83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Wise Choice with Eric Bischoff: AEW YouTube Free Fall

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

On this edition of Wise Choices, Eric welcomes YouTube expert Ant Evans , to discuss the power of YouTube and if he believes AEW has missed an opportunity to capitalize on it. BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code 83WEEKS at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com/ promo code WRESTLEBIZ to receive your first month FREE FANATICS - When you - or someone you know - is shopping for the latest WWE gear, you can support 83 Weeks too simply by using our dedicated link! https://shop.wwe.com/en/?SSAID=5036600&_s=afl_impact&irclickid=TGqUDyR%3AaxyPT79QyoThCyA5UkHRSCUPUzlX3s0&irgwc=1&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=Impact SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at https://www.savewithconrad.com/ ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. 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 https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqQc7Pa1u4plPXq-d1pHqQ/join BECOME A 83 WEEK MEMBER NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@83weeks/membership Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at https://www.patreon.com/adfreeshows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get what you earned. Visit shoes.va.org. Not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits mentioned here. And here we go. The second episode of my 4A deep into the world of YouTube. Wise choices, aptly named, but by close personal friend Tony Kahn in a 4 a.m. ranting tweet, celebrating the sunset of Strictly Business,

a podcast that was, although it was in the top five, consistently a podcast out of the probably 250 that are floating around out there in the world. Tony felt that our podcast, the one I was doing with John Alba, was a fraud. And he thought it was a wise choice to sunset, that fraud of a podcast called Strictly Business. And when I saw that, I thought, oh, I've been struggling. I want to do a live YouTube show where I can go on anytime I want. I don't need any guests. If we happen to have them great, like we're going to.

going to have one today, Aunt Evans, YouTube, genius knows the world of YouTube better than anybody that I've met so far. And I've talked to a lot of people. And we're going to be talking about, oh, I don't know, the trends for AEW on YouTube. Because Dave Meltzer and his ilk are constantly defending AEW's deteriorating television audience by saying, yeah, but it doesn't really matter. Is that really a true indication of anything? Because fewer people are watching television, they're getting their entertainment in other ways.

Well, this is true. That's not a false statement. I mean, you can read just about any trade magazine that's published talking about the television industry, and you'll find a plethora of articles detailing how fewer and fewer people are watching linear or cable television and watching other devices. So I thought, what is a good way? I mean, Nielsen's the only thing.

we got right nielsen television ratings that's what the entire advertising world essentially is built around and it is an antiquated i used to refer to it as voodoo because if you really dig into how nielsen works it's kind of amazing that an entire part of our economy is based on those data points but nonetheless it's all we have really well it was all we had until YouTube came along. And now there's other ways. There's other data points. And we're going to look closely at them. We're going to see if the trends in television are consistent with the trends for AEW in YouTube. And I don't know enough about YouTube to really talk about it too much. And unlike others who tend to talk a lot about things they don't know anything about, I reach out and I find the right people. And we're going to dive deep into that today. But before we do that, I just want to remind everybody that we have a sponsor for this show, right out of the shoot. Blue Chew. Now, you've heard all about Bluetooth, and this episode is sponsored by Bluetooth. Let's talk about sex.

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Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank the fine folks in Blue Chew for sponsoring wise choices. Boom. How's that for a live read? That was fun. All right. We're going to come out of the gate. Travis Midway. Hey, Eric. Where do you go? Where do you go? I lost him. There he is. Travis Midway. Can you please tell my friend Richard to stop being a biotch? There's four of us who have been watching wrestling for 30 years together,

and he's intimated or intimidated. He's not doing mania with always intimated. Hmm, cool use of the word. I like it. He's not doing mania with us all this year. What the hell, Richard? Why is that? Is that because you're friends who listen to 8.

83 weeks. Remember ad-free shows. Listen to all of the other great podcasts that they can hear over at ad-freeshows.com, whether it's me, whether it's Tony Chavani, whether it's Jim Ross, Arn Anderson, so many, many more. A plethora, plethora, I said, of knowledge and information that makes those people the most enlightened wrestling fans out there. Is it, is it their knowledge, they're enlightened that makes you feel a little bit, I don't know, awkward? don't be afraid they'll smart you up come on join the party you're going to have a blast wow we this is this is again i'm just going to get rolling i had no idea what i was going to talk about when i got here i know that there's going to be a lot of questions coming in we're going to your questions are going to dictate what this show is all about but i did want to point out one thing that i read social media now i was going to clip it and send it over to super dave silva our producer here and post it up there so you can read along with it. But I got lazy.

Actually, I got really busy. So I'm heading out of town, leaving for Vegas for five days tomorrow. Who can't wait and then headed to Australia. So I forgot to send it over to Super Dave. But in essence, somebody asked Dave Meltzer about storylines and the problem that AEW has was storylines. And Dave responses, Dave's response, and I'm paraphrasing quite a bit here. So I'm not putting words in his mouth.

But his response was basically, well, the challenge is because AEW comes at you with so many stories, it's hard to keep them straight. What the fuck? Are you kidding me? No, that's not the problem. That's not the problem. But I get it. I get it. You're looking for something to hang on to. And let's hope things are going to turn around. It's Wednesday afternoon. roughly 208 p.m. here, mountain time. Beautiful day in Cody, Wyoming, by the way. Absolutely beautiful day. And yeah, it's early. Maybe when we see Dynamite tonight, I'm going to try to watch it. I have to get up really early. In Las Vegas, Viva, Las Vegas. I love that. Yeah, I'm going to get up early, but I'm going to try to watch it, and we'll see. And maybe it'll be a phenomenal show. maybe Tony will finally learn after listening to last week's show perhaps Tony sat down and took notes and will learn how to format that show maybe string or thread a story or two throughout the episode

and pay it off at the end you may even see growth i know it's a dirty word right not supposed to talk about growth if you're an AEW fan but you might see it speaking of growth and speaking of formatting interesting format or excuse me interesting quarter hours coming on smackdown last Friday night. Pretty much stable from beginning to end, which is really hard to do on a Friday night, especially at that hour, really hard to do at prime time. But nonetheless, Smackdown looked pretty even across the boards until the final segment and actually outperformed the opening segment. That's the idea that you're really trying to accomplish with a great format is build or hopefully hold your audience and increase it by the end of the show. That's how it's supposed to.

to be done. All right. If we got any other questions here? I want to get right into them. And then we're going to bring in Aunt Evans, the YouTube genius. And we're going to talk about trends in YouTube maybe as a whole, perhaps even about this show. That would be kind of fun. We would be doing more YouTube stuff here over the last month or so. So it would be interesting to talk about what's happened to the 83 weeks.com YouTube channel and the kind of growth that we've experienced because I haven't looked at that. And numbers fascinate me. I love looking at numbers. All right. Wall rods. Wow, did I get that right? Because you guys jump in here with these super chats, and I'm so appreciative of it. I love the engagement. I love that you care enough.

