83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #72: The Final Episode

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

It's the "sunsetting" edition of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff! In this episode, Eric explains why the show is coming to a close, and comments on Tony Khan's response to it. Plus, thoughts on WWE's big edition of RAW, AEW's new COO, and more! Special thanks to this week's sponsors! Manscaped- Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at Manscaped.com. BlueChew- Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code WRESTLEBIZ at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on Strictly Business. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with Strictly Business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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paying someone else's mortgage with your rent and start the path towards owning your own home today at save with conrad dot com enumLS number 32416 equal housing lender save with conrad dot com what's going on everyone on everyone it's time for the sunsitting edition of strictly business the wise choice we're going to talking about We'll be talking a lot more about wise choices for the rest of this day. I'm John Elba. That's Eric Bischoff. This show has been presented to you by the ad-free shows and podcast heat networks. We are really grateful to have you along with us here one more time on Strictly Business

as we wrap this baby up and look towards the future. Eric, it's great to be joined with you here once again today. I've always looked forward to doing this show with you. How you doing, my friend? I'm doing well. You know, before we hit record, I was kind of giving you the background of my last four or five days.

And it's been insanely hectic to put it mildly. And nothing really exciting. It's just been travel complication after travel complication. And you know how it is when that happens. It's like you had two or three things lined up for when you get back. And all of a sudden it takes you two days longer to get back. And the fucking domino start falling. You know, it's just like, so I had my whole day planned out.

because I'm leaving town again tonight. And then I'm going to be gone for another three or four days and I'm home for two days and I'm gone for another five days. So my travel schedule's just been insane. And we're going to talk more about that in a minute. But my point is I have my whole day planned out. I was going to get everything done that has been backed up on me. It was going to knock some shit out. So when I leave town, I can do it kind of a clear conscious because I don't like things hanging in my head that I got to get done.

I should have gotten done. so i got up early this morning had my breakfast planned out on the carnivore diet you know and i absolutely love it and like an idiot i pick up my phone to see if any messages came in overnight that i needed to be aware of and boom i got people's did you see this did you see this and forwarded me this stupid-ass tweet that tony put out at four o'clock in the morning By the time I got done with my second cup of coffee, I was fired up. I threw my entire schedule out the window. I said, no, no, no, this is too good.

We're going to have some fun with this today. And by the end of today, like by midnight tonight, Eastern time, I think most people that follow me on social media or even Tony are going to be highly entertained by about what's about to come. It's going to be fun. so yeah we will hit on that more later in this episode and i encourage you to stick around for that uh but yeah lara eric i mean let's get the uh business of our business out of the way here first this is going to be the last episode of strictly business for the foreseeable future for now for now for now let's be careful um the primary reason here just kind of as you

explained you got a lot of travel going on you got a lot going on life you got a young grandkid you know i mean i mean you're really trying to make time for family and let me let me give it to you from my perspective sure because that's part of it i mean i don't want to put words in your mouth i apologize yeah the the the travel is definitely an issue especially for the next two months my schedule is just so hard and you've got your shit going on you've got another life you know and between managing my schedule which is going to be next to impossible over the next 60 days and then trying to coordinate to make sure whenever i'm available you're available it's not like i can pick up the phone's hey john i know it's three o'clock in well maybe if you're a tony con

but hey john it's three o'clock in a morning let's do a you know an episode of stricter business because fuck i'm in australia and it's the middle of the day for me and i've got time you know it doesn't it doesn't work so no and i don't like doing things half-assed you know i had a vision for what i wanted this show to be and and i think we've knocked much of that vision out of the park i'm very very very happy with what we've achieved and the success of the show. I think you know better than I do because you track the numbers, but I think if you look at the audience for Strictly Business, it's probably right up there and some of the top 10, 15 wrestling podcasts out there.

Strictly business, Eric, is consistently week in, week out a top five, top 10 podcast in the wrestling space. It's not even questionable. So it's, thank you. And it's not about its success. or lack thereof it's primarily about the time but my vision for the show would have seen me become much more involved in in the production side of it when i say production i don't mean the physical production that's pretty easy obviously but i really wanted to reach out and tag in some

fascinating guests and we've had a lot of them mostly thanks to you you've been the one that has wrangled some of the best guests we've had and i appreciate them to be very to be very fascinating, but I just wasn't able to execute on my original vision and on top of the travel. And here's the main thing. And I want to be completely honest, especially with you, John, because you've been such a great partner in the show. Thank you.

There comes a time for me where I've got to go, okay, am I managing my resources properly? Because there's only so much time in a day. There's only so much bandwidth in my head creatively in terms of being able to do this type of thing. Where am I maximizing my resources? And as you know, this show, typically in the top five, what is there, 250 wrestling podcasts out there, whatever it is? You know, it's not about its success or failure, and it's never been about money for me because I've allowed you to take 100% of the ad sales from this show. I've taken nothing from the ad sales. So it's never been about the money. It's been about producing a really quality show that's different than the rest

of the podcast out there. But I've got this issue with resources and time. So I'm probably going to be doing more on YouTube, but in a way that allows me to do them from 3 o'clock in the morning in Australia, if I have to, as opposed to trying to coordinate with guests and your schedule and my schedule. So that's really the reason that I want, you know what, maybe it's time to put a pin in this. And I do want to say put a pin in it. You and I talked briefly yesterday because I was under the gun and explain this to you the way I'm explaining it right now. But for now, until I can really figure out the best way to manage my resources,

I want to do what I think is best for everybody. And I think me being gone so much for the next eight weeks and leaving on you and not being able to participate and having not really contributed the way I wanted to contribute initially in terms of bringing in some really unique guests. I just thought, well, let's just put a pin in it for now. Let me rearrange my landscape in terms of my resources and time and figure it out.

