83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #71: Ask Eric Anything!

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Eric Bischoff is back from the road, and he's taking your questions on the BUSINESS of the business on Strictly Business! Eric discusses Mercedes Mone's level of viewership pull with AEW, WWE's new MLB belts, production logistics, WrestleMania at different venues, 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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I am John Alba. And yes, last week I flew solo, got a chat in with AJ. Francis, a very divisive chat with AJ Francis based on the feedback, but we can talk about that a little bit here too, but this wouldn't be strictly business without Eric Bischoff after all. Can't replace the man. So I decided let's bring him back. He's back with us, coming to us from the Bischoff compound, the Casa de Bischoff, man. How you doing?

I'm doing good, but I'm not sure that this internet is working with us. Am I coming across okay on your end? you're all right on my end my friend all right well then that's all that matters it's not what it looks like to me it's what it looks and sounds like to everybody else so i'm doing great good to be home i spent a week in minneapolis visiting my brother my sister my brother just uh successfully completed uh about six months for the cancer treatment and congratulations thank you and we decided once you got the green light last monday to jump in our truck and head back to many and we spent a few days there and enjoyed it but good to be back home first thing tomorrow morning

Friday morning as we record. I'm off to Hartford, Connecticut, making an appearance there. And about to embark on a very busy 60 or 90 days. It's going to be crazy. Interesting. Okay. Well, I know you're busy, busy travel days are behind you, but you're very much trying to take in the travel that you do have. And I know you love interacting with fans.

So any chance to meet Eric Bischoff, guys, make sure you make that opportunity for yourself because he always makes time for the masses whenever he is out on the road. It's great to have you back, man. Like I said last week, had a chat with AJ Francis. He was someone you had been wanting to bring back on the show. And, you know, it's funny, Eric. I know you've gone to know AJ a little bit, but he's a very divisive figure in wrestling because he's a promoter.

He's a self-promoter. He knows how to put himself over. And I think that confidence comes across in a certain way to some people. But in 2024, if you're a pro wrestler who's out there on the market, you got to know how to draw those eyes and get attention on you. And I appreciate his real world experience with the NFL and the A&E gig and how he's trying to combine all that together. I think it's important, man. You've got to shoot your shot out there. Yeah, indeed. And, you know, I've only really had a chance to talk to AJ once on the podcast.

And it felt like we were of similar minds and philosophy when it comes to professional wrestling. So, hey, he's doing well for himself. Man, I see his name and face just about everywhere I look when comes to wrestling and keep doing what you're doing big man yeah no doubt about it so i want to thank him for hopping on strictly business last week but it's great to have you back eric we are doing ask eric this week we got a lot of great questions as we try to do one a month here on strictly business i did want to chat with you about a couple business things that did happen in the wrestling world before we get into some of those questions uh we did get dynamite this past week which we're still waiting the rating as we tape this it could come in while we're on air and if that does

happen we'll make sure we bring it to you know it's going to be interesting i don't i don't mean to interrupt you john it's very rude but i i don't want to lose this point last week you know when mercedes mona she made her big debut and there was highly anticipated everybody in the internet knew about it anybody that was watching a ew knew that the event of course including the graphics promoting the event was letting everybody know that mercedes bonae was going to be there so there are those who since the rating came in at, I'll call it an abysmal level, given the fact that so much was made of Mercedes and so much anticipation within the glue effect. I mean, the fan base for AEW. And it didn't

pop a rate. So the excuse was, well, nobody knew she was coming. Really? Okay. That's laughable. But let's just play along. And we'll find out whether it was laughable or whether it was a valid point. Because if the ratings don't move significantly, there's no excuse. The excuse last week is, well, they weren't promoted. Nobody knew she was coming. Again, I'm throwing a flight on that one. But in case I'm wrong, we'll find out when the ratings come out. If they can break 900,000, 950,000, God forbid, given them Mercedes-Will-Nay is reportedly, I don't know that this is a fact, it's being reported that she is the highest-paid female sports entertainment entertainer in the industry.

Now, I don't want to take wildest guesses because I don't know what that number really is. I'm sure there's a range somewhere between three and five million would be a guess. And I could be wrong about that, but I think I'm close. That's a big range, right? It could be three, could be four, could be five. But if we don't get a significant number this week, and there are no more excuses, then it comes down to Tony Kahn, booking, strategy, or lack there of,

creative, or lack there of, all of the things I've been talking about for two years, kind of manifesting into what has become a rather dismal outlook right now for AEW. But hey, we'll find out. That's one of the things I like about doing the show late on the Thursday is we have that have those numbers to anticipate. Now, I've just spent two minutes on this diatribe and positioning myself and my perspective on things. Now we get to find out during the course of the show, maybe, whether I'm right or whether I'm wrong. Exciting.

Yeah, I talked about it last week on the podcast a little bit where my biggest gripe with the Mercedes song. I mean, I thought she came out and she looked like a superstar, acted like a superstar. superstar, but we've talked about it so much here on this podcast, Eric, show structure where you have that clear A story threading throughout where we saw Mercedes once at the beginning of the show and then as a surprise at the end. But imagine if we had had Mercedes backstage interacting with a few different women throughout the course of the show. Imagine if we had her interacting with John Moxley or Brian Danielson to tell everyone in your audience that she's as big of a star as they are and reminding them that she could show up again later in the night. I feel like

that would have reflected better. There's a million different ways that they could have created an actual story and threaded it through and constructed that story within a story. That thread, we'll just call it a thread. That thread with Mercedes and you know what you want to have happened at the end of the show. You know the finish. Work backwards from that finish and give us a couple plot points along the way. It can be something very subtle.

