83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Wise Choices: AEW Dynamite Review!

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

On this episode of Wise Choices, Eric breaks down each segment of the May 15th edition of AEW Dynamite and discusses his thoughts through the eyes of a television producer. BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code WRESTLEBIZ at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com/ , promo code WRESTLEBIZ to receive your first month FREE. 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

BAM! Hello everybody, E. Bischoff here. Wise Choices on 83 Weeks.com, our YouTube proposition for all of you. Going to try something different here today. I'm going to do a breakdown of last night's dynamite, but I'm going to try to do it a little differently. Now, first, my mea copa for today. That means it's on me. I am pretty certain last night when I set up my DVR.

I had a meeting in town, so I set up my DVR before I left to record the show. I'm not going to blame it on the DVR. I'm not going to blame it on technology. I don't fade the heat like that. I'm not a bitch. Fess up. So I'm going to take the heat myself

and probably screwed up the DVR because it didn't start picking up the show until about 7 o'clock. So I'm guessing that's why it was user error because it just all of a sudden picked it up at seven. So that being said, what I'm going to do is break down the last half of the show but I was able to see the television presentation of it.

Now, I actually did try because I care about this stuff. I care about you, each and every one of you people. Seriously, I want this to be a great experience for everybody. So I tried to watch the matches back because you can go back and watch highlights on YouTube, but it didn't really give me a feel from a producer's perspective. It didn't really give me the feel of the overall show because they were out of order,

and it was just, it just took me out of the moment. So what I'm going to do is break down the last half of the show from, again, from a producer's perspective. I'm going to stay away from talking about the quality of the matches. That's very subjective. All of this is subjective. but, you know, discussion about the quality, the matches and all that. I'll leave that through Dave Beltzer and the dirt sheet mob.

They can have all the fun they want with that. I'm going to stay away from that. I'm going to approach this from the perspective of a television producer. Now, by that I mean when Jason Hervey and I, my business part, former business partner, had our own production company, Bishop Hervey Entertainment, and we were extremely successful in creating from scratch, sometimes over a cocktail, more often than not, ideas would come into our respective minds and we'd start massaging them and playing with them and building on them.

And eventually, if we thought we had something really interesting and could put all the pieces together back in Hollywood, they call that packaging, which includes talent and the right show runner and all that kind of stuff, we would bring that package and we'd bring that presentation to a network. We would pitch it. And if we could get them to bite, we would end up selling that show. and we would also produce it. It's not like we would sell an idea to a network

and then they would have their own production team produce it. We would sell the idea and then we would be the producers of the show. And during that production process, primarily pre-production, you get a lot of notes, show notes, rough drafts of formats and rough drafts of anything that was related to that show. You would usually circulate that first to your own team, so your own team would have a chance to contribute their ideas, their input, their reactions

to these various drafts. And that process of show notes continues all the way up and gets more intense as you get closer to the finished product in post-production. And it's a very long process. Post-production can take months as opposed to the actual on-site production, which can take 30 days for an eight-episode series. So it's a very intense process, but along the way, you have other producers, people involved with the show, you have network executives who all want to have a voice and give you their ideas. All of these come in the form of show notes,

and you have to respond to all of them, right, if you're managing your relationship well with your network. So that's how I'm going to approach this. I'm going to take the segments that I have, and I'm going to break them down, discuss them, not from a, oh, I hated them. finish perspective. That's what, you know, dirt cheats are for. This is more about from a producer's perspective, and if I want to produce the absolute best show that I can, what do I see, what could we improve, what did we miss, what did we hit? And that's how I'm going to approach this. Now, I actually use my own formula, story, anticipation, reality, surprise, and action. Those are the five elements that I identified back in 2004, five, actually included in my first book, talked about the Sarsa formula and how it had such a positive impact on the things that I was doing at the time.

And I still apply that same formula today. So when I look at a, when I'm looking at something, whether it's wrestling or otherwise, you know, I'm looking for the story elements and how well they're executed. I'm looking for anticipation. Where are the elements within what I'm seeing that to me, check the anticipation box? Where's the reality? What elements within what I'm seeing are allowing me to suspend my disbelief and fully engage with what I'm watching as opposed to go, well, that doesn't make sense. Well, that doesn't look like, you know, you know what I mean. That's the reality element. Okay. Surprise speaks for itself. It's a critical element to

any story or anything that you're watching. And of course, action. as it relates to what, you know, we're watching. And in this case, it's professional wrestling and an action is a big part of it. So I'm going to approach this from that perspective, and I'm going to add one more element because of the nature of what we're doing here. And that's what I'm going to add the production notes into it as well. That could be lighting, it could be audio, it could be pacing, it could be any number of things that are really related more to the physical production

to the show as opposed to the intellectual property of the show in terms of storytelling, characters, interviews, and promos. So that's the deal. Now, the other thing that's going to be different here, I'm really excited about this because I fully intend, and I'm fully ready to commit to this. But I want to do more of this type of review, not just AEW, but of the WWE shows,

of T&A shows, perhaps even an NWA show here or there, but other shows that are coming up close to a pay-per-view or a big event so that they're not necessarily only go-home shows, but in the weeks leading up to it to really break them down to see if the elements that I feel are so valuable in terms of storytelling, story, anticipation, reality, surprise, and action, the SARS-a-formula, how it's being applied or not applied, and then comparing it to some of the results that we'll end up getting eventually. So that's how I'm going to approach this.

I'm going to ask you throughout this a series of question. I really encourage super chats, but what we're going to do differently here today so that I can do the best job I can do of answering all of those questions and I don't miss any is I'm going to ask for questions about each segment, but we're going to hit the answers to those questions at the end. So that's the format or formula that I'm going to use today, and we're going to build upon it.

