83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #57: WWE to Warner Bros. Discovery?!

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

In this LOADED edition of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba break down the reports of WWE and Warner Bros. Discovery having meetings over Monday Night Raw TV rights, what it would mean for the future of AEW, and much more! Plus, was CM Punk the catalyst for this all happening? Special thanks to this week's sponsors! Manscaped- Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at Manscaped.com. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com 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

What's going on, everyone on, everyone, this is a very special and loaded edition of strictly business with Eric Bischoff. I am John Alba. This podcast, of course, is brought to you by the ad-free shows and podcast heat networks. Hope everyone is doing well and had a great week. We have a very busy episode of the podcast ahead. So without further ado, let's bring in the man who's going to break it all down for us. Mr. Eric Bischoff coming to us from Wyoming today. Buddy, what an episode we have ahead. How are you? I'm good. Doing great, man. Just loving life. I, you know, whacked out my five-day fast last week, and I'm now four days into a carnivore diet,

strictly carnivore. And I've got to tell you, I feel better than I have felt in three years or more. You know, I got to ask, what meats are you eating? Primarily beef, wild game, venison, elk, chicken. I'm just not a big pork eater, you know. I have like sausage in the morning every once in a while. like that, but I don't, I really don't do much pork tenderloins I like a lot. So I'll do some of those, but primarily beef, chicken, a lot of fish.

I eat a ton of fish, wild caught salmon, none of that farm raised garbage, poison, trash. Don't eat it. Have you, uh, have you gone on the suave flow? Have you ever suvied? I haven't. And I keep every year right around the holidays and I go, you know, I'm going to try that, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to. get one you know they're not expensive they're easy to use and it is uh yeah especially for like

your wagu cuts and things like that where you want an absolutely control temperature and then you just finish them off on a grill or even on a flat griddle is fine but yeah i'm going to have to try that thanks for reminding me buddy i suvi everything and it is like you haven't had a steak until you've tried to suvi steak it's just next level it's so good cannot recommend it enough definitely a good one. Before we get going, before we get going, you're talking about beef and suveying. I want to talk about River Bend Ranch. River Bend Ranch is where I get my meat.

We get River Bend Ranch Black Label. It is unbelievable. There's a lot of things I love about it. One of them is no hormones ever, no antibiotics, ever. Riverbent Ranch has our own processing plant. They also have their own aging facilities. Now, this is really important because the only place you're going to get a really high-quality age steak is if you go into a super high-end restaurant in New York, Chicago, L.A. I couldn't even find one where I live, to be honest with you, in a store or a restaurant.

But you're getting absolutely the best kind of be aged for 21 days. It's grass-fed. They have their own processing plan. So they're not shipping it off to some, you know, one of the big four. processors that process 90% of the meats of America, they're actually, they have their own processing facilities. So, you know, where it's grown, how it's grown, how it's been bred. This is like a 27-year breeding program for these cattle. And they're raised up in a high mountain meadow area. So the grass is great up there. The feed is great and it's great and is plentiful. They graze and the quality of the

product is second nine. You can have it delivered to your door. If you compare prices to some of the other box meat home delivery meets services and there's some good ones out there but if you compare prices of river bend to some of the other more we'll call them national brands you're going to be shot go to riverbend ranch dot com and you'll find out how you can enjoy the best meet i want to make you clear otherwise brother they are not an advertiser for us it's just eric put in them over i want to make that i just i love the product i'm evangelical about the product no that's great that's awesome all about it. Get Mrs. B on the Sufifo. Get it as a gift for her for the holidays and then utilize that to your advantage. Hey, I was at S&Y last night and everyone was like, you got to get

Eric Bischoff's thoughts on Shohayotani's contract. I sent this to you when it happened. This is like the biggest thing in the sports world right now. Show Hey, Otani signs with the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's technically a $436 million deal over 10 years, but because of this game changing contract deferral. And I'm curious if this bleeds over into wrestling or anything else. He's only going to get paid $2 million a year. And then because of taxes and deferrals, he's going to make $68 million a year for the next 10 years after the contract expires. It's absolutely crazy. Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, you know, Conrad Thompson negotiated that deal. You did know that, right? I mean, there's a connection here. Conrad Thompson is brilliant. When

it comes to money you want conrad thompson on your side just ask show hey atani he'll tell you no listen i think it's great i mean a fact i haven't taken a giant deep dive into it because there's so many other variables that wouldn't exist as you said professional wrestling you know salary caps and rules and all kinds of other union issues and things i don't even know about but i'm sure exists somewhere in a in the crannies of this business but clearly you know never been a deal structured like that before no it's awesome and like you it'll be interesting to see what is this what what effect does this have on other professional sports football baseball other places where there's salary caps and the types of variables that i'm alluding to yeah just

all that deferred money is just crazy and how cool is this i've never you know again i'm not a baseball guy and i know who he is show hey otani and i know about him a little bit peripherally but now i want to meet him. I want to, I want to learn from this cat. This guy is like the son sue of baseball, man. He's the ultimate warrior. And he's taking, no pun intended, because we're kind of a thematically based wrestling show, but the discipline for a young man to look at that much money and say to himself, or hopefully in the future herself, I know I'm making $500,000. million dollars year but i only need two and i'll spread the rest out over a lifetime this cat and the people that he's surrounded by are people that i would just like to be in the same room with

for 20 minutes because even a little bit of that shit wore off that's game changing man that's a really really impressive young man well it helps when you make 50 to 75 million dollars a year in endorsements alone so that gives you a little flexibility yeah but still yeah still that's such that's such forward thinking and sure i wish i would have had even a fraction of that forward thinking when i was making what in my career has been the bigger money the most money because i've burned through a lot you know and it's not like i went out bought you know well i did buy an airplane so i guess that counts but but it's not like you know i didn't have you know garage full of expensive cars i mean i live at my means in many many respect yeah yeah but i took a lot of chances

And I thought, oh, this money's going to keep coming in. Oh, I'm good at making money, which is true. But things change. And for a young man, again, here's what I give him credit for, surrounding himself with people like that and trusting them. That's awesome. Going to be crazy to see it. Just so many people were like, you've got to ask Eric about this.

It's such a business thing. So, uh, curious. Sorry to me off into the weeds, but you know how I am. Oh, yeah. Oh, I read it in the YouTube comments every single week. But, um, I'm hearing up for this show because this, this mucker father's going to be hot well and you got a big prediction you told me that you want to make that you'll make at some point here during the show about 2024 but we are live on ad free shows as we record this

we got bobby in here we got kelly we got matt we got pyrus we got aaron we got rosy he says this show is going to be a banger excited to hear what you guys will teach us i'll tell you rosy we're going to teach but we're also going to just try to take this in because there's a myriad of information that has come in in the last 24 hours as we tape this about the future of both WWE and AEW. And that begins, I guess if you truly want to go back to the origin of the chatter, it started with a Dave Meltzer tweet, ironically, a few days ago where he essentially insinuated things are about to change within the industry.

I'll get on your side here for a second, Eric. I hate vague tweeting. And I don't think any journalist should be vague tweeting. I think if you have news and you're ready to break it, you got to put it out there. And I thought the vague tweeting created a ton of hysteria that was just totally unnecessary. Yeah, but you said journalist.

Dave Nelson, I think we can all agree does not fall under the auspices of what you could expect as a journalist. Yeah. Anybody else. Maybe, you know, the guy can't put a paragraph together that's grammatically coherent. Why would you expect him to adhere to some vague journalistic rulebook? I was just disappointed.

