83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #49: Ask Eric Anything!

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

In this edition of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff answers YOUR questions about the business of the business! How involved with WCW video games was Eric? Will Raw move from Monday night? And much more! Special thanks to this week's sponsors! WrestleCade - Check out WrestleCade Nov. 24-26 in Winston-Salem, NC! Get your tickets now at WrestleCade.com! BlueChew- Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code WRESTLEBIZ at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on Strictly Business. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with Strictly Business. #WWE #AEW #WCW Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson from Save WithConrad.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, hey, someday we'd like to, and one day it would be nice if, maybe it's the dream kitchen, maybe it's an in-ground pool. cave. But you've got this newfound equity and I think we should use some of that equity

to turn your house into your dream home with no money out of pocket. But even better than that, we're routinely helping folks do this and they wind up with a cheaper monthly payment. So if you got the dream house you always want with no money out of pocket and your payments went down, how easy is that? Find out how easy it is to turn your house into your dream home with no money out of pocket right now at save with conrad.com. We can't wait to hear about your projects. Tell us what your dream is. We're going to help you make it happen at save withconrad.com. NMLS number 65084 Equal Healthy Lender. Woo! How's it going, everyone? It's time for another edition of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff, presented to you by the ad-free shows network and podcast. I am John Alba, but I am not alone because I am joined at this time by the man of the hour. My co-host here on Strictly Business, the star you may say, Mr. Eric Bischoff, EZ, what's going on, brother? I'm loving that beard. I don't know if,

Mrs. B is, but I'm loving it. No, she's not. She's not at all. Once we finished our tour in the UK, I just kind of quit shaving and I brought it home with me, at least the start of it. I just haven't gotten around to shaving it off quite yet. But I suspect that I will soon because Mrs. B. is not a fan. Historically, has that been the track record?

Has she never been a fan of the facial hair? She's not a big fan. You know, she doesn't mind if I keep it a little scruffy and, you know, a little rough looking, but once it gets this long, she, she starts looking at me cross-size. She's not a fan of beard, with general. I think on me, it just, you know, adds age. So she's probably, oh, my God,

who is this old fucker I'm married to? Well, that old fucker is the star of strictly business. And I'm grateful to get to do this show with you every single week. And I'm very grateful, by the way, we got our ad-free shows family in here. We got Eric Green saying we get two times with Eric and one day, man, I must be living my life, right? We got Coach Rosie. What's up, Rosie? We got Andrew Miller. How you doing, Andrew? Good to have you in here. This is going

to be an ask Eric anything about the business of the business episode of Strictly Business and our ad-free shows family will be present to ask questions throughout the course of it. So you should be signing up for ad-freeshows.com, but that's not the only reason they should, Eric, because all the bonus content we have over on ad-free shows.com. Well, one of them is our premier series, and that is Ask Conrad. The Ask Conrad series just dropped its 60th

episode where you get to ask the podfather any question you want. Here is an exclusive clip from episode 60, and it's talking about how wrestling right now is hotter than it. Then Leahy says there have been two wrestling booms in

WB's history, the Golden Era, and the attitude era and Conrad's opinion, or are we going to look back at this current period of wrestling as the third big boom and really wrestling as a whole? Yes, we're in it right now. We're in the biggest boom of all right now. And I know the people would argue that and say less people are watching. That doesn't matter. What matters is how much money is coming in and they're more profitable doing bigger numbers

than ever before right now. We're in the boom right now. I'm going to ask you about that in one second, Eric, but I want to remind everyone you can catch all 60-plus episodes of Ask Conrad, plus other exclusive series like Lex Express with Lex Lugar, Tuesday with the Taskmaster with Kevin Sullivan, Monday Mailbag with Mike Keota and Nick Patrick, and much more only at and-freeshows.com. When you hear those comments from Conrad, let's throw aside numbers for a second,

because we know wrestling right now is incredibly profitable. Do you feel like we're in a boom period with wrestling? It's undeniable. When you look at where professional wrestling is within pop culture in terms of its distribution, you know, WWE is in 180 different countries in 30 different languages or 30 different countries in 180 different languages, something like that. When you just look at just the footprint of professional wrestling and the impact professional wrestling has had on pop culture, certainly since, really, since Vince took it national back in the early 80s, back at a time when Hulk Hogan was on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Arguably, that was a boom period. I think the Monday Night War era or Attitude Era, I call it the Nitro era, because Nitro is what was the catalyst for the Attitude Era in WW. It was their way of competing with WCW because Nitro was so hot. That could be considered, to many people, a boom period. I kind of look at those two periods, both when Vince took the product national and kind of took a sledgehammer to the old territory system. Some people can call that a boom period.

Some people like me would call it a pivotal period. It was pivotal to the growth in terms of where we are now, as was the Nitro era or Attitude era or Monday Night War era. whatever you want to call it. But I think it's undeniable. Just you have to look at the numbers. The numbers dictate the facts. And the facts are the numbers are bigger now than they've ever been.

Yeah. There's more revenue being generated. There's more distribution. The product is being accepted at a mainstream level, in ways here to four we've not seen. So, you know, you can have opinions and I get it. And there's no right or wrong answer. because so much of it, except for the numbers, are subjective.

But I agree with Conrad. Yeah. I definitely feel the same way, and I share that sentiment. I think it's an amazing time that we are witnessing in pro wrestling right now. So many things happening. I want to say something here real quick, Eric, just because last week we did a really big episode of this show, and there was a lot of chatter about it.