It could be a look over her shoulder at another talent. be it male or female. It could be anything or as you described it. There's a million different things you could do that are better than doing nothing. I mean, I don't get it. Tony Kahn does not how to produce, doesn't know how to produce television. It's pure and simple. It's that fundamental. Well, they did change it up a little bit on this week's episode where we had her in the ring to start. Then there was a video package talking about her journey since she left WWE and they kind of gave you a little teaser as to what's to come with Willow and how her injury happened and then we saw them again backstage after there was some physicality earlier so they they did

adjust a little bit we'll see if that's reflected in the rating but the thing that was really interesting about the show was the third hour which they moved rampage over to be the third hour on on that you could you didn't have to change the channel it stayed on tbs and brandon thurston brought this up and i think this has kind of been reflected in a lot of the discourse that with the wbd rights up this year and they're still in the negotiation window. Could this have been a test of sorts to see if there's an appetite for three hours of dynamite? What do you think about that? I mean, anything's possible, and I actually reposted Brandon's comment to that effect on X. Respect Brandon's work. He's very objective. He looks at both sides of a situation or an issue,

or in his reporting, at least he's clearly playing it down the middle as opposed to, you know, Unfortunately, some of the people that are out there, specifically Dave Meltzer, is just becoming a complete fucking caricature of himself. But I'm here for it. I applaud it. Yeah, it's a good observation, and it could be true. I mean, I would imagine if there is interest in resigning AEW to a new deal, there are probably different discussions going on on how best to maximize the reason. resource. What's what's what's the best opportunity to maximize gain return on investment for that property? And if looking at three hours is a topic of discussion, well, now you've got

a valid reason to give it a try and measure it and see. I definitely foresee this being something that we see more of with more experiments as to whether people sit around. They done battle the belts after dynamite before or after Rampage, but not directly on the same network. So I'm very interested to see what carryover there is because also, Eric, the one thing we have to keep in mind here is the main event, which was Christian Cage versus Adam Copeland in the I quit match, went against one of the first four games for the NCAA tournament. It was a great game that went to overtime. And March Madness is an event that does huge numbers on TV every single year. that's why collision is actually preempted this week because we've got the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament over on the other Turner networks and they need the real estate for that. So interested to see what kind of effect that could have on things. Did you guys have? Who is in the game?

Last night's game that did big numbers. That was Colorado and Boise State. And what were the ratings for that? Do you know yet? I don't think we've gotten it in yet. But it. It went to overtime. It was a really good game. And there was no other game going on at the time. You know off the top of it. This is not a test. I wouldn't know. I mean, you know me well enough to know.

I don't carry this shit around on my head. But do you have any idea what would be considered a good, solid number for that opening game of March Madness? Let's see. I can tell you here. I knew you could. I knew you had this shit. You're a sports guy. That's what sports guy did.

Let's see. So Tuesday's first four game, because so there are two sets of games, Tuesday's first four game did almost two million viewers for the prime time game. So I'd imagine it was probably about the same for this one. That's not that big a number. I mean, I get it. It is competition. This is a better game, though, and this one went to overtime for what it's worth, if that's worth anything. If I hear Jay Meltzer use that as an excuse.

I'm just, I'm going to need to take an hour or two off and out of my day just to roll on the floor and laugh. It'll just be hilarious. Did you guys ever experience that going against March Madness? I know it was a different, totally different house here. You know, and I was going to bring that up. We didn't even bitch about going head to head against WWE and Monday night football for crying out loud. I mean, come on. NCAA basketball i'm sorry it's a big property now eric it's a very different property and i'm

not just missing it as a property but not the first couple games not the first couple rounds it's you know you're hardcore betting public sports betters yeah sure they're they're they're pounding beers at their local sports bar at the the uh the sports book over in just at a casino in Vegas somewhere, but you're, it's just not a hot television property. Not yet. It will be. It definitely will be, but not now. And no, we never, we considered it. We never went, you know what, we're going to be up against a really good game and March bad. And March Madness, by the way, it was hot when I was a kid in college. So, you know, it's not like it just got hot recently. It's hotter now, probably because of gaming, quite honestly, in sports betting, which has changed

dramatically over the last 15 years, but it was always hot, just not early on. And even when it got hot, we never adjusted our creative to work around it. We never ramped up creative, knowing we were going to be head to head. We never, you know, benched anybody because, well, why burn up a good storyline? Because we're going to be going head to head again first round of March Madness. Now, those conversations never took place out of the other. I don't know. Last year's tournament average 10 million viewers per round so i'm not sure what is per game so you have so there's multiple games going on at once and you're taking an average of all that okay that wasn't last night though that's later on in the season that's later on so that will be starting today

starting today okay well we'll find out i love this we'll check it with brandon thurston and see what Brandon has to say strictly business correspondent. Hey, I got to say this real quick here. And you know it's all up here. It's all love here. But I had like 15 people send me the clip of you on 83 weeks saying that I create stories for AEW in my head. You do. And I just want to say this. I have nothing to gain, nothing to gain by carrying water for any company it is not in my interest to do that so much more of my day is spent on actual professional sports coverage when I talk about a story that I see on AW on WW on WW TV or recap how I interpret it as we did it with the Cody stuff too that is just from my experience of watching and how I consume and digest

the content that I am watching and I'll always say this I will never tell someone whether to think something is good, bad, compelling, not compelling. All I can talk about is how it registers with me personally. I don't give a shit to make an excuse for a company on, oh, this is great, this is bad, this is why you should care, this is why you shouldn't care. I just wanted to put that out there into the ether. Oh, no, I know. It's much the same as like when I was a kid and I would look up at the clouds and I, oh, that looks like a cat.

