83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #61: Ask Eric Anything!

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

Strictly Business is back with another BUSINESS edition of "Ask Eric Anything!" This week, Eric discusses his situation with Tony Khan, dives into the logistics of live touring scheduling, WWE's streaming future, and more! 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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So don't make saving money a resolution next year. Make it happen today. at savewithconrad.com. Eric Bischoff presented to you by the ad-free shows and the podcast Heat Networks. I am John Alba. I'm the co-hosts of Strictly Business because who would I be without the star of the show? Mr. Eric Bischoff, what's going on, easy? How we doing?

I am doing great. And you're so kind, John. What a just great way to start my day. Man, that's just the cherry on top of my day, Eric. It's great to see you. It's great to see everyone here on the ad-free shows family. who's watching live we got lucas in here we got joe in here we got tim in here we got lee who's watching from the uk oh that's awesome oh yeah absolutely so we've got he says uh been a while but i felt

like this may be a good one to catch live for some reason it's always a good yeah i've been hearing a lot of that lately it's always good to catch strictly business live and we got our top gal lindsay in here, of course, as well. Let's see, great to see everyone. Adfreeshoes.com is where you're going to get early access, plus live access to all your tapings here on the podcast, Eat and Ad Free Shows Network. So we're going to have some fun today. It is going to be another edition of Ask Eric Anything, except these questions are about the

business of the business and the people involved in the business. So we've got a lot to cover. Everything good with you this week, my friend. Man, it couldn't be better. I am feeling great. I'm down to 188 pounds. Nice. Which I probably haven't been 188 pounds since 1988.

1988. Actually. Back when we had the same hair. What a coincidence. But yeah, I'm feeling great. The carnivore diet I'm on, the River Bend Ranch black label meats that I'm getting. It's just been so easy for me and the health benefits are phenomenal.

I feel better honestly John I feel better not just physically but in terms of mental performance and clarity and focus I don't remember the last time I had this much focus it's it's been it's been a really it's been a fun journey and I'm glad to be on it but I'm feeling great bro love hearing that that's great to hear 1988 you and I had the same hair back then too so mine was a different color and and you hadn't made any Bet's about CM Punk coming back. So you had plenty of it to go around. If I would have known then, what I know now. That's right.

I never got a chance to follow up with you. Did you ever get around to seeing the Iron Claw? Not yet. Got to make sure you do, man. Got to make sure you do. Just the aesthetic of it alone, Eric, we'll take you back. You know, honestly, it's not here in Cody. Or if it is, I haven't seen it.

No, I haven't looked. I don't know if it's on this weekend. But it hasn't been here. I don't think. I haven't heard about it here. I would go, but we got one theater. You know, there's a town of 10,000 people, so it's not like we get all the big movies.

That's fair. That's fair. I get that. Okay, Eric, I don't want to waste any more time. I want to get into some questions. We've got so many great ones. If you are watching live with us on ad-preyshows.com, feel free to drop your questions in the comments,

and we'll try to get them on air throughout the course of this. All right, let's go to Peter here, big fan of the show. He says, hi, Eric and John. What was your last conversation like, Eric, with Tony Conn? and why do you think it's soured since? You made several appearances in AW in 2021, but now that doesn't look like it'll happen again. All one's wrong and can it be fixed?

Look, I, this is kind of hard to explain because it's my quirky weird way. I, I like Tony. I think there's a lot of great things about Tony. But I lost respect for him. And, and, you know, I've talked about this before. I don't want to spend a great deal time on it.

It's old, old stuff, right? But I'm a ridiculously loyal person, almost to my detriment sometimes. Oftentimes, to be honest. And I don't mind if someone wants to take a shot at me. I'm kind of used to it. like, you know, I've been in this spot for whatever, in terms of getting, you know, hate from those that don't think I'm qualified for the job or should have the job or did a great enough job or whatever, right, figure poca-doo.

I don't mind that because I actually have fun with it now, you know, vis-a-vis the podcast and doing things with you. And it doesn't bother me a bit. But when someone who I have a ton of research, respect for, that deserves even more than I can give. When that person is disrespected by somebody, it bothers me more. And when Tony Kahn came out and said, if Ted Turner knew 1% about wrestling as I do, WCW would still be around.

It was such a fundamentally ignorant statement, and by that I mean no knowledge, no experience. That's the definition of ignorance. I'm not using it derisively. But at that very moment, I went, you're just another guy. You don't, you, you're standing in, your show is on the Turner Broadcast Network and Turner Network Television. And you're criticizing and disrespecting, not criticizing, disrespecting from a position of absolute ignorance, a guy who built the empire you're trying to survive on. And it's so disrespectful to me that I can like somebody, but if I don't have respect for them, they're just, there's another person.

There's, I'm not, I'm not, I don't make any exceptions for people like that in terms of reacting to them and having fun with them on social media and things like that. That's fun for me, right? I get a kick out of it. Some of the stuff just makes me laugh. It's so funny. But when Tony came out and made that statement, it's like, no, he's just another Dave Meltzer Dirt She'd want to be with a lot of money.

Granted, but the fact that he was born into a fortune doesn't necessarily make him any different than anybody else. Anybody else that was walking the street that came out and made a stupid comment like that, ignorant comment like that about Ted Turner, I would treat them the same way. But it's not because I don't like him. It's certainly not because I'm jealous. I think about this three or four times a week. What if I would have been working for AEW?

All this would be because of me. You know what I mean? It just, and it comes with the territory. But I am so grateful that I'm not there, that I'm not anywhere near it. Actually, I'm sitting in this chair talking about it objectively because I can because I don't depend on them for an income. And thank goodness for that. But, man, thank God I'm not there.