I encourage you to let me know what you think of it, how I can improve it, what you like, what you didn't like. And over the course of the next month or two, I'm going to be doing much more of these, and I'll fine tune it based on your input and hopefully have a really cool show review format here on YouTube that's different than everybody else's because I live to be different. All right, without further ado, let me fire up my Google machine.

I think Bulley used to call it a Google, machine. And I'll get to my notes. In the meantime, I do want to thank all of you for joining because I've been excited about this. I've been looking forward to this. We're going to be doing more and more and more on YouTube. Our members, our exclusive members, are getting daily updates on the results of my five-day water fast. I'm going to keep those comments for our exclusive members, but the things are going well, just to give you a hint. Tomorrow is the last day, so I'm kind of on a roll. Anyway, let's get down to business. Now, I picked up the show. I think it was right before, right after 7 o'clock. So when the show picked up for me on DBR, I opened up with

the hook, Shabada, Samoa Joe segment in the backstage area. Now, I'm going to try to do this without being redundant because some of my issues are, they just kind of, they repeat themselves over and over and over again. So when I run out of interesting ways to talk about the same thing or different angles or perspectives to address the same things that I see over and over and over again, when I run out of ways to do that, I'm just going to call it out. It is what it is and move on to something else because I don't want to be redundant or avoid it as much as possible. So on the promo. Now, here's one more disclaimer. I acknowledge, fully acknowledge, that I don't watch dynamite every week.

And as a result of not watching dynamite every week, some of my commentary, some of my perspective, would normally be about the storytelling and all that. It's not fair for me to do that. I can talk about the story elements that I see as a new viewer. And I'm going to talk about that one more minute, too, before we get to the breakdown, because that's a really, really important point.

I thought about it yesterday, but this is a good time to bring it up. One of my common issues and critiques that are derived from them is that AEW is doing absolutely no favors to themselves in terms of growing their audience. If you're in the television business, if you're a television producer, and that's all that Tony Khan is, by that, I mean, you know, there's a lot of really, really successful people in Hollywood that are producers. So there's another one.

I'm not minimizing a role as a producer, but it's nothing more complicated than that, folks. Tony Con is producing television in exchange for a license fee. And at the core of that business is the pressure that's on you to grow your audience. If you're not growing in television, you're dying. And losing audience week after week after week after week or a consistent period of time is not a good sign. Now, why do I bring that up? Because I've talked about it before and over and over again. I'm bringing it up because essentially I'm coming into this show today with you as a new viewer who hasn't been following for weeks and weeks and weeks and winks.

Who doesn't live on the internet and following every comment and question and all that. I'm coming at this, as I did last night, with an opinion. I'm not going to suggest that I don't have one, or there's not some bias in my perspective as a result of that. But from a storytelling perspective, I'm coming into this like a brand new viewer. And that's one of the reasons why I harp on this stuff is because you have to not only serve the audience you already have,

you also have to serve new viewers because the way you grow your audience is by getting people who don't normally watch to watch. And you have to engage that audience as well. And it's an art. There's a fine line. You can go too far in one way or the other example. Right now AEW has been, for the last five years I've been watching them, going too far satisfying an existing audience. Or you could call it preaching to the choir. Take your pick. It's the same thing. And when your focus is on serving your existing audience exclusively

and not paying attention to the things you need to be aware of in order to grow your audience, you're going to slowly lose your audience. You're not going to grow. If you're lucky, you will maintain your audience. Generally, what you'll end up doing is losing audience. And that's where AEW is and has been for a long time. So that's why when I do comment on anything creative that I see,

any elements of story that I see, I'm coming at it from the perspective of a brand new viewer and whether or not it will create enough anticipation at part of Sarsa to make me look forward to either next week or a pay-per-view or whatever. Okay, so enough of all that stuff

and as you can tell, I'm focusing on you, the audience, and trying to convey what I'm feeling and seeing here in just a moment. I'm not really watching too many of the questions, but I want you all to know that your super chats will be answered, along with a lot of your other questions that are coming up that aren't necessarily super chats.

I want to answer as many questions as I can, but we're going to do it at the end of the episode. And we'll see how that flows and how you guys like that. Okay, so I'm picking it up with Hook, Shabbata, and Joe. In terms of story, again, acknowledging, I've been following it for weeks, but in terms of the story that I saw presented in this segment that is connected to what we hope to see it all in, I gave it a three. Now, my scale is one to do. 10. I don't do stars. But I look at, I, I, I just graded out a scale of one to 10. I thought from a

story perspective in terms of that moment, that scene, I gave it a three, primarily because Joe brought it home. He brought the intensity. He kind of tied it all together. It was a little loose and I wasn't really sure where everybody was going again as a new viewer. They weren't serving this viewer last night. It wasn't clear. The perspective of Hook and Shabbat, it wasn't really clear to me. But when Joe came into the scene and kind of brought it all together, I kind of got with it. And it created interest. So there was enough story element in that segment to create at least interest on my part. Probably enough interest to want to see where it goes next week and then make a decision as to whether or not I'd be really invested in the paper. Okay, in terms of anticipation,

again, because of, I want to go back to a story. I love the humor at the end, the little phone translator, you know, maybe they've done it before and I've never seen it, but I thought it was a cute little device, entertaining device. It's always fun when you can to add a little touch of humor, even though that was an intense segment with a serious kind of application with Joe, a serious element with Joe. And he did raise the intensity sufficiently to make me pay attention. So I think Joe did a great job. I think Hook's learning.