You want to jump right up to the front of the line and get your questions answered. And that's what this show is all about, man. It's about your comments, your questions, and my crazy bullshit. So here we go. Walrods, how do you get over the breakup of a woman you were really into and turn it into a positive. She was Australian. She had a great voice. Oh, well, Rod, I feel your, well, rad, I feel your pain, brother. I can't say that's ever happened to me. I've typically been on the other end of that equation, and that's not necessarily a good thing. You wouldn't want to take relationship advice for me, with the exception of my 42-year marriage, or 40-year marriage to my wife, Lori, I call her Mrs. B. And we can talk

about that. But my relationships prior to Mrs. B, not something I would want to share on, not something that I would want to see anybody go through. Certainly wouldn't share advice because I was, I was immature. Let's put it that way. Very immature. I don't know. I love to explore. Put two and two together. You can figure it out. So, whereas, even though I appreciate your super chat so much,

and even though truly I would really love to reach out and maybe give you some little pearls of wisdom that might help you along, because I know I'm not making jokes. I know. This is a tough time. You'll get over it. Trust me.

You'll get over it. And you'll look back. And you'll remember things about this relationship that you really liked, and you'll probably find some of the same things in whoever you meet down the road. And maybe you'll find some other things that are even more pleasurable. Maybe something you value even more. So hang in there, man. Hang in there.

That's all I got to say. You know what you could do, Walrez, is reach out to Lori Bischoff life coach. Mrs. B., you can find her. Everybody knows how to find her. They'll help you out. She can walk you through that. probably really help you. I, on the other hand, would steer you in the wrong direction. Find yourself somewhere in Las Vegas doing things that you would regret later.

There we go. What else do we got? Ed Rock. Thank you, brother, for the super chat. We love you for that. I love you for that. Maybe Tony needs a little blue chew with his life. I don't know that that's Tony's problem. Tony just needs help with creative. not to try to have fun at his expense it's not what I'm here for well kind of but yeah that's not his problem creative is consistency is maybe a vision would help if you believe anything that cm punk had to say and if you guys want to talk about that cm punk interview i'm happy to talk about that as well we covered a little bit on 83 weeks but there's a lot there to dive into but yeah tony tony tony just needs a little help on the creative side not so much on the social side at least

that's what I think. Eric Lasher. AEW went too big, too fast. Three weekly shows already. That's a very good point. I pointed it out early on. Don't spread yourself too thin until you've got a really strong foundation

underneath you. And then, once you've worked out the bugs, once you've been through the learning curve, you've stubbed your toes, you've fallen on your face, you've gone through all that, which everybody goes through, by the way. Everybody's going to go through that.

you're going to learn on the job no matter how much experience you've had because there's always things that happen that you couldn't anticipate didn't anticipate and you can't read this shit in a book that's the hard part about this there's no formula it's not easy it's hard there's no question about it it's an art form sounds like management should have been nailed down in a good working order before adding shows that is true too much to take in with a young company cluster i i find no lies detected in your perspective whatsoever, Eric Lashar, no lies there whatsoever. So let's talk a little bit more about,

hey, do we have any questions from last week? I want to make sure if there was any lingering questions that I didn't answer that I don't leave people hanging because I take care of the people here that decide to super chat. My buddies, my pals, and Uncle Stevie's world says, we need Dustin back for mania.

What are the chances? That came up. Conrad and I were doing 83 weeks yesterday, and that subject came up. Conrad asked me, do I think it's even possible? I don't know if it really is or not, but I put it out there into the universe. I suggested that perhaps Tony, if he could feel these vibes and they manifest all the way to Jacksonville or wherever Tony is today, that Tony opens his eyes and says, you know what, I need to restore some good will within the wrestling community because I've kind of been making

and an ass in myself quite a bit over the last six or eight months, but that doesn't mean you can't reclaim some of that goodwill. And I think one of the ways that Tony Kahn, and I'm stead serious about this, could really establish some honest goodwill, some valuable goodwill, goodwill, goodwill, not goodwill, goodwill, is by giving Dustin a call and say, hey, Dustin, even if Dustin hasn't asked, say, hey, Dustin.

I know your brother Cody's biggest moment is life. your mother's going to be there. Sisters are going to be there more than likely. This is an important thing. This potentially is the fulfillment of a Rhodes family dream that started with Dusty. This is life. And I'm hoping that Tony picks up that phone and says,

Dustin, after thinking about all that, even though you didn't ask, assuming Dustin hasn't asked, even though Dustin hasn't asked, Tony should encourage, hell, send him a private jet. You really want some goodwill, Tony? You fly around on that thing all the time. Give it a night off. Give it to dust. Let him fly in a private jet. And let him just be there at ringside. He doesn't have to get no physical contact, no promos, no angle. Just let the man share the moment with his brother. Hell, I'd even quit pointing out flaws for, I don't know,

week, maybe two. If you throw in the jet, I'll give you an entire month off. That's it. Tire month off on wise choices, we'll be talking about a lot of other things, because there's a lot of other things to talk about. But if you want one month off, Tony, or I don't bang on you for anything, you can even say stupid shit on social media.

I don't care. I'll leave it alone. You have 30 days, free ride. All you've got to do is let Dustin have the jet, let him fly Philadelphia be there at ringside and then fly home and think of all the goodwill you can put it in the bank people will be talking about what a great guy Tony Kahn is even I'll be talking about what a great guy Tony Kahn is I'll put you over like a mucker father not a problem all right we got anything else hanging there Bruce Collins is the lack

of profit motive as motivation a reason Tony does a lack of lackless their job at leadership. When you have to make the buck to survive, the motivation is there. Again, I don't think, I mean, these are separate issues. I truly, honestly, believe that Tony's primary issue is creative. It's like, well, recent example, big press release, brought in a new chief operating officer. I'm going to screw his name up, and I don't want to do that because that's disrespect. I'll figure it out, remember it after this, but a new C.O and to come in and oversee all these

different areas of the business. And I think that was a smart move, because the more top-level executive talent you can find to surround yourself with to maximize all of the opportunities, all of the ancillary revenue streams that go to help support the bottom line. The more you have of that, absolutely the better. But it's not going to solve Tony's problem. It's like, I don't know, taking your car to a mechanic and you've got a blown crank shaft, which is primary mechanism inside of a engine, piston-driven engine. You've got a blown-out crank shaft that's going to cost you $6,000 to replace. But rather than do that because you just don't want to do that, you're going to get new tires.