But anyway, we got the big report on Thursday morning. This comes from our pal, Mike Johnson, at PW Insider. Top WWE execs meet with WBD about potential raw deal full details. He said, world wrestling entertainment continues to work on locking in a new media rights partner for Monday night. Raw. Pwinsider.com can confirm that this past Monday night, T.K.O's Mark Shapiro, as well as WWE's Nick Con and Polovec, were in New York City at the Warner Brothers Discovery headquarters, meeting with WBD executive Bruce Campbell about potentially moving raw to the WBD family.

Campbell holds a position of chief revenue and strategy officer. We are told that the W.W.E contingent met with Campbell for several hours Monday morning, with at least part of the meeting taking place in a conference room, usually reserved for David Zaslov. Levec was at raw later that night in Cleveland. Now, Eric, there are a lot of variables at play here, needless to say. Tony Kahn then said on the Ring of Honor Media call the next day that he met with Warner Brother Discovery executives on Tuesday morning.

So, WW met with them Monday, according to this report, and then AW met with them on Tuesday. WWE jumping into the game with Warner Brothers Discovery would have a radical effect on the pro wrestling industry, Eric, before we get deep into the weeds, your initial impressions. I'm not surprised.

Anybody that's been listening to this show since we started it or some of the discussions that Conrad Thompson and I have had over the last couple of years we'll tell you how I reacted to it I saw this I saw the end of this movie coming I've been watching the end of this movie and let's let's be clear the movie's not over yet things can change we'll see and and despite the way the show is going to sound or at least my my portion of it I'm not I'm not happy this is happening. I'm frustrated because it shouldn't have happened.

We shouldn't even, even if nothing else happens to be on this, we shouldn't have gotten to this point of discussion. Right now, AEW and WBD should be in a long-term relationship. This deal should have been renegotiated. They should have been moving forward with a plan months ago. months ago. Those conversations should have started almost a year ago. All right.

But instead, here we are. And presumably, if the reporting is accurate, and I absolutely have 110% confidence in Mike Johnson from PW Insider, so it's not to suggest I don't. But I don't think anybody knows except for the principles what's likely to happen. But we all have a pretty good idea of where those dots are, and it's not that hard to connect the dots.

And unfortunately, I've been connecting those dots and identifying the dots and the patterns for the last two years, which is why we're here. This is not, I told you so. This is trying to explain why this shit frustrates me. It's the same thing whenever I talk about TNA that I get frustrated because of loss of opportunity. Opportunities, you've heard me say this a million times before

if you listen to this show or anything else that I'm involved with, opportunities are a gift they're very very very hard to come by and to see an opportunity like i experienced in t and a and now watching it kind of write its story over the last two years is very frustrating to me so this is not i told you so this is just my best of reacting to the questions you're going to ask me yeah yeah and there's going to be a lot of hypothetical what ifs during the course of this conversation because so much of it is yet to play out here.

Obviously, we're still in the very initial stages of this news becoming public. Say that one more time because I want to make it clear. Nobody's dancing on anybody's grave. We're not even pronouncing the patient, you know, in critical condition yet. We're just looking at the dots and starting to create a picture. Yeah, and there are a lot of dots to connect here because there's so many different variables at play throughout the course of this conversation and you look deeper into this but i do want to say

piggybacking off of what you just started with and laid the foundation for i cannot believe eric that we have gotten to this point where we are even having a discussion about this given the nature that we know a w has with one of brothers discovery what is that no but okay define that though john for our listeners define the relationship yeah what what do we really know about the ship. Well, we believe, and we've talked about this on the record here, we believe that they have an equity stake in the company in some degree. We know that they were one of the first entities to truly give A.W. and Tony Kahn a shot and give them a platform. Now, the one caveat is, that was the old ownership and the old guard at Warner Brothers Discovery that gave them that opportunity and

have that platform. Allegedly citing many conversations that Tony Kahn has gone on the record about, he has said that he and david zaslov has a great relationship now that's nothing more than i'll say that's nothing more than p r hollywood at braspi of course i and i totally totally agree and recognize that's what i think of that three um but we know that they have been critical to a e w's launch within these first five years can we agree on that sure okay so that's what i talk about when i say the relationship that has existed. We've also been here. Let me, let me, let me, let me decide that, John.

You know, you got a lot of grounds you want to cover and you're on fire. But nothing that you said means anything. The fact that they were the first network to give Tony Conrad, put a price tag on that. It means fucking nothing. What's more important that you pointed out accurately, and I think, in a smart way, was that that was different management that brought AEW in. Zazloff took over an existing agreement. So Zazloff didn't give Tony Kahn any opportunity.

He inherited it. So there's no value in the point that you made to me. There's no value in the point that you made to me relating to this special relationship. It was a pre-existing relationship. I mean, I don't think it came with it. I don't think it's a special relationship. I'm just saying they have a relationship. They have a business relationship.

That's the beginning and that's the end. That's all it is. So I think we should dismiss because there's so much narrative, especially from idiots like Dave Melsu, who are nothing more than surrogates and have been surrogates for aid. There's a direct line of communication on a regular basis, between Tony Kahn and Dave Meltzer based on information that I absolutely trust, okay? The highest rate is, oh, they're going to do so well, and they're going to triple.

How many times over the last two years, a year and a half, we've been reading how the peripheral media and guys like Dave Mouser, we're talking about doubling and tripling their licensing revenue in their new deal, based on based on comparing ratings for wrestling to ratings for hockey which will take us into an ad sales conversation somewhere during the middle of the show I'm sure

but there's been so much bullshit surrounding AEW because it's all been targeted towards the internet from the top all the way down it's an internet wrestling community driven business model so

with that With that said, we are potentially looking at a scenario where the game would change drastically across the board. Now, just because this news of Warner Brothers Discovery and WWE having a meeting came out doesn't necessarily mean that WBD is WWE's preferred partner of choice or that WBD is ready to sit there and make a deal with. wwe we don't know that we do know that there are multiple suitors involved well oh okay you okay we know that we know that well tell me what you know because we don't know that well it it was quite literally reported just a couple of weeks ago that wwe was in los angeles meeting with multiple suitors for and they didn't say who but they met with multiple suitors and we're oh why is that news what's that why would that be news

Why is that important? No, well, because that's what I just said to you. I just said, we know that there have been conversations with multiple suitors. That's the point that I'm making. Because it was, right. But first of all, it was reported, reported by who, number one, because that matters in this conversation. I think it was PW Insider that reported that. Okay.

Then I would believe it to be true. All right. This was the raw that Paul Levec was not at that Bruce Pritchard ran a couple weeks ago. Okay. but um and then uh allegedly there's more meeting scheduled too for the next couple weeks when they're back in los angeles so plus we know this eric i mean we just saw this with the sale and the merger there were multiple suitors involved with that there's no reason to believe that warner brother one of which by the way here's another important dot this is another one of my

points over the last year or so i absolutely believe that Warner brothers discovery was one of the initial corporate interests in acquiring, along with Endeavour, acquiring WWE. So that's a big dot. That puts a level of interest, because anybody thinking about acquiring at that time, obviously, WWE knew what they were getting into in terms of the scope of that deal, cost of that deal.

The fact that WBD, in my way, opinion my opinion was one of the initial media companies involved in the process of a potential acquisition leads me to believe that WBD's interest in this possibility predates any of Dave Meltzer's cryptic tweets or any of the other stuff that we're talking about now but what we're talking about now I think started a long time ago so let me ask this then And this is kind of piggybacking off of the point that you made earlier about selling these shows, right? Because we've had this conversation on this podcast. We had it with Raj and you and I have talked about it casually, too.