And I'm so grateful for the passionate fans that we have. business who really get so jazzed up about the discussions that we have on this podcast. But I do want to make one thing clear. There are going to be times on this podcast where Eric and I disagree on something that maybe one company does versus another does, or maybe Eric has a stance on something that, for example, AW is doing and I'll have a counterpoint to it. that doesn't necessarily mean that I disagree with the point that Eric is making or whatever is being said. A podcast relies on two-way conversation. And I think that what we've really

struck here, Eric, and I'm very proud of it, is we have these productive back and forths where we can nudge each other a little bit without crossing that line of disrespect. And I think that it's one of the great things about discourse where you can have positive productive conversation about these pretty granular topics to borrow a word from our friend Jeff Jared. And I know there will be times where it sounds like I'm defending AW or defending WW or defending WW or anything like that. But I think it's so important to have counterpoints to further discussion on podcasts. And I just wanted to put that out there because I see some of the comments we get. And the rest of wrestling fandom right now is so supercharged with how hot all these products are and uh yeah i just i want

put that out there into the ether because i know you're appreciative of the discourse that we have here and i hope our fans can appreciate that as well yeah i get real bored with talking to people who agree with everything i say or think the way i think that's not really interesting to me it's not challenging it doesn't challenge i don't challenge myself um which i need to do like we all do uh if if any of us are so committed to our positions or not willing to have a discussion and willing to be wrong about something, then fuck you. Go talk to somebody else. Don't talk to me. But up with you. I mean, who would want to hear two people just agree on everything, too? I mean, that doesn't serve a purpose for even having a show in that sense. And so when I see these comments like, oh, Conrad's an

AW Mark, John's an AW Mark or WW Mark, I'm saying to myself, man, you know, part of this productive discourse is to have counterpoints and challenge one another and it doesn't mean you're lockstep in disagreement or in agreement on everything but i think it's pivotal to have that in order to have quality conversation on these shows so um i fully fully agree fully some of the best shows that kinder and i have ever had are the ones when we just butt heads and go back and forth and argue our points and defend our positions and we get done doing the show and we hang up and talk about when we're going to get together and have a beer ladder right exactly it's all good it's all good i's all one comment one comment on ad free shows like man i think eric fucking hates john and i was just like

no i don't think he does i hope he doesn't so we uh we we had a great time in fresno a few months back hope we get to do that again we got more people from the ad free shows gang in here uh m nunley charter says hey everyone eric the beard completes the connery vibe okay i see it i see it i need to work on the accent i wish i could do a good sean connery accent but mouthpiece murphy's is what's going on gang um and i'm going to get to this one right here to kick us off on this ask eric because we actually just seconds ago eric got the dynamite viewership they did 901,000 viewers this week and one of the most heavily advertised segments for the show was this address to the fans from sting where he announced that come revolution 24 which will be

probably around march end of february he will be retiring and for good this time so coach Trosey wants to know, do you think the road to Stinks retirement will increase numbers for AEW? Hard to say. Depends what they do. What's the buildup look like? Is there a story leading into it? How much promotion does it get? How much attention does it get?

Remains to be seen. Do I think it can increase the numbers? Absolutely. I think it can. Do I think it will? Who knows? We'll find out. What are your thoughts on the Sting retirement?

I'm happy. for them you know i think anytime somebody that's been in the public eye and in a career like professional wrestling in particular uh has an opportunity to kind of end their career the way they want to under their own terms um that's always a great thing so i'm i'm happy i'm happy for stewarden i'm happy for the fans who've been a fan of the character sting for god how many years now 40 28 never it's been a long long time um i'm happy for the fans and and hope that it plays out really, really well so that when it's all over and said and done and Steve Borg is sitting on a rocking chair somewhere in Dallas, Texas, watching the

sunset, we can look back on this part of his career and smile because that's what it's all about. Yeah, I think it's amazing that he got this run here after his WW retirement. His WW run didn't end on his terms. It ended in an injury, and he ended up getting a chance to go out here and have some fun in AEW, and I think he's done a really great job at that. there anyone hypothetically speaking in your mind that you'd love to see as his final opponent i was thinking about that this morning actually i the natural story says darby allen but i'm

curious if there's anyone else that comes to mind for you well there is but it'll never happen nor do i think it should happen but it would be cool if it would or could i'd love to see him i'd love to see he and rick oh wow okay i mean that's man that's a full circle scenario right there that was not a name i was expecting to hear rick flare's the guy that actually puts sting on the map and i think it would be just an awesome and again i fully recognize that it's i should never say never say never but highly unlikely is it probably is that it would ever happen if it were possible wouldn't that be awesome anyone on the active a w roster come to mind no no i'll tell you it's not to say that you know darby ellen couldn't be a good choice or

there there could be other good choices again depending on the story yeah but it's not that there isn't anybody there that would be you know a great candidate it's just that the best candidate i think would be rick flair yeah but i'm i'm sure there are others you know there's obviously there's a potential in darby allen um there could be a great story there i don't know what it is off the top of my head but i'm sure there could be one If Max was a heel at that point, I think MJF versus Sting and a title versus career match would be a hell of a way for him to go out. I think that you're really, and Max is the type of guy who could give him a great last match. I'd love to see something like that, but we'll see where they are positioned at that time.

Let's go to Brad Stanton saying, Eric, do you think it's smart, it's a smart business move for organizations like AW and Impact to allow their talent to work the Indies and other promotions. I wouldn't do it. Where's the benefit other than to the talent and to the indie promoter? Where's the benefit? Where's the risk? I guess you could probably, if you dig deep enough and hard enough and you wanted to justify your position badly, you could come up with a benefit. Maybe because you're supporting the indie scene and some, you know,

building some loyalty and following, you know, following. in a following within the independent audience. And that's not a bad argument. It's just the value of that argument is minimal, in my opinion. What's the risk? Well, the risk is somebody gets hurt on the NDC and takes them off your roster. I think that's probably happened in the past. I just don't see a scenario where the risks out, or excuse me, the benefits outweigh the risks.