Oh, I see an eagle in those clouds. I hate you so much. It's the same thing. You know, you watch it and you see what you see. It looks like when I was seven and stare at the clouds. I get it. I hate you so much. That was good.

That was good. Also, one more order of business before we get to questions. How about these bad boys? Remember we talked about this in the NFL a few months back? We announced the 30 new. championship belts for major league baseball these are retailing at over five hundred dollars a pop opening day technically technically started a couple days ago in korea but uh how about those man those are those are pretty nice you can pick up yours now in wwee shop it's in partnership with fanatics

just more of this branching out into the public realm and trying to get those casual sports fans embedded with the wwe branding right that and making a shit ton of money i mean i would like to know how much revenue is created for WWE specifically for their replica belts and championship belts and these you know these kind of i guess souvenir collectibles i mean it's got to be a massive number i say every time i go to a big event i'm seeing people walking around with this stuff strapped over their shoulders and they're not cheap you know there's some of them are really really heavy they're nice i mean holy smokes i just i'd be curious brandon thurston if you're listening Let's do a little bit of research and find out if we can.

I'm sure this is buried in the FCC filing somewhere deep. You'd probably have to get a forensic accountant to figure it all out. But it'd be really interesting to know, even if it's a guesstimate, how much revenue is being generated strictly, out of all WWE merchandise, specifically their belts. That'd be a cool number to know. Those aren't too shabby, man, looking at those. And the other thing, too.

classy we observed this last time with the NFL belts the WWE logo is not on them so you'd have to imagine that there's even more price point for that because WW is foregoing its branding on these belts so I'm interested to see what that would know I see I see a WWE logo on top of the at the small top there of the Braves one yeah I see that now yeah and also in Philadelphia no there's it's not all of them yeah but um you know normally with their belts they have on the plates like where the Dodgers logo it is on the right side there in the Phillies logo so yeah that's that's interesting but they look great they're really cool have you been following the show hey Otani news by the way no i haven't so this is nuts

and i'll send you some links after is it nuttier than wrestling shit yes oh wow it's like potentially a massive scandal that could undo show hey otani uh so his interpreter who in that massive one billion dollar contract that he signed um his interpreter was part of the protections in it where shohay said that the team cannot fire the interpreter and if they do he could void the contract there's a whole bunch of the language in the contract for that his interpreter was fired this week by otani's people out of nowhere and now they filed a lawsuit against him for that he stole money from Otani to pay off illegal gambling debts, except the money came from Otani's personal bank account with Otani's name on these payments. So there are a lot of people

out there, and it sounds like there's going to be some investigations who are trying to suggest that this is a fall job and that Shohei was the one who was gambling and the interpreter took the fall for him saying no it was me and i was just using his money so it's a it's a massive massive story and i bet you there's going to be some investigations in the in the very near future coming out of it wait a minute wait a minute wait i'm trying to follow you here so otani had a closet of his contract says you can't fire my interpreter correct all right that's pretty interesting but okay but otani fired the interpreter.

No one knows why except for there was a massive amount of money that went to pay off a gambling debt and people are suggesting that perhaps the manager being as loyal as he was and probably going to get a piece of change on top of it decided to take the fall so that the adverse reflection, the negative reflection on Otani for being an addict.

That is the theory. And Otani's people have filed a lawsuit against the interpreter claiming theft. So Atani's people have gone so far to perpetrate this alleged fraud as to file a lawsuit? That's they, they are planning on filing a lawsuit is my understanding. They are alleging theft against him. And it's wild, man. I'll send you some links, but I know, I know you got in the weed. There's some shady fucking shenanigans going on there in the, uh,

Crazy. Albin, wacky world of baseball. Well, I know you were super in on the Otani contract, so that's why I had to bring that up to you because it was, oh, boy, could it be interesting here? But we'll see, we'll see. As of now, he has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but I would imagine some investigations are ongoing in the near future.

Okay, Eric, we asked people to send in their questions to ask you about the business of the business. So let's get into it. We got Brad from Facebook. This is a really cool question that I actually never thought about the logistics of. He says, how are airfares negotiated with all the companies when there were wrestlers that had first class booking in their respective contracts? I'm not sure I understand the question. It's no different than some of the talent who had first class as part of their agreements.

It's reflected in their contracts. The people that did travel was advised of that. They know that. There was a list of everybody who was first class according to contract. and if your name was on that list when they booked your flights they booked your first class if your name was not on that list then they booked your coach where was the money

and for WCW was the money coming out of the talent pocket for everyone across the board no WCW no WCW paid for all travel that's what I was going to ask because you know famously WWE hasn't always done that when you were a talent with WWE were they paying for your travel yes

okay I'm not sure if that was one size fits all because a lot of talent have gone on to say that that was not the case for them yeah it may have been different because i wasn't a wrestler there may have been different categories of talent um because again as a as a gm especially one that only showed up one day a week in most cases it's not like i was out in house house show loops and things like that there's no opportunity for me to make merchandise money there's no upside opportunities for general manager for the most part. So maybe that was the difference.