Selling wrestling is really hard for advertising. It's really hard. Fox, the Murdoch family themselves, said that the reason they weren't retaining Fox was just because it wasn't lining up in that sense. So what would be the incentive then to try and get into bed with another wrestling company if you're potentially having a hard time selling another one versus just getting out of that industry altogether? That's me genuinely asking that question. I think recognizing that they're two different audiences and they're two different products.

They're not the same product from a television point of view, from an audience point of view. from a commercially viable entertainment point of view. While AEW, a large core, I don't know if it's the largest or not, I've obviously never done any research on their audience, but there's certain things you can see and patterns you can observe. They're two separate products. WWE is infinitely more commercially viable. it's easier to sell ads in WWB programming and has been now for a long time at a very,

very high level that is a standard in the industry, as opposed to, oh, I don't know, the blood, the language, the Vince Russo-esque attempts to try to stimulate your 18 to 49 Internet wrestling audience. Sure, that works for that small segment of the audience, but you can. can't sell ads in it. Have we heard this conversation before on Strictly Business or 83 weeks over the last, I don't know, two years? I think so. So much so that I get people pissed off at me bringing it up all the time. But if Fox is sitting there outright saying we had a hard time selling this, why would another entity then be like bring it to us? Is it because it's not

apples to apples? We're talking broadcasts. I think a lot of it from an ad sales point of view, not even apples and oranges. It's like apples and donkeys. They're not even in the same species. But look, Fox Network may not have been able to justify the ad sales on a Friday night based on the price that they were paying for it. We don't know. First of all, we don't know that there'll ever be a price. This could all be a really fun conversation leading up to a big, you know, popcorn fart. Who knows? We'll find out in the future. But I could, I could see a scenario where TBS is looking and going, okay, look, we may not be able to get competitive network TV rates for those ads, but we can get more than competitive ad sales rates

for those ads. And based on the price and the differential between what they can realize in revenues based on ad sales versus the cost and the expense of the licensing, perhaps there's a valuation in there for the growth of audience and the demo that comes with WWE because that network needs more eyeballs. And if WWE, as they have proven over the decades, as professional wrestling has overall in general, has proven that you will get eyeballs if you have wrestling. And if your network needs eyeballs, use wrestling. I don't know, going all the way back to Ted freaking Turner when he launched the super station.

Read the damn book. It's called It Ain't as Easy as it looks. Look it up. It's true as time itself when it comes to the television business. There is a scenario where I could see why it would benefit, ironically enough, Ted Turner, who's in need, not Turner, Turner Broadcasting, who's in need to, in order to build an audience that's rapidly deteriorating, they need a fresh set of eyeballs. And WWE brings it with. That could justify the difference in price. And the difference in decision making between Fox and Turner,

because they're not in the same situation. The biggest underlier, truthfully, is the status of Warner Brothers discovery going forward and what they're strategic plan is because we've received a lot of mixed signals about their path forward here and what they're going to choose to do. I mean, turn the clocks back a year ago and David Zazlov verbatim said that the NBA rights were not all that important to them. And if they lost them, they lost them. And then we saw a tonal shift in that in the last few months where now they're fully engaged in the NBA rights once again. The NBA rights, I think the general consensus among a lot of the sports media industry are going to be the true driver of discussion points and change within the next several months.

W.W.E. I don't know, Eric, what would you say? Would you estimate that Monday Night Raw will probably get around the same monetary value that Smackdown got around $1.4 billion, would you say? I don't know. I don't know the market anymore. I mean, I think we can agree. We know what it was the last TV rights deal. It was around a billion. So I think somewhere in that billion, a 1.4 billion range is probably where Monday Night Raw would fall in terms of what it would command. If WBD doesn't know the future of its strategic planning for what type of rights it's going to retain, getting into bed and making a deal of that magnitude with WWE, it seems, I don't know, it would seem unconventional to me. Do you have any thoughts on that? I don't know how many network five-year programming strategy plans you've been involved with, but I know I never have. But having worked with networks, not in the wrestling business, I mean, I learned a lot about working with that works in a wrestling business, but I learned a lot more when I had my own production company with Jason Herbie for a period of, I don't know, 10 years, very more than that, very, very successful as independent television producers.

But one of the reasons we were successful as independent television producers is because we were close to people like David Zazloff. When I say close, I don't mean socially close, but I mean in meetings with and listening to programming decisions and strategies and plans and going to. television networks with our agents, where we would sit down with very high level executives towards the end of the year and have a conversation. It sounds something like, okay, Eric and agent, here's where we see our programming going for the next year, possibly two. Whoa, that's surprising because it was a change in direction. And there's multiple levels of planning.

going on. So because I've never been in a five-year strategic programming planning meeting at a high level and a network, and neither is any of our listeners, I would hope someone is so they can chime in on this. But there is probably plan A with NBA, plan B without NBA, plan C without NBA or WWE. I'm guessing that there are layers of strategic planning going on that contemplates one or the other or both and a plan in place to execute based on whatever happens. I don't think David Zazloff or anybody at the executive level below him, slightly below him, or whatever, is sitting around going, well, so we know about this NBA deal, we better just sit around and wait.

Right. No. These mucker fathers are paid based on their ability to look in their individual crystal balls and see the future before anybody else does. and plan accordingly. Well, then there's also the part of the WBD equation where the channer for so long has been that Zazlov was brought in to cut, to cut costs, rather, which we've seen, indisputably, they have cut a ton of costs across all different sectors of the brand.

There has been speculation from industry insiders that WBD is being set up to be sold, and that's why they were cutting those costs, maybe to an apple or someone along those lines. could something like that get in the way of rights acquisitions for any property i think there's so much supposition based on chatter like that because all it is is people guessing david zazzoff's coming in he's cutting costs guess anytime there's a massive merger or acquisition there is cost cutting there is fat there is a true analysis of what's working and what's not working that's based on numbers and not emotion that's the cold hard realities of acquisitions and mergers and why people often dread them because somebody's

going to die that's just how it works somebody's position is going to get killed somebody's going to get replaced there's duplication there's a change in direction and strategy that doesn't necessitate certain departments and infrastructure that's just like you know when when in your body cells die and they're replaced with new cells and that's how you keep living The same thing happens in business when there's mergers and acquisitions. So I think when David Zazlov came in, sure, it's easy. Any first year business administration student at a junior college could write a thesis about what might be happening because David Zasloff is coming in and is cutting costs based on the plethora of stories that are all involved with coming in, buying a company, cutting the cost and selling it off. pieces. That's, you know, that's a hostile takeover, I guess. What we could also be seeing is

David Zasloff coming in, and this is just conjecture at my point, obviously, but a guy like Zazloff coming in, cutting off all the, the, cutting out all the non-profitable centers or the, or the inefficient infrastructure, and cutting your cost down to what is almost a bare minimum. And then building your revenues because you can't do both at the same time you can't be inefficient ineffective redundant non-profitable over here and invest in nbAs and wwees or new movies or whatever else right you have to stop the bleeding become as efficient as possible japanese have a term for it's called kaisan go kaisan right get efficient get effective and then grow your business.

So that could be happening. We don't know. That is one of the biggest underlying things here, right? We don't know. Very few people do know what the nitty gritty part of this is. I want to... I do, but whatever. I mean, you claim you know.

