83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #48: Tuesday Night Wars (AEW vs. NXT)

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

In this edition of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba take a deep dive on the Tuesday Night Wars from Oct. 10, as NXT and AEW went head-to-head! Plus, thoughts on Vince McMahon's WWE creative involvement, and CM Punk reportedly not being connected to WWE. Special thanks to this week's sponsors! Manscaped- Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at Manscaped.com. HelloFresh - Get 50% off your first order and free shipping with the code 50WrestleBiz at HelloFresh.com/50WrestleBiz 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 #NXT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, John Alba here, co-host of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff. And what I love about wrestling podcasts most is that there's so much variety out there. And that's why I want to tell you about the other podcast I host right here on podcast, heat and ad-free shows.com, the extreme life of Matt Hardy. Every single Friday, you can hear the future Hall of Famer, one half of the iconic Hardy Boys tag team, the broken and woken one himself, Mr. Matt Hardy, tell great stories from his three decades in the wrestling industry from a fairly unique perspective. Few people have gone through the

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So join Matt and I every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts, and at extremehardy.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson from save with conrad.com. Heads up, homeowners, all of a sudden your house is worth more than ever these last few years. But what are we going to do with that newfound equity? No, I'm not suggesting you sell your house or go buy something else. But didn't we all make this decision when we bought a house where we said,

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presented to you by the ad-free shows and podcast heat networks i am john alba and oh it's going to be a couple minutes of gloating just a little bit but not much to gloat about because my man eric bischoff we should just start calling him nostridamus he is here on this edition of strictly business and uh man i'll give you some credit you you're pretty good at this thing you're pretty good at this thing yeah i wish there was money in it but it's fun i had one of the most fun days wrestling wise uh wrestling adjacent wise i should say in a long time you know just watching the just the sheer crazy level of crazy that was sticking place yesterday on social media uh not the least of which was tony con himself um it was just a fun it was a fun time to just

back and watch crazy people talk crazy shit it certainly was quite the adventure with all the lead up to nxty and a w going at the head here and that is going to be the focus of our episode as we look at the One Night Only Tuesday Night War that went down and the fallout from it. And we're going to try to break these shows down and look at the show structure because that's something that I know you really love to get into the weeds of and production. And I think we're going to have a good time talking about that. Before we get into any of that, Eric, we are live right now on ad-free shows.com. We got Coach Rosie saying this could get testy.

We got Dylan here saying Eric really is mystical and all-knowing. We got Amy. I hope so, because they got two lottery tickets for that $1.75 billion sitting in my wallet. Yeah, man, I mean, you got to lay down some knowledge on that front. But those are our friends over at ad-freeshows.com. If you're watching live, you're a top guy, you're a top gal, leave us a comment, leave us a question throughout the course of this. We'll pop them up throughout the podcast.

And you know, Eric, they are not the only ones who are going to be having a lot of fun here on ad-free shows.com because we've added a new member to our family, and that is someone you know very, very well. The total package, Lex Lugar. He's joined the stable over on ad-pre-shows.com. The debut episode of Lex Express with Lex Lugar just dropped as Lex opens up about his jump from WWF to WCWCW, his relationship with Sting and Rick Flair,

and of course the infamous Bruiser Brody cage match. I just had some minor surgery. I got stitches, four or five stitches on my body. I used to wear a tank top I tore off him when I went to the ring. I said, I'm going to leave a tank top on to cover those because I'm supposed to keep them covered for a few days. He nodded, like, acknowledged that, but I told him, what's the first thing he did when we got in the ring?

Or my shirt up. Wow, I wonder if he didn't understand or I didn't know the wrestling person. I green lighted him, okay, this young kids tell me not to tear his shirt off. I'm going to tear his shirt up before it soon as I get in there. some good old-fashioned rasseling ribbon there eric bischoff he's a great storyteller isn't they lex is a wonderful human being he's to me he's very inspirational um he's gone through so much and he has come out one of the most solid human beings i know so very very happy and grateful that he's a part of the at free shows team as am i and if you

want to catch that entire debut episode of Lex Express right now, plus thousands of hours of other bonus series like the Tuesday with the taskmaster, Kevin Sullivan, the hacksower, Jim Duggan, Ask Conrad, the book with David Crockett, and much more. You can head on over now to get that exclusive access and add free shows. By the way, speaking of books, I'm going to throw this out here right now. There is a new book coming your way called The Six-Pack by a friend of mine. His name is Brad Belugian. If you look for the wax pack or, yeah, I think it's his handle on Twitter X, Twix, is the wax pack.

Look for him, follow him, and as soon as that book becomes available, order it. I'm in the process of reading an advanced copy right now, and it is an amazing, amazing book that every wrestling fan on the planet is going to enjoy. It is unbelievable. I thought you were going to help me get a six-pack here, but I'm good with that, too. I always take a good. Six-pack. Watch for it.

Good stuff. Love a good promotion there. And you should always check out all of Eric Bischar's reading recommendations. He's a smart guy when it comes to that kind of stuff. And listen, man, we'll get right off the bat here. We made a wager last week. week about these AEW viewership numbers here. And to your credit, Eric, you threw out the number 600,000. And I had a pretty volatile reaction to that. And then I came down earth a little bit when I realized, well, let's be clear, I predicted 600,000 for AEW. That's what you had. That's what you had

the volatile reaction. Yes. So just because it was a shocking number to me at first, I thought, thought on it a little bit. And I still figured they'd go higher than that. I came down with my number a little bit. I still figured they'd get higher than that. What was your prediction? By the way, what was your prediction, John? Initially, my prediction, I think, was around 800,000. I came down on social with it, or to be around 700,000. But still, I thought they'd be, I thought they would clear 600 easily. And I came in at 609,000. So the wager we put was if it was over 600, you'd buy me dinner. And I'd like to say this off the bat. I prefer my olive wag you cooked medium rare. But because you were so close with this and you really, you went out on a limb and bucked a trend of what a lot of people were thinking. And you nailed it.

You really did. All the drinks are on me when we make. There you go. That'll be fun. And you know what? I'm really looking forward to buying you that steak. Oh, yeah. this was a fun fun banter back and forth and yeah like i said yesterday was a blast

watched both shows uh i watched um nxte last night and watched a good portion i didn't get a chance to complete um dynamite today in between other things i was doing but uh you know that head-to-head vibe was just fun you know i talked about all the crazy yesterday and i i'm not kidding i really enjoyed it it was entertaining as hell watching people chime in and listening to their opinions and and and again the tony con stuff was just off the wall crazy um and then of course watching you know knowing that this head-to-head thing was going on and so many people were emotionally invested in it it's just it was good energy man it was fun energy it was tony con's birthday on tuesday is his 41st birthday happy birthday tony

41 going on 12 oh come on now come on just just wish him a happy birthday happy birthday there you go so okay he was vocal on Twitter

he he abs or twicks he absolutely was a lot of it was promotion a lot of it was shots I mean he he went out on a limb and breaking down the actual numbers here, Eric, because we did get the viewership numbers. We're still awaiting the quarter hours, and that might come down as we tape. But, NXT, in overall viewership, 921,000, A.W. Dynamite, 609,000.