I don't know, but no, they covered all my travel. Yeah, okay. Good, good insight there. We got Mike Whitaker asking, since WrestleMania is a two-night event, do you ever see night one and night two being in different locations? Huh. I never thought about that. And the logistics of it makes my brain start to cook.

So I don't want to think too much about that part of it. But I can't help it because it's kind of a cool idea, right? Especially with overseas, you know, you know, PLE's taking place overseas now. What if you had, you know, a WrestleMania, UK and a, well, timing would be different, but that's okay. You could, whoa, what if you could do it, you know, take advantage of the time difference and have like, WrestleMania, UK, when that ends, you've maybe got an hour or two break and then WrestleMania starts here. I don't know what the, you know, I'd have to sit down with a map and a calculator and

figure out the time zone differences and all that, but it would be interesting idea. But it changes the perception of the spectacle of it. When you've got a major event taking place in two different venues on opposite sides of the globe, that gives the. whole thing, a much bigger feel, doesn't it? Yeah, it really would be interesting to do it in different venues. Now, WrestleMania has been done in the past from different venues on the same day, but doing two different venues on two different nights would definitely be a different

dynamic. It might... Wait a minute, John, are you saying WrestleMania has taken place in two different venues? WrestleMania has been done from different venues before on the same night, but not on different nights. So, what was it? Do you remember? It was WrestleMania.

The diehard fans are going to kill me on this. WrestleMania. Oh, fuck them. Fuck them. I want to say it was WrestleMania four, perhaps. No, that was Atlantic City. It might have been two. I'm doing my research here.

That's all right. It was WrestleMania, too. It was WrestleMania, too. If you walked around that. If you walked around with that knowledge in the top of your head, so when somebody asked you like I just did, and you had that information without having to look for it, you'd be weird.

Because all that space that's occupying that part of your brain should be devoted to something else that means a whole lot more. Not only people as a person, but to humanity and all of us. It was it was WrestleMania too. It was the Nassau Coliseum, the Rosemonsor Horizon, in the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. So that was all on one night, and they went to different venues throughout the night.

So they had different live matches in each one of those venues all for that event? For WrestleMania, too. Wow, that's pretty cool. I didn't even know that. Yeah. You know, it kind of feels like a rip-off for the people who pay to see it in person.

They're only getting a third of a show in person. Maybe that's why they never did it again. Yeah, but I do think there might be something to, different venues on different nights there there could be something there so well and i think you know today just from a consumer perspective i hear so many people who are diehard fans i mean you're going to russomania they play in their entire year round it they budget for it they vacation you know they budget their vacation time for it they booked your flight six months in advance or longer um but even those people complain about it's just too much you know two nights

of WrestleMania in one venue in their long nights. So I don't think just because of the way everything has changed, I don't think you'd get as much pushback, especially if one was taking place overseas and one here in the States. I think that would be successful if they could figure out how to pull it off. Surely will at some point. I do love that it's a 7 o'clock start time this year, Eastern. That makes life a lot easier here.

So I'm game. It'll be done by 2 in the morning. Now, dude, these shows are manageable now that they're two days. They don't try to do a seven-hour WrestleMania anymore, which is nice. Oof, those were brutal. Let's see here. We got wrestling historian, always ask great questions, says, would you normally handle WCW contracts when somebody wanted to join the company,

if not who did? I very seldom dealt with contractual issues unless it was, you know, something unique. Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan. a renegotiation, for example, with Bill Goldberg. That was a little tricky. He wasn't even due to be renegotiated, and we ended up having to renegotiate with him. So unless a contract was very unusual or it involved,

trying to think of the politically correct way you're saying it, but I don't give a fuck, unless it was relevant to the contract negotiations were relevant to a star of specific magnitude, those I would handle, or at least be kept very much in the loop if I wasn't negotiating them myself. I would be very much in the loop, like copied on everything, made aware of every phone call with attorneys or managers or whatever. But that didn't happen that often when you think about it. I would say 80% of the contracts were negotiated or renegotiated, without my involvement. As long as I fit within a budget, you know, we had a budget allocation.

Somebody wanted, if Kevin Sullivan, for example, had somebody that he really believed in and that person was coming up for a renewal, Kevin would let me know. Well, talent relations or Diana Myers, usually Nick Lambros would have said, hey, Kevin, this individual's got six months left in their deal or three months left in our deal, whatever the case may be, just want to give you a heads up so we could plan accordingly creatively. So we weren't booking somebody into a very, very significant opportunity storyline wise only to find out that oh we have to renegotiate because there deals up next week you know you didn't want that to happen um i'd approve those you know but i wouldn't get involved in them let's take a pause because this episode of strictly business is sponsored by

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Try Bluetooth free when use our promo code wrestle biz at checkout. Just pay $5 shipping. That's Bluetooth.com promo code wrestle biz, B-I-Z, to receive your first. month absolutely free. Visit bluchu.com for more details and important safety information, and we thank Bluchu for sponsoring this podcast. All right, interesting one here, Eric, from D. Curran. Is there a market for wrestling companies to offer pay-per-views as audio coverage similar to WWF radio in the 90s and WCW audio content through AOL? It's a really interesting one, Eric. I don't traditionally think about radio play-by-play of wrestling, but it'd be pretty

unique in 2024. What say you? I love the idea of it because I love listening to sports on the radio. When it's done well, when you have a really, really good broadcast team that is great at radio, I think it's a far more enjoyable experience for me than watching. If I have an opportunity to listen to a college football game or to listen to an NFL game, game on radio or watch it on television, I'll listen to it almost every time. Now, if it's a communal thing and I got friends and a family over, whatever, if it's part of a party, that's different.