I'll provide a counter here, and I'm curious what you think about it. Back in the late 90s, when WWE had the Funkin Dojo, and Dr. Tom was one of the head coaches there in Dory Funk, Jr., they used to have partnerships, WWE, with specific indies. There was a handful of them that they had partnerships with because they didn't have their own true developmental territory, where they would send their developmental talent or some low-level roster talent to go work on these approved indies.

they could get reps in. Now, AW impact, those companies don't have developmental systems. AW's got plenty of TV where they can throw dark matches out there, but they're not run house shows. Could there be a benefit to that with select approved indies and select approved talent, allowing them to maybe get some reps in front of crowds? Have you ever played golf? Of course. Are you good at it? I wouldn't say I'm particularly great. are you average at it and say i'm an average golfer as an average golfer would it take you would would you get any benefit from taking lessons from somebody who's less proficient in golf than

you that's a good point there's your answer there you go what are you going to learn on the indie scene how are you going to improve on the indie scene all you're going to do is learn a bad golf swing and it becomes twice as difficult to unlearn a bad golf swing and unlearn bad habits that it takes to learn good ones or to learn a good golf swing. We got one from Aiden here. It's an interesting one. Do you think the American gladiators in early 90s affected wrestling?

They were a similar genre, ran same aren't same aren't at the same demographic. WWE and WCW had worse years in the early 90s when American gladiators had their best years, and they finished up just as Nitro started. Yeah, that's a great question and a great observation. And I just watched, I think it was on Netflix, there's a series about the American Gladiators, which I found fascinating, by the way.

I remember when I first came to WCW, there was a tremendous amount of conversation internally about how wrestling was never going up, because you've got to remember, WWE was on a real down swing that was at the peak of the steroid trials and the television ratings were suffering the house show business for wwee was suffering the business was on a general downturn and wcw was they'd never experienced an upturn so they were in the toilet to begin with so there was

the consensus by from a lot of people and i'm talking about executives within turn or not necessarily people within wcw although there were many of them as well that felt like oh man wrestling just, it's never going to come back because there's this new thing, American gladiators and it's high production values and it's physical and their characters, blah, blah, blah, blah. It had many of the elements, some of the elements of professional wrestling, but it was in a much more updated kind of format. So I think for maybe a period of time, perhaps, I wasn't involved in the business of the wrestling business at the time. I was a mere talent. And I'm, guessing that from an ad sales perspective there might have been some people who perhaps were looking

at professional wrestling that went oh wait a minute there's this other thing over here called american gladiators and it's way cooler and it's easier for people to to identify with wrestling's a little harder it was and still is in many respects a niche product but i think at that time perhaps it impacted the the syndication portion of the industry because syndication was still a very vital part of the television distribution business of the wrestling business at that time. And syndication was a big part of the American Gladiator's strategy. So I'm sure it affected syndication, which eventually, or down the line would have impacted ad sales and distribution. So I think it probably did, but it's hard for me to say because,

like I said, I wasn't in the business of the business. I was a mere talent. And oftentimes, and I talked about this earlier today this is going to go up the ass of a lot of talents out there and many of them are friends of mine and sorry guys facts are facts talent lives in a bubble and with a very small very small handful of exceptions talent never gets near the actual business of the wrestling business their life is what goes on in some of that wrestling ring. They're affected by the business of the wrestling business and they hear about it, but they're not engaged in it.

And as a result, for the most part, clueless. Just like wrestling executives who have never wrestled, really, although they understand it, they may have been exposed to what goes on in a wrestling and have a better understanding than the average fan, but unless you've been in the ring and done it, you don't really understand it. It's one of the reasons why I tend to be very, very careful

about criticizing or critiquing even in-ring action. I'll talk about what I like and I don't like as a matter of taste and subjective opinion, but for me to analyze a wrestling match, when I've never done it, I'm very careful about that. And that's one of the reasons why sometimes I hear people that are amazing wrestling talents and have achieved great things in the ring venture out and start pontificating about the business of the wrestling business. And it just makes me laugh because they're making asses of themselves for the most part, just like I would be if I were to start criticizing in ring work. Fair assessment there.

It's a great question, by the way, because America is a great question. I appreciate it very much. Was a phenomenon at the time. You mentioned, Eric, all those talent and you have so many friends that are talent. Well, why not congregate all those talent in the same place? Because you can do just that at WrestleMania, which is just around the corner a little over a month from now. You're going to be there. I'm going to be there.

It's going to be a great time. Russellcade weekend is a three-day family-friendly convention for fans of wrestling and sports entertainment. which brings together more than 125 of your favorite wrestling stars and personalities from all different airs, featuring live pro wrestling pay-per-views all three days, meet and greets with your favorite wrestling stars, question and answer panels, live wrestling podcast, costume contests, wrestling-related merchandise for sale, and a whole lot more. It's going down November 24th through the 26th, that is right after Thanksgiving at the Ben Convention Center in Winston, Salem, North Carolina.

Eric, you were there last year. I was there last year. Russellcade really is one of the best conventions out there. What are you most looking forward to about heading over there? You know, it's just always fun to meet fans. I'm going to bring, I want to have copies of my new book, Grateful there, along with copies of Controversy Creates Cash, so we may come up with some kind of special offer for ad-free shows.

Members and listeners of 83 weeks are strictly business. We haven't worked it out yet, but the books will be there. I'll be there. It'll be fun just, you know, talking to fans and seeing, you know, people that I haven't seen in a long time and hanging out with the folks I used to work with. I always look forward to that. You're going to be there. I'm going to be there representing ad-free shows.