In the demo, NXT goes 0.30, dynamite, 0.26. So not terribly off there, but a big disparity in the overall viewer. for sure two very different approaches to these shows before we get into the weeds of it your general reaction to what you saw out of both shows on tuesday night both of them were inspired you know both of them and i think particularly the the nxts show the energy was at an eight or a nine on a scale at one to ten seemingly throughout the entire episode and that goes to formatting, building, and great talent. Visually, I liked Dynamite better.

Dynamite had the advantage in that, even though it was in a small venue, I think it was a 4,000-seat venue, which, by the way, they didn't sell out, at least according to the post that I saw from Russellticks. a 4,000-seat arena, but it still had the, you know, you had 4,000 people there, you got a lot more energy. You got more, and I've said it a million times. I used to say it in TNA, I don't care who you put in a soundstage. I don't care what you do in a soundstage.

It will never have the energy or authenticity of a live event when compared to a live event in a real venue. And that was the big advantage production-wise that I feel dynamite had. And despite that, NXT was able to build and hold a greater audience. So hats off to them. I did like the energy.

You're not talking about the matches, you know, about the finishes, but they're cheap bullshit. I'm talking about the production, the way the show was presented. I think Dynamite had a much bigger advantage. Yeah. I want to ask you about the interesting trend that I find when I look at those numbers. Again, 921,000 for NXT, 609,000 for Dynamite.

But the demos were relatively close, the 1849. 0.30 compared to 0.26. To me, that says that a lot of the audience that NXT pulled were the older audience. And they significantly out drew AW in the older audience. I know that's something that we see happen with NXT traditionally where they do have a generally older audience, but they seemingly came out in droves here with the promotions of Paul Heyman, John Sina, Cody Rhodes, etc. does anything about that strike you as fascinating as it does me no because i have a different perspective i think mine being that there is so much duplication in the audience between the

two i i'm i don't know what the number is and i'm you know i don't have access to the to the to the to the data but my gut tells me about 75 or 80 percent of the dynamite audience is also a W.W.E. audience. And I think the W.W.E because of the star power, quite frankly, regardless of their age, I think too much is too much time is spent discussing talent's age because the younger demo is just as excited about a Paul Heyman or John Cena right now because it's only temporary or an undertaker or Becky Lynch or, you know, you name it. Um, you know, especially um oh my gosh the yeah guy i'm just blank in here la night god how did i forget i'm a huge fan i just blanked on it um i don't care what their birth certificate says

they're going to draw a younger demo because they're fucking exciting and they're fun to watch and they're great entertainers but more than any of that i believe that there's just so much duplication between the two audiences. And when given an opportunity, the majority of that audience is going to watch a WWE product, head to head or otherwise. I think there's a small portion, a very small portion of the Dynamite audience, the AEW audience, that do not watch WWE. And I think, you know, we've been seeing it. And one of the reasons that I revised my number a little bit last night. I predicted that NXT would win. They would end up with 975,000 viewers and I think I came in at 600 or whatever it was, maybe a little more. Can I remember my own post?

But 600 for AEW. And a lot of the reason why I was so confident in predicting that is because I'm convinced of the duplication factor and the fact that WWE, whether it's an NXT or on or on Smackdown, they understand television. And that's the big distinction between WW and AEW. AEW for however much of a huge wrestling fan, Tony Kahn's been all of his life, doesn't mean he understands television. And that's the difference. One group knows how to produce television.

The other one gets to put together fantasy wrestling matches. I find it really interesting you say that in regards to this particular episode of Dynamite. because I think generally that's been a common criticism from you, a constructive criticism from you about AEW in terms of physically producing the show and stacking it and etc. I felt watching this, I tried to watch both shows as objectively clear cut as I could. I thought this particular edition of AEW

from a storytelling perspective and a show production format perspective, perspective, lined up with so much more of the things that you preach week to week here on this podcast about show structure and A story and B story. I thought this particular episode of Dynamite did much more of that than the NXT episode did. Not to say, I thought both were very fun and very different. But I find that interesting that you say that. Is there any particular reason what you would push back on in terms of,

flow and structure of this particular week's episode of dynamite it's easy when you're just looking at one at when you say you know they did a better job storytelling i'm sorry the storytelling should have taken place weeks ago and months ago they put together look they put together the hottest matches they could and showcased some of their top talent as best they could well but i think this came off this not to cut you up but this came these stories the The beats that we saw on Dynamite were related very much directly to the story beats that were laid down in the weeks prior. But the stories are the weak, what people who are the most ardent supporters of AEW, including those in it, in the company, what they refer to is a story is not a story. It's an excuse for a match.

The stories don't have the arc, the drama, the vote. vulnerability at the right point in time, the self-doubt at the right point in time. They don't have the ingredients that actually make a story. What's referred to is a story to justify a match. And what beats there are in an arc are, they're not compelling. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back.

That's a story. nobody's going to give a shit about it unless you make it a great love story and i i you know i'm just i'm almost tired of pointing it out because people only want to hear what they want to hear and formatting the show you know look they started off hot with bry they started off with they started off with a hot star what was the last time we saw brian danielsen in action see but i'm gonna go even further back then er because i think you're jumping oh oh whoa let me let me finish my thought please first please go ahead we saw brian danielsen that wasn't how the show started what did i miss you you missed a critical element of the story of the show which was christian cage with his cold open where he's in

the production truck and this was so different than anything a w's done it may be ever christian cage who's the a story character right now is in the production truck and he's running down what we're going to see on dynamite he says that he as the face of TNT has procured 30 minutes commercial free to start and later on tonight you're going to see his best friend Luchisoris beat Adam Copeland and prove why Christian's the father of A.W. The daddy of age of a show or a pre-show. No, that was literally how the show opened up. I must, I must my my tape must have started a few seconds. Oh, your DVR was off, huh? No, my son might have been. But by the way,

I watched it on Sling. I recorded it on Sling. So I'll have to go back and look at it again. I hope that doesn't count a same-day viewership, Eric. We wouldn't want that to cause any problems there with viewership counting. No, but that's what I love because I was like, man, this is such a great way to set the pace for what the A story is going to be for this show. And you have this central character to it, and it's going to be paid off later.

We'll get into that, all that. So, okay, I'm sorry. I didn't want to interrupt, but that was why. No, you should have interrupted because that's a critical point. I'm glad you pointed it out. And my apologies for missing that. I'm going to have to go back and figure out how or why I missed it. But when I jumped in, it was for my Danielson's match.

And I was excited to see that because as I've, anybody that's watched Nitro knows, whenever possible, more often than that, I like to start out hot and end hot. And what you just described was a great way of setting up that particular. particular match, an important match, an A story. Clearly, it wasn't very effective, but it was a good start. And I think starting out with someone like Brian De Anderson, who is across the board with WW fans, as well as now AEW fans, is a very popular performer. But again, as someone who doesn't watch Dynamite regularly, clearly, nor NXT for the record. one of point nine hd for the record this was a special occasion for me much to the

chagrin of my wife by the way before i go any further i want to shout out dylan leahy amy vaughan thank you welcome to the testicle festival michael quade adam o'neill brian harmon brian how are you man great to see all of you here if there's more i'll get to you but i look i think they did a better job of starting of formatting the show but it's still the stories but what what you and a lot of the AW fans call stories are just not great stories. They're not compelling stories. They're just not.