But if it's just a Sunday afternoon, and this is typically how I consume sports, the NFL particularly, is if it's a nice fall day, I jump in my truck with my dog, I take a ride up into the mountains and I listen to I listen to games on CBS sports. I love radio color and play by play. Absolutely love it and I miss it. And a lot of times you and I have spoken about color and play by play and what my preferences are. I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's just what I like. It's my taste. Subjective. I really, really enjoy when you've got a color and play by play combination that could also be doing it, even though it's for television, it could easily be radio because they're describing things. They're giving you a sense of the excitement and

being part of the experience from an audio level. Grant, it's television, vision. We got the vision part. That's cool and that's entertaining. But really good audio, really well done color and play by play, I think is more entertaining for me because now I get to engage my imagination. If it's all happening right there in front of me, I don't have to think about it much, it's all right there. I see the guy he's got the ball, oh, quarterback shouldn't throw. Oh, he's going to run for, oh, it's going to be a long pass. I get it.

That's fun too. But there's something about listening to the description of that play when it's done really well that engages my imagination in a way that for me is more enjoyable than just watching it. Well, radio play-by-play is all about imagery. Like, you have to paint imagery for the viewer for the listener because they have to be able to see the play in their head when you're describing it. And when you do it with sports that are super fast-paced,

like hockey, for example, hockey radio play-by-play guys, in my opinion, are the most talented in the industry. Because think of how fast a hockey game moves and how descriptive. You have to be guys are coming in and off the ice in real time. it is an incredible talent to be a great radio play-by-play guys so i think if someone was doing radio play-by-play for pro wrestling you might eric have to sacrifice some of the storytelling element of it

in order to provide that imagery for the person no no no that's why you have a color commentator your your play-by-play guy can rip and i used to do it i didn't i wasn't good at it but that's the way i was trained basically to because i had zero experience i've never said that in front of a microphone before. And when Vern was breaking me in, and I got by the name of Mike Shields and to a degree Greg Gagne, there was a lot of people that had input.

Lee Marshall, who was a sports broadcaster from Los Angeles at one point, I was probably mentored to treat my play-by-play more like a radio person would than what we're familiar with today. But if you've got a good play-by-play guy and your color man is there to augment and to weave the story in and advance the story while your play-by-play guy is ripping it and calling the action and describing the event and how stale the popcorn smells and what kind of beer smelled spilled on the floor, you give me that vibe. I'm all in, brother. I'm all in.

You want to hear an interesting point. You mentioned hockey and we're talking about pro wrestling. Did you ever, in this guy's a little bit older than you? you've ever heard the name ralph strangis he was the play-by-play guy for the dallas north stars for a long time he started in play-by-play with me in the a w a really he got hired out of professional wrestling bern gania a w a he was i think he got hired with the minnesota north stars they were still based in minnesota then and then when they got sold or trade or

moved to dallas whatever the deal was Ralph went with him, and he was there for a long time. But Ralph got his, he cut his teeth, learning how to do play-by-play under Burgagna and Greg and Mike Shields. Same time, same place I did. Interesting. Just a little bit of trivia. Yeah, and he, if I'm not going to say, it was probably around the early 90s. He went over to Minnesota, so that that would line up timeline-wise.

That's interesting, really cool. And listen, man, if you can do play-by-play well for pro wrestling, you can do a lot of things because it is not an easy avenue to succeed and so i honestly i think it's one of the most under appreciated elements in the show it's it's so and we i think we've talked about this before i think that's color and play by play i think is the one last area that could undergo a significant overhaul and add value and make the product better i mean production values you're always going to going to, there's always going to be new equipment, there's always going to be new technology, there's always going to be new ideas, because that's driven by creative people as well.

So you're always going to have different attempts to elevate production. But I think in terms of the overall presentation, color and play-by-play is the weakest link in the professional wrestling as entertainment chain. It's the one that could undergo the most transformation, and I think could improve the quality the product in a big way and getting back to the question that started all this I don't know if there's a market for it but I sure wish there would be and I'd sure I would participate

I'd sign up for it and I would probably listen to it more than I would watch it I would probably be one of those guys that would plug in the audio version and watch it on television but turned down to color and play by playing on TV yeah I'd be that guy yeah I used to do that for baseball games all the time I'll tell you, man, it's amazing how much better Michael Cole is with Vince McMahon on his ear. Michael Cole is really showing how good he is that he can be the natural play-by-play guy

and facilitator, traffic navigator that he is. He's excellent. And some of these production changes that Lee Fitting has brought in. I know you posted about that one tracking shot that they had, that they went in between segments. I just, that's the type of stuff that makes your TV feel innovative every week and keeps it spicy, too. for the viewer. I really dug that stuff. Let's get to this one from G. Wrestling.