Is, I mean, is there anything that you want to, I mean, you said you had a big prediction. Well, Ashley, that was yesterday. Okay. Because while you were convinced that I'm not making fun of you, John. But one of the reasons I don't pay attention to half or three quarters of the stuff that people in the wrestling space do is because it's all bullshit. It's just all bullshit. So I knew, well, I believed 100%. that all of the stuff that we're talking about today,

I was pretty well aware of before that. But wasn't, I was ready to go yesterday. I wanted to do it before anybody else. So I was set it up, and then I got blindsided by a conference call that I absolutely had to be on. So that postponed it. So yesterday, you and I were going to go to town. Yeah.

And I was going to put you through in a fun way, a meat grinder that when you woke up this morning and saw the news that you saw this morning, you were going to go, damn it. It would have been a good show. But yeah, none of us is surprising. Well, it's funny, man, because I mean, I've been talking to people on all sides of the industry

here in AW, WW, W, Warner Brothers Discovery even. And really, just from the actual news perspective, the meeting and everything of that, I mean, WWPR outright denied there being a meeting. And that would be fascinating to me because, and this was initially,

because you would think that you would want that out there for leverage purposes of, you know, public, no, no, you wouldn't.

No, I totally disagree with that. Played out there in a fucking dirt sheet. No, not playing out your negotiations, but being able to say, yeah,

we've got a lot of suitors out here for us. That's a give it. That's a good, look, to go out there and dance around, have your picture take it up fucking Hollywood talking to a business executive or have your PR department you know confirm it or whatever that's that's that's that's like junior high school level optics when it comes to business i'm just telling i know i know historically how these

PR people work for these companies and that's absolutely something that historically they would want out there and no but at a low level yeah but if you're actually doing a deal I can tell you this from firsthand experience multiple times. And I've been in the situation multiple times, not even in the wrestling side of things. When you're getting real close to doing a significant deal, nobody talks if it's real. Now, if it's posturing and posing and trying to convince people

that you got that's going on and make them jealous and make them want to jump in faster, make them worry that maybe they're not going to give them, an opportunity to bid on you. That kind of low level PR shit happens all the time. Don't deny it. I've done that too. I've done that too. But when it's serious, no. And there's a good chance the internal endeavor PR, TKOPPR, they might not even have known about it. And I think that's what it was truthfully. Do you think that there's any possibility that the word leaking of of this could have had anything to do

with trying to get the people at AW to wake up like that it was leaked from someone within Warner Brothers Discovery trying to send a message. That's that's not a possibility of that. I'm just, I'm going with what chatter is. So I'm asking you what you would say to that. I just said it. Childish.

Childish. That chatter started somewhere. And if you could trek that chatterbot, all the way to the knucklehead that threw it out there digitally or otherwise, you would find somebody that doesn't have a freaking clue how real life works. It's my job to ask the questions. Hey, I'm not shooting the messenger, brother. I'm making fun of that chatbot.

Well, then, so then here is the true question that is begged to be asked. Why now? what happened that we are now in a world where we're openly talking about WW and Warner Bros. Discovery allegedly being in some intense negotiations here over a potential Monday Night Raw TV deal. The common denominator that everyone's going to point to Eric is CM Punk showing up. And on Monday, they have this meeting. Well, what happens Monday night? CM Punk in storyline signs with Monday Night Raw. I'm going to be on that brand. We know CM Punk has spoken outwardly about his relationship with David Zazlov, which again could just be PR conjecture.

But still, if you're trying to draw point A to point B, that's out there in the public arena. So do you see any correlation with that? See that again without all the drama. Do you think that CM Punk is in any way responsible for these public conversations between WBD and WWE and them getting potentially closer? to the finish line on a deal. That's complicated. And by the way, I'm going to go on record right now.

You're saying that CM Punk, in the acquisition of CM Punk by WWE might be one of the most financially successful acquisitions in the history of professional wrestling. Whoa, did I just say that? How did we go from CM Punk won't draw a dime to this? And I'm asking that so, Genuinely, not even facetiously trying to be an asshole.

I'm asking that genuinely. And I'll tell you honestly. Okay. The difference, and he answered that question, lies in the CM Punk that I saw when he first showed up in AEW, and the CM Punk I saw when he showed up in WWE. Two different people, two different shows, two different businesses, two different approaches to the product. one would not draw dime or increase television revenues, which was true, was absolutely true and accurate. And one, as of right now, two different situations completely.

And now the other one is perhaps, to answer your question, partially, partially, fortuitously. Ooh, did I just say fortuitously? Awesome. Fortunously, in terms of the timing, going back to the point that I made earlier in all seriousness, WBD expressed a strong interest in WWE and its programming going all the way back to the announcement early this year that WWE was up for sale or whatever that was. my opinion, let me clarify, my strong opinion is that WWE was actively engaged in an attempt to acquire WWA, along with Endeavour and others, formerly in the process.

That WBD was in the process, you're saying? Correct, correct. So that was the first dot. That's a big dot. Right. where WW is at in negotiations. I think the timing of it all. I think this conversation would have happened anyway.

I think the fact that CM Punk, well, it's not even an opinion. The fact that WWE turned around on a dime brought him in and now we're seeing the heightened level of shit going on, chatter, if you will, observation. I don't know. I think it's fortuitous, again, to just use that word because it's just, I love it when

it rolls off my tongue like that, fortuitous. I think it's a big benefit, but I don't think it was instrumental. I think it's a bonus. I think it may accelerate. I think it may ensure a deal where perhaps one may have been tentative previously. But it's not just, and here's another reason why. And this isn't something I saw. This is something that was pointed out.

to me that just rang a bell, right? Seeing Punk just didn't show up. If you go back and look at some of his promos, and I did, after this individual kind of smarted me up, punch promo promos were almost weird. In WWE? In WWE. Uncharacteristic in, I'm home.

I'm home. I'm home. I mean, there was a lot of effort made on that particular night. to send a message to the world that CM Punk was home. That's another when I heard that and just kind of the tone and nature of some of his promos.

I think it's a big benefit, but I don't think it was the impetus. I don't think it was a catalyst. I think it's a benefit. Well, there's no doubting. You look at the numbers. His segments are showing increases in the quarters. His merch is moving hot.

The social media impressions are off the freaking charts with anything that they put up with him. So much so that they've just randomly been uploading just bizarre niche CM Punk matches to their YouTube channel just for clicks. They've been going all in on this. So the CM Punk brand, if you will, is drawn hot right now for WWE. It's drawn hot in WWE. It did not draw hot in. AEW. Big difference. Two different business models, two different companies, two different approaches to the industry. The CM Punk that we saw in AEW was a no win, ain't going to happen,

not going to move the needle, certainly not to the extent that everybody thought it would. And the ratings prove that. I know he saw a lot of T-shirts. That's because there's a lot of WWE fans out there. Did not move the needle in AEW actually did damage in AEW because of the situation there because of the way the company's run and now you're seeing an entirely different outcome. Almost like two different products. I'll tell you this. Well, they are different products.

And that's fine. That's not a bad thing. That's fine that they're two different products. That's, that's hot. John, don't get hot. Fuck. No, I'm not. I'm not getting hot.

I'm the thing. That's why AW exists in the first place, right, to be a different product at the end of the day. Well, and there's a whole conversation in that, too, as far as the sharing. the space, which we'll get into. But on the punk front, one thing that just stood out to me, like crazy, Eric, and I know you're going to be in agreement with me on this, what's the program for CM Punk right now? It's going to be Seth Rollins.

It's going to be at WrestleMania. That's where they're headed, right? We know that there is real-life heat between the two of these guys. And guess what's going to happen? They're going to put that real-life heat behind them, and they're going to get together. and they're going to have a main event match at WrestleMania and make a crap ton of money for themselves and the company.