And you're going to be able to check out a live version of my other podcast, The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy. We're going to be on stage that Friday night at 8.30 Eastern right after the GCW show. It's going to be a whole lot of fun. Tickets and more information can be found now at wrestlekade.com. Come say hi. We'd love to see you there. And a nice little treat after Thanksgiving.

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This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Let's continue now, Eric, with our questions from some of our favorite ad-free shows fans. We got one here from Adam. What are your thoughts on WWE now running banner ads during matches like soccer does with the sideline board? Does it detract from the matches? For instance, there was a serious feud between Ray and Domitinic and WWB was running images of cinnamon toast crunch while the two guys were in the ring trying to tell a story. It doesn't bother me. You know, I don't think it necessarily detracts from the story.

I understand why some people, because it's different, it's something new. The tendency of human nature is to resist anything that's new and different. we'll get used to it. I don't think it detracts. And look, you can look at it any way you want to, but it's business. And the better the businesses, the more wrestling you're going to see,

the better quality wrestling you're going to see, the more wrestling you're going to see. So you may not like it initially, but trust me, you'll get used to it, you'll get over it, just like picture within a picture and a lot of other things that happen in wrestling because the end of the day, man, you've got to survive.

You've got to make money. That's what this is all about. It's all about money. It is the business of the rest of business, if you will, baby. And if you can't get over that, then I don't know, go watch a YouTube show. It reminds me of when the NBA and Major League Baseball started putting some branding on their uniforms. Everyone's like, oh, my goodness, it's going to detract from everything. You're going to be so distracted by these advertisements.

on their jerseys and guess what you got like three games into the season and nobody cared after that it just it ultimately becomes so ingrained into the product and you don't even notice it after a while so uh i i agree with you on that one let's go to josh eisenberg here says if there is one professional athlete based on personality and charisma that you'd like to see transition into sports entertainment or pro wrestling who could move the needle and fill their pockets with cash who would it be in why i don't know Might have been an easier question to answer a couple years ago, but with what we've seen out of Logan Paul and Bad Bunny, how do you top that? I can't think of anybody off the top of my head that would come close, to be honest with

you. So I don't know. I'd have to think about that one overnight to be able to come up with anything that resembled a reasonable answer. What do you think of Logan Paul calling out Ray Mysterio for the United States championship after his boxing win? Is that like, you can't buy? better publicity than that a pros pro he fell into the pros pro category in that moment as far as

i'm concerned it was amazing i w w has been salivating at that a mass attention it was all over social media and it worked out because he won his boxing match so he gets to call out rame i didn't see that i heard it was a mess though right it was a mess it was indeed a cluster fuck yes it certainly was but but i mean that's It's just publicity that is so above and beyond. He really, for as controversial a figure he is, he has just been such a freaking pro with WWE. It's really impressive to see what he has become and now leveraging it.

And I think the thing, too, Eric, with this question in particular, the expectation now is if you're a celebrity coming in or an athlete coming in, you got to be able to go in some capacity that is the expectation the bar has been raised i i said that after bad bunny is like oh wow the good news is this celebrity who came in with a massive massive following from another form of entertainment i.e music stepped into a wrestling ring and set the bar so high that what other celebrity is going to want to follow that and then comes along you know logan paul of course but that's like Logan paul and bad bunny are in their own universe i know it's going to be a long time i think before we see another celebrity that comes into the ring with the kind of gravity that

those two have individually in terms of their following uh and come in and overdo liver in such a shocking way like who wants to follow that you're going to get shit out if you're a celebrity and come in and you don't deliver half of what those two delivered you're going to wish you didn't do it it's yeah amazing and and with the way that conditioning is for pro athletes now and how staunch it is i'd be surprised if we see that many active athletes try to well you won't see any their contracts prohibited exactly you're not going to see it you know the owners are not going to let the agents or something the days of the kevin green while he was an active member of the pittsburgh Steeler roster, the Carolina Panthers roster, those are, those days are gone, or

Dennis Rodman or Carl Malone, while they're active parts of their roster, those days are gone. You're not going to see that. You'll see guys that are retired, former athletes, but I don't think you're not going to see any for the same reason that we talked about earlier about, does it make any sense to have guys in your roster, you know, perform in the Indies? The risks outweigh the game. And when you're, if you're a pro team and you're investing 20, 30 and tens of millions of dollars a year guaranteeing contracts. And then during the offseason, your guys out there bouncing around a fucking wrestling ring, I don't see it.

I don't think it'll ever happen again. Pat McAfee is another one, of course, too, who's just been fantastic in that role. Was there ever someone, athlete specifically, maybe an NFL guy, an NBA guy that you wanted that you didn't get? No. No. No, I never sought anybody out. There was never anybody that there was never anyone. I went, oh, man, I wish we could get that guy.

No. It shocks me. Dion Sanders never tried to cross over into that because he is like a walking, talking pro wrestling pro. And what do you have the time? He was playing baseball. He's playing baseball and football. Yeah.

He said, my God. He had had to squeeze it in on his lunch break. Only man ever to hit a home run and score touchdown in the same week. How wild is that? just absolutely crazy let's go to david here what were the two or three best markets or cities you guys would run while winning the monday night war and conversely which were the most difficult to break into monetary wise oh hard to say for sure uh chicago was great during that period of time i just saw that was pretty good during that that period of time um east coast

was good, but it was a harder not to crack because WWE had for so many decades dominated that market. There was so much loyalty to the WWE product. It wasn't until later on 97, 98, that that market really started to open up for us. And of course, we were, you know, locked out of Madison Square Garden and we had, you know, we did do some shows at the Continental Airlines Arena and things like that, that were really good for us. But if I had to pick one, I would say Chicago, in terms of difficult, the West Coast markets were always more difficult for us. Again, until 97 and 98, when we became so hot,

but up until that point, late in our success, those were tough markets for us to crack. Because again, they were dominant WWE markets. The TBS footprint was not a very dominant footprint as far as the network goes on the West Coast. So that made it more difficult for us in those markets. Yeah. I remember when we did our live show in Fresno, we were trying to go through and see if WCW had any notable moments in Fresno.

