83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #51: Sports Illustrated's Justin Barrasso

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

In this edition of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba welcome Sports Illustrated's Justin Barrasso to the program! Justin discusses human interest storytelling in wrestling journalism, how Sports Illustrated approaches covering pro wrestling, and more! Plus, Eric's thoughts on Ric Flair joining AEW, and Tony Khan's "important" announcement. Special thanks to this week's sponsors! 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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what's going on everyone's time for another edition of strictly business here on the ad-free shows and podcast heat networks i am john alba and we have a special treat ahead for you on this edition of strictly business eric bischoff and i are going to be joined by justin barasso of sports illustrated for a really interesting conversation about human interest storytelling and wrestling journalism but for a few minutes from now before we do that i got introduced the man of the hour mr eric bischoff easy e what's going on brother how you doing today i get to get my beauty queen wave in how you do it there you got to cup your hand a little more there you go there you go i like it what's going on man oh what's going on uh got up at four o'clock this morning went up into the mountains, did some deer hunting. Got back here just in time to do this show.

That's what's going on. That's my life. Love it. We will be airing the Justin Barrasso interview in just a few minutes. But what can people look forward to when they hear that interview, Eric? You know, Justin's such an insightful guy and he's been around wrestling and wrestlers for such a long time. I love his approach. And Justin goes deep into his, I guess, style of writing, which is to get to know,

the character beyond what everybody else talks about. He's got some interesting examples, one being Randy Savage and some of the people that he talked to to cover Randy and the amazing stories he's received as a result. I think it's one of the reasons why Justin is one of those writers, especially because these Sports Illustrated, he's mainstream. That can be intimidating to a lot of talent because you're afraid of the gotcha questions. You're afraid of saying something you mean it the right way. it gets interpreted the wrong way by the time it gets to the reader it's all twisted up

and gnarled up and not at all what you really felt or what you were meaning to say just as one of the few that i've dealt with that is very sensitive to that and respects that so he's got a lot of credibility with a lot of people that i know it's a great conversation you're going to be able to check it out here on this edition of strictly business hey it's also the beginning of the month of November, which means there's a lot of good stuff going on over on ad-free shows.com, Eric, and you and Conrad continued your look back through the Monday Night Wars this week on 83 weeks with a watch-along of Halloween Havoc, 1999. One of the more infamous skits during that period of time, well, we saw the whole billionaire Ted stuff launched from the WWE side. Conrad had a chance

to sit down recently with a man who created those skits. David Sahati over on ad-free shows. Take a listen to a clip from that. I'll tell you the most depressing thing I walked on, which I thought was a waste of energy, but when Night Show went, you know, had to head up on the night, Vince was losing his talent and he created this character called billionaire Ted Ted. And it was my job every week to do these billionaire Ted tickets. And most of them are being vicious and long, you know, Vince's ideas. The ideas I had were creative and they were pretty cool, but his idea is just like mean. I'm like, why are you raising so much energy bashing this building? I want me just

focus on our product. I mean, negativity out there is not going to help us whatsoever. Because it might be fans that are fans of both. So why are you back? You know, one company. From the lowest point of my time now, when I was tasked for doing what a billionaire for it's probably just four months, but it seems like a year. And it was every single week, Conrad. things i'm friends with dave i'm gonna call him i'm giving some shit well it sounds like he didn't want to do them so i'm just kidding i make that what you well ted turner got a kick out of them okay when they first broke bill shaw who was by i think bill was still my boss time might have been

harbys chill i don't remember but whoever it was i wasn't in the room but um well i think it was bill shaw thought man this we better uh we better go get this better show these to ted before he finds out on his own and they went up and showed a couple of these things to ted he just busted what i was told us he just busted out laughing he thought they were funny as hell there you go okay taking it lighthearted well you can hear from david sahati and so many other key figures behind the scenes over the ears like gary jester john philippelli mike weber mike mansuri and a brand new interview that just dropped with ring of honors carry silken in the insiders exclusively over at ad-free shows.com.

Now, Eric, as we were recording our interview with Justin Barrasso, we got some breaking news that we got to cover here on the business of the wrestling business, strictly business, and that is that AEW has signed, per their words in this press release, wrestling legend Rick Flair, signs a multi-year deal with AW, the nature boy's new Wu Energy is announced as the exclusive energy drink of A.EW. From the release, AWCO, Tony Kahn, today announced a multi-year deal with Hall of Famer nature boy, Rick Flair, who surprised fans and attendance and viewers at home during last week's A.W. Dynamite shown Philadelphia,

marking his historic return to TBS by appearing his Khan's special gift for the icon Sting. Flair's AW debut comes on the heels of his longtime friend Stings and pending retirement announcement, which will culminate with the Icons final match at AW. Revolution in 2024. Over the course of their 30-year history, Flair and Sting have shared incredible rivalries, momentous matches, and a respected friendship. Here's the interesting part here.

Khan also announced that Flair's Wu Energy will become the exclusive drink of AEW. During AEW show dates, select host venues will carry the clean energy drink at concession stands for fans to enjoy. In addition, the beverage will be stocked in the wrestler's locker's rooms and will also be seen on the announcer's desks

during live broadcasts fans watching at home can experience woo energy by ordering via woo energy.com. And in a quote from both of them, I want to read the quotes from Rick and Tony Khan here. Tony says Rick cemented his legacy as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time long ago. And now his world-renowned persona and his amazing wrestling mind will be major assets to AW's programming and our position globally. Most importantly, it's fitting that the final chapter of Sting's iconic career will unfold on TBS with Rick Flair by his side. Rick says, I've been in the wrestling business for over 50 years, together with AEW and Wu Energy. I've never been more excited. I've never had more energy.

When The Nature Boy promises a show, you know how it's going to go. Woo. Lots to digest there, Eric, including potentially a can of Wu energy. But I'd like your initial thoughts before I read you a report that just came out from Sean Ross Sapp discussing more on this. you know I'm happy for Rick Rick professional wrestling is Rick Flair's life Rick Flair left Richard Flair behind

a long time ago and I'm happy for Rick because Rick loves the business he loves being around the business it's good for Rick it's really good for Rick the Wu Energy thing

that's obviously a great opportunity for the people who are behind energy to get it some national promotion and exposure. That's a good thing. It makes it easier for the distributors who are trying to sell that drink and getting it into the retail outlets around the country. I had a little bit of experience with that with the Hulk Hogan energy drink way back, got it into 3,500 Walmart's Walmart stores nationwide. It's hard. It's hard to penetrate the retail market. And this is a lever and a leverage point that I'm sure the sales team behind Wu Energy is going to be able to leverage and take advantage of. So it's a win for Rick personally.

It's a win for the people behind Wu Energy. And let's see what it means to AEW. Time will tell. So here's the report from Sean Ross Sav via Fightful Select. And this is pretty interesting. Sean says the press release provided by AW mentioned flares Wu Energy drink. Sources is close to Flair, told Fightful, that the deal was very similar to that of Randy Savage's to WCW in the mid-1990s, where part of getting Flair was also procuring a deal with the energy drink that would cover a significant portion, if not all, of Rick Flair's salary in all elite wrestling. In the 90s, Randy Savage departed WWF for WCW and took a lucrative sponsorship deal with Slim Jim with him. Eric Bischoff had noted in the past that as part of landing the

slim gym deal, it paid a significant portion of Randy Savage's salary within the company at the time. When asking AW sources about the motivations of having Flair on the roster beyond what you see on the surface, merchandising was cited as a big possibility between video games, action figures, and general merchandise. Those are seen as big openings for the usage of Flair if those are part of the deal. So pretty immediate tie-in here, Eric, to something from your past. When you hear that report from Sean, do you see any parallels, sir? Well, obviously, if, if what Sean reported is true, and I believe it probably is, or Sean wouldn't have reported it.