And it's really not anything other than just a lack of respect because of what Tony, the stupid ignorant comment that he said about Ted Turner. That changed my perspective from, like this guy, I don't know really well. I mean, probably a total of 40 minutes face to face. Don't know, but I generally like him. And because I had respect for him and I could put myself in his shoes when he was launching his company, if you go back and you look at my tweets, people that are out there thinking I'm an AUWator, go back and look at anything that I said in social media about AEW or Tony Kahn.

was all supportive, all supportive. Like I should have been working for them kind of promotion supportive. But it was genuine for me. When they announced Arthur Ash, you know, and did so well with ticket sales. I was a man, Tony's got some balls. He's doing it. He's doing what T&A needed to do, which is another thing I'd like to touch on, maybe on this show. But, you know, he was doing the things that T&A should have done, but didn't have either the finances to do, or the balls to do it. And there were so many things like that that I was so excited about that I thought genuinely

that there would be legitimate competition. Not right away. And when I say competition, I mean meaningful on any metric, not just TV ratings. There's a lot of other things that go into that. But a growth pattern, anything. Show me something that's growing and living and getting bigger and stronger

so the industry gets bigger and stronger. boats float higher as they say and i started noticing things that indicated to me as i always talk about i see patterns and and eventually i start connecting a couple of dots and after a while i quit being so supportive and was more or less neutral but cheering on the sidelines up until tony made that comment so you go back and look at my timeline if you don't believe me Go back and look at my timeline if you can't even know if people have access to my timeline. But if you can go back and find any of the tweets that I put out, and you know, not in 2019 because I actually watched their debut show

from WWE headquarters in Stanford, Connecticut in the writer's room with about six or eight other WWE writers that were on my staff at the time. And all of us were cheering them on. Not like, yay, they tell you, but all of us were optimistic and hopeful because it's energy, right? And energy is better for everybody. So from that point, and then when I left, obviously,

a couple months later, or shortly thereafter, I started, you know, tweeting again. And that's, you know, I was very supportive, very, very supportive. But really, if you go back and you look at that tweet, and it goes, I don't know what it was. I think it was in November of 2020, maybe.

It's two years old, I think, by now. That's when I made the comment on social media, which essentially said, shut up and wrestle, which was my way of saying, Tony, focus on your own stuff because it's not going in the right direction.

The patterns I'm seeing with creative, the patterns I'm seeing strategically, the things that I'm seeing when I watch the show, and then learning anecdotally, you know, it's not like a hard news, but you just start seeing patterns. And that's one of the, I started losing a little steam

and as far as support and like I said when Tony made their comment about Ted Turner it's like okay I'm just going to treat you like everybody else you're not special you're just another guy you just happen to be you know in a lucky sperm club good for you yay rah rah that doesn't make any different than anybody else

in my book do you think and I'm any follow up to this I'm genuinely asking as a person more than anything else do you think that a comment like that that obviously was very personal and resonated significantly with you, could that be worked past

in any way, or has that permanently damaged someone's reputation in your eyes? I'm not sure I understand the question. So he made obviously that comment about Ted that upset you. Didn't upset me. Didn't upset me. It was the moment that I lost respect.

for Tony. Okay. So I guess from one category, which is kind of a protected category, into another category that everybody else is. I guess what I'm saying is could his perception be rectified in your eyes and be able to move past that to create productive conversations about business and the state of the industry? Sure.

I'll talk to anybody. I, when I said, when we started this answer, I like Tony. I don't dislike him. I really don't. There's nothing to dislike. I have issues with the way he operates and obviously the things that he says sometimes, certainly that one. But that's not the same as disliking somebody. I mean, for me to dislike somebody, it has to become very, very personal.

And I didn't, nothing Tony said I took personally. So, no, look, just because I speak out. about somebody or just you and I could get into my argument i'm going to say shit that you're not going to like to hear we always do and that's why there's going to around and then you do the same yeah that's okay i look forward to doing the next show with you yeah but so that kind of shit doesn't get in my way but i i don't here's why i don't think it matters it's a good point the patterns I see now this is a broader this is a different level right in terms of who tony con is and what his motivations are even though I could get past anything I could

apologize and I have by the way I've reached out more than once just saying hey man I'm I'm here we go back and forth you can hate my guts if you want no worries but if you ever want to chat And this was recently, by the way. So you have reached out personally to Tony Kahn. Yeah. I sent him a text. What was going on? Oh, is when the NXT head-to-head thing was going on?

Oh, a couple months ago. Yeah. And Johnny was like having a meltdown because they loaded the show. I mean, you know, dude, you're, you're more careful about this shit than I am because you have to be, but I don't. So Tony was melting down. And I started having fun with it because, again, for me, going back and forth on social media, it's just, it's entertainment. And I started seeing it, I jumped in a little bit in the front and then it started, he started going like down faster, faster, faster. And we're like, oh my gosh, I'm actually a little aware that some people don't react that well to that much negative pressure.

especially if that if someone like that relies so much on feedback from social media for validation that's one of the dots that i started seeing a while ago so i actually reached out to tony said hey man you can tell me to fuck off if you want i don't even know if i i probably still have it in my phone i should probably read it to you let me read it to you where's my phone here it is right here we'll get back to him let's see if i can find this and it was just really my way of saying hold on while you look for that i just want to say this it's also fascinating to me when i see these interactions especially between you two because you do have a lot of similarities there are a lot of differences for sure you better make that really freaking clear there are there are a lot of

differences there certainly are but you guys are both numbers oriented people you care about the process and i don't just mean creative process i mean the process in general and you're very perceptive in the sense that you're inherently curious about people and their reactions to things and not that you care necessarily about them but you're observant to them and i think you share a lot of those qualities, just even from my interactions with Tony over the years, I've been interacting with Tony for five years now. So it's interesting to see. And look, I have no doubt, Eric, and I understand that the circumstances are not apples to apples. But when Tony goes on social media and takes a shot at a company, he learned that by watching someone like you do the same thing on

television. And again, I understand the circumstances are not apples to apples. But, Well, that's kind of an important. That's like saying, well, I know, you know, I was driving with my headlights on, you know, and it was watching. It was my time and I was drinking and I hit a phone pole. But you were taking shots when WWE was substantially ahead at one point. John, this is the part. This is the part where I, when I do entertain myself, I'm going to find this text before

the show's over, but I want to hit on this point. Did I do those things? Hell yes. Bringing Lex Lugar in when everybody in the country, including everybody at WWE headquarters, thought he was under contract, and bringing him in to crash the party on Nitro, was not just a shot at WWE.

It was a kick in the balls and a curb stomp when I was done. I went after them immediately, but, and it got better from there, but I was going head to head. I was actually in a fight. I was in the ring, and the referee was a guy named Nielsen. That was a real competition. And I've made this so abundantly clear for so long now, two years, on every format or every platform that I'm on. I think if Tony would have come out swinging a jump in the ring and taking those shots, I'd be cheering them on.

But to do it from the sidelines when you're not really competing makes you look ignorant in the literal sense of the word. No experience, no knowledge. And it just, there's a difference. And it drives me crazy that people can't understand. Well, you did it. Well, yeah, but yeah, this circumstances. We're night and day. Night and day.