And there were so few house shows even run in that general area, despite all the wrestling history that was in San Francisco. And we couldn't really find that much. So that all tracks and lines up. We got one from Andrew here. What form of merchandising do you feel is the most untapped or underutilized at the current time in pro wrestling? currently? Oh my God. I don't know, man. Is there anything that hasn't been tapped? I mean, I think WWE has done such a phenomenal job with their licensing over the last three decades. I can't see anything yet that I think has been untapped.

Again, that's something I have to give a lot more thought to. I can't. think of anything off the top of my head, mostly because, again, WWE has done such a phenomenal job, not just recently, but over the last 20, 30 years, their licensing division has done a phenomenal job. When you look at the number of licenses, some of these, I was talking to Halt a while back, and he had something like 600, and he's out of the, he's out of the picture. He's not even in the picture. It's something like 600 licenses in WWE. Don't quote me on that, but something astounding, some massive a number of licenses. And he's not even an active member of the roster.

So I don't think there's anything that's untapped. Some of it we don't see as much as possibly we might. But I don't know. I have to give that some thought. I feel like the most recent one they tried was the whole NFT endeavor and it didn't really work out. Yeah, but the NFT, that didn't work out for, it didn't work out for, blockchain took ship. The entire blockchain industry, which the NFT industry was built upon, just crashed a year or two ago. And there's a lot of businesses that were associated with blockchain.

A lot of video game companies that were really gearing up for that blockchain, really seeing how blockchain was going to be the future of the video game industry. One individual, I'm not going to drop his name right now because I don't think he'd appreciate it, who is very, very, very visible in that world. And it was extremely bullish on the whole NFT idea and thought that that was going to change everything. Super, super successful guy. Probably spent more money yesterday than I'll make in the next 10 years.

But that business completely crashed. But that was not because the idea was wrong. It was because the entire blockchain infrastructure. just crashed. Let's go to Tyler Brown. What did you think about the WCW video games back in the day? Did you ever play them? What was the strategy with the video games, Eric?

No, I never played them. I kind of was outside of the demo as they were emerging. It was never my thing to sit down and play video games. I've never been a video game. God, even, I think I've, I played Pong when it first came out because it was new and you could play it on your TV. And I might have dabbled an app for a minute. But after that minute or two, I kind of lost interest in it.

I've just never been interested in video games. In terms of strategy, I don't know that there was a real strategy other than let's try to get a deal and let's try to get the best deal we can. And the best deal we could get at the time was a, I think it was either an $8 or $10 million guarantee up front from EA Sports for a WCW video game license. So it's not that we weren't successful in it, but it was never something that I was familiar enough or passionate enough to interject myself into. It was an important part of our business. Don't get me wrong, but there were other people who were much more knowledgeable and much

weren't interested in that space than I was. I was interested in the business of the business, in the business of video games, but I wasn't interested in the product itself. So at the time, was it all that lucrative for you guys, or do you think that came as video games developed? Well, it came as, well, both, really.

Video games began to really emerge at about the same time that WCW was really beginning to have some great success, hence the EA sports guarantee. But up until that point, you know, WCW wasn't hot enough. Even if a video game business would have been, WCW wasn't a hot enough property to interest a video game company. But there was kind of a meeting of the minds, if you will,

meaning an intersection between the growth of video games in general and the growth of WCW that we were fortunate enough to take advantage of at one point in time but like i said it was never it was never high on my list of things to get done because it was it was an area of the business that i wasn't intimate with i think i've shown you this but a few months ago a friend of mine surprised me with this wcw versus nw world tour gameplay book and i'll tell you eric when i got my hands on this thing just seeing the nostalgia you would have thought that i popped a blue chew right beforehand because Boy, howdy, was I excited?

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von Boglian from ad-free shows who said if i'm allowed to court the bat i'm going to do it i could not have said it better myself if i butchered your name david i apologize but i love the comment we love all of our comments here on strictly business denobius what's going on brother good to see in here uh again guys if you got questions in you're live in the ad-free shows chat we would love to hear what you have to say this is one of the fantastic upsides of of being able to be part of our ad-free show's family. You get these recordings live and you can ask Eric in real time about them. Let's get one from Adam here.

How much does Eric believe moving from Raw is actually being discussed and would it hurt the show ratings-wise? I guess that means moving Monday. So moving Raw to a different day of the week. You know, it's always a challenge because you're brink. breaking a habit. You know, one of the things you do when you're creating a television brand or a property is you're trying to develop a habit with your audience to tune in. You want them to anticipate. You want them to make it a part of the regular viewing habit. And anytime you move

from your regular night, either voluntary or not voluntarily, it has a negative impact. Hard to measure sometimes and what makes it difficult to measure is because the wrestling audience is extremely loyal. Like fans of Raw, first of all, they're going to know well in advance when it's moving and where. So the odds that you're going to lose a significant part of your audience for any length of time is pretty minimal because of that loyalty. maybe initially because again people are slow to change their habits and it takes a little bit of effort to remember to program your DVR to remember to schedule you know your week around something that's changing nights if you like to watch it live so i think initially you're going to take a little bit of a hit i can't put a number on that i don't think anybody can it's there but it's minimal

but it's something that it doesn't take long. You know, we've seen it before, you know, shows have moved nights before. And, yeah, there's a bit of a hit, but it doesn't last long. And the audience will find you, especially the wrestling audience. Mondays are such an institution for wrestling. They have been for 30 years now. Should Monday and I move off Mondays, could you see anyone else trying to take advantage of that real estate? No.