He's learning. None of this stuff is easy or comes naturally. But I did like the little bit of humor at the end. Okay. In terms of anticipation, much because of what Joe did in that segment, I'm not like making my calendar. I'm not building a calendar around this particular matchup eventually, but I'm interested. It wasn't bad. It got my attention. Let's put it that way. Reality, not really applicable here. You know, part of reality is in the performance itself and how authentic

and how organic it feels. Do I feel like I'm listening to someone who's memorizing a script, or do I feel like I'm listening to somebody who's really emoting and coming from the heart because these, look, professional wresters aren't trained method actors or actors, but they're performing, much like an actor does, but they just don't have the training and the experience to do so. So anytime you get a performer like Joe, who is able to deliver, even though he's not an actor per se, in the classical sense, traditional sense of the word, in terms of professional he does a great job because he's very believable. He's authentic. It feels authentic. It doesn't feel like he's, you know, first day on the job or reading a script.

So I thought the authenticity that Joe delivered helped with the anticipation. It made me more interested in that regard. Reality, yeah, I just kind of touched on that a little bit. Same comment. There was no surprise. And sometimes, you know, the Sarsa formula isn't always 100% applicable. I used to tell people all the time, you know, whenever I'd start developing a story or even a television project outside of wrestling, I use that Sarsa formula as kind of a check box. Because I knew that if I had five out of five, if I could check legitimately check all five of those boxes, I was literally printing money.

four out of five it's a good project it's probably going to be successful but it's not going to change the world three out of five okay it's good but it's more or less filler material anything less than three out of the five benchmarks you're wasting your time so that's kind of my approach to this uh there was no surprise so that gets a zero uh action obviously not applicable because it was a backstage performance and there is no action in one of those in terms of production i gave it a zero um simply because it's such a stale unnatural environment that there's no way that it can feel anything other than awkward now one of the things that i think could have been done is given the nature of the interview and the way they set it up saying everybody's agreed

no violence. Okay. That's a new one. But good. But it would have been more believable and possibly more tense. And you would have had an element of anticipation if it would have been made clear at the very beginning. Nobody's going to lay hands on each other. You're going to be subject to fines of termination. Cool. They may have done that or maybe they did it on another match. I can't remember. But set the stage. Let the audience know that there's a set of rules for this promo. It makes it feel more important. Number one, like it's a big damn deal. It creates the perception or illusion because that's what this all is at the end of the day. It's an illusion that is designed to make you feel something. It's all

it is, folks. It's creating feelings, creating emotion. But to have had to set the state so that everybody agreed. Absolutely no physical contact at risk of something significant. And, oh, by the way, you don't get to bring your posse out. Now, the minute you say that from a psychology perspective, the audience, more or less, is going to go, oh, I wonder if they'll show up anyway, because it's wrestling, right? That's what you kind of would expect. So that's what I mean about you would have immediately set the stage. And it would be a way to artfully present that so that you're actually planting the seed that it could happen anyway and building the tension as a result.

But other than that, man, that whole thing, I think, you know, everybody did a decent job. Joe, of course, did a great job. But overall, production-wise, the way it was presented primarily because it's in such a, just a horseshit, sterile environment, I give it a nothing. All right, Tony Storm. Let me, what are you, that's one that I really want to get your opinion on.

And I'm going to do this at the end of every segment. I don't want you guys to agree with me just because you're here and you're like following the YouTube and you like some of my controversial salty shit, which I love doing. I love doing it. I'm having a blast. But I'm approaching this differently. And I'm really curious because I not only live to enlighten, I live to be enlightened. And that's the favor you all can do for me.

So if you've got Super Chats or whatever, I want to hear what you think about my review of this particular segment, the hook, Jabada, Samoa Joe segment. Do you agree with my perspective? You disagree with my perspective? Are there elements that you saw that perhaps I didn't? Because, you know, we're all different. All right. Next one up, Tony Storm, Haley, Cameron.

I'm going to start out with story. I really wanted to give it something because I liked the presentation. I love the open. I love the black and white effect. It really adds to Tony Storm's character. They've been consistent with it, which I really enjoy. They're adding it as part of the introduction, black and white thing. So I was really excited about that.

But yeah, there's got no story going on there. the only hint of a story element as a new viewer for this particular episode or for AW in this particular episode, nothing really led me to going, wow, I can't wait to see that at the pay-per-view. The only thing I heard during the body of the match was in play-by-play. Tony Chivani mentioned it that Tony had a match with Serena Deeb at the pay-per-view. But beyond that, there was no. reference to it at all. It was essentially a standalone match until, as we've seen,

I don't know, 10,000 times over the course of the last 20 years, maybe half of that. But we've seen it all too often, Serena Deeb comes out and watches the mats, match presumably as some kind of distraction, but realistically more as a reminder because there was nothing in the story of the body of the match that really moved this particular story forward towards the pay-per-view other than a very bland, almost nonsensical appearance of Serena Deeb at the ring entrance on the stage. And she stood there and smiled the whole time. Same smile. No expression on her face whatsoever other than just a goofy, phony smile. I'm not criticizing the talent here because talent, no matter whether it's television,

movies or anything else, are really reliant on directors in order to get the best out of a scene. And I'm not talking about the director in the truck necessarily, probably in wrestling, it would be more clear to call them agents or producers. But somebody should have been talking to Tony and said, okay, we're trying to use your appearance here during the body of this match to create, anticipation. How can we do that? Perhaps coming out to the stage and then, I don't know, doing something, anything that would create a sense of jeopardy or intrigue, anything other than standing there smiling like a mannequin in a Macy store. I can get that at all. It didn't do

anything for me. The anticipation, I'm going to give it a one because Tony did mention it and at least there's something there. But it's as far as I can go. And I'm trying to be, I'm not trying to keep my opinion. Well, I can't because all this is my opinion, but I'm going to try to keep it as production oriented as possible and not editorializing other things. So story gets a zero. Anticipation gets a one. on reality, it's almost non-applicable here. This is just a match, nothing more, nothing less. It's just a match.