Yeah, it's very similar to what I did with. In Randy's case, by the way, just a slight correction here, the Slim Jim deal covered 100% of Randy's salary. So all of it. Got it. He covered all of it and did for a couple of years. So Randy was, I got Randy for free. So, and that's why it's a win.

It's a win for Rick. It gets him close to a business that is, life, really. It's in his genetic maker, his DNA. Someone were to take some of that DNA and replicate it and clone Rick Flair or Richard Flair, it would end up being Rick Flair. And there's no denying how much Rick loves the business. So it's a win-win and potentially a win-win-win. We'll just have to wait and see how much of a win it is for the AEW product. Can you explain how that works where the company covers the entirety of the salary? Sure. It's really simple. In Randy's case, based on what Slim Jim wanted in terms of

product integration, we were able to afford that. When I say afford that, we were able to execute what they were hoping to get, but we put a price tag on it that was exactly the same as Randy Savage's ask. 750 grand from Slim Jim and 750 grand for Randy, and WCW got Randy Savage, essentially with no impact at all on our budget and slim gym expressed happiness with the partnership oh they were thrilled because we bench over backwards you know i don't remember if i don't know if you remember any of those shows early on but randy would come out center stage and we'd be throwing slim jims to the audience and we had slim jim turnbuckles and slim gym all over the place and you know throughout the show there was slim gym references it was in programming not a commercial

There's people tune out of commercials, but they can't tune out of in-program. And there was a ton of in-program exposure for Slim Jim. So they were thrilled. I mean, I think we had that contract for close to three or four years, if I remember, right? So it was very, very, very effective. Bringing Rick in kind of echoes what we discussed last week here on the podcast where you and I had that discussion about AW starting to lean a little more in on some of these well-known legends and big names, potentially with these TV deals coming up or whatever the situation may be there. On the surface level, we don't know what

the creative's going to be. We know right now he's involved with Sting, but what kind of value, if any, do you believe Rick adds to AW television? I know what he can add. You know, nobody has a crystal ball and nobody knows what's in the mind of Tony Kahn and his creation. or if Rick will have any influence over that. But I think, you know, just my first gut instinct is that Rick will end up managing. He'll end up being a mouthpiece. He'll end up representing some young talent that's on its way up that needs that credibility, that needs this, they say in the wrestling business for years now, the rub.

And who better to get a rub from than the guy like Rick Flair? That's what I see. I really can't see Rick, you know, going much in ring, other than maybe a run-in or a, you know, involvement, but not necessarily matches. But more than anything, I think Rick's gift of gab and his persuasiveness on the mic will probably lend itself more than anything to what we see on camera. I don't know how much Rick will get involved behind the scenes, but that could be interesting as well. Look, Tony needs somebody. He needs somebody. You know, Rick doesn't have a lot of television.

television experience. He's got, you know, decades and decades of success as a wrestler in terms of formatting and actually writing television. I don't think that's necessarily Rick Strife. But if you can tap into his mind and his experience and his understanding of psychology and help translate that into perhaps better storytelling, I think that could be very valuable. Perhaps I'm looking a little too into it, but I read that press release and the amount of times that was mentioned, Rick Flair returns to TBS, Rick Flair on TBS, Rick Flair on TBS, Turner. That to me gives some indication that Tony Kahn at least views equity with Flair as far as

Warner Brothers discovery is concerned. and if these television deals are not fully fortified yet bringing in a guy like Rick and name recognition there feels like there could be i know you hate this word but some sort of synergy there that's just the way that i read that do you see anything to that you know i don't like to read tea leaves i just don't i get it i totally get it well we're going to have more discussion about a w and just a little bit here on strictly business but I want to get a chance to transition to our interview here with Justin Barras. So I think you guys are really going to enjoy this discussion as Justin breaks down pro wrestling

storytelling, sports illustrated, and a whole lot more. I am so freaking excited because we are just a few weeks away from Russellcade. It's a three-day family-friendly convention going down in Winston, Salem, North Carolina, and so many of your favorite wrestling legends are going to be there. Eric Bischoff, Brian Danielson, the Hardy Boys, Matt Cardona, Arn Anderson, and so many more of your ad-free shows and podcast heat favorites will be in attendance. I'm going to be there as well, and I'm going to be doing a live show with Matt Hardy as we bring the extreme life of Matt Hardy live to the stage to discuss becoming broken. How Matt Hardy became the broken Matt character is going to be the first time ever that we're hitting the stage with that. That's going to be at 8.30 on Friday, November 24th.

Eric Bischoff's going to be there signing, representing the ad-free shows team. It is going to be a convention. You do not want to miss out on right after Thanksgiving. Head on over to wrestlek.com right now to pick up your tickets. All right, Eric, I have been really excited to bring our next guest here onto Strictly Business for some time. He's someone I've gotten to know pretty well over the past few years. I got a lot of respect for his work, and he's joining us now to discuss the business of the business. He is Justin Barrasso, Combat Sports Extraordinaire from Sports Illustrated.

What's going on, Justin? And breaking some ground here, a Red Sox fan and a Yankees fan. So either one were winners this year with Jordan Montgomery and Native Aldi pitching so well in the World Series. But, hey, thank you so much, big fan of obviously John, your work. And Eric, I've had the chance to cover positive stories, not so positive stories. wrestling. Eric will always put his name out there. He stands for what he believes in. And yeah, I'm grateful to be grateful to be here with both of you. Well, we're glad to have you. Always good to see you, Justin. Thank you. A man who has his finger on the pulse of not only the sports

industry, but the wrestling industry as well. And that's why I want to bring you in here, Justin, because I find what you do to be so interesting. You're not just covering wrestling. You're not just covering MMA, but you're covering a sector for an institution of sports journalism that I think even 10 years ago might have been unfathomable to have a beat dedicated to what you do. So before we delve into the semantics of that, can you give us some background on how you got involved with Sports Illustrated in the first place? Yeah, of course. You know, it's funny you mentioned that, though, because I remember in, when did I finish grad school? A decade ago, 12 years ago,

and I remember doing a couple projects in grad class about wrestling. And I remember a professor or two saying, these are fun. They could never go anywhere with them. You could never go anywhere with them, but they're fun stories, or interesting stories,

or compelling stories. So it's been so interesting. I had a macho man, Randy Savage, it's actually how I first connected with your partner, John, and Eric, and Eric was so, I feel like it was so different in that era, but I remember reaching out to Eric,

I was writing for the Boston Herald, and I thought I could grow with the Herald in terms of our wrestling coverage. Years ago, Killer Kowalski had a piece in a weekly herald, and I thought Saturday is such a thin newspaper. It would be a good opportunity to grow and to build the wrestling section there. They weren't interested,

so I was pitching this macho man, Randy Savage story, and I asked some good Eric Bischoff stories. on that too, but I sent it to a bunch of people, Fox Sports, ESPN, and the first to respond was Sports Illustrated. Andy Gray was the editor. And he said, from Framingham, I'm from, I grew up in north of Boston in Peabody. And he said, I don't think we knew that yet, but we had a lot in common. I learned so much from Andy. He said, I want to take a chance on this. But we didn't end up running that Savage story. I forget why. It just didn't work. The timing. So it was actually another Eric Bischoff involved story.

It was a Brett Hart story on the Montreal Screwjob. And Brett at his comments. I believe Eric was in that story as well. I'd have to go back and look. But that story was a top, you know, ran in November. It was a top 25 hit piece on s.i.com. And we were off and running. Andy said, can you do something else?