And while I'm at it, I'm going to, I don't know, I think a paint job would be nice too, because the color isn't quite right. I'm going to do that. And some new wheels. I'm going to get new wheels because I can afford new wheels. And that'll make everything better. No, it won't. You'll still have a busted crankshaft.

So while I applaud Tony for adding high quality talent to the team, because it's absolutely necessary, especially if you're ever going to grow, that's really necessary. But that's not the main issue. And I don't think it's motivation that's lacking there at all. I think it's just a vision, a vision of what the business is.

is what is wrestling it's a scripted form of predominantly male 25 to 54 for the most part it's a soap opera it's an action it's live action it's not a sport i know people are going to hate here now it's not a freaking sport it's live action programming it's it's testosterone driven primarily not only There's some estrogen in there. Women's Division is awesome. Becky and Ria, looking forward to that big time. But fundamentally, it's a male dominated when it comes to the audience, not by much, but it is. Live action soap opera. And once you see it for what it is, not for what you thought it was when you were 14, not even for what you really like the most, now that you're a grown adult, if you happen to like just amazing, athletic,

high-flying, fast-based action just for the fun of it with really no rhyme or reason, no story really behind it. There's an excuse for the match, which Dave Meltzer evidently considers a story. But you've got to figure out what the business really is, how it really functions, what your goals are, and then shape your product to the audience, not for your 14-year-old fantasy. All right. With 4 Imprint, finding the right promo products has never been easier. You get free samples, expert help, and art assistants to ensure your logo looks great.

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Corey King, Corey King, my man, that's a cool name. That's like Corey King. Like, it's like an actor's name or can you imagine being a quarterback in the NFL with a name like Corey King? The merchandise sales would be off the charts because that's just such a, that's a cool name. Would you rather be stranded on a desert island with T.K. Russo or Cornette? All right, I'm going to take back everything I said about how cool your name was, Corey.

That's a tough one. I'm actually having just a little bit of angst even thinking about that scenario. But I would say Cornett. Because while Cornett and I have differences of opinions on a lot of things, and I think he hates my guts, but I'm not sure. I still find him fascinating. I find him interesting and entertaining. He's, I mean, he is really a, a man can talk, and he's smart.

I don't agree, like I said, I don't agree with everything he says. We have decidedly different views on some pretty important aspects of what the wrestling business is and really what it has been over the last 20 years. But Corvette is really smart. I have a lot of respect for him because of where he's been, because he is a smart guy. and he entertains the hell out of me. So, yeah, I'm going for now. I'm going for it.

All right, let's talk about some growth. I want to talk about growth, and we'll give back to some questions when we're done. But Aunt Evans is a gentleman that I've recently come to know, really over the last couple of months, became part of the family, so to speak, of bright people that are here, along with Super Dave Sylvan, a whole bunch more.

Evan Polisher over at ad-free shows, an entire team of people that helped bring all of Conrad's properties to kind of together and maximize those opportunities, and the one area that we were really maximizing and weren't experiencing growth yet, and you know how I feel about growth. If you're not growing, you're dying. That's just a fact of life in the entertainment business. But because we weren't really hitting on all cylinders in YouTube,

Conrad did a little dig-in, a little snoop in, looked under a couple, I was going to say rocks, but that doesn't do any good perception. But he found Ann Evans, a genius, the guy who helped build, if not built, the UFC YouTube channel so the man knows from where he speaks aunt Evans are you there yes sir how you doing what a welcome super day clip that bed out that introduction i need that i need that for my Twitter thank you well hey I'm free brother you need an intro I'll give you an intro that was amazing thank you we tried to do this last week but we had some technical issues and aunt and Super Dave Silva got on before the show just to make sure that we didn't have those

issues again. So, and, you know, I mean, you heard me talking about it if you've been following me at all on 83 weeks or social media. For a couple years now, about two and a half years, I've really been banging the drum about the lack of growth in the AEW television product. And as I said, opening this up to show up, there's, there's a reasons for it, legitimate reasons as it pertains to the deterioration of the television audience overall, whether it be linear network or or cable. So that is a fact. My point is, though, there are other data points. There's other ways to determine, I guess, if there are trends in terms of any properties, whether it's WW, this show, AEW, whatever it is, there are ways to really, in real time almost, monitor growth

or lack they're up. So give us a little bit of background. First on you, where did you? Where'd come from why are we here so i i'm a lifelong wrestling fan but i went into um i went into combat sports or boxing i worked for the ultimate fighting championship for almost 15 years um i worked with uh impact now tna for a few years uh after after the ufc and it was actually just before my time with t and a where i i realized that youtube especially especially and also to a lesser extent, Facebook, are not social media. This idea that it's social media and YouTube is the thing that promotes your business. It's wrong. It is dead wrong. That is dinosaur thinking. That's 2010 thinking.

What YouTube is is a revenue stream. Now, it's a revenue stream that has the benefits of also be able to maximize your other revenue streams, like your merchandise, push into pay-per-views. But it is a revenue stream. It's a real revenue stream. And it should be a massive revenue stream for your friend Tony Kahn. But right now, they're dropping the ball. And you alluded to it on Sunday in the last six months since, basically almost the day that CM Punk walked out the door, AEW has gone like that.

They plummeted like a suicidal lemming on YouTube. What about compared to, if you, If you look at AEW's YouTube business, and I realize punk coming in, very controversial guys and had been off TV for seven years. I mean, there was a lot of reasons why you could expect an initial crush of interest and flow of traffic when someone like Punk comes in. But where, do you have any data on where roughly AEW was at prior to Punk and where it's at today? Yeah. I mean, so, you know, you give me a big, a big buildup as an expert, but no one has to take my opinion here. They don't have to take anything I'm saying as given.

You're telling them I'm a YouTube expert, but they know, who they know is a YouTube expert is Mr. Beast, the biggest YouTube star of all time. The guy who makes hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars just on AdSense alone, which is the primary source of income for YouTubers. he has a new website that's simply called ViewStats. It is better than the, it's basically the Nelson's of YouTube. It's called ViewStats.com. An alternative to that is called Social Blade, but Mr. Beast's site I've been using it consistently since Christmas when it launched. That gives you a very, very good indication of how well any channel is.

So anybody who's watching in the chat, you know, the 900 people we've got so far and the tens of thousands who will eventually watch this, you can go to viewstats.com, type in AEW, and it will give you a very close approximation of how well, and as the case has been more recently, how poorly AEW has been doing. But to answer your question, Eric, AEW was going like this. It was growing, but of course it was grown because it was a new YouTube channel. So, of course, they started at zero about five years ago when they launched, and it's been growing like that. The growth has slowed down in terms of subscribers, and the views are just halved. I mean, they've just absolutely fallen off the cliff. Super Dave's got a screen grab I sent him earlier.