Probably designed more to get Haley Cameron over, a lot of references to her relationship with Soraya and, you know, being her mentor and all that. That's what it looked like to me, but it actually did nothing to advance my interest in the paper view coming up. The action, you know, decent. you know, not necessarily, in my opinion, subjective opinion, the action was sufficient. I didn't see anything that made me go, oh, wow, can't wait to the pay-per-view.

But I didn't see anything that made me go, I don't want to watch this again either. So it was just kind of there. I'm going to give it a one. Again, on the production notes, I'll repeat myself a little bit. Great entrance, awesome entrance. One of the better ones I've seen, certainly in AEW. but yeah it just kind of is what it is what are your thoughts i'm missing the mark on this one is there something i didn't see again super chat your ass off folks i'll be getting to all

them at the end of the show but i'm really really interested in your opinion on that one because i that this one to me was just eh all right backstage osprey robert storm the undisputed It's pretty interesting. Again, my issue with it from a producer's perspective is backstage interviews, whether they're AEW, WW, T&A, or anybody else. When they're on television, they suck because there's just no vibe. There's no energy. It's so unnatural.

You've got these guys that theoretically want to beat the hell out of each other. Supposedly there's this tension and all of that. And they're all kind of back there in a little box talking to each other. in a very unnatural way. So I'm not going to try not to be redundant, but that bothers me a little bit. The opposite side of that coin, great delivery from both Storm and Osprey. I was impressed. Didn't feel scripted.

Didn't feel like somebody else's words in the talent's mouth. So that part of it really impressed me. I gave that the story element because of the delivery and the authenticity in the delivery. I gave that an eight. And I was really impressed with both Storm and Osprey in that regard for this particular segment. In terms of anticipation, it got me up to about a four. I should probably give it a higher because I will watch the pay-per-view. actually, we're going to be doing a pregame postgame setup for the AEW pay-per-view on Sunday.

So I will be watching, obviously, because I'm going to be making comments on it. But even if that were not the case, and we weren't doing that live pre-game post game here on YouTube, I'd probably watch that one anyway, definitely make an effort to check it out. On the reality, I gave it a four because as I was made, mentioning early on, they really missed, from a production perspective, they completely ignored or missed the opportunity to build some tension that you could feel, right? By having the everybody standing around there and Osprey's outnumbered and shit should hit the fan, could hit the fan, maybe we'll hit the fan, by just having everybody standing around with their thumbs up their ass did nothing

to really create anticipation or reality for me. So I gave reality, I gave it a four, but it was really just co-tailing off the intensity of the promo and the reality of the promo. Surprise, not applicable. There was no surprise there. Action, again, not applicable. So by default, this presentation only hit three out of five.

You only check three out of the five boxes. In my experience, both good and bad, three out of five is just okay. It's not good. You're not printing money. And that's a whole idea. Grow your audience, print money. That's why I love television so much or used to. All right.

What else we got? Action is not applicable. Again, the production, I'd be redundant if I bring it up again. So do you agree with that? Do you agree with my perspective? Did the fact that they didn't create more attention to the scene Heard it overall? Do you agree with the quality of the delivery?

Did it feel authentic to you? I'll be really curious about that. But of what I did see of the show, the last half of it, this was probably my favorite part. Okay, contracts. First of all, contract signings almost always suck. I just don't want to. like them. Maybe it's because I've done too many of them and it's really hard to create the level

of anticipation and tension. When you do it well, when there's a sufficient backstory and you've built the tension over the course of a couple weeks sufficiently to create real tension and real anticipation, then a press conference can work. If you've set the stage and there's a possibility that something could explode. Now, I know something exploded at the end of this, and we'll cover that in a minute, but the fact that, in my opinion, they didn't adequately build the arc

and hit the plot points necessary during Act 1 and in the midst of Act 2 to make me really think, boy, there's something good is going to happen here, something big is going to happen. It just felt like, eh. so on the story side of this adequate job trying to fill in some backstory i think willow did a good job a decent and adequate job of sharing her perspective giving us a little bit of an insight as to how she

feels and what her motivation is because that's key to all of this any story movie television in film, books, TV commercials, whatever the fuck it is, there has to be motivation. And a lot of what I see or have seen, I should say, in AW, motivation is just like, well, it's a dream match. Well, they have history. They wrestle the other three times in Ring of Honor. Who gives a fuck? It's a tree that falls in force and no muck of fathers have ever heard it.

That's not building a story. That is a lame excuse for a match. and we're going to talk more about lame excuses for matches in just a minute. Dax. Oh, we're going to have fun with that. There's some fun coming up. Don't get me wrong. My producer hat doesn't prevent me from having fun.

Trust me. All right, back to the contract signing. Anticipation, I actually gave this one a five. I thought everything else in this interview was pretty flat at best. But it did because of the heat at the finish, the heat at the end. it did it interested me i think they did they checked the anticipation box let's put it that way uh reality absolute zero um i mean there was there was nothing authentic about this in fact one of the other notes i have here if you want an example a perfect example of what is meant

by the term less is more as it's applied to to television in this case professional wrestling go back and watch, re-watch this segment. And again, I can't critique the talent because the talent is being produced and directed. This is a perfect example, folks, of less could be so much more valuable than more. By that I mean, Willow, just doesn't have have the experience to go out there and carry as much dialogue as she did.