So we ran another piece. Can you do something else? We ran another piece. I think Sean Michaels was the next one. and then there were a few more after that. And then Andy pushed for the weekend wrestling column, which we run every Wednesday now. And, yeah, so it built from there.

But it is interesting how so much of the landscape has changed. I remember, I think it was for the interview with Eric, tweeting Eric and saying I had a question about Randy Savage. And Eric tweeted back, and he said, what's your email? I mean, it was kind of the infancy of, you know, Twitter was so nascent, right? Where you could do this. I feel like now if someone's reaching out to you, it's like, what am I in store for next? And then Eric, not knowing me, I mean, I had, I'm sure I introduced myself and gave my background.

And I did go to journalism school. I went, you know, I call undergrad, I'm a journalism school for writing. And Eric gave these great Randy Savage stories about Randy. It was a great story. Now, Eric can fill in the blanks here. They were in Vegas for Halloween Havoc and they were in his hotel room. Yeah, yeah. I'd never heard it before.

Again, it's what, 2012, 2013, and Randy's dyeing his beard. I believe, Eric, correct me if I'm wrong, also butt naked. Yeah, I was, he had a suite in, in the hotel where we were at in Las Vegas, the MGM grant. And I was in the middle of it just started renegotiating Randy's contract. And of course, Randy had about a month left on his contract, but we were right in the middle of things. and, you know, we were asking Randy to do some things in the finish. And Randy being the businessman, and pretty old school, he was a little reluctant to move forward

without having some ideas to where we were going to go in the future, which I understood. So I was there ostensibly to begin negotiating with Randy, and I showed up, hungover as hell, because I've been out the night before in Las Vegas until about two in the morning, having way too much fun and i got to randy's room about nine o'clock in the morning and randy had taken a red eye into Vegas so he let me in and i sat out in the bedroom area the largest part of the suite randy was in getting ready he was dying his hair and we're kind of negotiating back and forth and of course there's a big bucket of beer there and a bunch of food that randy had ordered and i'm thinking well i'm going to do that hair of the dog thing and she did have a couple beers

i'm negotiating or starting the process with randy i had no idea what he was doing and there and heard a knock on the door. It was room service. Randy had ordered more beer for God's sake. And I went to go open the door and I looked over to my right where the bathroom was and there's Randy Stark naked, you know, dying his beard and done his hair. And I let the room service guy in there and he looked over at Randy and kind of looked at me and kind of looked at me and I took care of business. And he walked out the door and I could, oh my God, I can just, this is really before, you know, social media, of course. I said, oh man, I can just hear the rumors now.

I can hear the rumors now. Rick and Randy swinging both ways, yeah. I'm telling you, stories like that where I, and I love covering pro wrestling, I love watching pro wrestling. I don't know if you could cover a major sport or, or field like this if you didn't enjoy the product. But it's stories like that. It was the Eric one that sticks out.

It was the best Randy Savage interview I've ever done was with his mother before she passed away. And I remember how protective may he rest in peace, too. Annie was of his mom. And he said, why do you want to speak with my mother? And I said, well, I don't want to know about the macho man. I want to know about Randy Poffo. And he said, I don't think it's a good idea. And finally, he must have spoke with me enough times that he knew I was sincere. And I had a 45 minute, maybe 50 minute conversation with Mrs. Pafo. And it was sort of like if you had a grandmother and you were close with her, kind of having tea with her.

And it was over the phone, but we spoke for just under an hour. And she never called him the macho man or she may have mentioned that wrestling thing once or twice but she spoke about her son randy so to me as this young writer young journalist young reporter the idea that and so much has changed since there's so many other good options now too to find wrestling writing but to share these stories to reveal these aspects you didn't know i just found it so enthralling so compelling to write and if to me if i'm having fun writing a story i hope the reader has fun reading it another quick Eric Bischoff story. It was a little bit less glamorous. It was the Marro Renallo, JBL. Do you remember that story? It was the bullying story that stage. And Eric was, I'm in Boston.

So Eric was in somewhere in Rhode Island at an indie show, I think, in the NXWF or one of those. And Eric was kind of like a, like a, you know, commissioner for the day or, you know what I mean? He kind of oversaw the show. And before. the show you walked in and I was I was there early and I'd had my coffee and I said Eric you know and I think you remember who I never know if people remember who I am but Eric's we're polite and said hi Justin and I said I'd love to talk to you about the JBL Morrow story and you said well you know see it see me after so I was staying for the show anyways maybe you were testing and maybe you weren't but I stayed for the show and I remember after the show Eric said something

to the extent of I didn't know if you'd stay and I said of course you know I think your your voice should be vital to the story multiple people had either and i've always had good relationships and people with people in wrestling but multiple people who uh some are no longer here with us so i don't want to say their names because they couldn't uh defend their side of the story but either told me to f off or hung up on me or it was a big story when it came out and it looked like maybe i was trying to hurt in their eyes maybe i was trying to hurt the wrestling business when really i was just trying to tell the story anyways eric said you were you expressed some hesitancy about speaking with me. But you did it. I think you maybe respected the questions. And I don't remember

the conversation word for word, but I said, Eric, I'm going to play this as straight as I can. I just want it out there. I think it's important to expose another part of this industry. And I remember Eric was one of the few voices that spoke with me in that piece. And afterward, I think Eric called me or message me or something, and he said it wasn't because I looked good or wasn't because I looked bad, but you did what you said you would and you played it straight. And I didn't twist the words or something like that was the extent of what Eric said. So I think since then we've always had a pretty good relationship, at least from my perspective. But might as well. Hence you're with us today. Yeah. And I want to ask you about that.

It's important. Because it's, for me, as a sports journalism junkie, I read 10 to 12 columns a day or long-form features a day in sports journal. Like today, as we tape this, it's the day after the Texas Rangers won the World Series. I've read six features about them winning the World Series, just of storytelling about the human emotion. What I love about your approach is you do something that not a lot of people in the pro wrestling journalism space do. you cover the news. The news is an important part of what you do, but you and I can tell

love doing these long-form human interest features about the people involved in the industry. How much is that part of your craft and why do you place such value on that? Okay, so, for the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world?

Reminder, no phones allowed. Sir in the orange, phone away, please? Um, my kidda smart smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. Okay, sure. No, there's smoke in my house. Yeah, right. A smoke alarm texting you. That's a new one.

See, the train monitoring agent is calling now. Hello? The Kid a smart smoke alarm sends real-time mobile alerts in the ring app. And with a subscription, emergency help can be requested even when you're not home. Well, okay. Back to trivia. Oh, seriously. You and the green, why are you on your phone?

Blender texting you about a smoothie recipe? Visit Kidda at KIDDE.com to learn more. A compatible ring subscription is required for 24-7 smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring, sold separately. When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed. But with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment to the GI bill covering tuition, books, and of living to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA.

I'm here telling every veteran because I wish someone had told me. Get what you earned. Visitchews.VA.gov. Not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits mentioned here. Well, I think, too, you want to zig where they zag in terms of there's so many people out there that do so many things so well, whether it's breaking news or instant reaction. I think one thing I can, I take a lot of pride in at least, is crafting a story. So this past summer, for instance, I thought it was, you know, either people were so, so defensive

and proud of John Moxie for bleeding. Others were so critical. I thought, geez, it would be great to tell a story on why John bleeds. I don't think we've heard Mox talk about why it's so important to him. So we called that the, you know, Moxley's dissertation on blood. And it was so much fun to get into his head because again to me at least and i think this goes back to to being a fan and in respecting so much and i don't wrestle and i've never wrestled and i think it'd be hard to hit the ropes um but to have so much respect for what the women and men of pro wrestling what they do and the sacrifices they've made to share different stories particularly ones behind the curtain or inside the mind of those people um you know i think that that was an interesting

chance that dissertation on blood even this past week speaking with uh sting That story ran Wednesday in Wednesday's Weekend Wrestling column. And to hear Sting about the two times in his life, he cried. And once was Panama City with wrestling Rick Flayer. And Rick's been open about that. He wasn't happy with the way he was presenting himself. He wore the T-shirt, the Nitro T-shirt that night. Sting wins the match, and he's raising his hand and smiling.

