to add here, Eric? No, man. I'm going to go in and check my DVR. I can't wait. Look for that. Look for that posts on X, Twix. You know what I was overseas? And I'm doing, you know, we did these live tours. I had fans, by the way, a lot of people, almost 75 or 80% of the people that came to the shows all listened to 83 weeks and strictly business. And have heard me refer to what was formerly known as Twitter, now known as X, as Twix, and one fan actually brought me

a Twix candy bar as a result. So yeah, well, look for that post. I'm going to, I'm going to check my DVR. Were the UK, if my, if dynamite is on my DVR, I'm calling bloody bullshit. Were the UK Twix bars different than the American Twix bars? To be honest, I didn't eat it because I don't eat sugar, but. On brand. Impressively on brand, my friend. This has been strictly business. We will see you next week.