It's one of the reasons why. I'm not trying to carry anyone's water here. It's just, I think that right now you had, unfortunately, the whole MJF Adam Cole story is taking a bunch of detours because of the

injuries suffered by Adam Cole and they're trying to figure that one out on the fly. That happens, right? That's part the wrestling. People get hurt. That's life. Exactly. I think that this Christian Cage, Adam Copeland's story is very much one of the more compelling stories that they're

telling. They laid the groundwork fantastically last week. And then throughout the course of this episode, it was revisited three different times. Like that, and that's not a story of, oh, we're just building to a match. That's a story about brotherhood, about family, and about trying to end their last chapters. Betrayal. Yes. I get it. Potentially, yes.

Betrayal, right. I would argue that it's not necessarily compelling enough. Last week's ratings didn't reflect it. This week's ratings certainly didn't reflect it. So let's be careful about how compelling we want to rate a story when the results of said story are not reflected in audience. I mean, I like it. I'm not criticizing. I like the idea of it. the premise thus far is a good, solid premise from which one could craft a great story. And we'll find out if they do. That's, that's my, my point is not whether it's a good story or a bad story. My point is rather, it's not a story that's based on who's better or we're building to this match.

Right. There's, there's actual elemental stakes here of things that go beyond the wrestling ring. We'll see. We'll see. groundwork wise it has been late as such um i i think the hangman page and swerve story is about swerve trying to prove that he's a man of the culture who has kind of been held back by the system and he's trying to climb the ranks to prove that an african-american man can achieve great things and he has felt that he's been a victim of the system and everything and then

simultaneously hangman page is saying that his intentions are misguarded misguided rather i i think that's and that's that's interesting but again subjectivity i want to get into breaking down this actual show here uh because i have the head-to-heads courtesy of our friends over at wrestlenomics and brandon thurston who does such a great job where we can actually see the segments head to head eric i saw a great comment or at least i thought it was a very interesting comment from sp3 who's a per wrestling commentator out there and he said that nxte felt like an all-star game whereas dynamite this week felt a little more like a playoff game where they're trying to further something whereas NXT was

we're going to throw all these big stars at you and try to build as compelling of the TV show out there when you look at this lineup of stars here across that NXT board did you get a feeling at all that this was let's throw everything that we can here and look at again all of the the gnashing of teeth that's transpiring as we record this from AEW fans, you know, it's all going to go, yeah, but they had to load it up. Let's be honest about this stuff.

Cody Rhodes, John Sino, Undertaker, Paul Heyman. Did they wrestle? They didn't. And on the other side, you've got Brian Downson, former WWE, Chris Jericho, former WWE, big stars, big stars. Sure. Adam Copeland, fresh off of WWE, major star. His first match. his first man forever so you've got a lot of the eight excuse me wwee former talent in the ring

actually performing whereas on the next episode yes they showed up and they made it appearance but that's not the same thing as wrestling so they brought them in as window dressing they brought them in as supporting cast members but they didn't make them stars they were already stars that showed up to the party versus the stars, the former WWE stars that are now in, and dynamite, are actually in the ring engaged in what they refer to as a story. So I think those who make too much out of the fact that they loaded it up, yes, they did. They loaded it up because for probably two reasons. One is, as they have been doing in the weeks prior to this episode, they're positioning for a new home they're entering into rights negotiations yeah and they're going to do whatever they can do

to get those numbers as high as they can as they're going into those negotiations that is not unique that's just business and it's been going on for a while do i think that they went the extra mile because of the head-to-head thing sure anybody would have it's fun why not so i think people that are making the case for Yobud, next would have been able to do it if they hadn't brought in all their heavyweight stars? I don't know that I agree with that. Do I think that they would have trounced,

embarrassed, and humiliated AEW to the extent that they did with the numbers without stacking it? No, I don't. Do I think they still would have come out on top without all that? Yes, I do. Yeah, I mean, we have seen in recent weeks,

NXC has been doing good numbers. and they haven't needed all these stars to come over, but they've been using one or two every show, and it has been helping them. And, I mean, here's the way I look at it. If you've got these people at your disposal and you've got this great roster, why the hell not use them, right? Like, if you've got one of the greatest rosters ever assembled,

I don't care what TV show it is, use them. Like, they're at your disposal. That's a good way to draw eyes to your television program. I mean, I think it's kind of cool that Cody Road showed up on NXT. He's the most popular guy on your TV. show right now and let's get them on another brand the question becomes do all these cameos because that's essentially what they were their cameos does it stifle story did any of these cameos in your opinion further story on this episode of nxte not qualified to say yes or no simply because i don't know

what the stories have been okay in nxte so that would be stupid for me to do that okay i here's what i do believe though i believe that every one of the talents that we saw in that ring benefited from the rub you know that's a term that people have been hearing now for decades right you're you're in the you're in the ring with the undertaker you've got a segment backstage with paul haman you're you're in a bit of an angle with john sina with physicality One of those stars benefited those young talents. They're not stars yet. This is still the C-show.

This is still the developmental roster, folks. And every one of them benefited from their interactions with that top talent that came in from WWE as a cameo appearances, every one of them. Some more than others. Brom Breaker really did, really did. if he's in nxte a month from now i'm going to be shocked anyone other than braun break or stand out to you on the show uh you know i didn't take notes watching these shows i just watched them um because if i start taking notes i'm missing shit like obviously i missed cages open um names are going to escape me but

i love the first woman's match in nxte like that was tight those those those ones women were awesome it was oska and roxan perez right i you tell me awesome well i mean oska's a main roster talent she came down there for uh roxan prez she's stellar man you i mean she's going to be a star of the future for w we she's just a really excited i mean i she's a she's a booker tree a booker t trainee well kudos to booker team there you go and and the team at the performance center because she's tight i don't know how good she is, you know, with a mic in her hand, but for a developmental talent to be able to perform at that level under that pressure, she's going places.