And they're going to give fans something that fans want to see. The fact, regardless of who you want to say, who is at fault in all the drama that happened with the elite and CM Punk, whoever you think is at fault, regardless of that, the fact that it was not put down on them that you guys are going to get together,

you're going to hash this out, at least to the point where you're going to work together and we're going to make money off this. how bad is that exposed in juxtaposition to what we're seeing in WWE right now with what Seth Rounds and Punk are about to do? Well, I mean, again, this goes back to some of the stuff that I take so much heat for. And there's still people out there thinking, oh, the only reason Eric's, you know, saying anything negative about AEWs

because Tony Con wouldn't give me a job. Like, I wouldn't work for Tony Con. I mean, Tony Con has enough money to make me do a lot of shit. But would I actually enjoy or embrace the opportunity to work there? Absolutely not. and it would take a godly amount of money for me to put myself through it so much so that nobody in their right mind. Well, maybe I could get it. I don't know. I should call Conrad and see if he'd represent me like he did show Hey, Otani. Maybe not. Get those deferrals, man. Get those referrals, right?

But look, it's leadership. It's leadership or in this case, lack thereof. It's vision. It's maturity. It's all of these. above in its experience or lack they're up. It's so many things but it comes down to one person. There's nobody else to blame. Santa baby. Well, you didn't come

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Say, ho, ho, ho, to a well-groomed mistletoe with Manscape. And it looks like Punk wants to set himself up to be a player for the future for them. He's been spending a ton of time at N-X-T. He's been down at the Performance Center. He's been doing some self-appointed coaching. I mean, it's a great start. Now, will it be sustained? We'll find out.

There's still plenty of time. Anything could go wrong at any given moment on that front. But so far, so good. I can see it now. I can see it. CM Punk goes from being an outcast thrown out of the back of the building by AAA. See him, but goes while he's still working for another company. And he goes and he wants to just put it all to bed and Triple H tosses him out of the building.

or Vince McMahon did. He's an outcast. He's fired from AEW. He's down. He's angry. He's frustrated because deep down inside, he knows he has so much more to give. And he's realized all of this controversy and the ups and the downs and the pressure and the anger and the frustration that deep down inside there is a true passion.

A true passion for an industry that he was ready to walk away from. willing to step into a UFC cage and get his brains kicked out in the process of trying to rediscover that passion but to no avail and now finally he's home and he's going to light that fire and that fire a passion is going to burn bright not only for himself and the people that he loves but for the rest of the the roster the young talent that are coming up because now he realizes It's not about the fame. It's not even about the fortune. It's about the passion and the sharing of that light of passion.

That's what it's all about. Until one day, because fuck it, I'm going to turn heel and take it all. There you go. Two years. I just gave you two freaking years in an elevator pitch. Your 180 on Phil Brooks is better character development than I've seen on any pro wrestling programming in the course of the last decade it's true and that's just me sitting around talking to you having fun it's true character

development at a totally different level this is better than the bloodline as far as I see it man look you're not wrong you're not wrong I'm hardly never wrong except for when you're getting your head shaved of course um yeah I got some shame in my game I got to work on my game I got to work on the head shaving and bullshit. What do you think about the idea? And this is, I mean, this is, I can only see something like this happening if WBD just got out of the NBA game altogether.

But the idea of WBD becoming the home of pro wrestling and keeping both properties and offshooting AWD to another sector of Warner Brothers Discovery, say the Discovery channel or another property that it owns. Do you see a world in which they can coexist? Oh, well, I'm theoretically, sure, theoretically, but just kind of take a mental snapshot of that scenario, if you will, and okay, where would AEW go? So, Roz on TBS or TNT, whatever it's going to be, TBS, I guess, whatever, a Turner platform, cable, where does AEW go? I mean in that Turner environment

where would they be subjugated to I'd be surprised if they like kept them on one on TBS one on TNT but I suppose it's possible but if they were to offshoot them to say a true TV or a discovery or something in that realm which is clearly a downgrade from being on TBS

or TNT would you be surprised if a NikCon entity would be okay with something like that. Like, I don't know. I've seen a lot of people talking about this, and I'd be very surprised to see a world in which something like that would happen.

Well, let's back up a little bit. Do I see wrestling on both TBS and T&T? I don't see that. Right, me too. Okay, what's the problem? Why are we even having this conversation? I'll come out and say, I think at the core,

it's Turner ad sales inability to sell AEW you in an ad sales environment because of the nature of the content and the lack of all the things that I've been talking about for two years, like story, real story, not like wrestling angle, living in your basement story. I'm talking about real compelling story that attracts and grows an audience because I think I've also said on this show many, many, many, many, many times. In the television industry, you're either growing or dying, okay? It is what it is. So if Turner can't sell it, which is why they're having a conversation, because they own a piece of AEW, if I'm correct and I believe I am,

if they can't sell it and they're not making any money and they looked at the books and went, ugh, why the fuck would they give it beach property property on a prime time in a prime time slot? It wouldn't. I don't see that scenario. I think if, I think if, I think if any example, executive makes a decision like we think is being analyzed right now? It's like, no, we tried it. We're looking at it. We see the numbers. We see the growth or lack thereof. We see what our ad sales team is able to do with it. We can't afford this property. Afford, meaning keep investigating

it because you're not getting a return on it, whereas there is a return investment strategy, perhaps, with Monday Night Raw, whatever, WWWROM. So I don't see the scenario where AEWW exist on one night on TBS and, you know, T&T has raw. I agree. Maybe it could happen. I mean, I don't know, but I can't, I have a hard time swallowing that one. I can see a scenario where perhaps, especially for the rest of the term of the agreement, depending on what the agreement looks like with Turner and AW, where AW could be relegated to a different platform.

If they can't sell it on TBS, they sure as hell are not going to sell it on Discovery. That ain't happening. True TV has dabbled in wrestling before. I put down again, this was 100 years ago and nothing's insane. Everything's different. But True TV did dabble in male 18 to 49 year old programming. I did the, you know, measure wrestling with them as well as some other programs that I created for True TV with Jason. So that I could kind of see, but guess what happens to AEW?

The 850,000 viewers a week that they get right now are going to go down to about 340, 360. Right. And let's talk about it too from an optics standpoint, right? You always talk about less than, better than, different than. If AW, and I'm just being real here, like I'm not trying to disparage anybody. I'm referring to the court of public opinion. If AW were to downgrade from being on a TBS or a TNT and be put on a true TV, a discovery, a discovery. or if it was off Turner altogether and then off shot to another landing spot, I don't even know where that would be. It's undoubtedly going to be viewed as less than what it already was. And that will be a deterrent for a lot of people coming back and viewing it.

Look how quickly the impact audience went away from the moment that they left Spike. Impact had, you can make the LOL TNA jokes all you want. There were a million plus people every single week that were watching TNA when they were on spike committed every single week once they started channel surfing destination america pop tv one by one by one by one it decreased and the brand value was totally shot i worry greatly for the wrestling industry eric where if something like this were to happen a place that is looked at as a major cash cow for wrestlers to actually earn a living and have a place to work could go by the wayside pretty quickly. What say you? Well, that's life. Yeah. I mean, look, it's going to be really

careful here. AEW has been a great opportunity for some really great people, good human beings, the families that contribute to society as a whole. They're good people. And they've challenged themselves and made a choice to pursue a line of work like any musician, any actor, actress, opera singer, ballet dancer, any performer, writer, direct. People that live in the arts and performance and entertainment make it a commitment to learn and to improve and to grow and to ascend to newer, better heights in their professions.