So as long as people can keep that in their mind and you want to take shots with me, I don't know, go ahead and do it. I don't care. It makes me laugh. It's entertainment. But if you really want to put things in clear perspective and understand the patterns

and start connecting your own dots, just think about it. There's a big difference, but I keep answering that same question. Not that I don't mind answering it because you've given me an opportunity to dig it a little deeper than I can in 280 characters. But, yeah, big difference. It's just so fascinating to me that we get into this discourse involving very powerful people who have an opportunity to utilize social media as a way to gain valuable feedback from people. there's plenty of invaluable feedback of course on social media but i do think there is something to be said about reading your audience a little bit too uh and to see the discourse just blow up in the way

in which it did this past week in particular was so wild where everyone had an opinion on it and i hated to see that people got dragged into it that didn't really need to get dragged into it like jinder mahal getting dragged into it i didn't think that was very fair to him or i think genders i think Ginger's, and I don't know, Ginger, I've never had a conversation with him. I don't think I've ever had an opportunity to shake his hand or any of that. That being said, I'm pretty certain that Ginger's getting a kick out of this. Oh, Jinder got publicity up the wazoo when he didn't need it, you know? So, I mean, good for him. But Hook gets dragged into it. So whatever it may be, I like Tony Kahn, there are things that I'm definitely critical of in terms of, you know,

the way publicly perception-wise things have played out in the past couple of years. But at the same time man like that's his company to run it has no impact on me it has no impact on me in any way i don't get paid by them but we all sit here and you know i'm i'm i'm on the outside looking in yeah i'm no different than you in that respect we just have different perspectives on things but you know i wanted to keep going hell you should see i you know you talk let's talk a little bit about twitter this show may go long i don't know if you have the time but i do yeah keep going But, you know, it's, I have so much fun with Twitter just in terms of trying to figure out the psychology behind some of it. And that's a funky hole.

But it's not like I get wrapped up in the actual content of some of the stuff I see. But I try to put myself in that person's shoes for whatever nanosecond I could to at least try to understand that perspective. and that's the part of it that makes me have fun with it because I like learning shit. I like seeing patterns where most people don't see them. And you know, that's kind of a thing for me, you know. Example, you know, when people will go, well, you know, but you don't really watch the product. True. I watch some of it.

But I'm not interested in what I see in the ring. unless it relates to story or character. And I can watch about 10 minutes of wrestling and get a feel for that, or 20 minutes, right? Of a particular story that I'm interested in. I can see what it's going and where it's not going. And I just, I love looking for that kind of shit. When I read these things on Twitter and I'm going,

okay, why would someone post something like that? Why would they respond to that? Well, not necessarily bad. Also good. I just try to understand. Anyway. But it can also be so detrimental. It's a great source of, you know, it's just like,

I used to say this about research whenever we said, oh, let's do some research. And you know I'm a firm believer in quality research. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, I think it's one of the most important assets anybody could tap into if they're really interested in building long term. But that being said, I've also seen a, shit ton of horrible research that wasn't it just wasn't good research whether it be the format

the focus groups the demos you told that group story on here about the heels and baby faces yeah or more importantly it's just the quality look look research is no different to anything in you put shit in you're going to get shit out the quality of the research is in creating the right questions to get into the psychology of your target audience, to try to understand what motivates them and what doesn't motivate them. And sometimes that's really subtle stuff. And that's why I love it so much. And that's what I kind of try to do when I'm playing on Twitter. But at the same time, man, it can it can be accessible if you allow it to me. And more often than not, it just makes me laugh my ass up. The other night, I was, I had an infrared son in my studio. And I was

out there at night, and I'm going back. This is after, you know, Tony and I started having fun. I don't want to talk too much about that, and I'll tell you why in a minute. But I'm in the sauna. It was 167 degrees. I was in there for about 68 minutes. And I'm in a sauna sweating my ass off, and I'm having fun going back and forth because it made me laugh. I had nothing else to do in the sauna at my age. that's a segue to a blue chew comment if there ever was one you you read my mind there eric because that's exactly what i was about to get into right now i mean if you're looking to let's do it if you're looking to hang out in a sauna with eric bischoff i guess well then hey you've got a chance to uh chew it and do it with our friends over at bluechew who

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The best part, it is all done online. So no visits to the doctor's office, no awkward conversations, no waiting in line. at the pharmacy blue choose tablets are made in the united states and prepared and shipped directly to your door in a discreet package eric i know you're just talking about saunas but aside from saunas where else have you found blue chew to be handy for you well let's be really clear it's a two-person sauna my love my wife almost genuinely or generally loves to sauna with me depending on the time of day so just so anybody doesn't get a quick for the clarification just don't have too much fun that's all i but let's here's the truth this is getting kind of personal and but because

Bluetooth has been such a great partner no they're not just an advertiser you're a partner they've been with us a long time and I'm going to share this bit of personal information when I travel with my wife and we're out of town sometimes it's on business together more often than not it's family related we recently went to the UK that was really an absolutely wonderful trip and again I can't say enough great things about Kenny McIntosh and the team over over it inside the ropes unbelievable experience I have a picture that I'm going to mount in my office that we all took together it meant that much to me but while I knew I was going over there with my wife I knew it was going to be our first

time to really get away together on a vacation by ourselves that wasn't necessarily related to the business because I wrapped up my tour in the UK and we had a week to ourselves, whatever it was, six days. And that's the first time, Laura and I have been together for an extended period of time in probably two decades where it wasn't family business related. And I wanted to gear up for it. I wanted it to be everything that it could be. So I started planning months ahead, say, okay, I'm going to make sure I've got enough blue chew, start stacking a pack a week away for the trip, you know, so when the trip came, I made sure I was loaded up and ready to go because I wanted to have all kinds of fun on that trip. And I didn't want to just have fun

for the sake of going through the motions. Uh-uh, not me, Mucker Fother. I wanted performance. I wanted to be able to shift into high gear while I was in the UK for the first time in almost 20 years with my wife on a romantic trip through the hills and the lakes of Scotland. It was amazing. And Blue Chew helped me make that trip everything I hoped it could be. Wow. Or my wife. Internationally. How about that? I'm really glad that you added there. It's good to know that it works past American borders. That's really, that's really. assuring. No, watch, I want everybody to know. I don't know what kind of award systems there. I know you got an Emmy. I don't have shit. Well, I've got the WWE Hall of Fame side plates up there

in a while next to Muhammad Ali and Jay Little. But this read should get whatever podcast award is out there. Like, if they have an Emmy version of a podcast read, that read should get one. And the reason I'm petitioning right here, right now, to anybody in the industry, that's listening to this thing is this is all unscripted. I had no idea we were getting ready to do a Blue Chew commercial, but that is what makes this show magic. So, come on, Brioni Awards. It absolutely does.