If you could use a screen grab one, Dave, that will show it just like that. I mean, look at that dip. Now, ignore the far extreme where you see that great big dip, Eric. That is the yesterday, essentially, where the stats weren't fully processed. So ignore that dip. That's not a real dip. This time tomorrow, that dip won't exist. But see that huge spike there when the CM Punk stuff was all going down and we have

the Wembley show. And look at the decline. It hasn't recovered. It's six months and it hasn't even close. Those two little blips, one of those, when it goes up, that is the Sting retirement. which, you know, I know you might have a different opinion. A lot of people enjoyed. Sure.

But look, it's flat. It's flat as a Kippa's dick. It is flat for six months. And you're talking about growth. This is, they've got to recover from this somehow. And I, I mean, any reasons for it? I mean, other than, I mean, there could probably be a million, right? But yeah.

If you had to pick one suggestion that you would make to Tony Kahn or whoever runs or you two, I doubt Tony does it. But if you could point out one thing that they can improve upon to grow, I know everybody, you guys think I hate AEW. I don't hate it. I want to see you grow. And this is an opportunity here for us to make a wise choice. I love that.

And identify for free, no charge, one way that AEW can improve upon their YouTube traffic. What would it be? well it's obviously you've got to see it holistically with you know attendance is down you know me and my son went to uh the show here in Vegas it was actually in Henderson which is the little town next to Vegas and we were like two dice rattling around a saucepan the there was basically us and 400 people there I felt felt so bad for the for the wrestlers and you've seen the decline in rating so you've got to take it is that there's no question there is no question that the overall AEW product is not hot right now.

But anyone who's going to tell you the opposite that simply isn't looking at the data. YouTube specifically, the great thing about pro wrestling, it has an advantage over most sports, is the re-watchability. I can re-watch WrestleMania 10 and still get a kick out of it.

I can re-watch, you know, the NWO, you know, Scott Hall coming through the crowd and still get a buzz out of it. They've got already, just this many few years into their existence, they've already got a great archive of great wrestling. That's what AW, you know, CM Punk told my friend Ariel Luwani on Monday, it's kind of about great wrestling. They need to cut those up into the top 10 AEW matches of all time. If that's what you're about, Tony, if your company is based on having great matches, then show us. Show is your top 10 great matches.

do a live stream with the guys in the in the chat it's just like our chat right now have your guys in the chat talking about the matches you know this is what you're known for you want to be you're the great match company well show us put do it do a top one do the top 100 that would be fun to watch and I think viewers would also really love to hear it especially if one or perhaps in an ideal situation you have both of the people involved in a match sitting down and talking about the match, the preparation, the psychology, you know, the timing, what would they have liked to have done that they didn't do? What did they do that they wish they didn't do?

How could have been approved and then highlight the things that weren't and talk about those things. That kind of insight would really, it would be interesting to me, and it would help build the characters as well. Now they're connecting to the audience almost like buddies, right? because you're sitting there listening to guys having a conversation almost like you're at the table next to them in a restaurant, you get to hear it. Yeah. Yeah. That would be good.

That would be funny. That would be great. I've got the talent to do it, right? They've got the talent and the connection. So YouTube is not television. What you, you know, when I remember talking to you for the first time, it's like, you were like, really? The fans are just going to throw a couple of books to talk to me. I'm like, yes, Eric, you know, they grew up watching you most of these guys.

You know, even if it's just saying, here's a couple of books, go get a Starbucks, not that a couple of books, and people want to do it. Yeah, or somebody wants to throw a couple bucks up and say, hey, go screw yourself, Bischoff. That's cool, too, and I'll read it. That's cool, too. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not television. Right now, AEW and not just AEW, you know, a lot of other big companies, including my old friends at the UFC, they're using YouTube still as this social media to promote.

promote whatever it is they're selling, rather than a revenue stream itself. TNA, I was with them for, you know, now it's called TNA, was impact when I was there. We turned that into a seven-figure revenue stream. Now, A.W right now is probably making between $1.5 and $3 million a year on YouTube. They should be making $8 million on YouTube a year. Wow. That's a lot of money. That's real revenue.

I mean, I don't know how many Sasha banks that buys you, Half of one. You could get one half of her. Right. Maybe she would show up half the time. Either way, however you did the math. But yeah. I mean, I'm making a joke out of it because I'm trying to have fun with people here and enjoy myself.

But that's serious revenue. Yeah, especially when you're a company that's struggling to make revenue. We just saw the recent cuts in the roster. And I think there's probably way overdue. I think the roster got too big, too fast for no apparent reason. and it was time to adjust. So I applaud Tony for making a good business decision, which apparently that was. But if, you know, this is how it works, Tony, it's a wise choice.

I love this. Wise choice to cut that roster. But a wiser choice to increase your revenue at the same time. And this is a no-brainer. You've got the talent. You've got the content. Matches are sitting in a, sitting digitized somewhere. You could pull them up.

And the guys would probably have. fun doing it, especially if they get to interact with the audience like we're doing here, because it is fun. And that's what makes this thing so much fun. But there, you just put $5 million approximately, probably $3 to $5 million into the AEW, right on top of that bottom line. Yeah. And I mentioned TNA.

Like, so the four times last year, TNA was doing better on YouTube in terms of money and views. Like TNA, I love that company. I mean, you know, what they did to my. friend, Scott De Moor, was gross. And the guy they got in charge now, Alan Scherner, I think, is going to take them like the Titanic straight into an iceberg. But four times last year, T&A was ahead of AW. That's, with AWW's roster and with, you know, with 10 times as many people watching them on TV every week, that should not happen. I mean, do you know what happened on March

the 3rd, Eric? No, I don't. Well, March the 3rd, your channel, this very channel, 83 weeks, the best podcast in pro wrestling, you had 60% of the total reviews as AEW did. Whoa, wait a minute, say that again. Not because I didn't understand it, but because I just want to hear that shit again. I will say it's made sense of it. On March the 3rd, 2012, look at your face.

He's so happy. I was just so happy to hear that. Yeah, this channel had 60% percent of the traffic AEW did. That was when you did your first ever live on this channel. Wow. Yeah.

And that traffic for the next week, you were about a quarter of what they do. With all your respect, how great you are and how great I think this channel is, the number two promotion in the world should not be, you know, anywhere near the stratosphere of podcasts, no matter how great that podcast is.