If her dialogue would have been cut by 70%, 60%, at the very least, and she delivered that same message with less narrative, it would have made it much, much, much more impactful. But because she was just out there filibustering, because I guess talent still believes that the more camera time you get and the more mic time you get, the better it is, that's only true if you're really experienced and have developed a great skill with narrative, holding a mic. And Willow does not have that experience or that skill yet. I saw indications that perhaps she could at some point, but right now, absolutely not. And I think allowing her, whether it was her choice or whoever the producer was or whoever her writer was, giving that person that much dialogue knowing, you should know, should pay attention

to be honest, knowing that she's really not there yet, all that does is expose her for not being as good as she needs to be in the role she's in. So protect your talent producers, agents, whatever you want to call them, and writers, and don't burden them with more dialogue than their abilities would allow them to do well. Less is more. Same with Mercedes. Exact same comment. Now, I will note, of the interviews that I've seen from Mercedes since she arrived in AW,

you. This was better than what I've seen in the past. I, for one, know this is commentary about the character, and I said, I'm not going to do it too much at all, but I'm going to break my own rule here. That Mercedes character, from what I've seen so far, is as one-dimensional as one-dimensional can get. There's got to be some, like, wacky math formula that it will allow you to get to a number that makes this more interesting than what it, really is. I'm not saying that right. I'm not making my point, but my point is this is better than what I've seen, but how you get to be anything less than one dimensional without a really cool

math formula, I don't know, but that's what this is. That character, the way she's presenting herself, number one, it's not over. You can pipe in all the CEO, you know, as part of the music you want. The audience is not getting with it. Now, that's There were less than 4,000 people in that arena last night, based on what I've seen from Russell Ticks. Anyway, a couple hours before the show, there was less than 4,000 people in that arena. So that makes it tough. There's just not a lot of energy there. But that crowd was flat.

They're not buying that character, in my opinion. And that is a producer's note, because if your characters aren't working, because there's no depth to those characters, you've got a problem. and I'm not buying it. I don't think anybody else is either. All right. Where are we? Surprise. I'm going to give it a one

because the finish was well. The finish to that interview or that contract signing was fairly well executed. Putting Mercedes to the table, I think surprised everybody. I don't think anybody expected to see that. So I want to acknowledge that at least they checked the box. but barely.

Action again, I'm going to give the execution. I gave it a two. I'm going to bump it up a little bit. I'm going to give that a four because I do think the execution of the finish to that contract signing. It was interesting. The crowd reacted. It was a big moment. Someone bumped that up, give it a four.

Production wise, oh, by the way, did Will I refer to the monitor as a Titan? Tron. That sounds familiar. Why would it sound familiar? Oh, because that's what WWF used to call it way back in the day. I thought that was a little weird, that AEW has a Titan Tron. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. It's just a little funny note that I made to myself because I'm basically a pretty funny guy.

Once you get to know me, like it takes a while to see the brilliance of my humor. But when you do, you appreciate it. So stick with me. It'll get better, I promise. All right. So production, I gave that a two. Again, agree, disagree. What am I missing?

Maybe I'm missing something. I'm really anxious to learn. I want to be enlightened. So let me know. Chat me up. Super chat me up. Send me an email. Send me something on Twitter.

E. Bischoff. Whatever you want to do. And if you're a member of 83 weeks and you designate your membership in 83 weeks and you send me something on social media, you go to the top of the list of people that I will respond to. And if you know, if you follow me on social media, you know that I do interact quite a bit on social media. I do engage, sometimes in a fun way, sometimes in a more interesting way.

All right, now to the main event. And this is the one I'm looking for. And Super Dave, I know that Dax put up a tweet or a Twix or an ex post or whatever we want to call him. Now, let's take a look at that before we get into this because it kind of sets the stage. Can't wait for paid podcasters to complain and ask, where's the story? Interesting that Dax didn't necessarily call me out specifically, but is still convinced that the only reason that anybody that does a podcast is critical of him or, AEW is because we're paid. In other words, we wouldn't have the opinions we have if we weren't

paid, would we? Unfortunately, Dax, I think if you look at the rest of the comments on your post as well as many others and listen to people you should be listening to, which is your audience, or the audience who wish you had, most would agree with a lot of the negative or critiques that we have here. But Dax, unfortunately, is in this delusional state of mind where he's convinced himself and is trying to convince other delusional people in their basement, whatever, that the only reason people like me or bully or Jim Cornett or anybody else that does it is criticizing AWU is because we're getting paid by WWE. You dipshit, you're killing your own character.

All right, enough of that. We'll have some more fun with Dax here in just a few minutes. Story. I give it a three, primarily because, I think Tony did a great job. Tony Chivani did a good job, not a great job, a good job of tying in all in what we anticipated all in and putting the baby faces in jeopardy.

Risk of injury. That's the reason for everybody's looking forward to this match, is Okada and lead to have an opportunity to, to inflict some damage before the pay-per-view. By the way, that story element is about as old. It's got to be 40 years that I've been watching variations of that same element. So it's not that it's not appropriate or it's not a valuable sometimes tool, but in and of itself, it's fairly lukewarm at best.

But Tony did do it. And he did remind me that there are implications as a result of this match. Therefore, there's a reason, there's a why, there's a premise, at least, for the match to happen. And I appreciate that. It's not just something, you know, thrown together, so to speak. On the other hand, there was no story to this match, other than they have history in Ring of Honor. Who gives a flying fuck? It doesn't matter.

That is not a story. That's an excuse for a story. That being said, Tony, I think, in play-by-play, and I want to talk a little bit more about color and play-by-play because I've got some issues there at the end of all this. But Tony did an adequate job of tying it all together and making chicken salad or, okay, chicken salad out of basically chicken shit because other than the fact that they have history in Ring of Honor,

there was no fucking reason to put this match together. All right. Uh, anticipation, I think there was good heat at the end. I'm going to talk more about the finish in a minute when we get to production. But, um, I'm going to give it a four, you know, at a four, whether I was reviewing the pay-per-view or not, I would probably make a point to, if not watch it live, definitely check out a replay. I'm not going to build my, I'm not going to schedule my life around it.