He said on the inside, he was devastated. They'd lost, or at least what they'd built was no longer going to be theirs anymore. It was WWE-owned, WWF-owned. And so that was another chance. And then to compare that to dynamite last week, it's Sting and Rick again on a Turner broadcast station. And he said it felt like that moment again, but we got to rewrite it. There's a happier moment. So I just think that I try to give something every week that's not out there.

And to me, that's long form. I think you want to be careful because sometimes I think it can be too long. And I think it's got to be readable. I'm a reader too, John, so I'm right there with you. I can't read enough. But to me, it's like I hope the sting piece. If I did it right, there was nothing else out there like that. Yeah.

Well, I want to give people the reader, especially myself, too. I know starting to go on and on, but there was one pay-per-view. I think it was SummerSlam, the one where Brock Lesnar kept suplexing John Sina. Yeah. I remember I so badly after wanted, and maybe Twitter was in its infancy. It was 2014. And I remember thinking I would love to read. I wanted to read more.

I wanted to read more about the decision to, not to bury John Sina, but he never loses matches that way. And Brock Lesnar looked great. Like I would have loved instant feedback, just like you would after a baseball game or after an NBA finals game, I want to read more. So I wanted, to me, I wanted to help fill that gap for anyone who was interested in maybe going a little bit deeper.

Eric, you know what's great from my perspective, Justin, is, and this is harder to do with action. active talent, right? Because they have a character to protect and they're involved in a storyline. So it's a little more difficult to really get inside the head of and get to know the real person. But that's where the magic lies. And that's where even in this world that we live in now with regard to wrestling and, you know, K-Faib's been dead forever. But when you get to know the person, when you get to know Sting, when you get to know Moxley, when you get to know Brett, when you get to know whoever, you know, Randy, obviously, talking to his mother. it gives the audience a chance to see another dimension of the character like you just pointed out that you don't typically see.

But I think it connects the audience to that personality in a much more concrete way. They feel like they know them. They feel like they have a relationship with them, even if they've never met them, but they know things about certain talents that they had never heard before. There's a lot of value in that, a lot of value. It's unfortunate, and I understand it, not being critical, But I'd like to see more that even presented within the context of the individual shows because it just makes the performers more interesting, in my opinion.

I couldn't agree more. It was a Jim Ross story, and I think it was kind of a sad opening, but it was Jim mourning his wife, the loss of his widow and, I mean, unfair death and unexpected and tragic. Jim said something to me after the story where, like, geez, Justin, you know my voice better than I do. because it read just like him. And I said, well, Jim, I've been, I mean,

for a lot of you in wrestling, someone like yourself, Eric, I mean, you've been in my life since what, the mid-90s? I mean, on television, watching. So I know, if I'm doing a story with Kevin Nash, for instance, I've listened to so many Kevin Nash interviews over the last 25 years. It's not difficult to do or a Brett interview. So I think you really kind of captured the ethos, Eric,

of what I try to do. But hopefully there's that relationship and that trust where someone can let their guard down and not get burned. And that doesn't mean later on, you know, I might not be able to break a story. I think this is an older one, but a Russell Kingdom story was Tanahashi and Jericho. And I remember my editor asked, well, what if I didn't get the scoop from either of them, but what if you break a contact? And I said, well, I hope there's enough trust and enough mutual respect that that's not the case, right?

And it's funny that was a personal attack on a guy. But then again, business can be personal. Anyways, yeah, I think that's the key thing, having this trust and respect with a guy or with a person where they're able to share their stories. And I mean, I'm asking a lot of people, too. You know, when we speak, I'm asking you to open up your soul. One of my favorite stories, and it's one of the proudest I've ever done is the 25-year anniversary of the NWO. And you were the first phone call I made, and you couldn't do that story now, right? because Scott's not here.

But to me, the NWO stories are always so exciting because it's the backstory. It's how do you get Hulk? Because you might call him and he might text back and say, I'll call you in 10. Does that mean 10 minutes? 10 hours, 10 days? It usually means 10 forever's. 10 forever's, right. Scott Hall said he would not speak to me.

Scott and I had, I thought, a pretty good relationship, but maybe he just wasn't in a place to speak. And I was honest, and I think I called one last time. I said, I'm not going to keep calling, but, you know, Kevin spoke, and he shared his memories. Eric spoke, Hulk spoke. Paul White, the giant big show spoke, Tony Chivani. And I think I went through the list of people that spoke. And I said, I would be grateful to have your voice, but if you opt not to, I mean, that's your decision.

And Scott, I think it was his last interview, sadly. I'll share one more personal one since Scott coming up to. Another great, geez, another great Scott Hall story is the, Eric, it's you in the, is it the Lamborghini in Scott? Oh, when I picked him up at the airport? I don't know how he fits in that. It wasn't a Lamborghini. It was, and I mistakenly for years, I kept referring, because I had a Porsche at the time,

and my wife had the jag. It was a four-door big sedan. And around that time, I had a portion 9-11, and I assumed I must have picked him up on my car. But I found out years later, like, I don't know. I picked him up on my wife's car for that very reason because he wouldn't fit in my portion. People forget because of that era, guys were so much. You hear Brett Hart and Sean Michaels say this quite often that they were the smaller guys back then. You look at Brett now.

He's as big or bigger than anybody, just about. Scott was a giant back when wrestlers were giants. Scott was a big guy. I've actually never shared this story before, and I don't think I'm breaking any trust by doing it. I certainly don't intend it to be that way, but it was an interview with Sean Michaels, and I'd requested it through WWE. I had contacts there that knew who I was, and I think trusted me, and it was after Scott died. And I didn't want to reach out to Kevin.

I think I texted my condolences, but I just thought it was too close. And Sean Walton and I thought it was just too close. But Sean went way back with Scott to the 80s and the indie circuit, I thought, well, maybe Sean would be willing to speak. So, I don't know, 24 hours go by, and I hear back, and I get a text, Sean's willing to talk. I said, great. You know, obviously very sad circumstances, and we did the interview, and it was emotional. And Sean's in tears, and this isn't the heartbreak kid talking about Razor Ramon or a ladder match at WrestleMania 10.

It's talking about a dear friend who just passed away, and he just said goodbye to. we stopped recording and Sean says to me and I've met Sean I did a spot on the um it was a fun sports I thought it was fun sports illustrated spot on NXT uh the in your house one of the pandemic years they all blend together so I've had the chance to see Sean and get to know him over the years and um I think we've always had a pretty good rapport and he said to me shut your camera off shut you're a quarter of he said i will never speak to you again if you don't tell this story the right way he said i'm not telling you what the right way is but this is my friend and shan's you know breaking down saying this was so emotional and so raw and it's you know to me i wasn't

covering a pro wrestling segment or match or i was you know it's an opportunity to share someone's life. And obviously, I hope that that story captured the brilliance of Scott's career. It's hard to say there was any career quite like it. I remember after that story, I actually got a request from a New Japan rep. I don't even know how he read the piece because it was in English. Maybe he was able to read it or got translated, but Hiroshi Tanahashi wanted to tell me a Scott Hall story. Because his Scott Hall story is very similar to Sean Walton's, except, you know, this is in Japan and Scott wanted to make this young guy. Tanahashi look good.