So this isn't like, okay, the show's over and done and dead, Eric and John aren't going to be working together. That's not it. This is really about me trying to reconfigure my resources and maximizing them. That's all right. Well, and too, Eric, you know, you and I have been doing this show for two years now. A lot of people forget that.

We did basically eight months of shows just behind the ad-free shows paywall. And I've even tracking the space since then, podcasting and distribution has changed so much in the past two years. And whereas there was such a gold mine to, let's do this podcast, let's do this podcast, that has become such a saturated field. and now it's okay, how can you provide something that is different then, as you always say. And I think taking a step back and evaluating those options is always a good thing you need to do.

And I'm greatly appreciative, man. You know, this show wasn't a concept of mine. Pretty much every show I've ever done has been a concept of mine. This show was not. I was told, John, you're going to be hosting a podcast with Eric Bischoff. And I was so excited.

Oh, shit. Real bastard. Part of me was very excited. because I mean I've told you this before and I've said this publicly many times I think you're one of the greatest TV performers in history wrestling and even from my indie stuff that I've done

I've watched so much of your stuff because even though you're I know you personally your legacy is so entrenched in the business side of things but I know you too at that molecular level you're a performer at heart and you're a great performer and the idea of getting to do a podcast with you

is so exciting to me but I knew this too going in Eric that you are a polarizing figure in the wrestling industry and I knew that that would be a really exciting challenge because I didn't want to do a podcast that'd be Eric says something and John blindly agrees with him because what what fun is that it is zero fun and that's why I've had so much fun doing this show with you right and like there are the cornet types there are the Russo types where they'll say something really out there about whatever and then the co-host just blindly agrees with them and ha ha screw everyone else fuck everyone else that this is the right opinion but i love the discourse that

we have and even when it gets heated it's so much fun and i'm really really appreciative of that opportunity to get a chance to do this show with you i mean that and likewise john you know i i i get board as fuck talking to people that agree with me all the time i love a robust passionate you know i don't want to get to the point where i want to throw furniture bust shit up but came close a few times i don't mind i was just going to say i don't mind i was just going to say i don't know that's fun to me that's that's life what i'm what have i said a million times there's t-shirts out there heat his life because heat is friction heat is energy And at the end of the day, it's all about energy.

And sometimes I'd much rather sit down and have a lively debate, as you would call it, because you have a perspective and opinion. I have a perspective and opinion. We're two different people. We're two different personalities. I think that's far more interesting for a viewer or a listener. And all the feedback that I get is supports that than someone who just, oh, wow, you're right. Oh, yeah, couldn't agree with you more.

I mean, oh, my God, that show would have lasted about two weeks. I would have, one of us would have walked away from it. Well, and like I said, I take a lot of pride in providing that juxtaposition, and this show has made me a better broadcaster. So much to the point, and this is a shoot, this is a shoot, straight shoot here. This show got me a gig on a regional sports network in New York City. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean,

For real, like the head of talent at S&Y, Brad Como, giving him a shout out right now. Hey, Brad, you got a good man on your hands. I appreciate that. Brad is a huge old school wrestling fan, and he loves strictly business. And he found it so fascinating and so interesting. And one day, he followed me on the platform formerly known as Twitter. We got into a conversation. He didn't even know I had a TV background.

He knew me from doing this show with you. So, and I'm so eternally grateful for that because that allowed me to check off a childhood dream of getting to host a regional sports network sports center style show in New York City about the teams that I grew up loving. I mean, you see him right there behind me. So I'm so grateful for that, Eric, and I can't thank you enough for that. I really do mean that. Well, you put it and I appreciate that, but you put a lot of horsepower behind this. You've done a great job. I've really enjoyed working with you.

And again, I don't want to make this sound like, oh, fuck. No, of course. We will be doing more things together. It's just a matter of if and what, not if, it's a matter of when and what. When and what, for sure. Yeah, when and what. That's what's what's all about when and what. What?

But, I mean, we've had a lot of fun stuff. And I tweeted this out right before we started, but I've taken so much pride, Eric, in the amount of interesting people that we've been able to platform with this podcast. and many of whom that you've introduced Carrie Ann was one of my favorites just the sociology of wrestling fans talking about that Isaac Riston talking about the music of wrestling

Grammy Award winning I mean we have Mel Coleman on here talking about wrestling art we had belts by Dan talking about the production of wrestling belts those to me those are some of my favorite conversations I've ever had in the podcasting space I agree.

And like I said, this is not, you know, the end of something. This is just a pause, if you will. Not a sunset, Tony. Not that. But I really love the wise choice reference that Tony made in his ridiculous 4-eam tweet. Got a lot of comments, too, Eric, from people in the industry who are upset to see the weekly show go. Matt Cardona reached out and, you know, Matt, I know, Matt, that was one of my favorite. episodes that we did because you you knew Matt as Zach Ryder you weren't really familiar with

what he was doing on the indie scene and when we had that conversation with him afterwards you were jazzed you were amped up about what a guy like him was doing to change the wrestling industry and I just want to give a shout out to people like Matt and anyone else who joined us like that yeah and like I said it's it's been fun for me and it's been a great learning experience as well. Sure. Let's move out. Let's talk about the business