No. Who's going to try? Well, like, hypothetically, again, hypotheticals here. Let's say raw move to Tuesday or Thursday. Could you see Turner, Warner, one of those discovery, wanting to move collision off Saturdays and into Monday? They may want to, but I don't ever see it happening. No.

I just, because now you've got how many months of football that you're up against? Yeah, but they're already up against. football not to the not they're not up against monday night football they're not but prime time cc football on saturdays is not all that far off okay i don't know i'm just sports guy you're the sports guy i'll i'll defer to your opinion i'm just hypothetically riffing here like i don't know it it to me it seems like habits are innate right and people know that Mondays are associated with two things, Monday night football, Monday night raw.

And there's that real estate that could be potentially sitting there. And would you be doing any worse than you're already doing on a Saturday night? We've already talked about how Saturday nights aren't super desirable in the first place. Well, let's, let's, how many, and I don't expect you to know, this is almost a rhetorical question. But in case somebody else out there knows, it's watching amongst the ad free show live audience, how many people watched SEC football last Saturday night? What was the total viewing audience? I can try to research that here real quick. Three million? Two million. Football audience.

Let's see. I get that pulled up here. So Saturday nights, NBC Sports, this is for their Big Ten covered Saturday nights, averaging 4.1 million viewers. How many people watch money? night football this past monday night twice that many football viewership let's see here they are doing much more than that they're doing about four times that what was the number for saturday night ternary night was a little over four million and monday night football those four times that they're doing about 16 million there's your answer yep I was just curious, just curious.

Isn't that a fun exercise? What is interesting too, Eric? Let's say, because all of this is entirely determined by who WWE partners up with for Monday Night Raw. Like hypothetically speaking, if Amazon purchases the rights to Monday Night Raw, it's not likely Monday Night Raw is going to be moving to Thursdays because they have Thursday night football on Amazon. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot? and put this new property against their own property. It doesn't seem like that would make any sense.

Would they stick it on Mondays and continue to run against the institution when they themselves have their own football rights? So then would they explore Tuesdays or Wednesday? It's really interesting because it is based on that first domino that falls of where do they land before you determine when do they land. I don't see Tuesday nights being an option. You've got NXT on Tuesday nights. I see Wednesday being an option.

I don't be Thursday. Friday we're already doing. maybe Friday's an option for what question you're going to do with SmackDown. I don't know. I think, you know, you can fantasy program a lot of different ways with a lot of different prospective players, but I kind of don't see it moving from Monday night, to be honest. Yeah. I'm sure there's discussions about it.

And I'm sure if the money was right, W.W.E would do it. But the money would have to be pretty spectacular. And the distribution partner, whether it be streaming or cable, would have to be fairly significant. Just keep in mind, you don't want to lose, even if the money's there, you don't want to lose audience because that audience is what's driving your premium live events and your licensing and your merchandising and your live events, your non-televised live events. So you've got to service that portion of your business as well. raw has been really struggling the past few weeks in terms of viewership they've had a few really bad viewership which is crazy because honestly i think the last month of monday night raw quality of programming wise has been some of the strongest episodes they've been putting on in a really long time i've really enjoyed the structure i guess that's subjective you know i think 1.5 1.4 1.5 1.6 million viewers head-to-head with monday night football with demos that are in the 0.4s and point fives i think 1.5s I don't see that as pretty miserable. I'm not saying it's miserable.

I'm saying they're down. I mean, it's unquestionable. They are down. They go down every year. Yeah. It's seasonal. Yeah. But I do think the product has been really, really good.

I love, I thought this past week's episode of Monday, Air Raw was really strong. I mean, Gunther and Bronson Reed just tore it the hell down. And you had a great angle in your main event to propel that story forward. Really, really good stuff. And again, you look at it from the business. aspect do you think anybody at USA Network is you think there's any gnashing of

teeth and ringing of hands in the USA Network when the numbers come in and they deliver a 1.5 million viewers with a 0.4 in the demo against Monday night football no when there's a lot of advertisers out there that just simply cannot afford or won't afford to advertise in Monday night football but can reach that demo that everybody's fighting for effectively and efficiently inside a Monday Night Raw, I think USA's pretty, I'll be shocked if USA lets it go, to be honest with you.

So you think you could see them trying to retain all three shows? I do. Okay. I can't. Okay. And I want to say straight up, I am not crapping on a 1.4 or anything like that. I'm just saying it is down,

but again, context against Monday Night Football. But to my point about the quality of the show, which I think has been the general consensus, is that it really hasn't proved quite a bit in the last month. A lot of that seemingly stemming from this report that we got last week, a PW Insider's first report and then Sports Illustrated gave a little more context that essentially Vince McMahon is out of creative.

And it is Paul Levick's show through and through as the chief content officer. And this change came from Ari Emanuel, who wants people in their positions to be doing exclusively their job. that also stemmed off of comments where Ari Emanuel was asked about the WWTCO stock coming down a bit and he mentioned that some of the stuff that Vince McMahon's been going through might be part of the reason for that. You have any thoughts on any of that, Eric? Yeah, I would refer people to Brandon Thurston's comments.