But that shows how badly they're dropping the ball. And I would assume it's just, and this is where I do have some empathy for Tony, because I'm guessing he's probably overwhelmed and getting it from all directions and being pulled in a lot of different directions. And I'm not sure, based on what I've heard, not what I know, it's rumor and innuendo, so probably only half of it's true. But Tony is not the most focused person. And I would assume that YouTube,

is probably just not high on his priority. Maybe, maybe, I think his name is Mr. Irbe, if I got his name right. Kobe Urbe or Koshi Irbe or something. Again, I apologize, Mr. Irby. I don't want to fuck up your name. But perhaps that'll change with this new chief operating officer who's there to oversee and help generate some new

and improved ancillary revenue. Yeah, well, you run it WCW. You hire people who do know. And you give them both. I worked with Dana White for 15 years. Dana White is just about one of the smartest, most driven guys I've ever seen. But he would hire experts and let them go be experts. He would want to know, but you would have to be an expert with it.

You let you apply your expertise is what I'm trying to say. You'd let you apply your expertise. And that's the way Ted Turner was, you know, real visionaries that I've ever been exposed to. And Ted being one of them. They're really good at identifying the right people, giving them the autonomy, the authority, the support to succeed or fail. You're betting that when you hire someone, you're betting on yourself that you made a wise decision. But once you make that decision, let them go.

Give them the freedom to fail because not everybody's going to do everything right. You're going to make mistakes. You can't be in business for any like the time. and not make mistakes. And mistakes are not a problem. Repeating mistakes are, but making mistakes not an issue. But you're right, man, let them, you don't want to micromanage. You want to macro manage.

Correct. And if it's not working out, find somebody else. But you've got to let people do what they're good at. And I've been pounding on that drum for a while with Tony when it comes to creative. Because I think one of Tony's issues is that in his mind, he really wants to be Paul Heyman. He wants to have that Paul, Paul Heyman type of legacy. He wants to have the Vince McMahon. legacy, the Paul Levec legacy, probably deep down inside, even that Eric Bischoff, WCW

in the 90s, like he wants to be recognized as someone that did something really big in professional wrestling. Nothing wrong with that. But if you really want to get there, find the right people to help you do it, and quit holding on to creative because you think you know. Because you don't, you don't know how to produce television. Okay, you made them five million bucks. I'm giving him some professional advice. I think we've done a great job for AE2. Can I ask you a question, Eric? All right. Can I ask?

So when CM Punk was on our real show, he said, you know, the big quote, I know you talked about it last night on a video. I think it's got 150,000 views already. Tony Kahn's not a boss. And I know exactly worrying because I work for Dana White. And when Dana White walks in the room, there's a change advantage. I've heard people say that about Vince McMahon. You know, you just know that I've heard people say it about you in the WCW days.

You know, like maybe the jokes kind of. to stop a little bit. How can you, you know, like managing these guys' egos, you know, some of the biggest, strongest, most athletic, alpha males in the world, pro wrestlers, how, and it's not about being a big, tough guy. It's not about that. Can Tony Kahn project that presence so people take him seriously? And he can be, in punk's words, a boss.

Sure, he can. But you have to choose to. You have to make that decision. And then just like anything else, whether it's. a diet or you're working out you want to run a marathon you have to train you have to get there you have to be consistent in the way you approach your life if he makes that decision of course he could it's not that it is difficult for some people because it's a mental thing and i think with someone like tony because tony's actually in worse shape now than he was the day he started meaning because he

kind of blew the goodwill by the way he approached the business by you know coming out right away and taking shots at Vince McMahon and WWE and all of his top talent we're doing it, predicting how long it was going to be before. AEW outperform Monday Night Raw, for example, who. But what he did is he created that division with the audience because there's one wrestling audience. There's not an AEW audience and a WWE audience. There may be some, but it's so minor that it doesn't matter.

There's one audience there. And if you're going to pick a fight and you're going to come out of the shoot swinging, you better be ready to fight you better be willing to get in the ring well a w doesn't want to go head to head and i understand that i'm not encouraging to do it but if you're not going to go head to head quit taking shots at the incumbent the 800 pound gorilla when you just showed up and you're not even willing to get in the brain and by continuing to do that for such a long time and kind of going off on social media and some of the other kind of things that tony did He's burned through that goodwill.

And because he has, he's got to work twice as hard, three times as hard, is he did when he started to overcome that 12 months of kind of negative feedback and reaction to some of the things he did. But now that he has, sure, first of all, take yourself off camera, quit doing these press conferences because you don't project strength or confidence. that's you can't fix that that's a that's people some people feel comfortable on camera some people no i don't know how tony feels but he comes off as being very very awkward so recognize that decide you're going to change it have a spokesperson that kind of distances you from it too because

it kind of puts you above the fray when you don't get into the the tougher conversations and and bitch fest on social media and things like that. Have a spokesperson do it for you. Kind of elevate you just by having a spokesperson. And somebody that's really good at doing it. But when a situation comes up, make a decision, be firm about it, communicate it clearly and never backed out. I made that mistake a few times.

And I'm not sharing this because I learned the hard way, just like Tony's learning the hard way. Tony came out early on and said, we're not going to make the same mistakes WCW did. Well, actually, you're making more, you're making more of them, and you're making them in multiples of three. And without the success. Without any success, actually.

But there's Wembley. Oh my gosh, Wembley. Bishop, you never did Wembley. You never did that. I know, I know. I just made millions of dollars. Sorry. But I think making firm decisions, sticking to them,

consistency and distancing yourself from the talent and they're done that made that mistake Tony distancing yourself from the talent and finding somebody to represent you that is firm, clear, strong and not

kind of repelling from just an telegenic perspective right? I don't see if your motivation to be loved and to be light you should

never be a boss. Then you should really distance yourself. Look, wrestling is no different, really. It's no different than any other. I worked in corporations, well, one in particular, even in Turner. You've got the NWWE, the two corporate environments that I worked in. It's just as political as a wrestling locker room. It's just not as obvious because they're more sophisticated, right? They're just better at politics. Yeah. And human nature, in my experience, especially professionally, people take the path of least resistance. So if you're a talent and you know you can push the envelope with your boss and you can get your way and you can make your boss decide he's going to do what you want to do instead of what he wanted to do, that's not even a compromise.

That's just like throwing a towel. But if you've gained that reputation, which I think Tony perhaps may have by this point, then you've really got to make a hard decision to distance yourself. Don't allow that shit to happen. If somebody pushes back, fire them. Fuck, you got enough people, Tony. You can let a grenade go off in a room and you're still going to be okay. There's no shortage of top talent and very talented people that are not top talent.