of the wrestling business because I don't want to get weepy. We certainly can do that. I know you did an episode of 83 weeks talking about WWE potentially being in its new attitude era. You know, Rocky coming in and just having that segment with Cody

where he bludgeoned him and bloodied him. Had so many people talking. And I'm curious your perspective here, Eric, about this attraction match that we're seeing at WrestleMania Night 1, the tag match between Rock, Roman Reins, Cody, and Seth Rollins. From that storytelling perspective

and what draws audience engagement, it almost feels like that night one match could have easily been Cody versus Rock with the winner going on to face Roman. And there's probably a lot of things that could have been done. Yeah, a lot of options, because the way the table has been set, no pun intended, the way the table has been set from a storyline perspective,

there's so many different ways one could go. And I don't want to try to give the impression I'm following this thing closely from a creative perspective because I'm intentionally, not because I'm busy, but intentionally I'm not thinking about what they're doing as an armchair booker. I'm not doing that. because once I put my producer hat on,

the fan has to go sit in a corner and shut the fuck up. And I really want to watch this as a fan. I'll dissect the hell out of it when it's over. But for me personally, when I get too invested, well, why are they doing this? They should be doing this instead of doing that. I mean, if it was me, I would do it. It takes me out of the enjoyment mode.

Sure. I feel like I'm working again. But just from where I'm at right now, as the fan, because the producer's back in the corner with this, with this mouth shut now, as a fan, I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to put my producer hand on for a second. As a fan, I'm thinking, wait a minute,

you get this tag, but the tag is going to have implications on what is the most important match of the, of WrestleMania. It just is. That's where all the focus is. That's the A story, folks. now there's an a minus and a b and a b plus and a b there's a lot of stuff there right on the surface storyline wise where a plot point could take you in any one direction but for me it just

seems like this is all it's like night two is going to be a result of night one and in that sense it's episodic it's it's you know episode one of your a story is is saturday night and then Sunday and I love that from a storytelling thread build story anticipation reality

surprise and action man it's all right there the sunsitting edition of strictly business is sponsored of course by Blue Chew let's talk about sex one more time gents remember the days when you're always ready to go

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Just pay $5 shipping. as bluechoo.com promo code wrestlebiz to receive your first month absolutely free. Visit bluechoo.com for more details and important safety information, and we thank Bluchu for all their support of Strictly Business. Well, and I brought that up on Twitter when this was going on Monday night, where Rock came out and he did that interruption of Cody, where he whispered something. And I was like, wait, what do you say?

The camera cut while he was talking. You couldn't quite fully get what he said. And he just walks back. and then later on in the night, you're paid that off. And I said, man, this is textbook example of what Eric and I have talked about on Strictly Business with a story threaded throughout your show. Because think about the intrigue that something like that ended up bringing to the table in terms of audience anticipation. And the conversation, you remember back in the day, it was called Water Cooler Talk, right? Because, you know, you'd have a show on prime time and everybody was.

watching it. It was part of pop culture. And it's what people were talking about when they got to work or to school or whatever they did the next morning. Right. That was the buzz. And it's been a while since there's been any real buzz other than within the internet about wrestling as a whole. But the fact that and that was like a 21 or 22 minute segment. I mean, I watched that show from beginning till the time I heard a first now Cody, Cody front end loaded it. Cody had some dialogue at a beginning before Rock came out. But that whole thing, however long it lasted, and Rock did not say word. And what that did, and it reminded me of not to keep going back to what I've done, but that's part of what the show is about or has been about is, you know, my perspective today based on successes

and failures of my 30 years in a wrestling business. And I readily admit successes and failures. Great ideas, big mistakes. I've done them all, Marker Fathers. I have circled the God dang globe when it comes to that. But it reminded me of who's the third man. It was a question, just like you had. Well, what did he say? What, what's going on? Dr. Sarah Kinsman from the Health Resources and Services Administration tells us about one of the biggest drug overdose poisoning threats we face. In the last several years, almost 70,000 people a year have died from fentanyl poisonings. If a person's alert and active and breathing, you would call poisoned helpline, and they would help you right away. Get ahead of a poison emergency. Call the poison

helpline, 1-800-222-2-2-2. Okay, so for the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world? Reminder, no phones allowed. Sir in the orange, phone away, please. Um, my kidda smart smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. Okay, sure. No, there's smoke in my house. Yeah, right. A smoke alarm texting you. That's a new one.

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Visit Kidda at KIDDE.com to learn more. A compatible ring subscription is required for 24-7 smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring sold separately. You get people to lean into the story because it's not shoved down their throat. And a blue ball. He blew balled that live audience, Eric, so badly. too. I love it. But your imagination starts to run wild with it, right?

You start trying to figure it out. And you're talking to your friends about it. And I just, I just love it. As a fan, not as a producer. I'm sure there's things we could pick if we wanted to. But damn, it's been fun to watch. So what was fascinating about this was the show started the quarter average, the quarter hour average for the beginning of the show.

And that segment specifically was one point. $1.72 million. And by the end of the show, they averaged out at $1.67 million. So hardly a drop come to the 11 o'clock hour. There were drops throughout on the quarters, but it came back up for the quarterly average in that final segment viewership to see Cody get his ass kick there. The show quarter hour average peaked big in the CM Punk, Drew McIntyre, Seth Rollins segment, the quarter hour average 2.2 million during that. For what I thought Eric was one of the unique segments that I've seen on Monday Night Raw in a long time where these three guys were giving creative liberty to just go out there and essentially riff. And it paid off big time in

terms of people being interested in seeing CM Punk in Chicago. There's probably some internet chatter in real time that drove people to turn the channel on. And they did a big number for this quarter hour. You have any thoughts on the creative liberties there being given to the talent to produce something like that? It was very noticeable to me. And this is not a criticism. this is an observation that will sound to to internet trolls like a criticism which is pretty much what goes on in the internet but i thought it was clunky in a good way yeah yeah yes it was apparent to me within the first 45 seconds less than a minute that this this was odd not good good odd, not bad odd, just up. It was different than.