If you could have your time as executive of WCW again, how would you set up your support staff? Would you have hired more outside writers, have a head of talent relations? How different would your overall team look compared to how it was? It would have looked a lot different. I would have overhauled right at the very beginning. I

was soft. I never enjoyed firing people believe it i know because my reputation is i was power hungry and threw my way around it's the exact opposite had i if i had the chance to i mean literally go back in time and have the same people in the same position same situation i would probably have eliminated 60 or more percent of the VP director staff and replaced them Because I inherited to a degree an incestuous isn't the right word, but a group of people that had been embedded in WCW from the very beginning.

And many of them had been embedded with Jim Crockett promotions. So there was a culture, there was not nepotism, but favor. Sure. There was history, good and bad. All of that came with from Jim Crockett promotions into WCW and existed when I was there as a talent and continued to exist once I got into management. By the time I got to, I don't even know if I was ever executive, I think I might have gone from senior vice president to president. I don't remember. But by the time I got to be president, I could have and should have made probably no fewer than eight to ten major changes. But I didn't because I thought I could fix it.

I thought, oh, they'll come around. You know, they're all having all the success. They'll get on board. People don't, man. People that are people that carry around resentment, jealousy, envy, all the things that make one week, really. they don't lose it it just they they bury it a little more they do a better job camouflaging it they're not as obvious about it and that didn't become apparent to me until too late in the game and i'm talking about early 99 i went oh my god why are these people still

here oh they're still here because i allowed them to be here but and that i and it wasn't just me i think anytime you someone comes in either from the outside or in my case, I might as well have been from the outside, really, to take over and be in control. The people that were there long before them, to varying degrees, are going to be resentful because it should have been me, or it should have been my friend over here, or it should have been this guy. He deserves it more. She deserves it more. It's human nature, unfortunately, but it's also one of the reasons why when executives come in or when companies acquire other companies um it it could be a blood bath a blood bath not a literal one a figure two of the one

and i i think i should have probably had my own blood bath at the beginning but i didn't i want to ask my dog heard me say blood my dog heard me say blood baths you got all excited nick to go see that uh want to ask this one from adam here and this comes on the heels i don't know if you saw this. Belator struck a deal with Warren Brothers' discovery where Belator's events are going to be on Max. So that's a pretty interesting domino to fall there on the streaming side for Max. Adam Askin, it looks like AW is moving towards having a pay-per-view every month or so. How much longer do you think AW can sustain the current a la carte model, especially at their price point of $50 a pay-per-view?

Hold that thought. Stop this tape. I want to make sure I don't have a somebody coming to Ultimately, it's the market that will determine that. And I think the additional content, the emphasis, adding another pay-per-view, it's adding more creative pressure to a system in a process that's already overwhelmed. It's not working. It's not functioning. It's not a well-oiled machine. I'm sure there's a lot of growth curve going on.

People are learning, people are experiencing, but it is a mess, and I don't think anybody can argue that. If you talk to, like I know you do, people that are in AEW and see the sausage making process that occurs every time they produce television, you know what I'm talking about. Adding more content is only going to add more pressure to that process. and I think the overall quality of the product is going to suffer. And then it's just going to be a matter of watching the revenue and watching it either grow every month or start to deteriorate every month. And the market will determine how much is too much. We did get the rating as we're on air.

Some breaking news courtesy of the business of the business. the rating that's coming from Resslenomics 800,000 viewers this week 0.27 for the demo so last week was 798 this week 800,000 whoa that's an increase

there's a 2,000 2,000 more people wow oh my gosh they're on a roll Mercedes Monet is a game changer we do not have the quarters at this moment in time but we'll see

Who cares? It doesn't matter. The interesting part about it that I should mention is since we had the third hour, effectively, which was Rampage, the third hour dropped to, let's see, got it right here, apologies, $541,000 for the third hour, which was technically a different show, Rampage, and 0.18 for the demo on that. I mean, that doesn't surprise me because that's getting pretty late. I mean, yeah, it's getting late and it's abnormal, right? Like they don't typically have a third hour. So not, you know, creatures of habit per se,

the people were not accustomed necessarily to that. But what's fascinating about it, the finish of the Adam Copeland versus Christian match occurred right as the hour was crossing over from dynamite into rampage. And they actually dipped to black for like a second and a half, and came back up in the different show right as the finish was about to happen. It was very fascinating how that ended up going down.

They changed the... And that sounds like they did that very, very well. That sounds like it was perfectly executed because that's what you would want to do. You would really want to carry the intensity of that segment over to open up your or at least have the audience on the edge of their seat for that next hour. But holding, holding an audience that long is challenging for any. anybody. And yeah, 800, though. I mean, everybody knew Mercedes was there. CEO is in town. I just, and I'm saying this not really as a shot, certainly not to Mercedes when I don't know her. She's, she had an amazing career in WWE. She was probably one of the more successful talents there and valuable assets there.