Some great young talent there and veterans. But if you've got somebody that's pushing back on you, I don't want to say it this way, but there's no other way to say it. Make an example out of them. Let everybody know that if you don't want to play by the rules, you don't understand if you're a talent that your job is to execute the vision of the person who's paying you. And if there's something about that vision that you don't like

or you don't want to do it's okay to have that conversation if you've got a better idea but even if you have that better idea and you've been given the opportunity to communicate that better idea should the decision of your employer be that he's going to

or she will stick to the original plan then suck it up be a pro and go out and do it the best you fucking can that's what a professional wrestler is not a professional ego maniac which is, I don't like this. I don't want to do that. That's not good.

It's not good for my character. Half the time, Muck and Fathers don't have a character that matters anyway. Yeah. A change would do you good. Yeah. Is it possible for anyone running a wrestling business to, because the whole idea is to love the brand.

I mean, it just shouldn't really matter what people think of Tony Kahn. It shouldn't really matter what people think of Triple H. It's do they love the product or not? That's what you need fans to do. Do you think Tony is trying to, because I remember Tony Kahn 20 years ago posting on a AOL fan chat that I was on. I remember when he, tell me about this. This is a story. Yeah, yeah, this is like 20, maybe even longer ago, like very early AO America Online fan chat.

Tony Kahn was always in. I'm talking about Monday Night Raw or it might even been Nitro, might be in late 90s. remember the name. And then years later, he was still on someone mentioned, oh, you know, your dad owns the Falcons or something. And then when he, AEW came around, I heard his name. I was like, I know him. In fact, actually, Scott DeMoor told me when they did that AEW impact crossover when Kenny Omega came over, Tony knew someone who worked at TNA purely from this message board and was like, hey, how are you doing? I haven't seen your post on the message board for years. So Tony's like, you know,

He's legit, you know, fanboy, fan boy, but I just wonder if you can be that much of a fanboy and still be a boss. And have a vision, and have a vision. He kind of books like a fanboy. It's been one of my biggest criticisms. It's fantasy booking for the internet wrestling audience. Real quick, before we let you go,

because I've got to wrap this up. I'm going to go upstairs and pack and go. I've been to go play in Vegas for about five days. I know. You're going to be in my neighborhood. I don't live under a rock, but I do leave near the Vegas mountains. So I should.

We should get together. We should get together. We've never met in person, maybe find some sushi somewhere. Sounds good. I know plenty of places. I've been here 12 years. All right. We'll do that.

Before we go, one more quick one. What's happening with WWE's YouTube channel? It's got to be a market. It's got to be a question. Yeah, they just crossed 100 million subscribers. When you, when I talk to clients, I'll say, okay, things like, you know, you don't one you don't want any videos under eight minutes unless they're the shorts which are shorts are for anybody who doesn't know are the the short literally the short 59 seconds or less vertical

videos that are for quick consumption while you're scrolling fast um but you shouldn't be other than shorts you shouldn't have videos are at eight minutes or under eight minutes because you get paid out at 33 percent less than you would if it was one second longer and it was eight minutes True bad. Who wants that? Yeah, exactly. Nobody wants that. But I'll tell that to clients. I'll go, yeah, but I've seen Joe Rogan. Usually is Joe Rogan. I've seen Joe Rogan videos for a less than that. I'm like, yeah, Joe Rogan's making hundreds of millions of dollars. He probably doesn't care about making an extra 10, 20, 30,000 a month. He probably won't even go to the back of the couch to get 30 grand at this point. You're not in that position. So WTOE is doing a lot of things that are not best practices, but it's such. you juggernaut, it just overwhelms the algorithm. I mean, they, I think they post too much. I think that they're posting at strange times, I dare say, they've got a massive Indian audience, which you don't want, because that drives down your revenue per million, how many, how much money you make per, how much money you make per thousand views. And the reason that this happened

when I was at impact, but I had to cut off a lot of the, Indian audience every second video. And the reason for that, you'll get a kick out that. And I was thinking of this when you were doing the Bluetooth read. In India, the draconian on pornography, that you can't have access to pornography. So in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, places like that who have draconian anti-porn lords, how can I put it? They watch a lot of women's pro wrestling.

And so what happens then is the algorithm will continue to show more and more of your female wrestling content to India, which. will start and then your your core audience moves to man from manhattan to Mumbai and even though you're getting millions of views you're only getting hundreds of dollars for millions of views rather tens and tens of thousands of dollars for million views but do we do is that channel is so big they've got so much amazing content they've got so many people into the product they can do literally ever from wrong and still have a blizzard of banknotes every Monday morning do you see you

YouTube grow? I mean, is it continuing to grow as a platform? Is there anybody competing with YouTube? Is there anybody on the horizon that may? No, you mean, you've got Rumble, which is trying to, but they are basically taking the rapes and strays away from YouTube. If you get demonetized for YouTube for posting crazy stuff, you've got a rumble, and then you'll make a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. I mean, you know, the number two search engine in the world is YouTube. because people are like, how do I change attire?

How do I, you know, everyone uses YouTube. How do I, yeah, yeah. I couldn't program the sat-nav on my new car, so I went to YouTube. I've got a great big book like that. I'm going to read that. No, I'm going to go to YouTube. So it's the second biggest search engine in the world.

And the biggest search engine in the world is this company called Google that owns YouTube. You know, so anyone who's asking for information from the internet basically is going to YouTube or YouTube's dad. And so it's just going to continue to grow. And there's more and more revenue streams coming on. We've got a great

membership on this channel. Hit the link in the description below, become a member. You can do pay-per-views. I don't know why Tony Kahn is, I mean, I know he's got a contract with Turner's own network and they have to go on BR.com.

But that thing keeps falling down. They can't continue. to operate on Bleacher Report. They can't keep shagging their fans over like this with you buy your pay-per-view and it falls over and you spend 50. You can't keep, you can't keep doing that. Tony or someone is going to say, hey, we're going to put the pay-per-views on YouTube. Because they've got a built-in audience on YouTube.

Put your pay-per-view on YouTube. T&A has done that now for the past three years. We were the first wrestling. I keep saying we're going to wrap this up, but I keep, getting more and more questions because you're a fascinating dude. But when when the rumor of TNA first started surfacing and it was suggested that perhaps Turner would be a home for it, somebody asked me, I don't know if it was well, I was doing 83 weeks from my previous podcast, but somebody asked me, hey, what do you think about,

you know, AEW on television? Now, I have admitted multiple times that I'm just really not in tune with digital streaming, YouTube. I'm learning, I'm learning a lot from you. I learned a lot just this afternoon talking to you. But one of the things I said was, you know, if I was Tony, I would be putting all of my resources, whatever they are, into developing my own platform or working on YouTube. Do you think with all the money that Tony has spent,

do you think a scenario where he would have started out on YouTube and grew his audience on YouTube instead of growing his audience on television. Do you think that would have even been a realistic strategy? I think not for AEW because it depends how much money he's actually getting from TNT. Right. Because, right, because YouTube should be a second revenue, another revenue stream. If you, you shouldn't replace one revenue stream with another one, you can have both.