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Visit Blu-Tru.com for more details and important safety information, and we thank Blu-Tu for sponsoring this edition of Strictly Business. Now, Eric, I want to get to this real quick before we get back to more questions, and we've got a ton of questions to get to, because this was some pretty interesting news that came down just as we started recording this, and it ties in perfectly to our podcast. So earlier this week, you may have seen, WWE announced that Lee Fitting

was going to be the company's new head of media and production coming in, replacing Kevin Dunn. We talked about Kevin Dunn's departure last week. Lee has 20 plus years at ESPN, producing college game day, some of the company's biggest assets, right? Like this is a TV pro coming in, an outsider. So before I get into what I'm about to share with you, what's your reaction to that,

bringing in someone from the sports world, to come in and take over as the head of WWE production. Great. I mean, I don't know. I have, I don't know anything about. Rather than looking internally, because they could have looked internally. There were certainly candidates that could have stepped in,

but going out. That's an interesting observation, and I didn't have time to think that through. But yeah, that's, you know, Mike Mansour, who's now at AEW, my impression was back in 2019, when I had my cup and a half of coffee in WWE, But my impression was that Mike Mansori was being groomed for that eventual opportunity, right?

And I was so impressed, and I am, by the way, still I'm so impressed with Mike and his capabilities. And it's just broad, fundamental understanding of the process and the technology that goes with it. And the creativity that goes with it. And that's another thing. When, you know, when Mike jumped over to AW, I was 100% successful. supportive and very optimistic. We'll leave it there. But, yeah, I think going outside as opposed to inside, and I'm sure, you know,

look, not even going to begin to second cast a decision by Nick Kahn, not even going to, or be in a room with someone that would necessarily, because I don't like to hang around with stupid people. But we'll see. I don't know enough about it, man, to have an opinion. Well, it's interesting because, again, this is someone who has overseen Monday night football, college game day, college football playoffs, some of the biggest properties that ESPN and ABC have in general. And he was, let go from the company. He departed the company, I should say, at the end of the summer this past year. And a lot of people were like, what happened here? Like, what led to him wanting to do that? Well, a report from ESP, or part of me from the athletic came out today. And I'm going to, I'm going to read this to here, Eric. It says that since at least 2010, ESPN inserted fake names in Emmy entries, then took the awards won by some of those imaginary individuals, had them re-engraved, and given them to on-air personalities who otherwise would not have been eligible for them. There's no evidence, the athletic reports that on-air individuals were aware the Emmys given to them were improperly obtained.

The fraud was, this is according to the athletic report, the fraud was discovered by the NATAS, which prompted an investigation by the organization and later by ESPN. Those probes resulted in sanctions beyond the return of the trophies. While it's not known who orchestrated the scheme, Craig Lazarus, vice president and executive producer of original content and features, and Lee Fitting, a senior vice president of production who oversaw college game day and other properties, were among the ESPN employees that, were ruled ineligible from future participation in the Emmys. Lee Finning is the man that WWE just named as their head of production. And people are starting to put some pieces together and are curious as to whether there's a connection there. But it's a really interesting report. Go check it out from the athletic.

So we'll have to find out, Eric. So boil that down, summarize. So basically all of that leads one without making an accusation. infers and guides one down the path to believe or assume that the two leaf fitting, is that his name? Leafitting, yes.

Who's the other guy? Leaf fitting, and then in addition to leave fitting, it was also, I want to, Craig Lazarus, who was the VP and EP of original content. God, I wonder if he's related to Mike Lazarus. I don't know. Mike Lazarus used to be a big deal at, Turner Sports or Turner.

Anyway, look, there's no accusation there, but it certainly infers and leads one to believe that Mr. Fitting perhaps was, what, the architect of this? Or at least involved. Or involved in it? I think that's unfortunate on every level. Incredibly unfortunate if it's true. Even more unfortunate if it's not true.

Because now the stigma's there. that's, you know, it's dangerous. I get it. It's a great headline. It's a great discussion point. But unless there is a legitimate accusation, meaning police report, some kind of investigation, legitimate one.

And there's, you know, evidence, if it's true, then it is what it is, brother. You'll live at the end of it. You'll still be alive. You may be miserable, but you'll still be alive. But if it's not true, it's just another example of, Putting information out there before it should be. We will find out. It's an interesting report.

Go check it out over. Other than that, hey, on a high note, let's look at it from a mason jar half full instead of a mason jar half empty. If it is true, who better than Mr. Fitting with this vast experience. but there's nothing to do with the inference i'm not even going to call it an accusation has nothing to do with the rumor but this guy's got a shit ton of experience right and he knows how to make it a work who better there's nobody better he's using gimmick names man he already understands

the power of a work now the execution perhaps was a little sloppy but you learn right yeah could be perfect mason jar half full i'm i'm interested by the prospect of wwee having some sports television influence i think that could really enhance the product even more honestly why they've done such a horse shit job with their own platform why do you think they're bringing anything yes be honest i'm not a sports fan i'd be embarrassed to have it on my television I still, I love sports television presentation in general. I think the process of producing sports television is so fascinating. And having been in multiple avenues of producing sports television on air and off air,

it's such a machine. And I'm always so interested by how that process comes together. So I'm curious to see what kind of influence we'll have from it. I mean, no one does. You know what I started doing? Because I don't like ESPN. I don't like, they've injected themselves and too much shit. got nothing to do to sports.

I don't care. I don't give a shit about ESPN. I won't put it on my television. I just won't. If I want information, you know what I do on Sundays? I go to CBS Sports Radio. And I would rather listen to legitimate coverage

of football in what's going on. And I don't disagree with you in terms of just the process of it all. But they've gone, ESPN has gone so far past what sports is I'm out man I'm out I'll I'll sit down in my truck looking out over the reservoir that leads you up into Yellowstone National Park with my dog I'll be in my 1995 GMC 2,500 three-quarter ton pickup that most people would be embarrassed to drive I love my truck I've had it since 1998 more importantly my dog loves my truck I would rather sit in my truck my 1995

GMC with my dog, Nikki, looking out over the mountains, listening to CBS Sports Radio on Sunday, then watch 30 seconds of ESPN. Well, I'm not talking about the news operations. I'm talking about this guy was in charge of game production. And I think that that's all just so fascinating.