the difference though is in wwe she was created she was managed creatively she was protected creatively what do you mean by protective creatively eric let me tell you what i mean john i saw her promo was it from last night she spoke last weekend last night so yeah no it had to be last weeks because I've been traveling. It was horrible. Let me take that back. It wasn't horrible. It wasn't superstar. It was a very middle of the roster, not quite a journey person, not really a rookie, but certainly not a seasoned veteran. And we talked about that. It might have been with Conrad. you know he might have said something like you mad when she comes out and cuts her first promo and I thought I don't know that I've ever heard her speak much in WWE she never did promos

because she's not good at them and what's the first thing that she does when she comes out she cuts that long as winded promo that did I mean people reacted to it she's there first time and spectacular presentation she looked great she did look like a superstar no question about that. But the quality of that promo in terms of creating emotion and making me excited about her or making me wonder what she's there to do, just the overall quality of that promo was a 6.5 maybe on a scale of 1 to 10. And that's what I mean by protecting you. Don't let a talent that's not great at talking, talk for two or three minutes because you're exposing them. she's an excellent shit talker as a heel

and I think that the character that she does the whole CEO money-based thing it lends itself much more to an antagonist character than it does a pure baby face character and she comes into AW as a pure baby face and again I think she came across very genuine but it almost didn't seem natural to her

this is my take it didn't seem natural because she's, she's really just a fantastic heel. She's a great shit talker. The boss character she did in WWE was all great heel work. That's what got her really popular. And maybe it's a matter of not feeling quite comfortable in that top baby face role coming into a new company where she was, I don't disagree with you necessarily in that I think she was kind of left to be exposed in that situation.

And, you know, maybe over time that changes and how they present her, the opportunities that she gets i think she's a great shit talker as a heel but uh that that is not so she's being so she's being booked poorly then because she's potentially you're not writing to her strengths you're writing to her weakness and i think that's something with wrestling you have to do you have to and it's something paul haman was always great at was accentuating positives hiding negatives and uh that that is definitely something you need to do in wrestling but you know look here's the reality too er she was going to come in as a baby face regardless even if you as a character booked her as a heel the fans were going to cheer for her

So you lean into that for a little bit. Let's see how long that lasts. And whether or not they make a change, I guess, is yet to be seen. We got a couple more here I want to get to. We got Eric, says Eric. You talked previously about how WWE's been on the leading or even bleeding hedge of things in the broadcasting space throughout its history with syndication, pay-per-view cable, OTT, and now the Netflix-Rawnd deal.

What, if anything, is the next big thing out there that WWE could potentially lead the way on either for wrestling or entertainment as a whole. I don't know if this is the right answer. Meaning, I don't know if I understood the question quite clearly, but we just got talking about what can WWE do to lead the way and to provide that next evolution in terms of the presentation, color and play about play. That's, to me, that's it.

That's the one thing that people haven't really tweaked much. And I think big opportunity there. I also think the whole idea of backstage interviews is so dated and so ineffective to be nothing more than a waste of time. I think if WWE can, they know how to do it, I showed them. They copied a formula that I was using in TNA. So they certainly, and it's not brain surgery, I copied it from somebody else for grads. And it's not like anybody invented it, certainly not me, but I utilized it in wrestling before anybody did.

And it worked effectively. The problem with that style, that E&G kind of fly on the wall setting and way of producing an interview is, first of all, it's different, right? That means you've got to train people differently. They've got to start thinking differently during a course of a promo. It's got to be thought through a little bit more. the pre-production is a little bit more and the editing can be a little bit more

but the overall product is worth it there's nothing that WWE does and makes an improvement upon that isn't more work or more challenging in some way but it's you you weigh the benefits and I think finding a new way to establish the narrative outside of the ring

other than backstage promos would be a giant leap forward. You combine that with an overhaul of the philosophy of color and play-by-play and the application of it. I think you have an entirely different product. So on that front, Carmine asking, WW has been experimenting with new camera shots and graphics almost every week since the departure of Kevin Dunn. What are your thoughts on the new direction?

I'm obviously a big fan of it. Keep in mind, I'm also a big fan of it. of Kevin Dunn. Who's the guy that came in to replace it? Leaf fitting. Obviously, a very, very talented person. I'm sure there's a lot of people in WWE. They're grateful that he's there.

I would be one of them if I was there. I'm grateful as a viewer because now we're talking about a camera shop that we wouldn't have been talking about it. Kevin Dunn was running the ship. But I cannot look at what Kevin Dunn has accomplished in terms of elevating the production value of professional wrestling or the. course of the last 30 or 40 years and not give that man maximum amount of props maximum but everything changes times change attitudes change and perhaps kevin got so comfortable that he

wasn't excited about trying something new and trying something different that usually that that spirit of wanting to try something different is usually the domain of third 30-somethings, 40-somethings, people that have been in the business, had some success, have some credibility, but want to push an envelope. Usually your younger producers, directors, they're not really quite film directors are, but television directors, producers, they're not going to step too far outside of the lines because, after all, this is a business and I want to get hired when this show's over. So you work within guidelines that are pretty much established within your genre, but you get somebody that's really successful. that's willing to take risks because he or she knows that, hey, if you don't like it, I can go somewhere else. Once you get to that level and your skill sets and your reputation, that's where you generally

find the, I know this has never been done before, but let's give this a shot. Let's just see what happens. And that's where innovation comes from. Innovation doesn't come from a boardroom. Innovation doesn't come from a committee. Innovation comes from one guy, one woman, who has an idea and just says, fuck it, I'm going to try it. If it succeeds, great. If it doesn't, no one's going to die normally.