Imagine the fuck out of that. It was different than what we're used to seeing because what we're used to seeing when it comes to in ring and backstage promos, which don't even get me started about backstage shit again, please, or we will be doing another show because we won't have a choice. But it was different than what we were used to seeing. and it made me lean in to figure out why was why am I feeling different about this and it became apparent pretty pretty quickly that oh these guys are these guys are riffin they didn't even want none of them were they i'm sure they had bullet points they knew what they were out there to achieve but it was like okay go and to be perfectly honest not all of it hit there were some fumbles in there

I mean, they were minor, minor, minor, minor, minor, mingles. More, I won't even say fumbles. There was some awkwardness in the interaction, which is what led me to believe, okay, this is not typical WWE, but in a good way, I felt like I was watching live TV as opposed to Disney on ice in an IMAX theater. So I dug it.

I did get a little, about two thirds of the way through it. I started my producer had just somebody threw it at me and I put it on by mistake and started thinking about it. I'm going, man, this is not producing much. There's, there's not a lot of whatever the intent was, I think they're probably coming up a little short until the end. And it paid off spectacularly. And it was like, mucker fathers, they got me. They got me. So, no, I loved it. And look, hats off to everybody, you know, Pong, Drew, everybody involved in that, Seth. But particularly, punk and drew because the whole idea of a you know a confrontation us intelligently they didn't

put drew in the ring because that would have almost forced something that couldn't happen obviously but number one you're outside of the ring so cutting a promo back and forth this with somebody when you were 30 feet away from them is a little more challenging like when you're face to face it's a lot easier you know four or five feet apart it's a lot easier to it feel real because you're feeling it but it's like what i used to do uh promos and i'd be in the ring and somebody be up on a ramp i hated those things because that distance took the energy away in terms of the ping pong that you do when you're out there with a microphone you know battling so to speak so number one the distance between them and i know that's going to sound like

doesn't make sense but if you're a performer and you've been in that situation you understand it you feel it but bigger than that was we're out here having a debate between two megastars and building tension about whether or not punk's going to be a referee or a color commentator i mean the stakes were a little limp i wanted to throw them both a blue chew digitally because it was kind of flaccid. It just didn't until the end.

And then it picked up and it all came together. So, you know, hats off to them. Everybody did a great job because it's hard as a performer. If you don't have something real to see some real stakes or real issue, real intent.

So for punk to come out there, number one, he's injured, bad situation, to have somebody, you know, making fun of you for being injured, especially when it's true, even more difficult, right? It's harder as a performer. But it all came together.

I thought they did a great job, and they deserve. They deserved the pop that they got. Well, you know what I really liked about it? The fact that so many pro wrestling promos that happened in front of live crowds are, I say this, now you respond. Then I say this and you respond. Exactly. It wasn't that at all.

It felt like a conversation where three people were having, argument. And I think clunkiness and wrestling can sometimes be really good. I honestly, ironically, I think one of the things that endeared people to see him punk for so long is that he was kind of unpolished in the ring. He was very clunky and with his movements and it made him feel more real like somebody else. Relatable. He's relatable. Right. Exactly. And I think that that paid off pretty well in a segment like this, which was really, really interesting to me. Punk definitely held his own, particularly under the circumstances of circumstances that I've laid out.

I think the awkwardness was probably, and I'm a huge Drew McIntyre fan, Drew, if you hear about this, don't take it the wrong way, brother, because it was hard for Drew too. You know what I mean? That's a tough spot for someone like Drew to be in to try to generate heat

in that kind of a promo. You know, I thought punk handled it pretty well. I thought, you know, Drew, you probably wish he had a moment or two back to redo again if he could, but fuck, I thought it was great. Yeah, and I think the whole show is off the charts. It was a very good episode.

And Drew overall has been doing just exceptional work that has revitalized him and put him in a main event at WrestleMania. So that's a big credit to him. You and I won't really have a chance to talk too much about much more of the WrestleMania build, man, but may as well throw it out there now since we did last year. Are they finally going to pull the trigger here on Roman? I'm sorry? Are they finally going to pull the trigger here on Roman losing?

I can't imagine that they won't. okay so you feel this is this is the time i'll be shocked if they don't and if they don't just because they've come up with a much better plan but i can't imagine what that would be i agree with that you know there's a lot of discourse eric over the past week that even rock responded to where there were some rumors that standards and practices weren't too happy with all the cussing and that was from dame melzer right and well so i just thought it was hilarious that he dropped an f bomb in the final segment of the show just to reinforce what he can do. And that is what it boils down to, I guess, for me watching. It's like, you see rock, you see punk. These guys are established stars within the

vernacular of the program that you're watching. And did you ever feel like in WCW certain people got away with more things on the TV product just because of their standing within the industry? huh you mean like scott hall and kevin nash and x-pac i'm just waiting to see if you'd say it yeah yeah i mean that's look that's what here's the fun part well it's not fun here's the most challenging one of the most challenging aspects of the wrestling business when it comes to talent you want fucking racehorses you you want you want four horses and racehorses you want a slow comfortable horse you don't want a pony you don't want something that an 80 year old woman could go out and ride around you want a fucking racehorse and i've used to

say this off and try to make a point. I raised horses, had horses for, I just didn't say it raised it, but I had horses for a long time. And one thing about horses, like if you really ride and you're, like I do go up into the mountains for four or five days at a time, hunting, or whatever it is, you want a horse. And the tough thing about vast, tough horses, is it's hard to slow them down. There's motherfuckers, they just want to run.