I'm not going to miss a good opportunity to take my wife out to, to dinner or to spend some time with my kids if that opportunity was there or even to take my dog for a nice walk if the weather's great decide to go hike up into the mountains i would do that in dvr and i would do a better job i would go back and watch it after the fact so that's why i feel about that surprise uh there was no reality to it at all it just was what it was um the surprise with derby got me i gave that a seven keep in mind, I probably wouldn't give a 10 out very often, maybe a couple times a year. When I say give a 10,

I don't mean that I expect you people to agree with it or anybody else to agree with it. It's just how I view things if I was analyzing my own show and how I would determine if I wanted to change something or improve something or eliminate something. So in terms of surprise, definitely, definitely well executed, hats off. Crowd really reacted, which is the only thing that I really saw that crowd of 36 or 3,800 people react to the way you would hope to see an audience reacted at a 2-hour wrestling show leading into a pay-per-view.

It did get a great reaction. So kudos to the team, talent, producers, everybody involved. You got a 7 out of that one, and that's pretty good. Action. All right. Try to be objective. but I'm also going to be honest. I know we've been hearing about the greatest tag team

in a long time or ever or whatever. I'm not going to comment on that because I haven't watched enough of these two dachs and cash together as a tag team to comment too much on that. But as a singles performer, this was about as average as average can get. Now, I am going to comment on the quality of the match and the presentation in this performance,

particularly since everybody's pushing so hard about the in-ring skill of Dax Harwood. And someone who's a good friend, And whose opinion I value very much, I was speaking to right before we went live and said that, you know, the revival in WWE, they were really well produced. They did look like they could be considered one of the best tag teams. Not the best bully. Not the best bully.

If I had a crayon and a piece of paper, I'd draw a picture of it. But when they were in WWE, Revival was. is a really, really great-looking team. Since they arrived in AEW, they've become pretty average. And Dax and this singles performance was very average. He was slow. It was a plotting kind of a pace, which is okay if it's a match where the audience is expected.

the old Arne Anderson, Tully Blancher's style of a match, Rick Flair, where there's not a lot of high flying, not a million false finishes, nobody's doing suicidal shit. You're just out there rustling. And I like that style. It's one of the reasons I was a fan of FTR in the very beginning before Daxilusted shit turned into such a pussy online. But this presentation, I mean, it is, it was very average.

And if you see something that I didn't see, if your perspective is different, I really want you to tell me about it because I just don't see it. Dax has two, he sells two different ways, dead or nothing at all. If Dax, if you're listening, and I'm probably sure you will be, because clearly you're obsessed. But if you're going to pattern, if you're going to model yourself after someone like Arne Anderson,

which I would encourage you to do, Arn was one of the best, pay attention to the fact that Arn could sell. Like, really sell. I don't care how tough your offense is. I'm geared but you sharpshooter. And by the way, a couple attempts that I know the story in the match, I'm digressing here a little bit,

but the story in the match was, you know, will, you know, Dax get the sharpshooter on because that's his finish. Nothing wrong with that idea. But in terms of the execution during the body of this match, there were three or four times there where Dax went for the figure four and Okada was able to get out of it. But you've got to make that look good too. That's a little detail, right?

Great television is nothing more than do. a great job with little details and it all comes together in kind of a magic performance well as dax is going in for it is trying to get that that that figure four sharp shooter okada is able to get out of it but that portion of that exchange was so awkward and unbelievable dax looked like a monkey trying to fuck a football it didn't it just didn't look good I don't know. It's a little thing, but it really was noticeable to me. If you go back and watch that, you'll see what I'm talking about.

And it's those little things that separate the greats from the professionals to the workers. Anybody can be a worker. I'm going to talk more about that tomorrow on 83 weeks. The difference between being a professional wrestler in a worker. There's a big difference. And I just learned this today. So it's pretty cool. But this is a perfect example of that.

Dax is a worker who happens to engage in professional wrestling as opposed to a professional who is working. More on that tomorrow. Anyway, yeah, this left me really flat. I didn't see, let me go. My computer went to sleep on me here, so bear with me. Aunt Evans, my Sherpa Guidesman here on YouTube, told me not to worry about the overall quality of the production. The YouTube audience wants to see authenticity.

They want to, they want to feel like they're sitting across the table from you having a sandwich or a beer or whatever. Well, that's what's going on right now because I'm a high tech redneck and sometimes my technology gets away from me, as it did last night. All right. So I left off at surprise. I gave that a seven in terms of action. Again, that's what I've been talking about. It's very basic, very slow, very plotting. And like I said, Dax has two gears when it comes to selling.

Dead and none. So do your homework, Dax. Go back, watch some videotape, improve your game. Quit spending so much time on Twitter, bitching about what people say about you. And by the way, Dax, did anybody come up to you last night? Because I know this was a big deal for you in WWE. Did anybody come up to you last night and thank you for the house? I bet not.

Not with 3,800 people. You can't even sell it a 4,000 seat arena. By the way, why does EW go all the way to frickin' Washington across the country to draw 3,800 people for a live television show? But I digress. I'm just wondering, Dax, did anybody come to you and thank you? It's the main event.