Scott was just so smart and so ahead of his time and so intertwined with you, Eric, because you guys will go down in wrestling history for what you did together. But I'll always remember that moment with Sean where it wasn't. And a lot of guys in wrestling, this is a great Bubba Dudley story

who said, I don't know. He said, I'm going to intimidate you. And I said, about some stories, if I get it wrong, or he said, that's what we do. We're pro wrestlers. We intimidate. Or Dallas Page said something similar,

but the moment with Sean wasn't. an intimidation, it was, it was heart to heart. Make sure you respect my friend in this eulogy piece. So that's a moment that when you talk about relationships and people letting their guard down and not taking advantage of people when they trust you, I think those are all critical components for me in terms of being able to tell the stories that I'm able to tell. So what's the appetite for wrestling content now outside of, well, including Sports Illustrated, but in Mainstream? Is the appetite grown larger because of the success of it, the growth of it?

Absolutely. And you see it with ESPN, who's been connected with WWE. We still have out a hard time or I've had a hard time. It's a battle ongoing. I'll be in, I don't know if people. I still, I mean, I think we're all roughly in the same era. The magazine still means so much to make. I'll be in the November magazine with the Mike Tyson piece.

Getting wrestling in the magazine is still a battle. And it's still something I feel obligated to fight for out of pride. I mean, I'm not covering pro wrestling because I have to. I cover pro wrestling because I want to, especially for a mainstream outlet like Sports Illustrated. We had a Roman Raines piece before WrestleMania after WrestleMania 35. And I was really proud that we were able to get, if you can get the words pro wrestling in the magazine,

you're doing something right but i i think the audience is there i always believed that if it was if it if it's if it you know if it's if it's good enough if it's content content is king to me uh if it's good people will find it if it's a good story it'll get out there somehow um and i remember that early in my career when i did a piece it was a a yankee perspective john i'll send it if you want i liked it it didn't get much play but it was a yankee perspective at fenway and um you got these great quotes quotes from Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, who I caught at the right moment, I think. There were two foreign reporters who were asking questions at Fenway in a scrum outside that

he couldn't understand. And by the fourth or fifth time, he was asked that Jeter was really annoyed and he looked around because I was told he wouldn't answer any Fenway or Red Sox pointed questions. And I asked him the question. And I think he was just so irritated. He was looking for somebody else to speak with. He answered my question. But that story didn't do well. My point with that is if it's good, people will find it. So that's always been my goal, right? To make compelling stories, write compelling stories, something that people would want to read.

And the dirtiest secret of what I do is. Okay, so, for the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world? Reminder, no phones allowed. Sir in the orange, phone away, please. Um, my kid a smart smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. Okay, sure. No, there's smoke in my house.

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for the type or amount of benefits mentioned here. I mean, look at John's podcast, right? Matt Hardy. Matt Hardy's got decades worth of compelling, engaging stories. Eric Bischoff. Eric Bischoff has stories that he hasn't even shared yet that would captivate wrestling fans. I don't know if you've been open with this.

one, Eric. I guess the point of my point I'm saying is the dirtiest secret that I have is I have very compelling subjects but Eric Bischoff going into a hotel room or going and checking into a hotel. Didn't you check in as Vince? There's some really good story that I don't know how much you've told that one but

I've told this story before. I didn't check in as Vince but we were all in Las Vegas for what was at one time a very important television convention called Naphty NAPTE National Association for Television Program executives or some shit. And this was back when syndication was a very important part of the television industry.

It's since become less significant. But every year, there was this big convention. And this year, particular year was in Las Vegas. And I'd gotten in a couple days early because, well, you know, when I was younger, I'd like to get into Vegas early for obvious reasons. And I was with Zane Bresloff. Zane used to work. He was a promoter that worked for WWF back into the day.

and he was now working for me in WCW. And we got along really great. He was a fun guy. Zane didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't chase women, didn't do anything. But he gambled like a motherfucker. And he did just sports. He didn't do tables. He didn't place nothing.

He just loved betting on sports. So we were hanging out for a while. And he said, you know what we should do? He said, I know. I have some inside information. Vince is going to check into the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. he goes, why don't we call reservations and tell them that we're going to cancel

that we're Vince McMahon and we're going to cancel the reservation? So I said, I'll do that. So we could, knowing that every hotel room in Las Vegas was sold out months and months and months in advance and then Vince would have to get to Vegas and scramble to find a room. I just thought, you know, it was a childish, juvenile high school kind of prank,

but I loved every second of it. And I'm guessing there was some liquid courage behind that decision as well you guys had a few I wasn't nervous about doing it at all it was I was probably less inhibited to do it and less professional and more like an 18 year old kid and not like a 40-something year old professional but yeah I had fun anyway I think it's so much fun with that trust hopefully with your subject or the people you're speaking with you can give the readers something they don't have so to me that's kind of the basis or foundation of what I'm trying what I've tried to build and what I try to bring to readers because again wrestling

It's so much fun. And obviously, there are areas of wrestling that are, there's an underbelly and less glamorous, but there are so many parts and so many good people that deserve recognition and stories to be shared and so many memories, too. I mean, it's a Jim Ross line, but when Stings on TV, it makes you feel young.

Yeah. I could go back in time at my grandmother's house watching with my brother. I mean, she hasn't been alive for decades, but it brings you back in time. I think there's so much special elements of wrestling that we can share too. So not that every story is a glowing look back at the history of the industry,

but I think it's another element to cover as well. Well, Justin, I know you've got to get going, but I want to ask you us real quick before we let you go. What is one thing you'd like to see improve or come out of the pro wrestling journalism space in the next five to 10 years that you think would better the industry as we move forward? well i i think you can't have it both ways when you want mainstream coverage you've got to take the good with the bad i think wwe's gotten better at that certainly you know i thought it was interesting and this is more of a combat sports take john than just pro wrestling i'll

i'll circle back to pro wrestling but i was i wasn't in saudi this past weekend for the tyson fury francis and ganu fight but i was annoyed that the post post-match it just felt so gimmicky that the post-fight press conference was called off. To me, that reeks of, we got your money, we did what we want, we'll see you later. And whether that's a boxing thing or that was the certain promotion behind the fight, but I just didn't like the fact, again, if you want coverage, it's got to go both ways. And you can't imagine a professional sport, the NBA, the NHL, Major League Baseball, the NFL, after a game saying, we're not going to have our press conference.

It just wouldn't happen because they're big time. It just would not occur. I don't know. I think that, I think we have a lot of talented voices covering wrestling. I think that will only continue to grow. I think it's nice that wrestling has the mainstream options. Be nice if ESPN did more. Be nice that the athletic got involved.

I think you need more mainstream options too. But I hope that wrestling always keeps the, I think any wrestling fan could tell you their favorite wrestling sites. You know, and I just think we all have our own that you go to every Monday night after raw, Tuesday morning or whatever it is. But I think that just a healthy industry, you need lots of options. So more mainstream options, I think would be nice. I could rattle off names.