So if you can get a great TV contract and do. YouTube, do it. You absolutely don't cannibalize one for the other. I do think when he bought Ring of Honor, because Impact was interested in buying at least, I took a look at the library, the Ring of Honor Library, to see if we can incorporate. Because we're doing so well on YouTube at the time. Scott DeMorg goes, how much would we pay for the Ring of Honor Library? That's like, what, you're going to do an invasion angle? You're going to do that? Maybe. Because probably not run it as a separate business, but what's the library worth? So we came the figure but as we were deliberating tony con open the the the checkbook and uh bought it ring

of honor should absolutely just be a youtube only um product absolutely absolutely and be it so the television platform to promote it correct a it's an interesting question i mean look could it have been a w being i mean are you really going to pay christian cage you know $750,000 a year, you know, and all the other guys who are on crazy, crazy, crazy money like that for a YouTube channel, it would be bold. It would be very bold. What tends to happen when people have tried that. There's a couple of MMA promotions who've done that is they then buy views and you never do that because it teaches the algorithm that the bots that you've bought to watch your show. It might look great. You've got a million views. But

you know, 900,000 of them were bots. And then when you publish your next video, YouTube has the machine learning, then shows your content to 900,000 bots that have now been switched off. So you're giving it fake information, but... So, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

So you mean someone could decide, I could decide, sitting here right now. Yeah. I'm going to buy views. Yes. To make it look like my... my show no 500,000 views instead of 150,000 views yeah we could do that we could do that by 6 o'clock tonight yeah but then yeah doing so doing so you're actually you're pulling a rug out from

underneath yourself you're stepping on your own deck yes wow yeah why would somebody do that Why would somebody, well, I mean, I get your ego, but why would somebody? Ego. So there's a, there's a, there's a, I know a lot of guys who work to the USC for so long. There's, I'm not going to mention the name. I don't want to embarrass this person, but they have, uh, Chale Sonnen envy because their channel is nothing like as well as Chale Sonnons or Michael Bispings. And they're like, well, I'm just going to buy views. And I beg this person not to and I, and I walk them through exactly why this is a terrible, terrible idea.

Well, I'm going to, I've got a sponsor who's paying me 20 grand. I'm going to reinvest 10 in boosting it. I was like, it just doesn't work like that. You can't gain the system. What you can do, and there's a facility on the back end of YouTube, is that if you have a 30 second promo, you could boost that. But that is, that's basically an advertisement. That's no different from saying this Saturday on pay-per-view, you know,

Hogan versus Stinger, Starkey, don't miss it. But what you can't, when you buy views for your. actual videos. You are baffed. YouTube has six algorithms. All they do is trying the best they can every day to serve the right content to the right people. And when you add thousands of bots into it, you're giving them shit information. You're muddy in the waters, whatever now you're fucking yourself over. Huh. I'll be damned. Man, I'm glad I know you. See, I would be tempted. I might be tempted if there was something I really wanted to promote and I wanted to create the perception. I'm not going to lie.

There's a part of me that would go, huh, you know, I can throw a couple bucks at this and really promote it, make people believe that my channel is way more interesting or way more than it really is, in hopes that people will feel like, wow, everybody else likes that. Maybe I should like it too. Yeah. Yeah, there's people who have, you know, sponsors Eric, who say, well, sponsors want to see 100,000 views or they don't pay. I get why you might be

tempted to gain the system there. Like, I mentioned Ariel Scherner, a TNA, you know, what I had to do was get rid of that Indian audience. And he goes, like, and this is a disaster, you've ruined our YouTube channel. I'm like, what fuck you're talking about, Ariel? It was like, the views are down.

I'm like, buddy, I don't pay my gas bill with views or likes. I pay in dollars. The dollars are through the roof. You know? And, but, I get there are people who are just egotist who don't get it, who are dumb, who would rather see thousands and millions of views than have thousands and millions of dollars. I would take a dollar off over a day, a day, a view any day of the week.

All right, man. And thank you so much for the education. Thank you for sharing your information and your knowledge with all of us here at Wise Choices. Clearly, it's a wise choice to listen to this show because there's a lot of really great information here. I'm going to get back to a couple more questions, but, Ann, I'm sure we'll be talking to soon. I'll reach out to you when I'm in Vegas, and let's go find a good steak somewhere. All right, easy.

I can see you later. All right, buddy. Be well, that was a fascinating conversation. Just about everything that I wanted to know about YouTube today that I had no idea. But I didn't know that one could buy views. I guess that's a difference because I've heard the term, you know, organic views versus non-organic. And I'm guessing that the non-organic part is where individuals or companies buy views to create the perception that their product is far more interesting to the audience than it really is.

Wow, that's fascinating. Let's get back into some questions here before we wrap this up. I don't want to leave anybody hanging. Who do we have next, Super Dave? With 4 Imprint, finding the right promo products has never been easier. You get free samples, expert help, and art assistants to ensure your logo looks great. Four Imprint offers thousands of options to choose from, including summer ready gear, brand and apparel,

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Visit shoes.va.org. Not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits mentioned here. Second chance is Mr. Bishop next time you're in Jackson, Tennessee. I'm going to Jackson. Remember that song? Johnny Cash? I love this. Next time you're in Jackson, Tennessee, the wife and I will take you to tequila's restaurant, fantastic food, and I'm from Los Angeles.

That's one thing I do know. My man, second chances, I never, never, ever doubt somebody that lives in L.A. Or has lived in L.A. when it comes to good food, there's a lot of things I like about L.A. There's a lot of things that I don't like about L.A. One of the things I like is all of the great food. Second chances, I will take you up on that, my man. next time in Jackson, Tennessee. All right, what else do we have?

Ziga! Or Ziga, Ziga, Ziga. I'm embarrassed at how much stock I used to put into Meltzer back when. This year alone, apparently Osprey, has triple the five-star matches of Michaels. Yeah, I just, I have such a hard time relating to this star conversation and who gets them and why and all that. Look, it's just a subjective.

opinion, Dave Meltzer or me or you or anybody listening to this, we all have the right to have an opinion of what we like and what we don't like. And in the case of Dave Meltzer, if he wants to share that, you know, that's fine. So I just don't know why people make such a big deal out of it. Well, yes, I do. Wrestlers want to make a big deal out of it because they can get a five-star match and Tony sees it. Contract for life. Maybe that's it. I don't know. For a long time, for the 30 years I've been associated with a professional wrestling business, Talent has often, often worked pretty hard to influence Dave Meltzer because they like to see. Talent likes to see their name in a good context.