Those ladies were cooking, Eric Bischoff, and we want to have you cooking this fall, too, by the way, with our friends over at Hello Fresh, proud sponsor of this week's edition of Strictly Business. I know this year, the fall. season. It came upon us very, very quickly. Eric, believe it or not, in like a month and a half, Thanksgiving's here. And you want to be stocked up and ready for the fall season, especially when those holidays start to roll around. Well, with Hello Fresh, you get Farm Fresh pre-Portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. You can skip trips to the grocery store, count on Hello Fresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable. And that's why

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but I'm far more interested in, nutrition and in freshness and flavor that I am in convenience. So when we first got the product delivered to us before we started promoting it, I was asked, I had to fill out a little questionnaire, and I was asked by the folks that fell hello fresh, what kind of food packages I was interested in. I noticed they had one for people who are on a keto diet. Now, I am not 100% strict every day with a keto diet

approach. I'm probably about 80% of the time. I feel better eating that way. I'm not necessarily too worried about my weight or anything right now, but I just love to feel good. And I know that when I'm on my keto diet plan, I feel better. I have more energy. I have more focus. So when I saw that, wow, I even have that as an option. That's interesting to me. So they piqued my interest with the very fact that I could specialize the types of foods that I wanted to deliver to the home. When we finally got our first package, in fact, Laura and I had been on a trip somewhere. We had gone for a while, and we were pulling into the driveway. It was late in the evening, late in the afternoon, early evening, and we were both exhausted. And I saw the box sitting

in front of our door. It had just been delivered. And I thought, well, this is as good a time as any to try it because neither one of us felt like making dinner. And I opened it up, took a look at it. first thing I do is read the ingredients and while this is impressive and then we prepared our meals and the flavor was phenomenal it is high quality nutritious food you can tailor it to your specific diet or tastes and i'm i'm blown away by it is a great product it's a great service i love it yeah i love that if you're a visual learner hello fresh spells it all out for you they give these graphic cards that literally show you step by step how to make these meals. I mean, it's foolproof, and they really are delicious.

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HelloFresh America's number one meal kit. Now, Eric, as that fantastic advertisement for our partners at HelloFresh was being delivered, we got the quarter hours for this AW-D dynamite versus N-X-T head. to head. And I'm going to throw them up right now for us here. So I know it may be a little tough for you to read if you are watching on the Strictly Business YouTube, which is, of course, the 83 weeks YouTube. But the highest viewership point for AEW was the beginning of the show, which was the Christian Cage promo and the Brian Danielson and Swerve match. Of course, you're getting lead-ins from there. And that was also the highest point for NXT. But there is an

interesting trend there if you're looking at the graphs. NXT did peak a couple other times. It came back up on the valley, whereas AW pretty much stayed, I guess it kind of valued and didn't really pop back up. NXT came back up primarily for the LA night appearance, who would have thought, given how popular he is right now, and then for the main event, which would also see the Undertaker appear. did get a little bit of a boost for the Adam Copeland main event.

But looking at those numbers there, Eric, and those trends. Does anything jump out to you? I know you said you don't care too much about quarters, but curious your thoughts. Well, if I'm reading this right, so NXT is obviously in the gray here. NXT is in the gold. Okay. I'm sorry, that's what I meant to say.

Yes. All right. So, NXT is in the gold. opened up with 991 they ended up with 960 yes had a 958 in the break correct it's pretty consistent pretty damn consistent you look at the opening for dynamite what do we see what's the number john 731 what they end up with 6.06. So how effective was that open

with Christian? The idea of starting out your show hot, the idea of planting that seed and nurturing it throughout the episode is so that you end up with a higher rating at the end of the show than you opened up with.

That's the goal. I mean, it was like a 30 second opening. It wasn't like this long 10 minute promo. Oh, okay. Now all of a sudden it's not. No, no, I'm just saying. I'm not saying. Oh, now I miss 30 seconds.

Okay. But you, no, no, you laugh and I'm not making a joke here or not busting your balls. But if you're going to open up the show with something, the idea is not just to check the box and say, oh, this is what's going to happen. It's to do it in a compelling way that will hopefully build throughout the hour so that your main event delivers big. Now, you could argue that in the case of NXT, they opened up. with a 991 and they dropped to a 960, but the 960 is the biggest number they had after the open. Keep in mind, when a show starts, you have a certain amount of residual audience that's going to come with you as a result of what was on for a brief period of time. It is not unusual

for a show to open up, especially a wrestling show, right? Because the wrestling audience is a very unique audience and your lead-in is generally not going to matter at all. you can hope to hang on to as much of that lead-in as you can. But it is not unusual, especially if you've got a great lead-in, but it's not a lead-in for a wrestling audience. You're going to drop. And it's not unusual. But the fact that, you know, we're talking about how compelling the open was

and how unique it was and exciting it was to see them open up with Christian Cage talking about what's going to happen later on on the show. evidently the audience didn't really give a fuck they lost a lot that's a big that's a big dip so i'm a little surprised at that um nothing nIST open with a cody roads promo which so what i'm i'm curious so would you and this is me genuinely asking would you attribute that to caliber of star power then attribute that to star power and general interest. Going back, duplication of audience, Cody Rhodes opens up the show. Cody Rose, the dynamite audience loves them, the WWE audience loves them. Guess what? They're going to open up the show with Cody Rhodes. What do you think is going to

happen, of course? But it doesn't matter. The point, in terms of the point I'm making, the point I'm making is that open, did not sufficiently engage the audience to the extent that it served the purpose of building interest for the main event. Now, how could they have done that? This is, and honestly, I have the same, I think I have the same critique for WW, for NXT as well. But I would have done NXT a little differently. Okay.

I would have opened that, that first segment would have been much hotter. if I would have been on the team writing. It wouldn't have been this announcement by Cody. It would have been more than just verbiage. Okay. I would have had conflict. I would have had physicality that was going to be resolved in the main event.

And I would have revisited that story at least once, if not twice, throughout the two-hour window. Just talking about it on the front end of the show in establishing that something is going to happen isn't necessarily enough to sustain and increase of viewers' desire to see what's going to happen at the end. You can't just make the announcement and hope people will show up at the end.

You have to do something emotional. You have to do something that creates energy and interest. And what's that word? Anticipation. And sometimes just making an announcement, whether it's Christian Cage talking about what's going to happen tonight on dynamite or whether it's Cody Rhodes making a match is not sufficient to really build anticipation for a main event. So I think, and again, I'll have to go back because I didn't sit down and make notes. I literally watched the show like everybody else did.

But I think for both of NXT and AEW, I was a little, NXT in particular, I was a little disappointed in the Cody Road segment. Cody does an amazing job. Cody Rose is in a class all of his own. Totally. And getting better by the minute. I agree. But it wasn't enough to really make me want to stick around for the main event.

I mean, obviously I did for other reasons, but it was a seven on what could have been a 10. Yeah. In terms of what that segment should have, would have been designed to do for me it felt like it was a cameo for the sake of having a cameo there was nothing wrong with it per se it was absolutely nothing wrong with it but it they left a lot of they left a lot on the table yeah and and that was my biggest gripe with this nxc show which again i really did enjoy i like that i've kind of been on the nxc bandwagon

the past month or so i really have enjoyed the product and i think they're doing an excellent job i i just felt like this show this episode took a little bit of a veer to hit those cameos rather than focusing on furthering stories that nxc typically does a pretty good job at that that was my biggest gripe with the show but again looking at these comparisons of the segment by saying breakdowns i also want to say it's about quarters by the way guys a quarter hour breakdowns those are averages of the quarter that does not mean that they peaked with that number in that corner that quarter they volleyed in that it's this average of what happened in that 15 minute time period within the hour so it doesn't read

quite as simply as it looks like it does but looking at these head to heads here i find it fascinating that the shows aren't structured terribly differently you see matches happening at the same time. You see a lot of promos happening at the same time with one another. Is there a tried and true formula to how you go about stacking promos versus matches? That's me, again, genuinely asking you that. No, I mean, there's not a, there's not a template. You know, every show's different. Every show has different action. Every show has different stars. Every show has different story. So it depends. I love this question from, or this comment. from Darren Stanley, though.