And it's a lot easier, though, to slow a fast horse down. It takes training in time. It can be done. But it's a lot easier to slow a fast horse down than it is to speed a slow horse up. If you got a horse, it just doesn't want to move, or if it does, you could put that 80-year-old woman on it or a four-year-old kid because that horse ain't going anywhere it's just not so I would rather have fast horses than slow horses and the thing about fast horses like Scott Hall and Kevin Nash Xbox Rick Flair you know Roddy Piper certainly fell into that category randy savage certainly fell into that category you know the tough thing about managing fast horses is a mucker fathers want to run and sometimes it's hard to slow them down but there's still fast horses. And if you're in a race, you're going to bet on that fast horse,

rather than that one, dragging that 80-year-old woman's carcass around a fucking mountain, someone. That's a good point, Eric. Good point. Another interesting announcement of a report here from Russell Votes, who's, oh, it's got his ear to the ground on the WWB end. I'm going to read this one, quote, hearing rumblings of a significant schedule change, I'm told the NXT battleground event will be moving off May 26 to June 9th, with the location shifting as well as Savannah, Georgia will no longer host the show.

NXT Battleground will now take place live in Las Vegas at the UFC Apex. So a couple notable things here, Eric, WW moving the NXT show off May 26th, which was the date of double or nothing, the AW Paperview in Las Vegas, but then moving it to the UFC Apex. And if you're not familiar with the UFC Apex, it is UFC's essentially their live production facility, live studio where they hold events in Las Vegas. So, and I'm going to, I got to use the word one more time, synergy here between WWE and UFC, pretty interesting, isn't that, using UFC's production facility for a live

NXT show? It is, and it makes perfectly good sense, right? Question, though, because I haven't been following that piece of news. I just read recently, maybe yesterday, a day before, that AEW is going to be in Vegas in May. So May 20, so that was the double or nothing show, the AW pay-per-view. Okay. So that's May 26. And when is the NXT event? So NXT was supposed to be that day, but according to this report, they're going to be moving it to June, and it will be at the UFC apex. Okay. So all-in will happen first. No, double or nothing will happen.

Sorry, double or nothing. I get them all my stuff. Dynasty is April 21st, then double or nothing would be May 26th. Okay, so double or nothing's first and then what about a week later? June 9th, it says here. 10 days later, whatever it is. Yeah. You've got a NX, I don't think there'll be any,

I don't think one will really impact. No, I don't think so. That's a nice thing about Vegas, dude, is you get, now you've got obviously a core wrestling audience that lives in Las Vegas. You've got a good audience there, I'm sure. But you also, every week, you've every four days you've got a completely different population turning over looking

for shit to do in Las Vegas and that makes Vegas such a great place to to have events like this so I don't think one will affect the other it is interesting though and I agree with you on a synergy percent right I just even using a UFC production facility to put on to WWE events very fascinating to me and uh times they are I change it brother well so let's let's put another one here how long until WWE runs an event at the sphere. Do you think they've got some connections in Las Vegas? I think they got a, I think they got a few.

Nick Conn. Well, not just that, Eric. Ari Emanuel, come on, Ari Emanuel. Not just that, but James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks and Rangers, owns Madison Square Garden, and he's the owner, he's the owner of the sphere as well. And WWE, Madison Square Garden.

I would imagine it, yeah, obviously there will probably be some scheduling issues because there's a lot of people that I would think would want to be performing there. Yeah, what do you want to put? Let's put a bet on it and we'll do a special episode to talk about this. Are we shaving heads? No, we're not shaving any heads, although that would be kind of fun to see you. I know that values is here more than I do. So that's, this is Harry Award winning hair.

I told you that. Get Goodhead.com. Um, but, uh, uh, yeah, man, I'd say get goodhead.com. That is the organization. Get good head. I got great head. I thought it was a, it sounds like a porn site. Right. Of course it does. Yeah. No, that was the website. Get goodhead.com. 2018 Harry Award winner for, uh, best hair in New England regional news. Oh, God. You get fun with that. Yeah. And I have. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'd say, honestly, within a year.

I think they'll run an event of sphere within a year. This episode of Strictly Business is brought to you by the spring cleaning champions Manscaped. This season, make sure to groom your carpets and the drapes with the leaders and below the waist groom and clear out the winter bush with Manscapes lawnmower 5.0 and watch your confidence bloom like the springtime flowers. Embrace the season and join the 10 million men worldwide who trust Manscaped with our very special offer. Go to Manscape.com, use code wrestlebiz for 20% off and free shipping. Life before Manscaped for a TV personality was very, very annoying. I'm not just talking below the belt. I'm talking above it as well.

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had been speculated for a couple months now. Kosha had done work with the Alliance of American football, the old AAF, the professional bull riders, and of course, he was WW's regional director of live events for a period of time. He's now AWCO. So it is fascinating that AW is the alternative product, but there's increasingly been a lot more WWE names who have come in over the course of the past six months. Did you see that post last week? Somebody put it up on social, on Twix. It was a picture, like a poster. Yes, the WWA talent.