I'm hesitant to because I don't want to leave anyone off. But I can think of half dozen names at the top of my head. It would be great wrestling correspondence for the athletic. Or ESPN could do more AEW coverage. And I know they're tied with WW. but what wrestling is it it's big money it's a I don't know I think they're foolish or short-sighted not to see that some of these some of these bigger groups so and it's such a passionate fan base the thing about wrestling is and it's as passionate a fan base as any

other sport in the world I've said that I've said that a million times you know I used to think that NASCAR had probably the most loyal fan base of all sports um because they're obsessive they're not just fans they're they're obsessive fans or at least they were i don't see it as much anymore because i'm not as engaged in nascar as i once was but i i agree with you man wrestling fans are the most loyal fans in in terms of television for sure they are so loyal and i i i just wonder sometimes i know you have to go just but i just wonder i just wonder if the resistance by some mainstream media into covering wrestling is because there's very few of you there's very few of you there's very

a few people like you who are great writers who can cover sports traditionally and can do a phenomenal job, but also understand the wrestling product. I think for most people, probably people above you on the food chain, the corporate food chain, wrestling is still that square peg in a round hole. Everybody recognizes it's very popular, but it's not really sports. It's very athletic, but it's not really sports. And that's probably the resistance. It's always been the resistance you know in the advertising community it's the same thing and it's not pure entertainment either so what is it i agree and that's why it's stories like that nw o 25 story the amount of phone calls i got eric from the office from our editorial from our editors like holy smokes this story's

how is this story still doing so well well i mean Hulk Hogan i think maybe steve austin certainly the rock now and eric john you can come on on this too but who's more recognizable than Hulk. I'm sure Austin's up there. Dwayne Johnson certainly is too, but I think still, you know, from from 5 to 75, 5 to 85, it's still Hulk. Kevin Nash has been giving so much of his adult life to wrestling. One of the stories we did together, and maybe because Kevin trust me, maybe because it was one of those days, but we were doing a, Kevin, I'm jumping around now. Every time I want to say goodbye, I start with a new hello, but Kevin was telling a story about, excuse me, it was a Mattel story on a.

a new wrestling figure line. It was it was a diesel figure and a doink the clown. And I thought, oh, it would be neat because Kevin doesn't get the credit he deserves, in my opinion, for that run as diesel. He wasn't Hulk. He wasn't Brett. Kevin was special. He wasn't Sean. But Kevin was special as Diesel. And that was an interesting error in wrestling. And WW was very cartoony. And he had WCW with this very edgy, realistic product. And it was very different. So I thought he made the most of diesel right from the time he won the belt from Bob Backland. And I was in the thick of it as a kid at the time, and we were talking, and I asked Kevin a question about that era, and he said, you know, Justin, what I remember most, it's burying my mother. And I thought to myself, we're doing a wrestling figure interview here. Do I cut him off? And I said, crazy? Why would you cut off something that's so real and raw and meaningful? And he told this story about how he didn't particularly grieve because he had another show to go, he had another show to wrestle. And it was this, to me, very endearing story.

of this man who really missed his mother and loved, loved his mother, but he had a shoulder. I mean, think of all the kids at the next town. If they said our champion Diesel can't wrestle tonight, who cares the reason, right? Like, you have to make your next town. It's such a unique field. I can't think of many other, like, baseball players, and I love baseball. They take days off all the time. It's part of the season, and that's a long season.

It's not wrestling. Like, Kevin, he's mourning his mother. So I guess the point of that story is, again, relationships. But I think there's so many fun stories that we don't know about behind the scenes, and they're not all terrible stories that make you dislike people. There's a lot of really endearing stories about the people we grew up watching and care about or cared about. And that's so neat. So I think to me, I'm going back to answer the questions too, but more mainstream coverage.

Like, I think Kevin is another example, or there's plenty of guys who are really fascinating. Dustin Reynolds, what a career, right? There's so many guys who, Brian Danielson, somebody guys in AW, that are just so fascinating. Becky Lynch, he's going to be on Jeopardy coming up soon. Like, I can't wait. You know, I haven't got her yet, but, like, I would love to do a story on Becky at Jeopardy. And she's on with McCauley Culkin, who's also a wrestling fan. Like, you can't write, you can't make this stuff up.

So wrestling is just so fascinating. And if people don't see it, then maybe it's not for them. But, man, we live in such a, we cover such a fascinating world. So, yeah. It's fun to talk about. It's certainly, thanks for joining us, brother. Thank you, gentlemen. This episode of Strictly Business is presented to you by Blue Chew.

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for our listeners. Try Bluetooth free when you use our promo code wrestle biz at checkout. Just pay $5 shipping. That's bluechew.com promo code wrestle biz to receive your first month absolutely free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Bluechoo for sponsoring the podcast. Really great stuff from Justin Barrasso there. Eric, anything you want to tack on on the end of that no it's always fun talking just it is so passionate and i think it comes across you know if he would have had the time i think he we would have spent three hours in that interview because he's just so passionate and has so many great stories it's a great great dude and a great writer excellent writer one of the things that i think makes a great storyteller especially on the human interest side

is you kind of have to be inherently curious about the human experience and what makes us feel things and have emotions and how do we triumph in the face of tragedy and overcome adversity. I think that's the backbone of a great storyteller. And I think Justin really encompasses those qualities, especially the curiosity, even you just hear in that interview, how fascinating he found so many of the stories that you talked about. that is a critical element to a great storyteller.

And I think that can translate into the pro wrestling realm, Eric, especially as we get into this discussion here on AW right now. There's been a lot of discourse in the past couple weeks specifically about storytelling in AW. And the rating just came down as we record. Per WrestleMania,000 viewers for AW Dynamite on TBS this week. The demo was up 14%. Dynamite overall, up 7% compared to last week,

which was 774,000 viewers. That goes against the deciding game of the World Series, which has actually been on pace to be the lowest rated World Series of all time between the Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers. What do you make of it? I think it's a good, I think it's a win. I mean, it's up from last week

and any time you're doing better this week than you did last week, that goes into the win column. I think it's also interesting, you know, I said last week when Rick Flair was a surprise and I cautioned everybody not to read too much into that because Rick wasn't promoted, nobody knew it was going to happen. It was a surprise, a legitimate surprise, which I think are invaluable in terms of subconsciously

creating a must-see TV experience. if you can over time convince the audience that you're going to have these surprises that people want to see live or going to wish they would have seen live, but you can paste them out, you can do them effectively, that's one of the things that helped turn Nitro into must-see TV and an appointment viewing, as they used to call it, back in the day. It hardly ever exists anymore, to be honest with you. But I think the fact that the number was up, this week's rating was up over last week, kind of is a tip of the cap to Rick.

very possibly could be and it's all good man it's a win take a win any way you can get it one of the things that may have helped with the rating hypothetically speaking here was that there was an important announcement advertised now i know that you've had some fun in the past with these announcements what's to say one step forward two steps back two steps back with this special announcement well this was an announcement of an announcement and it's it's it's kind of been a running bit right that tony con has a very important announcement here's a important announcement here's a huge announcement whatever the adjective specifically is uh changes by the week sometimes tony con's on camera sometimes they're just physically announcing it whatever

it may be. And in the past, there have been some pretty big announcements that have come out of it, but also maybe some not so big announcements. And the announcement this week, Eric, was about the upcoming pre-sale for AW all in London next year. When next year? Like next September? Eight months from now. Wow. Which it's not abnormal to have a pre-sale that far. in advance especially for a show like that but yeah it is when was the last time wrestling no no on sale eight months ago eight months in advance no dude concert tickets go on sale like a year in advance now for shows like that's not yeah okay concert tickets but not it's it's not typical business in the wrestling business i think it's honestly the ticketing industry

just the way it is right now i feel like people are sharks and want to hop on that um but my point here. Is this an announcement that necessarily needed to be hyped and taking TV space at that? Because a lot of fans, Eric, we're feeling a little let down after this one. A little. Let me, let me, let me, when we're done, I'll share you some of the stuff that's been on my feed. And I haven't solicited it. I'm, I said a couple weeks ago, I'm going to try to be objective. And yes, I'll answer a question if I'm asked, but I'll try to be as constructive. destructive and as kind as I can be in some of those responses. I just don't want to constantly be bashing. Here's the truth, John. There's nothing that I can say. Nothing I can say