By the way, Eric confirming us, I just looked it up to Mark and Craig Lazarus are indeed brothers. So there you go. A little intrigue, a little intrigue on top of that. For those of you that are watching on YouTube, hey, if you're not watching on YouTube, you have to be watching on YouTube. Or unless you're an ad-free show subscriber.

And they get everything, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe and like. Right now, drop what you do. Don't drop the phone if you're on it watching this, but sit down and subscribe. Let's keep rolling here, Eric.

We got Fantasy Handbook. saying names unless you want to what is the weirdest most outlandish or at least the most unique request from a talent during contract negotiations i mean nothing that you know you wouldn't expect right first class airfare first class hotels i mean money obviously that's the central focus but i never had you know like nobody said okay i'm only going to do this if you bring green m&Ms to my room i was going to say no m&Ms no no that weird shit. It was just, you know, try to squeeze as much juice as you could out of the lemon and all the things that you might expect. That's disappointing. I was kind of hoping that someone had

some really outlandish contract request. No, because look, the only people that could propose an outlandish contract request are people that were pretty successful. And they had a pretty good idea what the parameters were. They would try to push those parameters, but no one's going to make me bring M&Ms to the party. not happening not with that level of talent okay okay one from joe here on ad-free shows what were the talks and the finances involved when you started to grab top stars like hogan savage for wcd turner just give you such and such amount of money and say go get him or how well now that's another really funny perception you know the narrative that's

fundamentally out there and supported by the dirt sheet universe but look hogan was Hogan was the first domino to fall. And this is what people need to understand. Read Guy Evans' book. It's, you know, the incredible rise in the fall of WCW. I'm butchering the title, but it's a long title. And I'm trying to make a point. Go back and read that book.

But when I took over WCW, my first order of business was to cut cost dramatically, starting with travel. Because I took a look at travel. Also, as a talent, I was familiar with the travel process. You know, Kelly, the girl in travel, who didn't work for WCW. She worked for Turner travel, right? But we had to order travel through her, even though she wasn't in our office.

It was in her company shit. So I'm just like everybody else. You know, this is before the internet and computers and all, well, internet primarily and phones and all that shit. Everything, you were still getting hard tickets. You got it on the, you got on a plane with a physical piece of paper. that had been printed up and sent to us as WCW employees whenever we had to travel.

Well, I was in WCW for, you know, I got there in whatever it was 91, and after three, four, five months got kind of integrated in, you know, I was talent and I was a C squad talent. I wasn't even a, I was just a little bit higher up the level than a potted plant. So no big deal. And as kind of a fly on the wall, that's what I'm saying.

And as a fly on the wall around another talent, I start hearing the chatter about, how to exploit the travel system to pocket thousands of dollars a month, sometimes a week, depending on who you were. And I never ratted anybody out. It's not my deal. I'm not my business. I just put that person in a category that's over here and make sure they don't get into this one.

I mean, I distance myself more than anything. never said a word but once i got into control one of the first things i did was dig deep into travel and i went so far and i got shot down by turner i didn't get shot down in wcdb i was calling the shots but i still had to have things approved by senior executives at turner who i reported to either directly or indirectly my initiative was to talent doesn't get to use their frequent flyer miles anymore because we were in a cost cutting phase and I looked at our travel budget and when I know a certain percentage of this is just fraud and the rest of it is just inefficiency. So let's focus on the two things we can

control immediately, but here's what we do going into the future to further reduce and maintain control of travel budgets. If there's a free, Fliar involved, it's a company frequent, it's a WCW Freak. If we're booking the ticket and paying for the ticket to get the talent to work so that they can make money, we're taking those benefits. Yeah, reap the benefit, right. And I put the math together for it at that time based on frequent flyer knowledge and how much a certain talent. I took five or eight people as an example when I proposed this and how much money we would save at the end of every year for each one of those talents, right? As an example. And I was jacked. I was jacked because this was a big deal. I got shot down because Turner didn't want to treat WCW differently than it treated the rest of its divisions. Meaning that if they're going to make it good for WCW, at some point,

they're probably going to end up making it good or dealing with the issue in other divisions of Turner. That was their call not to do it, not mine. That's just giving you an example of all the things that I was doing before Hulk Hogan became a conversation. And as a result of that example, in a lot of others, you know, nobody wants to hear really right now, I had focused so much on waste, fraud, and abuse and the budget overall that people in Turner,

Bill Shaw primarily, and as a result, Ted, started paying a little closer attention to what I was doing and where WCW was going. The Disney tapings was a tipping point. And I put that whole thing together because on the surface it was very expensive. But when you extrapolate it or monetize it over 18 weeks, 16 weeks, whatever amount of television we were shooting over the course of five days, the economies of scale were very impressive

and the quality of the product went up and advertisers' response to it started to change that's when about that time is when I started thinking about Hall Cogan and because I did the work I was able to have a conversation with Bill Shaw I didn't go to Ted I was able to have a conversation with Bill Shaw

who then went to Ted and said here's where WCW was here's where it is here's why it's where it's at right now it's heading in the right direction and now we have an opportunity that was it i i pitched it to bill i said hey we have an opportunity he asked me how much it was going to cost i told him he said let me see what i can do he came back a couple days later and said okay let's start yay but i earned that opportunity there was no blank check there was no he had turner's money that's bullshit i had far more constraints on me in terms of my access to the Turner budget by a multiplier of,

I don't know, a million than Tony Kahn does. I was under a ton of financial pressure. So, and after Hulk, that's when the momentum started really building and continued to build with each strategic decision I made when it was Randy Savage. That was a simple, I didn't even have to go to anybody for that one. I had the authority to commit, financially commit up to a million dollars without any approval for anybody. And he was buck-ass naked in a hotel room with you. No, I mean, and that was if that million dollars was in the budget, meaning if I had $100 million or $50 million for my total talent budget and I wanted to spend a million of it, as long as I was under budget, I could do it without having even making a phone call. But obviously at Hawks level,

that was a little bit different. But the Randy thing, first of all, it was under a million bucks. So I didn't have to ask. But secondly, if I would have had to explain it, so, okay, Randy Savage, $750,000 or a million, whatever. Well, I think it was sub-50. And he's bringing this $750,000 of revenue that we never had before with it. It helped out, right?