Yeah. It's like 43 of them. So much for being the alternative. That's funny. Well, you know, talent are going to move. Like, that's going to happen. Talent are going to jump. It happened with WCW.

Happen with ECW. But from the corporate structure and the executive structure, that's more fascinating. me than even talent jumping yeah but that makes more sense to me than talent to be very honest yes talent is going to if there's an opportunity to you know lock up a two or three year deal because tony's a money mark and he's throwing money out the window like there's no end to it which in his case there might not be um great if you're talent you know i'm happy as hell for the talent but it's not moving the needle it hasn't moved the needle it's not had any positive impact on anything

other than Tony's ego. And it makes more sense to me to bring in some of that corporate talent. That's where Tony really, you know, and he's bringing in, and I don't know, Mr. Irby at all, never met him, don't even wouldn't recognize me if he walked up to my door and said hello. That being said, I wish him well. I'm sure he's a very qualified individual given his resume, experience. But that's not Tony's problem.

Tony's problem is the product, not the marketing of it and the licensing and merchandising of it. Those are things that need to be addressed and you want top people doing it. But Tony's hemorrhaging because his product is creatively vapid and is showing no signs of improvement. That's what I find interesting. But if I was Tony, I wouldn't want to surround myself with people because wrestling is such a unique industry. It's different than, and I know Mr. Irbe's background, he's got a great foundation because of many surveys, I call him Mr. because I don't want to fuck up his first name, but that background is going to give him plenty of a strong foundation to be effective if and when there's ever

growth. But that growth isn't going to come because you've got a highly qualified person managing and overseeing your licensing. the growth is going to become is going to come because you've created demand in your product and in the characters in your show which manifests in licensing and managing buildings and making smart moves for touring because right now w or a w has no tour model they they travel around a country in north america producing their live television shows nobody's going you could be the most genius building manager, executive, whatever the title would be, and you're not going

to increase interest in the product no matter what you do. The only person that can do that or people that can do, or the people associated with the creative, because the talent is there. I mean, there is so much great talent from the big names to names that deserve to be big names that aren't getting opportunities because creative is so dysfunctional. You've got so many talented people. Some of them must feel like they're in the witness protection program. Their relatives probably think they're lying to them about actually having a job in professional wrestling

because you never see them, right? Fix that and then worry about the rest of it. It's like, you know, if you build it, they'll come. but if you don't build it i don't care how many people you put put out there trying you know in the in the front office trying to sell tickets hang on selling tickets well it's funny i could be wrong what do i know it's funny in the post that i was involved in a finger poca dume fuck i don't have an opinion fair point fair point i did hold you to uh court that one episode of strictly of uh 83 weeks we did together about taking the mask off frame mysterious back in 99 i just never

that was a fuck up um but it's funny that posts that tony uh sent towards us which we're going to talk about in just a couple minutes here he almost inadvertently confirmed that at least he feels confident that they're going to have this Warner brothers discovery meteorites deal coming up here soon and i'll tell you Eric i've been watching the NCAA tournament on max because i really wanted to see how max would hold up with the heavy streaming traffic because this is kind of the first true experiment with live content

streaming on Max in mass scale. And it has been fantastic. The Max platform has held up tremendously. They got four games going on at any given moment. And I'd imagine there's a ton of traffic on the platform. So if live streaming of AW programming,

whether it's pay-per-views, paper views and dynamite, if Max is part of that equation, that's a big win for AEW, and I'd imagine that is going to be a precedent for whatever this next media rights deal is, at least on Tony's end. Yeah, and I'm not sure, you know, again, going back to Tony's 4 a.m. post, you know, probably a great idea at a sunset, you know, this fraud. He called me a fraud, you know, which, whatever. I called the podcast a fraud. He didn't call you a fraud. He called the podcast. Well, I'm the podcast, right? I mean, you and I are both together, but you know what I mean. yeah the podcast is a fraud oh well and he suggested that you know it's a good thing i did that

prior to the renewal i've never said i've never bet anybody i've said many times on on this show with you probably in one of our shows where we did predictions i predict wouldn't be surprised that aew does recite never really debated that i think there's some issues there i think some of them have to do with a lot of them have to do with AEW because they're flatlined if if if they were patient if they like if this was a patient on a hospital bed they would start calling the family to be fair and i don't interrupt but i have to i have to interrupt because because you did think that w.W. was going to one of the brother's discovery well that was sorry it was published i'm just saying i'm just saying because that what i made i didn't make that shit up had

WWE wanted to go to Warner Brothers Discovery, they would have. They took a $5 billion deal from Netflix and said that was a WWE decision, not a Warner Brothers Discovery decision. Warner Brothers Discovery, in my opinion, because I have certain information that is credible, Warner Brothers Discovery wanted to get involved in the bidding process for the acquisition of WWE. So, yeah, it's not that I've ever questioned. whether or not Warner Brothers Discovery would be interested in wrestling, wrestling's fucking hot.

And comparatively, it's still, to the state, much less expensive, even if it's an amazing rights fees issues, it's still less expensive than producing a drama or sitcom or other things. Or other live sports. Are much higher. So it's not that. I've often challenged the idea of, you know, one of the things that Dave Meltzer was doing and saying,

oh, they're going to get three times. or whatever the ridiculous rights fees that Dave Melcy was suggesting that they were going to get back six months or a year ago, because he was comparing it to sports rights, which I think is fucking ass and I. So I've challenged a lot of that, but I would not be surprised if AEW ends up back there, and I hope that they do for people that I know there that are making more money than they've ever made in their lives, sitting at home. I hope they do. It's better for them. But I think there's some issues, and I'll still haven't heard much.