You're Nakata. Anybody come up and say thank you for the house? Probably not. Anyway, that's it for me. I'm done with this portion of my review. Again, I will apologize profusely for being the high-tech redneck that I can be sometime and failing to set my DVR up appropriately. But I want you to know, I could have, I could have faked it,

I could have gone to YouTube and watched the highlight reels, and I could have cobbled it together and convinced you all. I actually did watch the entire show, but I didn't. You may not like what I say, but I don't lie to you that I don't do. So, yep, I fucked up, but I'm only covering half the show, but I had fun doing it, and it's a great way for me to kind of get my feet wet with this format. But I really want to know what you think. You like this format?

How can I prove it? How can I make it better? but more importantly, let's get to the questions, because this is the fun part of the show. This episode is brought to you by Bluetooth. Let's talk about sex. I mean, Conrad's favorite subject, but since Conrad's not here, let's talk about it anyway.

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Copeland and Black aren't cutting promos face to face. You know, that thing that builds audience interest and puts butts in seats and makes the paying customer purchase the pay-per-view, apathy, elite wrestling. I did happen to what? I did go to YouTube because originally I thought, well, maybe I can get a feel for the first half of the show. show by watching the highlight reel. But after looking at a couple of the matches that I did

see highlight reels on on YouTube, it just didn't give me the feel that I needed to really address the story, anticipation, reality, surprise, and action. Because a lot of that is elements that sometimes you don't see in a highlight reel. So I did, though, I did see Copeland and Black. I did see the ambush. I agree with you because I have been around Malachi Black. I do have a sense for what he's capable of doing. I've spent a lot of time around Adam Copeland. I've worked with him. I certainly know what he's capable of doing. And I absolutely agree with you that what's missing here is that tension. There's heat. Steal a man's wedding ring. That's heat. But it's not the same as the tension you can build. You know what I learned,

somebody told me this one time. And it was a note that I made to myself to pay it to remember it. it's like if you watch an old western or even a new one you get that moment where the gunfight's going to happen at noon and everybody knows that everybody in town is peeping through the windows they're looking over the top of the the hitching post hiding behind whatever they can hide behind because they know there's going to be a gun fight but they want to watch there's anticipation they know what the story is between the two guys that are going to shoot at each other but there's that anticipation there's that buildup what's going to happen and when you watch those gun fights at the okay corral or whatever take a look at the movie

tombstone not necessarily contemporary movie but one of the best westerns ever that moment when white irp and everybody else were coming out looking for the guys there we're going to get into a gunfight with, the Cowboys, as they called themselves as a group. Man, they did such a great job building that tension. And it's when everybody's coming together and they just squeeze every ounce of participation out of that scene by watching everybody's eyes and watching to see how close their hands are getting to the gun, who's going to draw first? They cut to people watching through the windows And you can see the anticipation of their eyes People are really not getting ready to take cover it

Because they know the moment of truth is about to fucking come Somebody going to get shot and it doesn't want They don't want it to be them That's the moment They don't just come out there and shoot each other You're no fun in that You've got to build the drama And the anticipation and I think bringing

As Mark Kay is putting out here Bringing Copeland and Black together could be more interesting and build more anticipation than a hot angle, which is usually, what is that? It's a justification for a match, not necessarily a plot point. So I agree with you, Mark A. Great question. I appreciate you guys.

You are an enlightened group of Marker Fathers. I love that. What I got, Super Dave? Mr. Teambring. Are there any wrestlers in AEW that you think could have been main event talent in WCW? Well, keep up the good work. Thank you, Mr. Team Marine. Yeah, there's, you know, my issues with AEW have nothing to do with talent.

They got great talent. They have too much great talent. They don't know what to do with it. It's kind of going to waste and dying on the vine. But that's a personal issue with the talent, not necessarily with me as a viewer. So my issue is not with the talent. My issue is with lack of vision, lack of strategy, no tactics, lame at best, if there are any, and just horrible creative and lack of storytelling.

Those are my issues, not talent. But, you know, just off the top of my head, if I think about it, MJF, I'd fight a mucker for a shot to sign MJF. he's definitely got the talent. I like Tony Storm. I think she needs to be produced better. I think there's a lot of talent there. Her character is great.

She's got a good feel for her character. But she needs to be produced properly. Her direction, she either has a great instinct and is directing herself where she's being directed pretty well. But story-wise, just kind of flat. But as a character, definitely would have my eyes on her. And there are others. I'm going to be leaving people out, I know,

but I'm not here to put over talent. I'm here to break down this show. But that's a great question. And there definitely are people, definitely are people that I would think quality, potentially main event material back in the day. All right, Super Dave. Instagram, a wrestling story. I love this guy.

great take a lot of great input thank you very much follow him on twitter because he does have such a great take uh your thoughts on the elite overshadowing swerve you know and that's a great question it's one of the reasons i love uh instagram a wrestling historian um i didn't i did watch the swerve match on youtube i didn't want to break it down and comment on up because i just don't think i that would be fair to every everybody involved, you guys as viewers here and part of my audience and not fair to AEW. That's a great way to look at the show. But I find it odd that you've got a brand new world heavyweight champion, first black

heavyweight champion, AEW, a talented guy, very accomplished. And not only did he get that championship opportunity late in the game, per my podcast partner Conrad Thompson, his time kind of came and went. It should have been done a long time ago. But he's being positioned horribly. All of the focus is on elite. That's, it's your main event. Paperview.