Heads you win, tails you win. Right. Absolutely. It just got easier after that because the company was growing. The revenues were coming in. And it just got easier. So earlier this week, Eric, Sports Business Journal predicted WWE would have its raw rights add up on Amazon and that they would end up over there. Lightshed Partners, which is a technology media and telecom research firm, made the prediction that WBD is going to lose the NBA and as a result, pivot to raw.

So a lot of speculation going around within the industry right now is to the future of that. Michael wants to know. Do you think a potential deal with WWE and Amazon for Raw could pave the way for Amazon to get the entire streaming rights when the deal with Peacock runs out? I mean, sure. Why not? I mean, there's a,

let's just take a scenario. Let's do some fantasy booking on the business side of things. Streaming deal for Raw, successful, to whatever degree. And I mean successful for Amazon. WWE is going to get what they're going to get. But successful for Amazon. Let's say they expected to generate X amount of revenue at the end of the third year.

Because nothing happens fast, right? It's a slow build. Three years is fast, but in terms of building business. But let's say they exceed their goals by 10%. That's good. Yeah, Ra, Rob was a good decision. but maybe not think too much about expanding, unless you have information and research that tells you otherwise,

that deal will probably be what that deal is and not change much if it changed at all in the future. Well, let's say that same scenario comes along, and Amazon's got raw, it's kind of a test, it's a test flight, for lack of a better term, and they have a certain expectation at the end of that contract, and let's say they blow by that by, I don't know, 75, 80, 90%. And they've also learned about all of the ancillary revenue opportunities that come with something like WWE, which has such an amazing merchandising machine already and does such an amazing number in terms of merchandising, direct merchandising, that could only be expanded upon with a company like Amazon.

That's when you might see a bigger play. So it's just time, but anything can happen. sure there's a million different variations of what a deal could look like it's just where are we at in the moment that you're actually negotiating them layland says hey eric do you have any insight on creating the touring schedule for wrestling i ask because i live in boston a w has only been here once since november 2020 in that time wwe's been here four times with between nine and thirteen k tickets sold I don't, you know, first of all, I never really got hands on on touring schedules and models.

I left that to, well, I inherited Gary Jester, who quite honestly sucked at it. But when Zane Breslov came along, that was, Zane Breslov, he's no longer with us, but Zane was, he had worked with W.W.E at a pretty high level and had some great success there. In the live event promotion side of things. Look, and if Zane had his own promotion, a company called Alson Promotions, he was based in Denver, but he was like the,

he was like the, uh, Raphael, Murphy, only an independent contractor. Who just left AW, by the way. Yep. Right. We talked about that, 83 weeks. But, um, I never really touched too much of it, so I don't have any real

structural insight into that process. Other than I believe, like anything else, it's about relationship. relationships, and it's about money. I do know that markets like Boston, anywhere in the Northeast, are really expensive markets. It just is. Everything is more expensive in cities like New York, Boston, Los Angeles, particularly New York. And when you go into a heavily union market, it can become even more expensive to live event production. You could as much as double your average cost of production simply because of the venue you're in.

So that probably has a lot to do with it. But beyond that, and that's a generalization, I wouldn't know. I would love to get someone on this podcast to take a deeper dive into that, because I do think it's really, really interesting. We got Tommy. How much do you think channel jumping, like TNA after they left Spike, hurts or helps a wrestling company? Raw's only been on two channels while SmackDown seems to jump around whenever the media

rights are up. One of the great things about the wrestling product, whatever company, your audience will find you. The wrestling audiences, I think, and I'm not an expert in this because I've never really sat down with people that really are and read the research or done the research myself. But just haven't been around shit for a while. I know the NFL's got amazing fan base. NASCAR's got a very loyal. I think the NASCAR fan base in terms of real loyalty is probably more loyal than most NFL fans.

They're fair weather fans, you know, typically. Whereas NASCAR fans are just, they're addicted to the legend, right? And they get caught up in all the different driver emotion. But I think the NASCAR audience, having been around it, I sponsored a car, sponsored a Bush car, Kyle Petty, for God's say. So I've been around it enough. And if I compare a wrestling audience that I've been around a couple times to a NASCAR audience where I was, you know, in the pits, so to speak, and down in the center field, I would say in the stands.

I would say the NASCAR audience is almost as loyal as a wrestling audience. I can compare them to because I've been there and I've done it on different levels. so when a rustling you know whether it's wwee or a ewe if a ewe moves to another network every single one of the 845,000 average weekly viewers of dynamite will absolutely know where it's going and will absolutely follow them provided that cable outlet or whatever they're on is available to them and if not they'll seek that out and download it or subscribe to it or whatever so i don't think it's going to have a big effect at all Interesting one from Chris here, and I'm going to try to break it down a little bit.

He says, do you ever see WWE bidding out WrestleMania or other PLEs to media companies like the Super Bowl? Now, I think what he's alluding to here is that the Super Bowl airs on a different network every single year. But I would like to remind him, too, that the Super Bowl and those networks that the NFL works with, there's a partnership there. So they're simply rotating it among their media rights partners. But I do think it's an interesting question, Eric, could you ever see a scenario where WWE would license out a major show to maybe someone that's not a TV partner or maybe another entity that is and put it on broadcast? Again, I'm not following. What would that look like? So give me a example, sure.

So hypothetically speaking, let's say WWE licensed out a pay-per-view specifically that would air on an ESP. PN network, like an event produced just for them. So ESPN, in this case, would be the third part of you're referencing. Yeah. Okay, no, okay, I got that part. Yeah, I just got a little confused at the end. So, no, could I see it? Look, in growth, in exponential growth, anything could happen.

I mean, if you look, again, step way, way back and kind of look at the dots and try to see the pattern of where WWE might be going. I know, let's look at their international PLEs. There's a big dot. Let's start with that dot, right? And before we look too much forward, let's look back and look at the success they've had with WrestleMania in selling that to markets. That same opportunity applies to a network.

So that in growth, why wouldn't they be interested? Or at least have a conversation about that with an NBC. or a major network or an Amazon or anybody else that comes along between now and then that could expose that product to an even broader market that currently exists. Because that's what it's all about for WWE, I think, I don't know, I'm not on the inside. But their growth, the dots, the pattern is pretty obvious that they want to expand their revenues globally. because perhaps they've not reached a peak, but they're doing so well here with the models that they've created,

why not expand those models not only to markets internationally, but to their distribution partners as well. I think it's a great idea. I think it could absolutely happen with success and in growth. From the Ann Free Show size shot by Lou asked, if AW is impact, what does that make WCW asking because you didn't have a gate as big as all in? If all in and one outlier event is going to be your barometer in analyzing and developing a perspective for a comparison for those two companies,

and there's nothing that I can say to help you have a clearer picture. I'm out. I mean, it's, look, I'm not angry. I'm disappointed because it's not hard to figure out. you look at, let's talk about it. This was the, this is the, I made a comment. Mercedes money. Somebody asked me, is you going to make a difference in AEW?