I saw it on Twitter. I think Brandon did a great job of putting these various reports into the proper contacts and really respect Brandon for doing a great job of covering things objectively and thoroughly and putting things in context rather than just grabbing headlines, which is what others tend to do often than not, in all forms of media, not just peripheral wrestling media. Look, I think having a very, very limited experience working in WWE creative with Vince, directly with Vince, while I was there, one of the things that frustrated me and was a challenge for me personally and let me be clear

you know my lack of success in wwe was on me it was my lack of ability to adapt my lack of ability to read the room so to speak and and find my comfort zone in that culture and in that process wasn't anybody else's fault but mine so i don't want to make it clear that but I'm not making excuses, okay? It's all on me. I was given the keys to the car. I just couldn't figure out how to drive it. I'm not talking about creating and coming up with ideas.

I'm talking about working within that process. Because it's a very unique process. And one of the things that made it challenging for me was not fully understanding where the responsibilities line. Ultimately, I was given certain responsibility. responsibilities, but the real responsibility remained with Vince McMahon. I think that filtered down to some of the people that I work with on my writing staff, for example, who were never really sure who the boss was. Well, actually, they knew that it was Vince

McMahon because they understood and had been through it before. But I think when you've got a creative team and staff that are walking on eggshells, and never quite sure who they're reporting to directly. And concerned with not the person that's their immediate boss, but concerned with the other boss that they know was really making the shot, calling the shots. It's just not a productive environment to be in. You don't get the best out of anybody in that environment.

And there were some people there that have been there for a long time. one person in particular that had a breakdown as a result of it. It's just not a healthy environment. Yeah. And I say that in all due respect to Vince McMahon, because in truth, you and I wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation today, were it not for Vince McMahon?

No doubt. AEW wouldn't be around today, were it not for Vince McMahon. No doubt. WCW would have never been around. where not for Vince McMahon. So people can be as critical and latch on to headlines and try to, you know, build stories around certain aspects of a statement

or take things out of context and try to build upon it to get clicks and whatever. I don't want to be one of them. You know, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Vince. That's not to say that I think everything that he did was right. I couldn't figure out a way to make it work. work for me. I couldn't figure out a way to contribute best for me in that environment. And I think there were other people that felt the same way. I think what Ari did was smart. I think it was time. I think Paul LeVec deserves to be that guy and to be held accountable. But along with being

accountable, you have to have control. You can't hold someone accountable without giving them control. I can't make you accountable for making sure my lawn is mowed if I don't let you on my property. That's a bad analogy, but I think you get my point. I think what Ari did was what any CEO or leader should do, which has put the very best people you can in the roles that they can optimize. I think that was the choice. That was a decision. I think it was the healthiest decision possible for WWE, for the creative team, and for the product overall.

I applaud the decision. But because I applaud it, it doesn't mean I have anything less than a tremendous amount of respect for what Ms. McMahon has accomplished over the last 40 years. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. I think you can have those two differing thoughts there. And I totally agree with you. I also bring up the fact that right now, WWE is in a negotiations period with, TV rights and licensing, and I would think financially, that's especially where Vince's focus probably should lay right now working with Nick Kahn to make sure that those things are

taken care of. And that's going to be a substantially significant portion of his time devoted to the job, I would have to imagine. Yeah, but what's he going to do when that's over? Well, let's those deals are done. Those deals are done. And it's like, oh, man. this is a guy that's got more energy than any four people I know what are you going to do with that guy when he starts bouncing off the walls because there's not enough to do oh yeah we'll see how much he takes up golf or something you know he just had that back surgery so I don't know if golf is going to be the best idea for

him but then take up sailing yeah some other shit take up laying at the beach yeah what would Vince McMahon's yacht be named oh God, I don't know. The genetic jackhammer? Yeah, it'd have to be something crazy. Okay, all right. Chad Epic says, what would Vince do? Be a billionaire.

There you go. No, he'd be a multi-billionaire. There's a difference. No doubt about that. This is a really good question from Ed. How do you quantify the payback on a wrestler's push? Bies on pay-per-views, social media mentions, live show, actions, somehow organizations have to recognize money to determine success and failures of angles.

I think it's all the above. It's all of the above. You know, you have certain indicators that are obvious ratings being one of them. Live gate attendants being another. Merchandise sales at live events, at televised events, pay-per-views, whatever, that being another one. The amount of press. outside of the wrestling press. You know, wrestling press matters, but in the big scheme of things, it's insignificant. But when you get mainstream press as a result, that matters.

The business-to-business side matters. You recently, I don't know if you saw it or not, but I noticed that they were positioning L.A. Knight in a business-to-business environment on behalf of WWE. those kind of things start to matter. When you have talent like John Cena was or Hulk Hogan certainly was, the Rock certainly was, that could go to business-to-business meetings, conventions that really mattered and could potentially move the near.

Your up-fronts, for example, which is a very, very important part of the business-to-business side of things. when you've got talent that has reached a certain level because of their push and positioning that you can then transition into representing your company in those critical business-to-business situations it's another good indicator it's why I think being the type of talent you know it's one of the reasons I'm excited about LA night

it's one of the reasons why I was such a I have so much a massive amount of respect for John Sina. It's why Hulk Hogan became Hulk Hogan. It was just as valuable on a business-to-business side of things. Back when syndication was critical, Hulk Hogan was a big part of that. Bring Hulk Hogan into a meeting with a general manager of a local station, be a network or independent,

that you really needed because you wanted to promote that market, that's a very valuable asset. And it becomes a return on your investment, not necessarily in a fungible way, but in an important way, nonetheless. I got a ton of questions here. We'll get a couple more in, and then we'll wrap up here on Strictly Business. We've got so many, but I got a ton here asking about this. I'm not sure if you've actually seen this. If you watched NXT last week, which I know you did, you probably saw the first vignette.