And three stories, A-B-S-C, the A-Story has to pop each act. Eric is so very correct. One of the things that I did in T&A, which drove Vince Rousseau crazy, is pretty much in working with Biocom, spike television at the time and the executives there, mandated that we create a show Bible once for every quarter. Every quarter had a show Bible that laid out, what's going to be our A story, what's going to be our B story,

what's going to be our C story? And then we went on to D and then subsequent miscellaneous stories underneath, which is your younger talent that you're trying to develop. One of the reasons for creating an A, B, C story is not only to kind of keep everybody's head in the game and realize who's most important in any particular quarter or going into a pay-per-view, whatever, but it's to dedicate the amount of television time. So if your A story is John Alba versus Eric Bischoff, and you've got 60 minutes for a television show, I want to make sure that I allocate a certain percentage, the largest percentage of my television program time to that story. Now, it doesn't mean it has to come in a way of a match necessarily, but whether it's vignettes, whether it's on-the-fly interviews, whether it's backstage interviews, whether it's an in-ring confrontation, whatever it is, That A story deserves and needs the largest percentage of television time in that format. Your B story gets the second most amount of time. Your C story gets the third most amount of time and so forth.

But if you don't look at your A story and commit to your A story and creatively, not just checking the box, dedicate compelling television time to help build that story. This is kind of going back to the opening segment and segment of the quarter hours I was referring to. Neither show, in my opinion, did an adequate job, a great job. Maybe adequate is a good word. They did an adequate job, but not a great job of building anticipation to the main event. That's where they both left a little bit of meat, you know, NFC left a little bit of meat on the bone. AEW clearly left a lot more. And that's so nuanced and it's different with every show.

There is no one-size-fits-all template. It's interesting because I felt watching the A.W. show that there was quite a bit of effort made into building towards the event. You had the Christian promo. The Christian promo doesn't just mention the Lutosaurus Adam Copeland match. It also mentions the match that is to follow it, which is Brian. Danielson versus swerve where the winner of that match is going to get a shot at christian cage uh that becomes relevant to the storytelling of the hangman page or of the swerve versus brian danelson match we see brian danielsen get the win after hangman page becomes part of that

then later in the night where edge picks up the win furthering the conflict between luchessaurus and christian that is slowly building brian danielsen comes out later to make the save setting up their match that was established earlier in the show for next week established not compelling just check the box there's no emotion in it that's the that's and that's and i'm not doing a good job articulating this the art in producing television isn't just getting it down on paper and checking the box that's a fucking cake recipe you're creating a motion and announcing a match, and the winner of this match gets this.

Okay, you check the box. I've got my flour in. I've got my eggs in the bowl. But it's not compelling. You have to find a way, and this is where the creative comes into wrestling. Creative, meaning you have to find a creative, unique, compelling way to get that information.

across you can't just announce it announcing it doesn't create emotion and that's that's the point i've been trying to make yes you can announce you can lay it all on on format you can okay this is great we've got an interview here they've got an interview here but if it's not compelling if the audience doesn't care it doesn't matter don't disagree with you i mean you need that's any storytelling right you need some exactly compelling form of action in order to leverage that into the audience caring it it wasn't as simple as oh the winner of this match gets to face me i mean it was more than christian cage talked more about that but you're not wrong i i don't disagree again my role here

on the show is to play devil's advocate a lot of time no no and i'm not i'm not arguing with you I'm arguing you with the thought process. Right. The, the, your, your process is much like, you know, people who are wrestling fans that have never produced a wrestling show. That's not, there's nothing wrong with that. Not every one of us at watch wrestling can have the advantage of having produced wrestling and haven't had a tremendous amount of success and a tremendous amount of failure and learning from all of the above. That's the process, right? That's where you learn and that's where you begin to understand the nuances of putting,

together a wrestling show which is far more complicated and difficult than a lot of people in the television industry even recognize sure until they do it or they're exposed to it but derrick derrick from ad free shows once to know is there anyone in the wrestling world that eric would be making a call to if you were tony con to come in and help structure the shows better is there someone in a w already i think tony's beyond help i don't think tony con is the type of person that wants help I think Tony Con more than anything else wants to be Paul Heyman

or wants to be Vince McMahon he this is a this is a this is a it's a vanity project he loves wrestling okay I get he loves wrestling

he loves it he loves it with every fiber of his being doesn't mean he's good at it and until and unless Tony recognizes that he's not good at it, you could bring in anybody you wanted to. And it won't work because he won't listen, not to the extent that he needs to. I wouldn't wish that position on anybody that I know.

Absolutely not. Until unless Tony or an executive at Turner, because at some point, we're going to talk about this in just a few, minutes, I think, sometime during the show. But at some point, there's got to be a network executive that's in charge of overseas the AEW product. It's got to get on the ball because some of the stuff, like I said, this is a weird storm. You've got Tony Conno who knows nothing about producing television. I don't care how much of a wrestling fan he is. He doesn't

know anything about producing television. And you've got a network now in order of discovery. that doesn't know anything about the wrestling business. So you've got a TV producer that doesn't know anything about television and a television network that doesn't know anything about wrestling. How do you think that's going to end up? Eventually, especially if Warner has a stake, at 30% stake, as you and I have both heard, to be true. We don't know for a fact.

There's no smoking gun. But I believe it. A lot of people do believe it, those who are a little closer to the epicenter what's going on. And at some point, somebody's going to have to go, you know, this is not such a great idea the way we're doing it. Let's take a look at it. But until that happens or until Tony recognizes it just sucks at this, there's, there's not going to be any changes. And I certainly wouldn't recommend anybody to go work there. So you're saying it's okay to ask for help. It's better than okay. It's insane not to for anybody, not just for Tony Conn.

For anybody, you want to surround yourself with people who are smarter and better than you are. That's the art. That's the art of building a great business, is to surround yourself with people who, in some cases, have more talent than you do in the areas that you don't have enough talent so that you can move forward in the positive direction. The art is in surrounding yourself with quality of people, not necessarily trying to do it all yourself. Well, I ask because if you need some help down there below the belt, Eric Bischoff, you know that our friends have got you covered because this episode of Strictly Business is brought to you by Manscaped who has taken a step up from Bollowene to bring your face the cleanest shave it's ever seen.

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It was delivered to me, and I opened it up last night and looked at it. I don't know what the product name is. I think it's because I always get them mixed up. I believe you got the handy because I got the handyman delivered to me and it's awesome. Yeah, I haven't used it yet. It's still in the box. And I'm going to look at this beard this morning when I was brushing my teeth and I go, damn, Mrs. B is going to want that thing gone.