They want to see Dave write something good about them or come to their defense. They love to see that. So Talent will feed Dave cookies and they'll pet him on the head or maybe they'll name a wrestling move after him or do whatever they can to kind of bro him in so that hopefully kind of just like buying views. Hopefully you can create the perception that as a talent, you're, you know, more popular than you really are. That's what Dave Meltzer's been able to live up since as long as I've been aware of him. Any more questions floating around there? Scott Woodford. Scott.

Scott, are you listening? Hey, Scott! Thanks for the super chat. Brother, I appreciate it. I'm willing to be TK's no man. I will tell talent no. Well, you might feel that way now. Don't envy that job, by the way.

Managing talent, because they're artists. Let's be honest. This is not a criticism. It's just a reality. Creative people in general are a lot harder to manage than non-creative people. Because creative people, their brains work a little differently. They're not as organized, generally not as disciplined, not as focused, kind of part of the whole equation. they get distracted very easily by bright, shiny objects.

I'm one of those guys. I know that feeling. It's hard for me to focus. I have to really remind myself that I'm bad at it and take the time and spend the extra effort to try to become better at it. It's just the nature of the right brain, left brain kind of conundrum. Conundrum. One more time.

Conundrum. It's just a fact of, life and managing wrestling talent in particular can be very challenging just like you can be challenging managing managing rock and roll you know bands or actors or actresses or probably freaking ballerinas i don't know but it's not an easy job it seems like it would be right but it's it's not so i do have some empathy there for tony in that respect all right super day what have we got Blue bells are blue. Did, blue bells are blue.

Huh. It's a good thing I'm not drinking today. I'd mess that up, seriously. Pretty funny, though. Did Punk just pull the curtain back on what was already evident in your opinion, E.B.? Or did he bring anything you didn't suspect the light? No bluebells? I didn't hear anything to maybe go, wow, I didn't know that.

Maybe a few details related to the, the fight backstage or whatever. But it's something I've been talking about for two and a half years. Now, my perspective is different than obviously punks or anybody else inside the company because I'm not inside the company. So I don't know for sure what's going on. I don't assume too much. But you hear.

And you have to learn to filter what you hear too because I don't believe everything that anybody says to me, really. But there are people that I've come to know that I know are credible that I've had longstanding relationships with that I know aren't serving. their own agenda, who will indicate certain things to you that, you know, gives you a little bit of an idea what's going on backstage. But primarily, I look at the product and I look at the data points. I look at LiveGate. What's the trend there? Now I'm going to be looking at their YouTube numbers going, what's the trend there? And you look at the television ratings. Another example,

what's the trend there? And when you look at those trends, you look at the quality of the product, And then you are aware, not necessarily believe, but aware of a lot of the issues that you're hearing from people who are backstage, who you do believe are credible, who you don't believe have an agenda. And you kind of walk away with at least a perspective that you feel confident in, or I do. But, no, I don't think, I don't think Bob brought anything to light that I didn't suspect, but it was interesting hearing from him. I will say I was impressed with his candor and just the way he communicated. I was impressed with him. Thank you for the question, brother. I appreciate it.

Very, very much. Luis, with WWE recently hitting 100 million subscribers. We just heard that. We didn't talk about it on their YouTube channel. Would it have been a dumb idea to consider moving their shows here or TV still? Okay, we just got done talking about that, brother. great much. And I know this question might have come in last week, as your name looks familiar, but we just got done talking about that quite a bit. I think WWEs, you know, that $5 billion they got from

Netflix. I don't think they should, you know, mess with that. I think that that's just good. But Luis, we love you for your super chat. We appreciate it sincerely and glad you're here. Albert Marino. Albert Marino. Marino. Do you think there's any coincidence that Tony released 10 wrestlers on the heels of Punk's comment, it is more of a friend than a boss. I'm 100% confident that that is not the case. Again, going back to tidbits of information from people who I believe are credible, who I am certain do not have an agenda, I actually heard about not necessarily cuts, but restructuring in a re-evaluation of contracts two weeks ago.

So two weeks before Punk came out, I'd already heard rumblies that something like this, I didn't have specifics, but not to be surprised if something like this happened. So I don't think the two things are related. I think it's just a coincidence, to be honest with you. But good question, brother. Very good question.

All right, Super Dave. We got another one, Mindy Elam. Mindy Elam. I like the name Mindy, just so you know. I want to ask you, do you think you could have done the NWO with today's social media presence and KFFIP? Absolutely. Look, is it harder?

Yes. Does it take extra steps? Yes. But it's not impossible. Here's what's impossible, it seems, is to keep people from opening their mouths. else. You know, you've got to have, if you've got three people in a conversation talking about an idea that you want to keep secret, you almost have to keep it to those three people. Actually, it'd be better if it was only two, because then one of you is lying. Nobody can

point the fingers, right, if it were to leak. It's really not that difficult. What's difficult is the discipline and the integrity, right, and the ego management, because, look, I've, I've made mistakes like this before where I know something that's confidential or perhaps something I don't want out quite yet creatively or whatever it is. But sometimes in my enthusiasm, I'll share something with somebody who I really believe has my best interest in mine or is a close friend or a confidant only to have that information leak. It's my fault because I didn't impress upon that person.

quite the way I should have, how important it was that this person not talk, but people get excited and they want to share things. That's human nature. It's not that they're bad people, but you have to really, I do, I have to discipline. Somebody tells me something, and it's really important that it's confidential. It's important that that person share that with me, so I know how important it is, but then I almost force myself to forget that I've heard the information. I don't think about it subsequently after hearing it. I just don't. I try really hard not to even think about it so that I don't make that mistake.

It's human nature. Sometimes human nature is your own worst enemy, right? I think that the truth. All right. One more question. We're going to wrap this up. Billy Diaz. Great podcast.

I'm glad I caught this live before it ended. I'm still a huge fan and enjoy the WCW days. I've been a wrestling fan since 92. during the Monday Night Wars, as with many, as with many, I would watch two TVs. Thank you, brother. Billy, we really appreciate that. And then more and more I go out and I'm doing appearances and I hear those kinds of stories and how friends would sit and watch together.

Travis Midway, tell your buddy, Richard, get on a stick, brother. Richard, what are you doing? Not going to watch WrestleMania with your buddies. That's bullshit. Billy, I appreciate you reaching out and watching the show everybody here. This is becoming one of my favorite things to do every week, because it's, It's just free flowing, it's ranting, it's raving, it's talking about the business of the wrestling business.

It's all kinds of fun, and it wouldn't be any fun if you guys weren't here. So thank you very much, and we'll do this again next week. So long, everybody.