But the general says this one comes from J.M. Wagner. Have you seen how Brian Pillman Jr. is being packaged in NXT. The vignettes have Brian hating people talking about how great his dad was and how he wants to blaze his own trail on legacy, changing his name to Lexus King. Do you think this is a good way to repackage someone, or do you think it's just a WWB presentation, Eric? I like it. I really like it. I think it gives him the best shot possible to break through. I really, really do.

I was impressed. Very impressed. I'm going to see where it goes. I like it. Kind of helps you shed that stigma, too, that comes with being a second generation wrestler. Kevin, could you see WrestleMania doing two nights in two different countries? And I saw that on a social media.

I think I actually liked that, hoping that we would get that question here. Never thought about it before, but wouldn't that be wild? Yeah, he suggests one night from London, one night from New York. I love that idea. I know, again, there's logistics, there's all kinds of reasons why I'm sure if anybody pitched it inside at WWWE, there'd be people bouncing their head off any hard, sharp, painful object they could find.

Because accomplishing that would be really difficult. But wouldn't it be cool? I love that idea. It would be cool. Logistically a nightmare, but it would be very cool. There's no doubt about that. Let's get this last one in here and we'll wrap up. And we're trying to do these.

Ask Eric about the business episodes once a month. So keep those questions coming, guys. You've all been sending great questions in here. Scott to Trot, with AW attendance figures not being where they should be, is now the time to run shows and more unworthiness. Orthodox obscure and unique venues example Nitro debuts, spring break the crowd may be smaller, but atmosphere and TV presentation can stand out better Not a bad strategy, you know, I think before I Spend too much time developing that strategy

I'd be looking for ways just to change change the status quo and finding better ways to fill the arenas that I was in and I was booking, whatever that may be, that would be my first choice, but if I'm not able to accomplish that for whatever reason, then I think, yeah, you've got to start looking at your venues because, you know, you put 3,000, 4,000 people in a 15,000 person arena, and you can make it look pretty good on camera. You can camouflage it, but the energy isn't good. Here's what happens. This is a very subconscious thing. And it's, it becomes insidious. And you don't even realize it's happening until it's too late. But when you're a fan and you go to a show

and there's only you and what appears to be, even if there's three or four thousand people there, yeah, you're all kind of roped off into an area for TV, but you're looking around. and you're sitting in an empty arena. What looks like an empty arena from your perspective is you're sitting in your rope-down-off section, kind of makes you wonder, is this really worth my time? Why aren't there more people here? Especially when you see in WWE, they're selling out everywhere.

Other TV shows, at least, are the paper views. Premium live events, excuse me. But it can become an issue. you're not careful. And I think it's much better to have a small 3,000 people in a 4,000 seed arena than it is 4,000 people in a 15,000 seed arena. That makes sense. Everyone in the discourse has been mentioning when this topic comes up that AW ticket prices have gone through the roof over the course of the last year, as opposed to what they used to be. What would be the driver of ticket prices going up when the attendance numbers aren't specifically

matching that from your experience? I've never experienced it, so I don't know. We always tried to keep, even when Nitro was hot, we did raise our prices, but we were very cognizant to keep it as close to being family affordable as possible. I think raising prices too soon before you're really that hot. and pricing the average family, especially now, I mean, can you think of a worse time to raise prices than right now? Just about everybody I know is on the receiving end of bad economic news every day. You know, I talk to people who up until recently have had great jobs and making

great money that are getting their salaries cut, hours cut back, losing their jobs, being laid off. It's not a great time to raise prices and make wrestling, which has been traditionally family entertainment, unaffordable. Because it's not just the ticket price. It's now you've got to park. The experience. And now when you get there, you want something to drink or a hot dog or taco or whatever. Have you seen some of the prices? Now, I haven't been in a live event venue in a while. Probably the last time was a concert about, I don't know, two years ago. It's like a beer is 12 bucks. Yeah. It's a way, whoa, whoa. It's a good thing I'm not hungry. I'm just sure to catch a buzz and enjoy some music, but my God, it's kind of crazy. So, yeah, you raise your ticket prices

and you're trying to generate revenue, and I get that part. But you're also pricing some people who are your fan base out of the market. David says I still have like seven or eight nitro ticket stubs, and one in particular from Grand Rapids was like $25 for floor level. That's like $300 for AW, he says, which is $20. Yeah, and arguably AW is nowhere near as hot as nitro. Also, it's not apples to apples. the economy. Inflation is very different than it was back then.

Yeah, that $25 is probably more like $75 or $100 in today's money. Yeah, for sure. For sure. But good stuff. Good stuff. Always love these Ask Eric episodes. I know you love more than anything interacting with the fans here on Strictly Business in 83 weeks. And I'm grateful for every chance I get Eric to chat wrestling with you. And I'm excited to see you at Russellcade next month. We'll have a lot of fun. and I hope we get to see lots of our ad-free shows fans and podcast heat fans, all the great podcasts we have on this network out there as well in Winston-Salem. Anything else you would like to throw out there?

No, man, enjoy the show, enjoy seeing you, and look forward to next week. Certainly look forward to seeing everybody, including you at Starcate. I'll bring my newest book. Grateful be there with me, and you can get a two-fer. Pick up two books, not for the price of one, but for a good price. price. We'll be there. That's okay. It's going to be a lot of fun and we want you on our team here on Strictly Business as well. Advertise with Eric.com. Get your business out in front of thousands of listeners and viewers. Get your business, get your product, whatever it may be. Sign on up with

us. Advertise with Eric.com. This has been yet another edition of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff. We'll see you next time.