It's a big commitment. And it comes with a lot of great stuff. It comes with a lot of very difficult stuff too and compromise, sacrifice. So, yes, AEW has been great for those people. And I would really, because some of them are friends of mine, people that I think highly of, even if we're not close friends or friends, people that I still think very highly of

and don't want to see them, you know, without a job. But here's where it gets difficult. If it's not real, meaning if this is just the greatest fantasy wrestling camp in history that paid people to go, embrace it, take advantage of it, you know, use it to get better, to grow, to learn, whatever. But it doesn't mean that it's real. it's is it going to hurt the industry as a whole actually it's not is it going to hurt individuals who rely on it for income and to feed their families absolutely it will but this is not going to have any adverse effect on the industry as a whole so i wouldn't worry too much about it let me

let me let me let me finish and i'll i'll hand back to you sure the points you made and it was an astute one that if AEW moves to another network, a lesser network, a network that is even perceived as a lesser, even if it's not too much less, right? The audience will lose faith in the brand. They will decide that it's no longer worth their time. I have spoken so many times over the years about a gentleman by the name of Gary Considine,

who was an executive. He was executive producer of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, who I had become friends with. Still am. And I've talked about on this show and perhaps on 83 weeks. I think it was even in my book, how in a conversation I had with Gary Considine, and this was back in 97, early 98,

WW8, Nitro's rocking. Everything I touched turned to gold. It was awesome. Worked with Jay, got to know Gary. We talked a lot about business away from wrestling and all that. And Gary said to me once, he goes, Eric, and he had a lot more experience than I did at that time, obviously. And he said, Eric, one of the things that I've learned about the audience is once they vote with their remote, getting them back is almost impossible.

It's harder to get them back than it was to get them in the first time. Very valuable piece of advice. and I've given Gary credit for it every single time I've used it. But that's exactly what AEW has been facing. This has been going on now for a year. All the punk drama, letting that happen, having punk shit all over AEW and Tony Kahn, that was the beginning of the audience losing faith.

And it's progressively gotten worse. That big is going to change the history of professional wrestling. This is a best show in the history of a company's been around for four years, Tony. Talk about history? This overhype and overpromising and under-delivering consistently. Death by a thousand cuts. It's never been one thing. It's all these little things.

Eat away at your credibility. eat away at the audience's belief in you, eat away at their loyalty because they don't want to be loyal to someone who isn't being loyal back by delivering on their promises and overhyping and spinning. So this process that you fear

has been going on now for six or eight months and getting progressively worse. To your point, more specifically, if that happens, I think there's no coming back. yeah as you pointed out just like t and eight it's not coming back yeah but i'm really surprised honestly to hear you say how you don't think that would have that much of an impact on the industry as a whole if something like that were to happen because i mean you know it better than anyone when wcw went out wwe became the only show in town for almost 20 years right and it had a radical

effect on talent, TV, creative, in all these different areas, it had a radical effect. I think you could argue, Eric, fairly, and in good faith, that one of the main reasons that WWTV is so hot right now and so much more cohesive creatively is because they face some pressure in the past couple of years to have to step their game up, because they had someone not competing with them, but competitive in the marketplace for contracts and having to make them stay on their own. I know that's a passionate plea for inclusion of AEW in terms of the success that WW is enjoying right now. I'm sorry to throw a flag on that. It's an emotional narrative amongst the independent wrestling community.

There's proof so. There's no proof. Let me tell you. Let me back up. What about Cody Rhodes? How is that not proof? Cody Rhodes is living proof of that. Without the existence of AEW,

Cody Rhodes can't go back to WWE and become this gigantic John Sina-esque star for them. It doesn't happen. That's concrete. It's not. You're looking at it through a prism that you choose to pick up and look at this through. Has it benefited Cody Rhodes?

Absolutely. But we're talking about the business as a whole. Did it affect advertising? No. Did it affect distribution opportunities? No. Did it affect international licensing? No.

Did it affect content? Yes, and does content have a downstream effect on all of the above? Absolutely, but it's downstream. Let me finish my thought. I'm not interrupting. Go ahead. We're talking about the business. We're not talking about individuals in the business.

I will say to you, if you want it, in fact, let's back up five years. Let's back up almost five and a half years. When I got a phone call from Bruce Pritchard asking if I'd be interested in taking a meeting with Vince with man to discuss coming in as as the director of SmackDown. Okay. One of the first things that I learned, well, after the first couple of meetings with Vince, which, you know, that was short and sweet, I sat down with a group of people who, and I don't think this is confidential information.

I doubt that it is. But there was a consultant group that had come in and had been there for quite a while who were going, and this is not unusual at all, all big companies do this, especially publicly held ones, where you go and you do an audit. And one of the things that that company had identified prior to me getting there was some of the things that needed to be addressed moving forward based on their research, which was extensive. And there were meetings, myself, Paul Heyman, a lot of other people, executives at our level and above, they were a part of this process. So this process of reimagining, that was the first time I'd ever heard that word used in a corporate environment,

reimagining how WWE needed to grow moving forward into the future was a weekly meeting, okay? So this change in the direction isn't because of AEW, despite the fact that all these hardcore bleeding AEW fans want to believe it to be true. It doesn't mean it is. This is an evolution in a change that had started before I got hired there in 2019. So to assign one thing, one individual, a company that comes up and creates competition for the contracts in the marketplace. I'm sorry, there's no competition. There's maybe a handful, but in the big scheme of things, I'm sorry, not a pimple on a

hamster's ass. I'm not sitting here saying that AEW deserves all the credit in the world. world for that. I do not care either way what credit AW gets. I don't work for them. I'm never going to work for them. It doesn't matter to me. That's for sure. No, it's true. It doesn't matter to me. Okay. No, you don't get the irony. No, I get the irony. I get the irony. But I just, for me, Eric, it's not a matter of, oh, you got to give credit to this. You got to give credit to that there are there were a lot of reactionary moves from wwee from the onset of a w's existence beginning into where they are now nxte becoming a tv property number one right off the bat

is directly related to dynamite launching when it did i mean it's directly and that's not a fault there's nothing wrong with that that's and might it have happened eventually sure but it happening at the speed in which it did when it did, there are many examples of that being the case. So I just... I'm going to give you that one because I was there at the time. Yeah.

So I can give you that one. Although it had been discussed, as you said previously, and it may have happened anyway, but whatever. Let's set that one. I'm going to, I'll give you that one. Give me another example. Let's say. I mean, I've told you from a contract perspective for talent, I think, talent, it was immediate.

That doesn't affect the business. That affects the individual. So having top drawing talent doesn't affect business? Negotiating for contracts does not affect business. It's like the cost of goods. It is what it is. I'm talking about the business as a whole. Growth in the industry, bigger distribution, larger international footprints, all of the things. that matter in the growth of the business or sustaining the business and negotiating contracts doesn't fall into that category. I know. I think the main characters on your television show are a big reason why people watch them. Is there anybody in WWE right now that WW wishes they had

or tried to get and couldn't? Yeah, the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega. Okay. Chris Jericho. And they want Chris Jericho back? I'm sure they take, you're telling me if Chris Jericho said I'd like to come back. You're answering a question with a question, Muck or Fother. You threw Chris Jericho. They haven't had a chance to go after Chris Jericho. Okay. Now we're, now we're getting into silliness.