that I haven't been saying for two years. Right. There's nothing new here. It's the same issues over and over and over and over again. I can't talk about storytelling anymore than I have for the last two years. And by the way, two years ago, over two years ago now probably you know everybody was like oh you're so negative are you just pissed off that tony wouldn't give you a job for a i wouldn't want a job with a ew and not because it's not a good place and it's not an opportunity and not because i don't need the money necessarily but at this time of my life at this stage of my life i just don't want that situate i don't i don't want that burden i don't want to have to because to do that job well

you've got to live with it it's 24 hours a day you're not there in the office 20 24 hours a day or you're not on location 24 hours a day, but you're thinking about it 24 hours a day. And I don't have room to be to be honest with you in my life. I have other things that I'm far more interested in. And I'd rather maintain the lifestyle that I have now than try to improve upon it by jumping back into the wrestling business. So it has nothing to do for all you trolls out there as to whether or not I was offered a job or want a job. That is not the case. My, my perspective on AEW has been from someone who has been there, I took over a company that wasn't a new company. That's an advantage. A new company is an advantage because you don't have

any negative baggage. WCW was trash. The brand was trash when I took it over. And I rebuilt it. And I went from a $25 million a year gross revenue company that was losing $10 million a year. and within a matter of three years, I think, of when I actually had control of the company, we were doing over $350 million a year in revenue and spending off close to $50 million of profit, depending on those books you wanted to believe. So I've been there and I've had that massive success, an unheard of amount of success, unprecedented in every way, especially in Turner and in wrestling. But then I also got to ride that horse into the mud and watch.

die. So I've got a unique perspective. And that's always been my reaction to what I was seeing in AEW. Now, I readily admitted many times that I know I come off harsh. I know I come off aggressive is probably a good way to say it when I'm critiquing or giving my opinion about certain things. But that's only because I hate to see opportunities wasted. And in a way, and this is going to be considered by the trolls out there. you AEW trolls this is going to be considered to be negative but it's not meant to be it's just honest and right now Tony Khan because he's such a unique situation he has his own money he's got more money than he can spend it his next three lifetimes and he's a massive wrestling

fan so he has this unique opportunity to launch this company called the AEW with his own money which means he's not accountable to anybody except for the network and I know we keep reading, oh, the network's happy and, you know, David's, they mentioned his name like they talk to him all the time, and maybe they do. I doubt it, but I could be wrong on that. David Zazlov's happy and everybody's happy, but we've seen the attendance. We know where that's going. We know where the ratings are and where they've been and where they're going.

And if not that I certainly don't want this to happen, my frustration is that I'm afraid. that it will. But if for whatever reason, AEW isn't renewed and isn't able to find another television home, do you know how long it's going to be before another wrestling company gets a shot? I don't care if you've got $300 million you're willing to spend. Nobody's going to touch it. If AEW isn't successful as a television property, it will be decades before another wrestling company emerges as a result of AEW's failure if it fails conversely if it's successful who knows what can happen you may you may see a third company or a fourth emerge not that and I don't want to discount what's going on over at the newly rebranded TNA or with

Billy Corgan's NWA but man it's just we'll see what happens well i i'm bringing it up because i'm going to i'm going to share something that brandon thurston twixt out as you like to say i love that twitched out earlier because i was actually going to wait to comment on it until we recorded our podcast today but brandon hit on a lot of what i was feeling and i'll piggyback on the end of it once we talk about it but he said this hyping a mystery announcement and revealing it's a ticket on sale day even for a w's biggest show demonstration an astonishing disconnection with what fans care about. Who could possibly take seriously the inevitable next heavily hyped, quote, major announcement?

This among other things should raise questions as to whether Tony Khan is creating a working environment where smart people are willing to challenge him on decisions, and if so, whether he's listening. I thought that was pretty pointed there. Have you ever heard me say that Tony Conn isn't going to surround himself with people smarter than him because Tony Kahn wants to be considered Vince McMahon or Paul Heyman or Eric Bischoff from back into the 90s as long as Tony's driven by ego and wanting to wanting people to know that he's the guy and he's the guy that's in charge

of creative amongst all of his his plethora of other titles nothing's going to change Tony has to listen to people who are better at creative than he is and there's a lot of people around him who would be. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. He's surrounded by a lot of people who are very, very experienced in the wrestling realm, in a lot of different walks of life from the wrestling realm. So the second part of that statement there from Brandon, where he talks about creating the environment where people are afraid to challenge him, and that's him hypothesizing based

on what we're seeing here, because, I mean, I absolutely. agree with him. I think it came off as somewhat tone deaf that you're hyping an announcement, and it's something that very easily could have been just quickly mentioned by Excalibur at the commentary desk, right? Oh, hey, by the way, AW All In pre-sales starts next week or whatever it may be. Very easily. It came across as a ratings ploy to just drag people in to tune into this big announcement. But now, what kind of equity and merit do you have the next time that you have a big announcement, especially with the track record of what we've seen lately with them. And not only that, and again, I'm going to go back to some of the stuff that I've talked

about for the last couple of years. Once the audience decides, they don't love you anymore and they leave, and they come back. That's, well, that's exactly the point I want to make. So I've said this on this podcast many times that I thought one of the strong, longest things that Tony Khan had going for him, especially in the first few years of AEW, was the goodwill that he built up with his fan base. His fan base knew that if they stuck with the programming and paid attention to the little crumbs that were dropped in the storytelling, that they would be rewarded for it, or if they

wanted to get a great dream match, that they would be rewarded for it. And he came across as a fan putting on this big, gigantic wrestling show, these week-in, week-out dynamite extravaganzas and pay-per-views. It felt very different than what they had been preconditioned to experience with Vince McMahon, specifically. When you start to lose that goodwill, people aren't going to be making excuses for you. People aren't going to be tuning in to check out those breadcrumbs. I think right now, Eric, Tony Kahn, and this is from my assessment of watching and kind of taking a temperature from others within the industry, I think he's very overwhelmed by everything that he's got going on.

He's got a lot. He's got the Jacksonville Jaguars. He's got Fulham. The Jaguars are making a playoff push right now. We're entering this critical part of the wrestling season with television and getting to the new year. They're adding pay-per-views, the Warner Brothers Discovery discussions that are going on with television renewals. there's so much happening he's got ring of honor which by the way he's trying to promote a pay-per-view for and a streaming service for which by the way was really a bad decision in my opinion went on the record saying that as well so all these things going on naturally when someone is that overwhelmed with everything happening you're going to start losing track of the fine details that you know i i i'm going to i'm going to i'm going to i'm going to throw a flag on that First of all, I don't know what Tony Kahn's involvement with the Jaguars really is,

other than going to the games. I doubt he's on the coaching staff. I don't know. I don't know, literally don't know, so I shouldn't say too much. But I question how much Tony Kahn has to do with the Jaguars on a day-to-day basis, or Fulham, for that matter. I've been saying, over a year ago, Two years ago now, I said on 83 weeks in response to something really stupid and ignorant that Tony said,

ignorant in the literal sense of the word, lack of information and knowledge, not to me, derisive, just that's the definition of the word ignorant, and I used it in that context. I said, Tony, shut up and Russell. Quit trying to compare yourself to WWE. Quit shitting on WWE because you're just not even close to being in the same conversation. from the scope of business perspective. But he kept doing it. He continues to do it.