And like I said to you probably a month ago on this show, let's see what upfronts break, cable upfronts are in May. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if AEW is front and center during upfronts, that's off to them. Congratulations. But I'm not, I could care less whether the AEW gets renewed or not related to doing this podcast. I mean, it was just very childlike, but we've come to, we've come to get used to that

one. I'm very curious if AW starts changing contract structure for talent with these new TV rights whenever they come, the media rights, whenever they come, rather than how we've seen them traditionally structure contracts. If maybe things are more personalized per se, you know, maybe not everything's a three or a five year contract maybe there's some one year deals maybe the way that guarantees are done is changed in an effort to change where cash is allocated i'm really interested to see that the cat look tony is not responsible to anyone if tony was if tony was an employee of of somebody who is putting all this money into wrestling tony would have been out of a job within 60 days six months tops um

But Tony's not accountable. He's spending daddy's money. He's spending his inheritance. He didn't have to wait for his dad to die to get the inheritance. His dad said, you know, go enjoy it now. Go do whatever you want to do. So Tony gets to live his 14-year-old Tony con dream about being a Booker. That's what's going on. There's no financial pressure on Tony. The only pressure on Tony is can he keep his show on network or on cable television? That's the pressure. And I think Tony's willing to spend however much money Tony needs to spend in order to continue. Well, I mean, he's shown now without three and Mercedes. It wouldn't surprise me if he bought his show on. To be honest, I would not be surprised. Dr. Sarah Kinsman from the Health Resources and Services Administration tells us about one of the biggest drug overdose poisoning threats we face. In the last several years, almost 70,000 people a year have died from fentanyl poisonings. If a person's alert and active and breathing, you would call poison helpline. and they would help you right away.

Get ahead of a poison emergency. Call the Poison Helpline, 1-800-222-2-2-2. Okay, so, for the final trivia question, what is the largest mammal in the world? Reminder, no phones allowed. Sir in the orange, phone away, please? Um, my kid a smart smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. Okay, sure.

No, there's smoke in my house. Yeah, right. A smoke alarm texting you. That's a new one. See, the train monitoring agent is calling now. Hello? The Kidda smart smoke alarm sends real-time mobile alerts in the ring app. And with a subscription, emergency help can be requested even when you're not home.

Well, okay, back to trivia. Now, seriously, you in the green, why are you on your phone? Blender texting you about a smoothie recipe? Visit Kidda at KIDDE.com to learn more. A compatible ring subscription is required for 24-7 smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring sold separately. Like buying the rights to his own show? Buying the time to air his show. Like a fucking infomercial.

It's been tried, it's been done before. It's not like... Oh, no, I know. I know it's been done before. I'd be very surprised about that because even if one of the brothers' discovery were to drop out of interest here, I don't see a world in which someone's not interested in the property. I don't either. And Conrad and I were talking about this.

Conrad asked me, a week ago maybe or two weeks ago, do you think AEW will be around in five years? And I said, absolutely. It may not be around in the form that we see it now, form meaning the distribution platforms. There may be another way or a different way that you'll be watching it. It may not be on cable television. It may be. We'll find out probably in May. month or so, we'll know, two months. But I don't think it's ever going to go away because

Tony has too much money. He can play in, Tony can play in this sandbox he's created for as long as he chooses to, because there's no pressure on him to, to, there's no fiscal financial pressure on it. He doesn't have to perform other than trying to stay on TV. Well, I guess we may as well talk about it now, Eric. Why don't we? We've teased it enough here. there was a Twix post as you like to say trying to find the exact time

that this was put up in the air of based on what everybody else told me there's around 4 a.m. or so in response here we go I got the exact time here it was still can't believe this is a real thing

it was at around 4 am yeah I posted about us you know kind of pivoting here with the show and to find tony's exact words so i don't take him out of context because as you are aware context is always king uh sun setting this fraud of a business podcast before the next a w media deal is a wise choice hashtag a w dynamite sent at 358 a m eastern yeah i loved it because i've been struggling with as i told you know a while ago a couple weeks ago before I made the decision I made yesterday.

I'm going to be doing more stuff on YouTube. But I, again, I'm trying, okay, how do I do something that can be kind of random and unscheduled because of the challenges my life presents? And what would the topic be? And I want it to be something different than. I've been, you know, kind of wrestling with that a little bit. And then I saw that wise choices comment. And it came to me.

I immediately reached out to Conrad Thompson and Dave Silva. said uh-huh i got it so tonight following following oh no oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah so tonight once the ratings came i think we're going to go six o'clock eastern with a brand new show on youtube called wise choices thank you tony con i love i absolutely love it that we're going to have our premier episode tonight six o'clock eastern wise choices all because of that post i just god is good right i didn't know about any of this for the record um in fact there's even a graphic i think oh i'm sure chris macdonald made up a graphic i'm sure that that graphic was done i'm going to send it to you right now so we can you can post it if you want before we

say goodbye on this show because it's kind of funny. Oh, are we? Are we? Goodness gracious. This is, I had no idea that this was even happening, but here we are. I can't find it. I'll tell you what, I'll post it on social media. You post on social.

I got about 60 text messages. You know how group texts are? It's like somebody over here says something. You don't even know who's saying it. Curb your enthusiasm just did a whole episode on that. So I'm, you know, I'm pounded coffee. I had a doctor's appointment this one. I get my blood work done about twice a year just to make sure everything's working the way it should.