I love that they make the product feel more like an event. Like you get those arrival shots of the talent coming to the arena now. Before some of the championship matches, they have those like solo ISO shots where they're staring directly into the camera. That feels really cool to me. See, I mean, you said the magic words. One of the reasons why I've said many times, I prefer, in many cases, the AEW production presentation because it's gritty. I feel like I'm in like the fifth row up, you know,

and I can still see everything that's going on. You know, I can see the cameraman tripping over cables. I can see people falling off their chairs over next to ringside. Like you see all that stuff that you don't get to see on TV, right? It makes you feel like you're actually part of the show. No, you feel like you're in the venue. Anytime you can make people feel like they're in the venue, and that goes to what we're talking about with play-by-play,

describing the smell inside of the venue. That's a silly example, but it's true. You're making people feel like they're there. However you get there is the magic of live television and all the benefits that it provides. Last question here, Eric, and thank you to everyone who send questions in. This one coming from Aaron. It says A&E has been hit in the spot with these WWE by

Will we ever see an Eric Bischoff one? And in his mind, who else from WCW deserves one? I never, you know, deserves as a stupid word. I never use that word in a situation like this. Look, there's a lot of interesting stories out there. You know, I don't think somebody has to be a major superstar to warrant a biography. One just has to be really, really interesting. Whether one comes from a unique background,

and had a unique set of struggles to get where they're going or perhaps were affected in an amazing, interesting way by their success or lack there of in the business. It's always about the story. I've seen some great biographies about people I had never heard of that I just stumbled across that to me were fascinating biographies because you feel like you're learning and now I'm getting to know this person. And now I'm cheering for them. against them and it's the same psychology that one probably would hope for to feature film or a dramatic television series or god forbid a professional wrestling show it's all the same thing getting to know the characters wanting them to succeed wanting them to fail being emotionally

invested one way or the other that's that's why people you know seek out entertainment to scratch those particular issues so will we get an eric bischoff one yeah probably not. And I think it's probably because there's been so much done already. What are you going to learn? Okay. Who's playing Eric Bischoff in a biopic? I don't even know anymore, man. I don't watch it. You know, Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise? Yeah, Tom Cruise. He could probably do the stunts. I can see. He's got the right here. I can see Russell Crow being a good Eric Bischoff. He's a, he's a wee little farker. You could pick Tom Cruise up, put him in your pocket and take him for a walk around a block. She used to wee, little lad. But yeah, he's a decent actor. I think he

could pull it off. Okay. Just curious. Good stuff, Eric. Always love getting the questions from the business of the business faithful. It's going to be a fun, exciting few weeks here as we march towards WrestleMania. Can't believe we're already here once again, and you're going to be on the road. So be on the lookout. Hey, everybody jump on social media and let's all listen to the excuses Dave Meltzer comes up with as to why Mercedes Monet only got, what was it, a thousand more viewers in last week, 2000?

A couple thousand. Let's come on, the excuses are going to be a riot. You know what? I'm kind of interested about, Eric. Like, Adam Copeland and Christian were the main eventors for this. You know, those are two established former WWE guys, right?

And they're in Toronto, their hometown, and they're having this big blow-off main event. I'm really curious if viewership went up for that main event segment with the two equity names in the main event, or if it level out and we haven't gotten the quarters yet as we await this but uh what is the drawing power of adam copeland and christian cage at this juncture i'm really interested i don't think it's what is

i don't think the question is what is the drawing power of of adam copeland and christian cage i think it's what is the drawing power of anybody in a e w because the creative is so fucking bad they did to their credit they did sell out the venue they uh they were they were they were it's a six thousand seat arena in jurano at the smallest venue possible. WWE runs non-televised live events there. I know, but before Mercedes was announced for it, they, I think they add, I got to look at Russell Ticks.

I'm going off top of my head here, but they added, I know they sold close to 2,000 tickets for a 6,000 person venue once Mercedes was added. So take of that what you will. Again, not carrying water, simply stating facts here. I'm looking at the clouds, Eric. I'm coming up with what I want to make up. that's all this young man screaming at the clouds that's right guys go to advertise with eric com get on board with us thousands and thousands of listeners listen to 83 weeks and strictly business

every single week we'd love for you to join us advertise with eric dot com eric you are on your way to hartford anything else you want to say no man uh look we've got some great stuff coming up on youtube i'm going to be interviewing in fact i got to jump on a call with him uh real shortly the author of a book called The Six-Pack. It's an amazing book. It's all about WrestleMania 3, and we're going to do a long-form interview covering probably each one of the chapters

leading up to the release of the book. People are going to be fascinated by what they hear and eventually what they're able to read. So be looking forward to that next week. I think next Tuesday is our first episode on YouTube. 83 weeks.com. Go there, subscribe, hit the notification button, because you're not going to want to miss this.

No. There's going to be like long form, probably two hour, two hour episodes. And we're going to get, Brad did some amazing research. He got access to information about WWE handwritten notes from Vince Senior, Vince Jr. A lot of the people behind the scenes, stuff that's never been talked about before or exposed before. And Brad has it all. So we're going to be, we're going to be sharing a lot of new information. You should ask him why they went from three venues to the Silver Dome.

consecutive years. So maybe he'll probably be able to tell he'll probably have some notes. This has been strictly business with Eric Bejohn, we'll see you next time.