So I'm going to give it a try here probably tonight or tomorrow morning. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Manscape products are great. Yeah. just freaking great they are and you know now that i'm back in the tv realm which by the way my association with you have it's given me quite a few streetcret points so i appreciate the little rub that you've given me on that front there's a lot of marks there in the production room at s n y and they love themselves some easy e and now i can tell them that he's using

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to say in long form. But for those who may have missed it, Juice Robinson, part of Bullet Club Gold, was cutting a promo on MJF and he took out a roll of quarters. Now, if you're familiar with Juice Robinson. This is not unfamiliar. He uses all of quarters as weapons with his hand. And that's been happening for decades. Decades. One of my favorite matches involving creating a Nick Bockelingold. It's been going on since the beginning of wrestling time. Yes. Now, with that said, you may recall, MJF, about a month, month and a half ago, told a pretty sincere story in one of his promos about being heckled as a young Jewish boy and having quarters thrown at him. And it was a pretty compelling heartfelt promo from him. And this role

of quarters that Juice Robinson said that he had in store for Max had his name on it, had Friedman on it. And this comes, of course, just a few days after these, this tragic loss of life that we saw in Israel, and a pretty highly emotionally charged situation. I'm not Jewish. I don't feel I have any place to speak on how anyone should feel about this particular stuff, but I know it was something that you asked. I don't think one has to be Jewish to have an opinion. No, no, I'm saying on how it should make you feel, not the events. I'm saying how this particular promo made someone feel. I don't feel I'm at place to speak about that, but do you have any thoughts on the presentation of the this have what any of the fallout from this yeah i'm gonna a couple disclaimers here number one i i

think very highly of mjf i don't know him real well as a person but the the limited time that i've spent with him in person and the interactions that i continue to have with him um direct mail or texts I think very highly of him, MJF. I think the world of him as a talent. I don't know him well enough as a person, but I think the world of him as a talent. I think we're just seeing the surface or the tip of the iceberg

of what MJF can be as a talent. I love watching him. I love listening to his promos. I love the fact that he embraces heat. There's so many things that I really truly respect and admire about MJF as a professional. But MJF is young. MJF has never been in the television business. And while I understand, and I read his, I read what MJF posted,

and I encourage everybody to do so because it's his perspective. But there's judgment involved. and I think the judgment to showcase that angle while what is going on is going, which is unprecedented, by the way, we've never seen in real time images. I'm not even going to mention them here. We all know what they are. this has never happened and the judgment to use anti-Semitism as the premise for a story under these circumstances reflects a lack of judgment both on MJF's part more importantly on

Tony Kahn's part, I cannot, it's part of the reason I'm half pissed off, you know, what I should be kind of celebrating in a way, not because NXT won and AEW loss. I really am not invested in that. I am invested in the business of the wrestling business. I feel like I have a perspective on it and the perspective that I had, you know, manifesting to as closely as it did to my prediction. Sure, that's fun, it feels good, but I'm genuinely disappointed and angry. And I think disappointed is a better word.

I'm not angry. But the lack of judgment on Tony Kahn's part, because he's the boss, it's his sandbox, it's his sand, it's his toys in the sandbox. And he's the head of creative, the president, the chairman of the board, whatever the fuck he is, to allow that while in real-time images that are as barbaric as anything I could have ever imagined seeing on television, and then use that anti-Semitism as a premise for an angle. Look, MJF, I get it, man.

If you want to talk, I probably won't want to talk after listening to this, but just the judgment is wrong. I get the motivation. I understand. I think I understand. I can't possibly understand it because I didn't live through it. But I understand and can relate to the intent, but intentions aren't enough. Judgment has to factor in. And I, I'm I'm shocked, and if there's a network executive at Warner Brothers Discovery whose job it is to oversee AW who allowed that to happen, I'm out. I have no interest in the product.

It's just, I don't get it. I really don't get it. Yeah, reading Max's post, and again, I encourage everyone. everyone to go out and read it on their own jurisdiction, but it seems like in his perspective, the story they're trying to tell is overcoming bullying, overcoming that stuff. But I do believe that the segment, regardless of what the intent was, kind of came off a little tone deaf, given this circumstance. A little tone deaf, John? Very, very tone deaf. Tone deaf is a nuance.

there's nothing tone deaf about this this was enough said yeah people can make up their own minds i'm not here preach brother i have my own personal feelings but yeah to me as a television producer as a television network i yeah beyond me yeah i was i was very surprised that made the air i was very surprised that made the air and um again i can't sit here and tell anyone how they should or shouldn't feel about it but uh it certainly was and on a larger scale and we've seen this before right using your television your wrestling platform as a platform to express your politics social commentary that's that's stupid no this is a wrestling show people watch it to have fun you're not going to change the world with your professional wrestling television show it's a let's get off it no um but uh you know

all things considered eric you know the the sad part about it was for me it took a lot away from what generally speaking was a very positive night for pro wrestling a lot of people watched pro wrestling a Tuesday night and that's a good thing in theory that should be a good thing even if you look at the year-to-year comparison the key demo was up more than point 10 of i saw the stat i think it was more than point 10 they did 0.44 combined last year on the same week and they did 0.56 this year so there's an improvement there more people what was general john i don't mean to interrupt you but what was the baseball game last night uh so last night there was a blowout game with the Astros, then the Rangers and the Orioles was also a blowout game. So it was not competitive

playoff baseball. Okay. So neither, neither game had much of it was. It was the start of the NHL season, which is why the preemption took place in the first place. Well, this whole week, I should say, is the preemption. And that should not be a factor. NHL is not necessarily a hot television property. So I wouldn't imagine that that's, I would assign a lot more of a competitive factor to the playoffs in major league baseball this time you than I went to the openings of the NHL season yeah so that was what they went against the playoff game I blowout both both games were blowout so I'm curious to see what the numbers are on that um but yeah I mean still all things considered an enjoyable

night of wrestling both shows were pretty damn good in my opinion I enjoyed both of them and I like I said when we open up the show I don't want to and they're showing up on a bad note. But I thought that the lead up, the build up into it, the energy, you know, it was just a, look, it was not Monday Night Wars. We're still talking about WWC show against AEWSA show, even though it was the deck was stacked and all that. It was a Tuesday night.

There's not a history between the two of competing head to head like that. But it was just a little sample, a little taste, a reminder. of some of the fun that we used to have when it was WWE versus WCW and that energy is what elevated the wrestling business and I think that energy to your point elevated the

demo. I think if it was something that was consistent and I'm not suggesting that AEW should do it because they are clearly unprepared and not capable but if they were to see that even if it was just on Tuesday nights would be just awesome

because it does engage the fans. It gets people to argue back and forth and compare notes and debate. And it just raises the level of energy and awareness. Well, we did have it. We had it on Wednesday nights. They were head to head for more than a year plus. Yeah, but it wasn't the same. Just didn't feel the same.

Maybe it was me. Maybe I wasn't engaged. So that's why I didn't feel the same. And primarily I wasn't engaged because it was their A roster versus a developmental roster. I'm sorry, you can't convince me that that's compelling or anything remotely close to a real war. It's more of a situation than it is a war. But this felt a little different, you know, because WWE was stacking the deck, because AEW and little Tony Kahn was running around calling people bald assholes and all that stuff. It just made it feel different to me and gave it more energy, which I kind of got a kick out of.

Did any of the tweets make you laugh? Well, Tony Kahn's made me laugh. Okay. I got a message for you. Bald asshole? Like, really? Are you a Kirby enthusiasm fan or no? I know.