No, but it's true. I mean, they haven't. He's been under contract this entire time and he immediately. Oh, that's just that they want them back? That's what we're talking about here. Who does the WWE want that they can't get? And you're saying because Chris Jericho is in AEW. that they want them. There's one. MJF. How do you know that? How do I know that

WWE would want, come on? Of course they'd want them. And I would not be, and I would not be surprised if there weren't current negotiations and discussions. Is that going to affect WWE's business? No, but the main characters on your television program drive content And as you just said, they drive live event ticket sales. Look at CM Punk coming back into WW. There is a direction of the business. How is ticket sales not the business? How is the gate not the business?

So WWE needs to sell out more than the, I mean, you can only sell out, sell out. You can't sell out plus. Dude, they just did like a 2000 ticket increase on the Monday night raw show that CM Punk wasn't even on last week once Punk came back. just because of the anticipation. I mean, there's tangible evidence of this. It's not. I am the guy that went, that went way off at a deep end,

acquiring all the top talent that I could acquire, because I believe that talent drive is business. That's not the issue. You're arguing a point that I'm not trying to argue against. Wrestling is a talent-driven business. Okay, good. What we're talking about, though, is how AEW enhanced the overall industry.

And I'm not, I'm just not willing to accept that any one individual on the current roster is going to affect WWE's trajectory and the overall trajectory, more importantly, of the entire industry. I'm a thing of believing that giving talent a place with sizable TV and a good way to make a living is a significant help to the rest of the industry. And AW how, how, how, how, making money that is sustainable. rather than twirling away on the indies that's an individual thing it's not a talent promoting a good culture to have within the industry oh god now we're now okay no i know you're going to say oh he's too woke he's just looking at i i know what you're going to say you're absolutely right i love you only with a couple of f bombs in it i love you dearly i do i just i i i i'm so warm with fuzzy i talk to you i get all warm and fuzzy

Hey, I want to get to a couple questions here before we wrap up from our ad-free shows fans. This one from Brian. Do you think TKO could take a deal that they like and that WWE does not like, or do you think they are letting WWE take the lead on all this? I couldn't even guess. I couldn't even guess. I would look, it always comes down to one guy. That's, you know, Ari Emanuel. Manuel.

So. Isn't it interesting? I think there'd be plenty of conversation. and consideration and respect and perhaps it'll be deferential to WWE but

it's this cat by the name of Nick Con right and he's in those he's like okay that's a whole other show that's actually a freaking movie this Nick Con guy this is a movie

this is like really a good movie so yeah i think i think the decision will be characterized by solidarity and positive effect isn't it interesting and we don't know for sure for all we know he's being brought in via zoom on these things or whatever. But Vince McMahon has not been mentioned in any of these reports about negotiations. And Vince was retained and put in his position for the idea of leading strategic advancement. And yet we're hearing about Nick Con and Paul Levec and Mark Shapiro being in these conversations. It's just fascinating to me that we don't hear Vince's name come up in them.

not really now Vince is still controversial there's you know there's that cloud um and look when you have meetings like this if these meetings are happening again we're I I am working off a lot of presumptions here some of which I absolutely believe some of that I'm not 100% sure of whatever it doesn't matter but if this meeting that presumably happened And who was in the meeting one more time? I know we've talked about who was in the meeting. Mark Shapiro. Stop right there.

Mark Shapiro is the business side. Right? What's his title? I don't even know for sure. I'm pretty sure he's the chairman of TKO. Okay. Well, we know why he was there. Who else was there?

Nick Con. Huh. Paul about. The guy that there needs to be a movie about? Yeah. We know why he's in it. We know exactly why he's in that meeting. Who else was in that meeting?

Paul Leveck. Let's put Paul off to the side because that's the one I want to talk about. Who else? Bruce Campbell, who is one of Brothers Discovery's chief revenue and strategy officer. Oh. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, three-dimensional picture. Each one of those people had a pivotal role directly related to the ongoing business. Directly.

Not indirectly as a consultant. and that is a member of the board directly. Why was Paul Leveck in that meeting? Because in many respects, those other, and I mean this with all due respect to Paul, like really lots of respect for Paul, more than I ever thought I would have. And I started out with a lot.

But the fact that Paul Leveck was in that meeting tells me that this was a meeting that was also going to include long-term creative. At least what type of content they can expect with the program. They already know what kind of content they can expect. Look, you got decades of it.

No, but I mean, like you said, creative strategy going forward. Creative strategy, long-term plan, strategic creative thinking, otherwise paula veck would not have been in that meeting and to my point or to your point why was viz McMahon not in that meeting because paula veck is the voice they don't need two voices they don't need to show hey we got Vince McMahon on our team they already know that it's not necessary in a meetings like that it's all about who's absolutely necessary does paula veck being there

give you any indication that this wasn't the first meeting between the two sides Poloveck being there suggests to me that this might have been the last meeting before there's an announcement. Wow. So you think it's that far along in the process? I do. I do. So you're going to make a bold prediction for us here? I would have made it yesterday. I think it's pretty obvious now. You think it you think it's not so bold. I mean, it's not bold anymore. It was you think it's going to cross the finish line. I'm sorry? You think this is going to get across the finish line. Yeah. Gun to your head is AEW involved in Warner Bros. Discovery by the end of 2024? No. For all the reasons we just talked about. Yeah.

And again, I don't know this. I want to make it very freaking clear. I don't even hope for this. Yeah. I'm fascinated by it. I can't help but be excited about an aspect of the business that I truly am fascinated with, that being the business of the business, which is why I'm so kind of. of half-ass when it comes to discussions about what's going on in the ring and what's going on

with creative. I'm interested, but it's not passion. But the business of the wrestling business has always been a passion for me. And this is fascinating. The last 12 months has been fascinating. This, you know, compared to the acquisition of WWE by endeavor, I don't know, it's kind of hard to think about anything being bigger than that. But this is pretty freaking close. It's substantial. And while I'm excited or interested or passionate about the business of the business, I take no great pleasure in saying that I've been talking about this for two years. And for two years, I've been characterized as anti-AEW.

Even the people that quote me in different online news sources, you know, former president, Eric Bischoff, you know, once again, criticizing or has been become known for criticizing Tony Con, but criticizing, I'm pointing out things that I've seen that I knew and still believe whether this transaction actually occurs or not will still lead to a very, very sad, frustrating miss of a great opportunity. and I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I just don't think I am.

From Brian, if WBD is a place for WWD, do you think they would want to get the streaming right away from Peacock and move it to Max? I mean, the one thing, Brian, you've got to do, keep in mind, they have an existing contract with NBC Universal to keep the content there on Peacock through 2026, and their business relationship with NBC Universal is not ending. Smackdown is going to be there.

So I'd be surprised, Eric, if the library were to move over. Now, that's not to say, there couldn't be other avenues for programming that is specific to Warner Brothers Discovery potentially down the line for them to explore either. Or you could bifurcate the library a little bit. Perhaps there's a scenario where there's a big library there. There's a certain percentage of it or a certain segment of it that could go along with it. I mean, you never know.

And I certainly am not in any position to try to predict one way or the other or even have an opinion. And too many things I don't understand them, I don't know. Yeah. Aaron wants to know, do you guys have any thoughts on the reports of WBD having a 60% chance of going bankrupt? I mean, I feel like that's dealing with hypotheticals ultimately. And we talked before about cost cutting as is. So I'm not even going to engage in that one. Yeah.