My eyes is, nope, nada. That's it. That's all I said. I got close to a million views or whatever that's called. I mean, it was like, whoa, people really respond to that. It's like, why is that so hard to understand? If you look at where AEW is now, and I'm going to go into this in-depth, in-depth on 83 weeks. But just broad strokes, if you look at where AEW is now in every metric other than Wendley,

in every other metric, AEW is a fraction of what WCW was in 1999. overall revenues, well, except for profitability, but we don't know about AEW's profitability because nobody ever talks about that. There's inferences and innuendo and rumors and spin, but we don't know. But in terms of people watching, 98 for sure, not even close, a fraction of a fraction of where WCW was in 98. And my guess is without, you know, looking at the information available to me, they probably weren't even doing as well as WCW was in 1999 while the wheels were falling off. They certainly aren't doing as well in some metrics as WCW was in 1992 in terms of percentage of the market. If you go back and look at the ratings, which is the only really barometer,

the only metric you can really compare at the time, that's easily accessible. you go back and look at WCW's ratings on WCW Saturday night, 605 Eastern 305 Central, compare those ratings to those of Monday Night Raw, on USA Network in prime time. I don't have the shit memorized, but I'm pretty sure if you looked at that, you would see that WCW had about 50% of the domestic television market share.

Not a lot of duplication, you can argue that, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you look at ratings, This, the only real data point you can, you can point to that is fair, where we're on an even queue. Because WCW didn't have a big live event business at the time. So there's certain metrics you just can't really look at. But go back and find the TV ratings for WCW, Saturday night, and that of Monday Night Raw. And you're going to find that we were competitive with, and that was on a horrible night, Saturday night, 605, 305 Pacific, horrible night. And we were, WCW, I wasn't there then, I wasn't in business said,

but WCW was competing very favorably with WWE Monday Night Wrong. That has never been the case with AEW, never, not even close. So when I say, when I make those comparisons, it's in a broader perspective, but more importantly, to the question, to the point, and my comment on social media, step back don't look at isolated moments within the ring or in the business outside of the ring but look at the patterns t and a before i got there dixie carter brought in booker tea dusty roads sting curd angle christian cage brought in so many wccw guys and then when she was she was wanted Hall Cogan to add to the to the to the to the roster and unfortunately for sure her I you know

I was part of the package she didn't want to hire Eric Bishop and not initially she wanted to hire Hall Cogan but I came with the package kind of like Jimmy Hart but they wanted to be competitive and they brought all this talent in and it didn't work and one of when I got there one of the things things that I believe firmly and was very persistent about was that in order to build and grow the business, you can't rely upon talent. They're an important part of it. You're not really in the business without it. It's the core. It's the nuclei of the entire company sell, so to speak. but you need more than that.

And once you've got the nucleus, which is the talent, now you've got to make that nucleus stronger and build it by taking the show. You've got to produce the show in front of a live crowd in an arena, not in a soundstage, or you're never going to have the credibility or the success that the potential of having these big names are going to bring.

And that's what I said earlier. When Tony Kahn went, fuck it, I'm going to Arthur, I'm just going to do it. That's why I was so excited because he's got the talent. Now he's got the guts and strategy. Let's do it. But he stopped there. Okay.

Here's a fun one from Brian. What is the biggest match in the wrestling business right now that can be currently put out outside of Rock versus Roman Rain. So what is the biggest match you could see, Eric, aside from Rock Roman? Yeah. Roman Cody Roman Cody Roman Cody too

yeah okay I mean yeah not not didn't I mean it was such an obvious

answer that I had to make sure it wasn't obvious but there's nothing else that I'd be more interested in seeing What about Austin punk? Nah

No nah it's not it's I mean there's a nostalgia bite to it which I like obviously I love, you know, I love Steve as a person and, and a friend, and I really dig his character.

And there's that, you know, macaroni cheese part of me that wants, macaroni and cheese part of me that wants to get back in the end of that comfort food of wrestling. And, and Steve, Steve Austin is that for me, really. To me, was like one of the most fun times of the wrestling business and as a fan. And as a character, just admiring the character and how he created it, how it evolved. evolved, you know, how he had to overcome a lot of things in order to force it to evolve internally. I think all that is really fascinating to me. So that's why I say it's my macaroni and cheese of wrestling. That's my comfort. But in terms of it being, you know, relevant and important and current and, you know, what's going to happen next? Where's the

business going to go? That's got to be Roman Cody. I'll give you one. Ready? Sure. Logan Paul John Cena. Not the same. That's a great attraction. Yeah, it's a main attraction, but that's not where the business is going to go. You don't think that's a huge mainstream attraction that would draw a ton of eyes onto that. No, you're not hearing me, or I'm not explaining myself correctly. I think in terms of dollar volume, revenue, Logan, Sina, I'd vote that.

In terms of, you asked me what I was most interested in, and what I'm most interested in, is where the business is going and growing and as much of an attraction and great business move as it would be, Logan and Sina is just that. It's an attraction. It's not where the business is going. It's where that moment is going. Fair enough. Let's get a few more here.

We got from Ashley. With the elimination of the pay-per-view being replaced with the premium live event, how does WWE make up the revenue from pay-per-views? I'm paying $11.99 for Peacock versus significantly more than I was for pay-per-views. I also wonder how this affects the earnings of talent. It's just a different revenue model. Distill down the first part of the question for me. I want to make sure I answer it quickly.

There's a great, great, great question, by the way. So Ashley says with the elimination of the pay-per-view being replaced with the PLE, I assume she means the pay-per-view model. How does the W.W.E make up revenue from pay-per-views? Great. Again, great question. Ashley, thank you very much for posing it. Volume, just like any other business.

If at the end of the year, your streaming revenue, which includes your PLEs, surpasses or promises to surpass, forecast to surpass the kind of binary accounting that you previously had, which is pay-per-view revenues in this bucket, television revenues in this bucket, there's no such thing as streaming. But by combining and perhaps eliminating the, the pay-per-view revenue model, but using that same content in a more profitable way by using it in your streaming platform, which over the long term generates more profit and more

revenue, that's why you would do it, and that's how they're making money. Now, I don't know what the math is. I don't know what it looks like, but it would be interesting as an exercise just to kind of think through things a little bit, is to find some data that would show you you know, an annual report that would show you, I'm just going to pick a date out of thin air, you know, 2000 and, let's say 2000 before streaming, at some point before streaming. And add up that revenue from pay-per-views only.