That came from Curb Your Enthusiasm. He took that jiff from it. That is an all-time great show. One, you should go out of your way to watch for sure. that did pop me i'm not going to lie it did pop me do we have some questions here we want to get to before we have if any ad free shows members have any additional questions that they would like to throw out there um i would love to see them from we we got just some comments throughout the we got a lot of comments here but he said i agree with eric from my perspective is just christian

taking credit for the first 30 minutes without credits that didn't really advance the show talking about the opening there uh mike says eric is so smart when it comes to this we need me an AFS promotion and have Eric run it. Not happening. Who's the champion of the ad-free shows wrestling federation? Well, we'll have to, he's got to be, you know, I've got to be careful what I say here, but Coach Rosie, man, he's like, he's got to be the baby face of all baby faces. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. So a lot of love to coach Rosie. He's a big-time supporter of all the ad-free shows programs, and we appreciate him there. Here's one from Dylan just came in. What could pull the nose up on AW? get Tony away from booking question mark yeah Tony should Tony should Tony should find a way to find satisfaction in being the guy that put it all together and oversees it in its growth and handoff creative to somebody who knows what

the fuck they're doing when it comes to managing talent certainly creating the show producing television because he clearly doesn't have it and he's the mistakes that he's making, you know, it reminds me of, you know, one of the things that made me lose so much respect for Tony, almost two years ago to the day, I should pull up the post, but essentially it said if Ted Turner knew 1% about wrestling as I do, WCW would still be around. Let me tell you something, Tony Khan. If you knew one-half of 1% of what Ted Turner knows about producing television, you might not have got embarrassed the way you were embarrassed last night. Tony's so focused on being the next Paul Heyman or being the next Vince

McMahon or Paul Levick. That's what he's focused on and he needs to focus on the product, his product, not the WWE product. He needs to focus on his own product and he needs to find people who are more talented than he to take over creative. It's that simple. That would pull the nose up. He's got all the talent in the world. There's no problem with talent. He's so deep in talent.

It's hard to remember who he's got on his roster sometimes. They're like they're in a witness fucking protection program. And these are great talents. It's not a talent issue. It's a toy con issue. Until that changes, nothing else will. Brian wants to know the Twitter stuff from Tony hurt AEW

and turn fans away in Eric's opinion. I think it damages the brand overall because it's childish. It's not really very entertaining. It's not smart. It's like his show, not compelling. It's embarrassing, more than anything. It's embarrassing.

And I think fans are beginning. The goodwill, one of the things I talked about almost two years ago, when I went on a rant, similar to the one I'm on today, was Tony came in, AEW showed up, there was so much goodwill. There were so many people, including me, while I was working for WWE.

I was there. I watched their premiere episode from the WWE Writers' Room in Stanford, Connecticut, and I'm cheering them on. Because I knew, and I know, that competition like that can be really, really good if the competition is good. But there was so much goodwill.

Wrestling fans all over the world, really, were hungry for that alternative. WWE was pretty stale at the time. It was growing. The financials were great. Stock was off the charge. Everything was great. But the product itself was flat and stale.

And if you go back and listen to some of my criticisms before WWE hired me, during my tenure in WWE on the podcast and subsequently there was a sameness i used to talk about this all the time there's a sameness to the WWE product there was a sameness to the product where it felt like you were putting all of this great talent and everything else and production and all that you're putting it into this cookie dough machine and you were cranking out wwe cookies and every one of them while they were maybe a little different colored they all tasted the same.

Hell felt the same. It was the sameness to every single thing that you saw. And it created an appetite in me for an alternative product, much like it did the wrestling audience. So there was so much goodwill that has been blown, frankly, by spending so much time, especially early on, taking shots at WWE. When they weren't really competing, they weren't going head to head. But yet, there was this constant, you know, it went from Tony all the way down to some of the talent, many of whom, some of whom are friends of mine and I have respect for, but they're all taking their shots at Vince McMahon and WWE, Triple H, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And now this. And if you're going to, look, ironic coming for me, the guy that gave away their finishes, the guy that constantly called, you know, shit-stained Dave Meltzer came up with something. You know, you can't believe, you know, the call. Tony called out, you know, WWE and Eric did that. And then the WCW fell off the charts after that. No, dip shit. I started calling out WW.

I hired Lex Lugar out from underneath them and put them on my television. I was giving away their finishes. I was doing all kinds of in-your-face shit. But I was actually going head-to-head. Tony has been on the sidelines taking cheap shots. the talent taking cheap shots without having the guts to really go head to head and now that they finally have kind of sort of they got spanked that and then you add the silly tweets that tony con justified this is awesome chant who gives a fuck that's not going to get your product over

and it makes you look small so much of what we see from tony con and hear from Tony Kahn makes him look small. And that eventually chips away at the goodwill that you still have. And we're seeing it over the last six months or a year, largely because of the punk disaster. Once the audience starts losing their confidence in you, and I, trust me, I know what I'm talking about. It happened to me. I know from where I speak, once you start losing them and you start doing things out of desperation, you're starting to look smaller and smaller and smaller every week.

And that's what I see out of Tony's tweets and the silly shit that he does. Somebody should take his phone away from him, keep him away from a camera for God's sake. Somebody's got to love that man enough to tell him that he should not be. be in front of a camera because it doesn't do his brand any good it's not a criticism of him yes i know he's a wonderful human being he's a nice guy i believe that i'm not just saying that as a smart ass i believe he's a good human being and i believe he's a nice guy doesn't make him qualified to be in front of a camera but it's just sandbox this one from michael here what percentage of the a w audience do you think it's just people watching because it isn't wwe and i mean i'll i'll say this

real quick before you answer, Eric, I mean, that was, as Eric just alluded to, that was the point of AW's launch was to provide an alternative, provide something that isn't WWE. So I don't think there's a negativity that comes with that connotation per se, but I am curious where you thought,

what percentage of the audience do you think is people who don't watch WWE? Probably 25%. No more. No. Look, we've seen it. I mean, it's not just my opinion, because I just have a good feeling.

I guess maybe 25, maybe a little more. But look what happens to collision when they're up against a PLE. Fucking trounced. Look what happened last night. Look, I think last night, I think AEW did better than I thought they would. I told someone that I'm very close to

that I thought they would come in, that I thought they'd come in around 4 or 425. I didn't tell them I thought they would. I told them I wouldn't be surprised. But I think the energy that was created during the day, it's kind of like there's going to be a car wreck down on the corner of first and third. If you show up at 5 o'clock, you can see it. I think there was a car wreck kind of curiosity for both shows,

not just for EW, but I think that elevated the audience quite a bit. I don't think we'd sustain these kind of numbers over an extended period of time. If the schedule were such that AEW was going against NXT every Tuesday night, I don't see it. You wouldn't have the kind of excitement or interest that we had last night. Yeah. But I'd say 25, maybe 30%. I also think it was a perfect storm too in terms of shifting momentum because AEW had a lot of momentum end of 20. 21 or so. I think the whole creative change really whipped a lot of enthusiasm up for the