Just all hypotheticals there. One thing that I want to hit on real quick before we wrap. the ring of honor stuff is really interesting eric that because i heard you talking about it too elsewhere the report from nick houseman a couple weeks ago i think it was was that c w had expressed interest in ring of honor and tony really didn't engage on it and he confirmed that on the media hold hold on one second i'm going to ask you to do something because we're live with our ad free show audience i'm going to use the restroom sure and you're going to do a q and a some of the fine folks we have here with us so we don't have to shut this down i'll be right back

okay well better yet i'm going to play this clip that i was going to tee up for our listeners here and uh this is something that i always found to be really interesting because i was talking to uh took the wrong camera there sorry i was talking to tony on the call about the idea of what is the value of the ring of honor tv rights and where could they distribute that content because right now it's only being distributed on honor club so i asked about that on this call and i want you all to take a listen to what his response was because it kind of changes over the course of his answer well it's a great question we've had a really good talks with warner brothers discovery had a great visit with them today and uh we've got a really exciting relationship that has grown a lot over the

years and it has expanded for a w ring of honor is still really a third part in the relationship and is a company that's putting on really exciting wrestling, and it's, I think, peripheral to the conversation right now, but it offers a lot of value to AEW and to media companies. There's a lot of interest in ROH and some of the most exciting wrestling and some of the most exciting stories and some of the best events in ROH's history are happening now, and it's really awesome that ROH has these options and also it's very complimentary for myself and my family and our business interests that, you know, the ROH meteorites and the massive library and IP are there and accessible to us as we pursue new meteorites for AEW in 2024. and we also have the additional value of the ROA's library with the AEW library that continued to grow with almost 220 episodes of Wednesday Night Dynamite alone and well over

100 episodes of Friday Night Rampage and it's been an exciting half year on AEW collision and had a great show this past week and I think several weeks in a row great episodes of collision, in particular since the Continental Classic, kicked on, and Dynamite. We've had some great shows recently, also, especially since the Continental Classic got going, and it's been a banner year for AEW on pay-per-view, and our Paperview Library has continued to grow with more events and great history going back to 2019. So the library is a big part of the AEW meteorites, but having the complementary value of the Ring of Honor Library that I purchased with the company.

for what I believe is a very good value in 2022. It's a very valuable asset to position in the marketplace, along with the AEW streaming library and the ability to create new events in the future from AEW and Ring of Honor and continue great traditions like Final Battles this Friday. Oh, my God! I got Vertigo listening to that. that is wow that's like he's selling his ass off he's a servant yeah i mean that's what he's trying to do he's trying to sell sell here yeah and here's here's a fact nobody's interested in ring of honor

the only person interested in ring of honor is tony con well that's what i want to bring up because it's so clear when you listen to that he now he starts the answer eric i know you have to get up but he starts the answer by saying that ring of honor is peripheral to a TV rights. And then by the end of that answer, he's saying how Ring of Honor would be perfectly complimentary to AWTV rights. And it's very evident to me that he wants to bundle them in any sort of media deal. And the report of him declining to meet further with the CW about Ring of Honor only further indicates that to me. And I just don't think that there's interest in the marketplace for something like that. Especially, you know what? Here's another tell aside from the fact that, you know,

That was a 15,000 word answer that could have been answered succinctly in about two dozen. And anytime somebody becomes so superfluous with their language and describing and painting the big picture and the continental classic and exciting matches, that's like you're just pitching to the world because you've got no interest from any individual. That was such a broad pitch. That was one tell. The other one, it's important to me and my family. Really?

So now it's the con family, the owners of the Jacksonville Jaguars and whatever else they own, right? This is a con family presentation. It's important to the con family. And he's tried to leverage, he's tried to leverage mommy and daddy i get it i would do the same freaking thing which is why i recognize it for what it is tony knows based on i just the first time i've heard that tony knows and i'm not

crapping on tony i understand the pitch but what i's he sees the he sees the handwriting on the wall and he's out pitching but i just think and i've taken the temperature on this from people within a w and even wbd and it feels like this hellbent nathan of trying to bundle these two properties is falling on deaf ears. And I don't believe that that's helping sustain any leverage in these negotiations. It has no leverage. That's what I'm saying. It's leveraging the family name because he doesn't have any real leverage.

I mean, it's so obvious to me. I would do the same thing. I'm not picking on him. My back was against the wall. And I saw the writing that I think he probably sees. I'd be doing the same thing. No, I'd bring my dad with me. But I think Tony knows.

Or suspect, strongly suspect. Yeah, I just think that the Ring of Honor stuff is, it's very much guided. What did I say last week, John? I hate to keep interrupting you, but I don't get this many opportunities if you rate all the freaking time. What did I say last week? If Ring of Honor was a horse, I would shoot it. Do you know why I would shoot it if it was a horse? Because with a horse, if a horse breaks its leg, there's no chance to fix it.

It's not like a dog or even a cat or you or me. If a horse breaks its leg because there were so many small fine bones in a horse's leg and foot that if it breaks, it's not reparable. Yeah. So you put the horse out of its misery. You don't feed the horse while it's laying in its stall. Because I can't get up. You shoot the horse. And if Ring of Honor was a horse out of empathy and compassion, I wouldn't keep feeding it.

I would shoot it. And then take the food that I had been feeding the sick, crippled, going to die anyway horse, and I would allocate it to the horses that can actually run. you can end up with some suvie horse burgers by the end of god don't even ring up don't even ring up you talk about horse meat out in the part of the country that I live in you'll find yourself swinging from the back of a truck jeez my goodness they take your horses seriously out here

you do not do not abuse a horse in this part of the country are you are you a moose guy you like moose meat i'll eat moose yeah yeah i shot a moose well i was going to say when i was up in maine if you were lucky enough to survive a car versus moose collision the first question from the park rangers would be you want to keep it of course moose meat is have you ever had moose meat yes i have i have delicious yeah it's good it's good it's just a little bit of an acquired taste but it's good um yeah man i mean this is great this is a great episode of strictly business. And I don't think we'll be done discussing this particular topic. I think. But let's close it up, John. Let's look. We don't know. Nobody knows. Dave Meltzer doesn't

know. Eric Bishop doesn't know. Nobody knows. I'm just like everybody else and you. We're all just talking about what we think we know based on what we hear. The difference between me and everybody else is I've been there and I've done it. And I see a picture a little differently than others but i don't know either i just have feelings that are different for most people based on what i've experienced and if i'm right i'm right if i'm wrong i hope i'm in many respects i hope i'm wrong i don't want to see tone i don't want to see a w you know end up in a drain i really don't again there's people there that i really respect and like and some of my friends with some of i just admire absolutely do i want to see mjf continue to grow absolutely are there people there

that I'm friends with and friendly with when I see them absolutely. But if it happens, I don't think anybody should be surprised. Not anybody listening to this show. If something does happen, it's not personal. It's strictly business. And we want you on our team here on strictly business. You head on over to advertise witheric.com. You're going to get your business out.

You're going to get your product out in front of thousands of listeners every single week. Advertise with Eric.com is your place to be for that. And go over to box of gimmicks.com because we just uploaded a bunch of strictly business merchandise. So go ahead and check that out, including Christmas ornaments. Imagine going over to your tree and having a strictly business Christmas ornament. Are you kidding me? Things are going to sell like hotcakes and we still have, what, 11 days till Christmas as we record this? Plenty of time to get that boxogimics.com. Eric, anything else you want to add? Yeah. Get it. a box of meat get riverbend.com riverbend ranch meets still time to get some as a gift for your

family the holiday dinners whatever you're going to be really glad you did and you can thank me later that's get riverbend dot com this has been strictly business we we'll see you next time