And then look at where we are with pay-per-views being included in the streaming platform and the revenue that that's created. My guess is it far surpasses it. Does that make sense? Yeah, well, and also, you know, WWE is getting a guaranteed rate from NBC Universal at Peacock. They're getting a fixed amount every single year

as part of that streaming licensing deal. So it's not dependent on, and that's the difference between the current Peacock structure and the WWE network structure when that launched was, their profits were only based on how many subscribers they had. With this, it's a blanket rate. WV is getting a fixed amount, no matter how many subscribers are.

coming just for WWE content. And that's a good point. I mean, you're delineating it down just a little bit deeper and it's smart. And there's also the stability factor. You can forecast on your revenue from your PLEs, right? Because it's part of a fixed number. So you know what that revenue is. That's not a bad thing either.

What I'm really curious about this year with WWE, they just built the new headquarters and the new headquarters have the gigantic production facility. I'm sure you'd be looking at like a shiny new toy if you stepped foot in there. Man, that'd be awesome. I would love to see that. I'm sure I'll get an opportunity someday, but next time I'm in Stanford to visit Bruce and Stephanie, his wife and his kids, I'm sure I'll get an opportunity, but I'm looking forward to it because that's walking into the back of the Starship Enterprise. I'm curious if they expand on their program offering, whether it's domestically, internationally, because that was such a big part of when the WW network launched.

They had all these original programming. And then since the Peacock move happened, there's barely any. Pretty much the only content they're producing is the live TV content. So I'm really curious to see now with Endeavor in the Fold and the new production facility, if we start to see more original content distributed on Peacock. And then if that's leveraged into a future content deal with another distributor. see what happens when you grow all these opportunities to expand because those opportunities didn't really exist before they were out there which your means to get to them were somewhat

limited but now with this merger and we talked about this you know early on when i predicted no one else in the peripheral wrestling business other than me predicted endeavor long before endeavor was on anybody's lips and it was for this very reason and it's that very reason that you people listen to strictly business and are some of the most erudite wrestling fans anywhere in the world and i thank you got one more for you here and we're this is a fun one a fun hypothetical we're gonna go back we're gonna go back to fantasy handbook here Ready? Oh, yeah.

Says, Eric, let's say your father, hypothetically speaking, was a billionaire, and you wanted to run a wrestling company. Would you have opened a new company with a few well-known names, or would you have bought an established company like TNA, for example, and invest your money into bringing bigger names and upping the production brand? And when I say, Ariadite wrestling fans, this question is a manifestation. of my previous comment. It's such a smart, smart question.

And I'm going to do my best to give you an answer that your question deserves. God, I love our audience. I really do. I would start from scratch with a couple brand name talents. Somebody's got some equity. They're going to bring an audience with them. That's what I mean by equity.

They have a loyal fan base, all of their own outside of their wrestling organization, and a loyal, loyal one that will follow. So I would find out right person or persons, and I would start from scratch, and I'll tell you why. Buying an existing company, inheriting all of the assets, I say inheriting, but I mean buying, acquiring,

all of those assets, you add those all up on a piece of paper and you give it a score say it's 10 and then you look at all the negatives whether it be finance the current financial state of the company whether it be the general reputation of the company or perception of the company because much like WCW and people oftentimes make this comparison. Yeah, but WCW was around for 10 years. AW's only been around for five. True. Absolutely true. And that is not to be discounted. However, WCW had spent the majority of the five or 10 years that they'd been around previous to me getting involved and becoming successful with that brand.

They had buried themselves so badly. The perception of the brand was so damaged, you weren't just acquiring the assets, you were also acquiring the baggage, whether that be financial baggage or reputational baggage or just general brand damage. And what made rehabbing and rebuilding WCW such a challenge is because the market already had a bad taste in their mouth about it. And getting people to change their eating habits is fucking difficult. Once someone makes up their minds that they don't like dill pickles, there's nothing you're going to do outside of force that's going to get them to eat a fucking dill pickle. And WCW was a dill pickle that everybody tried and nobody liked. Well, let me take that back.

WCW was a dill pickle that most people tried and decided they didn't like because there was a better version of that dill pickle over in Connecticut. So, yeah, when I brought it, when I took over WCW, it had been around. In many ways, unfortunately, because I had to overcome the financial baggage, the reputational baggage, the general brand damage and perception. So I wasn't just building my company and trying to promote myself. I was trying to get people to believe that we were different than we have been for the last five, six, seven, eight years, whatever it was.

Makes sense? Well, it's like, you always talk about less than, greater than. That was a yes or no. Does it make sense? Yeah, well, I'm saying. Because sometimes I confuse myself when I get this stuff. No, no, well, I'm saying, it's like when an audience determines that something is less than, it's pretty hard to convince them otherwise.

Well, it goes back to the beginning of nitro. Eric, why don't you go head to head? This McMahon, every Monday night on T&T, Scott's ass is going to. What? What? T&T. Head to head, prime time. That's right.

That's what I want you to do, Eric. All right. It's been nice meeting you. You know your way out. See you. Right? I go out of the office. That's the first time I've ever done that.

That's funny. Pretty good. I go out of the office. I get to my office. I leave Ted's stop for a minute on the atrium. Go. oh my God, what just happened to me, make it to my office. And I knew within an hour that the only thing that I could do was be better than,

less than, or different than. That's it, man. It's part of the controversy equation. Well, you figured that one out a long time ago. There's no doubting that. Eric Bischoff, great, great stuff from our Strictly business. fans really appreciate you guys getting in all your awesome questions kicking off 2024 the right way so let's talk how you can be part of our team head on over to advertise with eric dot com

you're going to get your business you're going to get your product and front of thousands of fans every single week right here on the 83 weeks feed as part of strictly business did you not hear that ad read earlier for blue chew imagine a award winning that thing doesn't win an award I'm going to be hot. Imagine Eric talking about your product in a sauna. Let's make it happen here on Strictly Business, advertise witheric.com. Oh, one more thing.

One more thing. Please. Getriverbend.com. Best meat you'll ever have. We'll be smoking meats all 2024, so I'm looking forward to that as well. This has been another edition of Strictly Business with Eric Bishop. We'll see you next week. Thank you.