WWE product plus Cody coming in, super hot, how he did. And it was this perfect storm of one ship having all these things go right and the other things started to come down a bit, come down to Earth. And we are back at that disparity now as a result of that. Because I mean, I think AW really was making a lot of strong. rides for a period of time, just it was not able to sustain it, not strictly because of WW. There were a lot of AW's own misdoings that led to that as we've documented here on this podcast. I still think both programs are great. I think the beauty of wrestling, Eric, is that you can watch whatever you want to watch and enjoy whatever the hell you want to enjoy. I think that is one of

the coolest things about having all these options. There are people out there who hate WWE, who hate AW and NWA's their show they watch or impacts their show they watch or MLW is their show they watch. I think the ability to have all that choice is awesome. So, you know, I know we cover the business of the business here on this podcast, but, man, the more options and the fact that there is so many quality television programs out there to enjoy wrestling, as far as I say it, that's a good thing for everyone. you know that's just my perception well there's nothing wrong with that position yeah and again you know my my my and i know this shows and it's coming off way more negative than i wanted to and a lot of it has to do with some of the other subject material we've covered here but i think it's i was excited yesterday i had fun yesterday i had fun watching both shows

i love the idea of it i love the energy of it i love the back and forth whether i agree with something you say or somebody on Twitter says or or I don't agree with it doesn't fucking matter man it's energy I love the energy so whatever you feel strongly about have at it you know this show is about the business of the wrestling business and my perspective based on my 30 years in it and my success and my failure and everything in between and sometimes I know I come off harder and angrier than I should but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am passionate about the business you care absolutely be successful you care i know you do otherwise i'd be sitting here laughing about it yeah i know you

care man i i absolutely know you care uh we don't got to take a deep dive on it but i'll just ask you two quick news items and we'll wrap um we heard for multiple outlets seems like cmpunk to wwe is not happening anytime soon uh any thoughts on that no i mean you know not surprised but also wouldn't be surprised if that situation changes down the road you know we talked about it here i i still believe look is there equity is their value and and phil brooks as the character see him punk yes i do does w w we need him absolutely they don't but it's not it's not binary i mean i do they need him no but could he could he be an asset yes but i think the only way that could happen is if there was a and convincing that the baggage that comes with,

that has come in the past with Phil Brooks is going to be left somewhere else. And that brought into WWE. If Phil Brooks, the person, not calling him Phil Brooks out of disrespect, but if the person can convince the other person in WWE that's making that decision that the character of CM Punk could show up at the doorstep without all the baggage that comes with him,

I think there's a business to be had. And the other thing was we heard from your friend, Mike Johnson, a PW Insider this week, that Vince is essentially out of creative in WWE and that endeavor has tapped Paul Leveck as the guy who's, I believe the terminology was 99.9% in charge here. Any comments you'd like to add on that? Look, I respect the hell out of Vince McMahon professionally.

I don't think anybody can look at his... and what Vince McMahon has built over the decades, Tony Kahn wouldn't be doing what Tony Kahn is doing. You and I wouldn't be here talking about what happened last night if it weren't for the vision, the work, everything that went into the risks, everything that went into making WWE with WWEs. The WCW wouldn't have been around if it had not been

for Vince McMahon and WWE. That's a fact. That being said, I spent a cup of coffee there back in 2019. And I think that the decision that's been made, if it's true, I believe that it probably is, is a great decision, not because I don't think Vince McMahon is capable or is valuable and creative, but you can't have two generals fighting at the same war. You've got to have a leader. You've got to have the buck stop with someone.

And having someone, especially someone like Vince McMahon, who is the 1,600-pound gorilla. Fuck that 800-pound gorilla. They're easy to deal with. You got a 1,600-pound gorilla who's looking over your shoulder, and questioning and in some cases completely destroying things that you're wanting to do, you can't function that way. It's just not sustainable. And I think if that decision has been made, and if it's true, out of no disrespect to Vince, I think it was a great decision because it will allow Paul Levick and his team. It's not just Polovac. It's Paul Levick. It's Bruce

Pritchard. And it's Ed Koski. It's an amazing group of extraordinarily talented people, extraordinarily talented people who now are going to have the freedom and the confidence to move in a direction without knowing that the rug's going to get pulled out from underneath them at the last minute. Yeah. It's not great. That's not a great creative environment. The best ideas are not going to be born in that environment. Trust me, I can tell you from first-end experience. It's extraordinarily frustrating and demoralizing. And I think what we'll see going forward, if indeed it's true,

is a very energized, creative process. I think we've got a website over the last six months. I mean, well, you see, the last six months, I don't know, because they clearly were going back to a lot of incisisms. And by that, I mean, things were changing. up until the last second people who were being promoted not as much though not as it was happening but not as frequently well well it when i was there you could count out on happening of course of course of course but what i was going to say is i noticed in the last month things were changing

just based on who was on tv and i wasn't surprised to hear that uh this was a change that was made and it's good there's a lot of great talent out there bronson reed is a badass i love I love seeing him out there. I love seeing Johnny Gargano back on TV. Tegan Knox. I mean, it's exciting. So I can't wait you see Bronbreaker. I think there are two people that are going to just be the franchises for WWE.

It's going to be Bronbreaker. And it's going to be Carmelo Hayes. And I think the two of them will probably be up. Carmela gets beat the ring with the Undertaker last night. How cool is that? Oh, my God. I mean, both of them. I mean, the Undertaker does the arm raise with Carmelo Hayes.

He chokeslams Bronner. I mean, come on, how, could you just imagine how Carmelo felt? Yeah. Can you imagine that? I can. He's a spectacular talent, Carmelo Hayes. He is just going to be such a big star for them. I have no doubt.

And Brombreaker, he found his own as a heel, Eric. I really like him as a heel. I think the baby face stuff was fun where he was kind of wrecking people, but now, I mean, he's got an attitude and he's an assinger. He, you know, it's so funny, I was watching with Lori last night. And there's just enough of Rick Steiner. Yeah. And you can hear it in his voice.

I mean, there's speech pattern. You know, it's just, it was so cool. I was excited. He got up for that choke swam, too. I'll tell you that. He got some of hair. He's a big dude. He got some of it.

Did you see the Iron Claw trailer, the movie about the American arcs? I did not. I did not. Yeah. Go check that out. It looks fantastic. I saw a lot of chatter about it today on social. So I'll definitely check.

definitely go check that out we want you to check out advertise with eric.com my friends because that's how you're going to get on board with eric and i get your business out in front of thousands and thousands of listeners every single week here on 83 weeks dot com ad free shows dot com the 83 weeks youtube this is your place to be eric and i are rocking and roll with strictly business every single week here i believe this is genuinely one of the most informative and unique pro wrestling podcasts in the space in a space that's very hard to be unique in i believe strictly business is one of the most unique podcasts out there anything else you want to throw out there my friend no brother i'm feeling like it's time for a nice big salad and uh okay getting caught up on the news

unfortunately and uh i think i'm a chill and relax after this i'm gonna give you a quick out here okay i'm gonna i'm gonna see if you're up to the challenge i will drop this wager i will drop you having to buy me dinner if you sing happy birthday to tony con here as we end the show would you be willing to do that oh no this has been strictly business we will see you next time