And that's where you lose goodwill. Because, first of all, Tony, EW doesn't have, if they have their own audience, it is a minor, minor portion of that 842,000, 842,000 people that watched the show last night or whatever the number was. Tony's audience is also watching WWE and probably enjoy it.

There may be a small percentage of Tony's audience, maybe 20 or 30% that watch AEW exclusively. There has not been a, and you and I have disagreed, you see story where frankly I don't. Nothing's changed. Tony's been doing the same thing for less. I disagree.

I think it's regressed significantly. I think, and this is what I was going to say, me talking about the things that Tony Khan's got going on, that's not an excuse for any of this. What I'm saying is something is happening here, where it's now affecting the quality of the product in that. I think what's happening, John, I think what's happening is people are just tired of it. They've been watching it and they've been because of the goodwill and you're right to point that out.

I absolutely agree with you. You're right on the money. But that only lasts so long. Yeah. And people will overlook mistakes. people will set aside their belief about the quality of a storyline or whether one actually even exists they'll set us they'll give you some time but after a while it's just like they quit cutting you slack well i'll give you an example like i'm not trying to cut you off i apologize but

i'll give you an example here will o ninegale who is someone that i think a lot of wrestling fans look at as someone who could potentially lead a division one day really talented exudes charisma the type of person you want on your roster. She has lost time after time after time in big matches. She lost multiple number one contenders match for the AW Women's Championship. And then out of nowhere, it's announced on social media, she's got an AW Women's Championship match with the Karashita this week on Dynamite after she just lost the number one contenders match.

And when the company first started, weren't they supposed to keep track of wins and losses? Well, they had rankings for a while and those went out the window. They had rankings and they went out the window. but my point here is rewarding fans for paying attention right like that's the beautiful part of storytelling when you reward someone who's been invested since the beginning of the story or got involved in the middle of the story and they're along for the ride and you give them a payoff if people are invested in will and nightingale's story where she keeps falling short keeps falling

short and hasn't been able to win the number one contenders match or the big match whatever it may be And now all of a sudden, she's granted a match out of nowhere. It reflects what I consider to be, and is my opinion, I consider to be a very bad era of the Vince McMahon era of storytelling, the 2018, 2019, where stuff was completely disregarded. Oh, what you saw happened two weeks ago doesn't matter anymore. And that's, that to me is like a huge red flag when your storytelling and your program starts to venture.

into that territory of disregarding things that you have established on your own television show within canon and i know how detail oriented this guy is to me con he's extremely detail oriented so it's not reflected it's certainly not reflected in his show so i'm saying it's a human being he's extremely analytical and and so forth so it surprises me to see how sudden as someone who is watching both wwe and a w every single week every single television show they're doing It really was quite a red flag to me. And I think Tony Kahn is a good guy who has the best intentions for his talent and his roster and the fans. But something is happening here where something has to be done.

And I think what Brandon said is dead on the money. And what's interesting is Brandon is friends, friendly, and worked with Chris Harrington, who's an executive in AEW. So for Brandon to come out and discuss his opinion the way that he did, it's subtle as it wasn't so subtle, but it was polite. It was professional, but it spoke loudly to me. If Brandon is coming out and being that critical, given his relationship with Chris Harrington and Harrington's relationship with AEW,

it's not good. it's not good i'm not sitting here saying the sky is falling anything like that but it's very evident it's slipping some sort of evaluation of what do we do to ensure there's more cohesiveness within the fibers of the product should i think it's beyond it john it's it's i mean that it's that too don't get me wrong Again, for over two years, I've been harping on story, story, story, story. And I mean a discipline, well-crafted story with plot twists and an arc that's really disciplined and designed to have a maximum impact when it concludes.

None of that is happening. And it has never happened, ever since AEW's been around. It needs to happen. they need a much more sophisticated storytelling team that first of all understand what that even means and how to do it the other thing that i think AEW needs as much as that is vision what is aEW are you going to tell me it's an alternative in what way is it an alternative it's not it's just another version of, with many of the same talents that were former WWE talents at the top of the card. There's nothing different, better than, less than different than. I came up with that

one day, years ago. When I was sitting in my office with a figurative gun to my head, 20 minutes after Ted Turner told me to go head with WWE in prime time, what am I going to, what the fuck am I going to do. I didn't anticipate that. And I, after hours of sitting there looking at a blank piece of paper by myself, said, well, I can't be better than a WWE. I don't want to be less than WWE. I only got one other option. That's be different. AEW is not different than unless you consider a lesser version of different. There's no vision there. So without a vision and without good storytelling what have you got you got cosplay yeah again i'm never going to take personal shots of people especially people that i i do like as human beings and i do like tony con's human being

but it's very evident that something needs to be re-evaluated here when this stuff is constantly coming out every single week and you have a hyped announcement the next time eric that they hype and announcement who could possibly care who could possibly care it's just yeah that's you know you can only burn the audience so many times before and i'm again i'm just now yeah let's be honest i'll be honest with myself here people are going you know people are going to fill my timeline with things they think i want to hear based on their perception of how i feel they don't really know how i feel you don't really know that i want AEW to be really successful Because I'd love to see another wrestling company emerge or I'd love to see one of the ones like NWA or TNA, I'm going to remind myself, I'd love to see them get the next big opportunity and not languish and obscurity on the CW network or wherever the fuck TNA is, I don't even know, access or whatever.

Which nobody watches could be the best show in the world and nobody's going to watch it. I'd love to see them get that next big opportunity. But unless AEW show some signs of growth, as I've been discussing for the last two years, unless they show some indications of growth and turn the tide because the tide is going out and it's not coming back in. It's just constantly going out. Numbers are deteriorating. Live events are deteriorating. Everything is deteriorating unless they can turn that around within the next couple months.

Not a great deal. Not like you have to do 180 degrees. degrees. But God, give us some indication other than a one-off event in the UK, because that's not really a barometer or bellwether by any stretch. It's a one-off unique situation. But unless they can show some growth, it's going to be really difficult for anybody else to grow. And that's the part, that's the blowing the opportunity that probably frustrates me more than anything. Because it's not that hard. I mean, it's hard work, but it's not that hard. I think focus is what it all boils down to. Just having focus and not letting all the periphery noise dictate your path. And we'll see. And an ego check. Let somebody who's better at doing what you wish you were good at.

Let somebody else who's really good at it do it. And you go do the other shit. Is that one of the toughest things as a leader, Eric, when you realize that somebody else might be able to offer something? a leader some of the greatest leaders in the world are people that recognize their own weaknesses and fill those voids with people that are better than they are at what they wish they were good at that's a leader that's a leader someone who fails to recognize what they're not good at but continues to do it anyway damn the torpedoes that's not a leader that's an ego well we got a lot of ego here on strictly business and we want you to be part of it head on over to

Advertisewitheric.com, and you can get your business and product out in front of what I believe, and I know, is one of the best wrestling podcasts in the world right now on the 83 weeks feed. Advertise witheric.com is going to get your business and product out in front of thousands of listeners every single week here. And it's going to be a lot of fun. Eric, we are approaching Russellcade, as I talked about earlier. I'm going to head on down to Winston-Salem with you. We'll have a good time there. Oh, by the way, I'm going to bring a bunch of my new book, The Grateful. Well, that's not real a new book, but I'm going to be bringing a bunch of those with me. So if you haven't been your copy yet, you'll be able to get an autograph copy at Russell Cate.

Fantastic. Love to hear that. Anything else you want to throw out there, my friend? No, I'm hungry. I kind of want to eat some lunch. All right. I love to hear it. This has been strictly business week.

We'll see you next time.