And I'm, you know, running out the door to go to the doctor for my blood, blood work. And I'm getting like text after text after text. There's like six people on this text chain. And I can't tell who's saying what to who. I said, guys, I go do what I got to do. I'm going to do strictly business with Alba. And we're going to get on the phone and talk about this. But yeah, the graphics been done.

um we've got a whole live youtube thing set up where people can get involved in the show it's it's nuts and it all happened because tony decided at four a m to to call me and in you in this show a fraud took exception to well i was rodulent about this show if i can be very honest eric i was disappointed because i feel as i kind of hit on at the beginning of this podcast i at least have done my best to provide a fair rebuttal to pretty much anything you say, good or bad. And it's very important to me in anything I've ever covered. I've covered Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL. I've been covering Tony Kahn before I covered him in wrestling because I covered the Jaguars. And being fair is always something that's been paramount to me.

And whenever you've said something that I've vehemently disagreed with about AW, I always push back. in what I feel is a very fair way to the point where you then roll with it and say, I'm booking from the clouds, you know? Like, I feel I have been extremely fair, maybe even to a fault. And to have

something like that put out there publicly and to say that your work is fraudulent, when you've been trying to do things the right way, it's a very hurtful thing. And, you know, I've got thick skin, so it doesn't bother me that much. But it just made me think a lot about kind of the state of this industry. And, you know, when people do things from the right intention and how other people perceive that, it was disappointing. It was disappointing.

And that's really all I just want to say about that. And it's not going to change how I viewer cover AEW. It just, it was disappointing. Yeah, and I know how you feel. I hope that you don't feel that way. for more than another 20 minutes and it just get beyond it. Because I honestly don't think Tony Kahn was calling you a fraud necessarily or, you know, I think Tony was doing it.

He wanted to take a shot at me and to me and this show as a fraud and probably didn't give a damn about you. I won't do that, but I don't think it was really targeted to you. If somebody was making the choice for me to reevaluate my resources and figure out where I want to put my time, but if somebody else was making that decision, I probably would feel differently. Like, I'm, now, Tony. In fact, there's a whole new show coming your way called Wise Choices.

It'll be on YouTube, not it won't have an RSS feed. And that's another thing, you know, we talked about why I made this decision. One of the challenging things about this show from a sales perspective, we've done very well. We've got a great sales team. The show's done a great job. But it's challenging. And this is going to be a little weedy, a little in the weeds for people that are not in the podcast business. But you and I have talked about this from day one.

The fact that this show, Strictly Business and 83 weeks, are on the same RSS feed, meaning both of these shows go into one feed, and that feed is what the sales teams are out there representing. So it's awkward. It's not impossible at all. We've been doing it, clearly. I've seen a lot of great advertisers as a result. But it is challenging when you've got, two shows on one feed and we've been we've been talking about this challenge since almost day one it's also a blessing because when you're on that feed and you've you know 83 weeks already had a substantial you know list of followers equity um a lot of equity there so it's been a benefit and we recognize that but you and i for a year and a half i've been talking about the challenge

of the show being on one feed yeah that was another you know asking of making a decision to kind of reevaluate, but I didn't feel the necessity to explain it on the air, but because we're talking about somebody wanting us out of business, this is not we're out of business. This is unlike Tony Kahn, who spent his resources and a fortune going to Canada in an 18,000-seat venue, and he couldn't even draw 4,000 people to his A-show.

and Tony con wants to talk about wise choices and this show being fraudulent come on come come but we're going to talk more about that we'll have some fun again it was just for me personally it was a little more disappointed because i've taken a lot of pride in being fair and i've taken a lot of shit from the trolls on the internet for being fair on the show and and taking a lot of shit from you absolutely fun it has been it has been and i've never gotten angry we've always stayed friendly we've always looked forward to the next show i mean this eric i mean this when you and i went to do the fresno grizzlies game the the game and you threw out the first pitch and we did the live event together it was such a great experience and i picked you up in a

rental car from san francisco we drove three hours there did the event then drove three hours back all in the same day and getting a chance to just learn more about Eric Bischoff the human and then I think you learned a lot about me that day too was really something that I'm going to treasure for a very long time and it'll be in my book one day 45 years from now just hearing some of those stories and talking music with you it was it was a true true joy and getting a chance to do this show with you has been so meaningful to me professionally and personally and excited to come up with some other projects to do in the future and keep this train rolling my friend johnny we will absolutely trust me we will no doubt about it this has been a lot of fun anything else you want to add eric no man

i've uh i've got a long list of shit to do so i'm going to sign off for now uh to everybody thank you again john and, hey, check out wise choices. 83 weeks.com on YouTube. You're going to have a blast, I promise. And thank you to everyone who has tuned in to strictly business over the course of the past two years. So many messages from people all around the industry who are bummed to see this going away as a weekly show.

But as Eric said, there's going to be plenty of chances to still get his content that will fit more within the parameters of his schedule. So it's going to be great to see all that. Good luck with all your travel. I know there's a lot coming up, including to Australia. So have a blast with that. Are you going to be in Philly, Russellmania weekend or no?

No, I'm going to be in Vegas. My daughter's running a marathon. That's right, right. She's pretty confident. She's going to qualify for the Boston marathon. This is her seventh one, I think, or eighth. So this is the one, and we all wanted to be there for it. Fingers crossed for her on that.

This has been strictly business with Eric Bischoff. Pete. We'll see you next time. Thank you.