Well, Bill Das. In terms of A story, it's definitely, it's the A story and the B story. And that does such a disservice to your World Heavyweight Champion. you. I'm really disappointed. I don't know. Swerve. I don't think I've ever met him. If I had, it was very, very briefly. So I'm not, like, advocating for him because of a personal relationship. That's my point. I'm just saying, here's a guy that I think deserve that opportunity. Deserves the opportunity to be a world heavyweight champion, but he is getting, he's, what's that

I'm trying to think of a movie where there's a phrase in a movie I can't think of it I don't want to waste any more time but they're putting baby in the corner there it is dirty dancing they're putting baby in the corner with swerve and only those of you that have ever watched

that movie will get any idea what I'm trying to say here but from the moment moment he won that championship in a big celebrity hey everybody's excited the following week it was like an afterthought you opened up a show in a match that meant absolutely nothing with somebody that probably 90% of the wrestling audience in america has never seen before or heard of yay way to get your talent over tony way to make your title important tony speaking of titles i saw i saw something on who sent it to me Conrad I think it was Conrad sent it to me I'm going to have to

look at it because it's really really appropriate for this here give me a second guys don't leave me I think of some good questions can I find it can I find it can I find it I don't want to take all day I don't want to take all day now I can't find it but put the question back up against Super Dave if you would please sir can't I lost my train of thought, as I often do. All right, never mind. We can move on to the next question. How's that?

Because I definitely lost my train and thought. What do we got, Super Dave? Kevin, LaRose, do you think it's a bad look for AEW to allow the wrestlers' office the Rosa Mark Henry, et cetera, to be on podcast discussing WWE or reviewing WWW shows, PLEs in WrestleMania? No, I don't. Here's my issue, Kevin, one of many issues. The reason I came out almost two and a half, three years ago, and said, Tony, shut up and Russell, quit talking about AEW, quit taking shots at AEW, quit trying to convince the audience that you're a better product than AEW.

Just quit. You're not in the fight. You don't, you're not going head to head. you're not competing for market share. If you're not competing for market share, then why in the world are you creating this division amongst the wrestling audience and basically shitting on WWE fans in the process?

That's not the way to endear yourself to the broader wrestling audience, going back to building an audience. You're alienating 75% of them, 70% of them. Because Tony Kahn, believe it or not, you're such an analytical, statistical kind of math guy. That's your claim to fame, right? Data analyst, something like that. Does it occur to you that you really only have about 30% of the audience that WWE has, maybe 40?

So since you're not, you can't compete for market share and you're not competing for market share, why create the division in the audience? and alienate them and create Tony Con as you have done so effectively, along with your geek buddy Dave Mouser, you've created the tribalism that you're now whining like a bitch about. You created it by taking shots at WWE and constantly trying to convince yourself that you're a better product. Congratulations. You've earned it.

You have a divided audience in a very loud, vociferous one at that. But back to the question, Kevin LaRose asked, do I think it's a bad idea to have them do it? No, I think they should do more of it. I think they should encourage

people who are part of AEW to acknowledge the other brand, to put it over, but at the same time, distinguish it, if you can, from your product. So in other words,

instead of alienating 60 or 70% of the audience who definitely are WWE fans, and by shitting on WWE, you're shitting by default on the fans that watch them and are committed to them. Rather than doing that, just acknowledge them for what they do

and focus on the alternative, if you were truly an alternative, that your product is. Tony would have been able to maintain his goodwill as he would if he encouraged Kevin, or Rosen, discussion of WWE embrace it you're in the same business you are you want the business to be healthier well you should want the business to be healthier you should want the business to grow

and the best way to do that is to put over to the superior product but let the audience know you've got an alternative that you're proud of that's how you create goodwill that's how you get WWE audience or your competitor's audience because you're competing in your own mind. But that's the way the brand, you're the Challenger brand. Well, the way the Challenger brand builds goodwill is not by shitting other people that enjoy the product, but by putting it over or at least acknowledging it without being negative, but more importantly convincing or along the way, convincing your audience that you do indeed actually have an alternative that is.

different than WWE without taking a shit on them. That way you've got all, you've got 100% of the goodwill of the audience as opposed to 30 or 40% of the audience that drinks your Kool-Aid and believes you're bullshit. Simple formula, really.

So I hope that Kevin, I know that probably over-answered your question, but I do thank you for asking it. All right, Super Dave, what do we got? Josh, Matlock, Tony Stry, Storm is one of the best gimmies going, and she's almost always great in her promos. The story with her and Debs isn't good, but Stormer's great on her part. I agree. I agree. And that's why it's not a talent issue. And I don't know, I don't have an opinion

of Serena Deeb's abilities. I don't know how good she is in a mic or not good. She isn't a mic, but guess what? You determine that these challenges exist and you find creative ways to work around them and overcome them. That's where the art comes in. There's no art. There's no creativity in saying, okay, Serena, you're really good in the ring, but since you suck in the mic, we're just going to have you come out and smile like a fucking mannequin. That's not art. There's no creative talent in that. There's no attempt to camouflage a weakness. It's just go out and smile. Like, that's going to do anything. Like, people at home are going to go, Oh, honey, come here.

You don't want to watch this. Serena Deeb, Serena, she's standing on the ring. Check this. Come here, hon. Come here, come here. I know. Put down the tequila. Come on over here and watch this with me.

Okay, babe. Check this out. See, Serena? See her? She's up on the stage? Are you kidding me? This is going to be great. I can't, I can't wait for this paper.

You're going to watch it with me? Yes, I'll bring tequila. All right. Check it out. Here she comes. she's still she's still smiling all right fuck it go have a cocktail yeah yeah what are we doing here but i agree tony storm i love her i love i love what mike i'm assuming it's a mike mansouri have a ton of respect for mike mcatsur he's a director in the truck one of the more creative guys i've ever been

around didn't get a chance to work with him as much as i wished i would have but clearly clearly understands and gets it. It's probably swimming upstream, I'm guessing, based on everything else that I've seen and heard, for people that are there, but nonetheless, I see a little Mike Mansoury

in this character in the way it's presented, and he's doing a great job, and so is Tony Storm. Definitely agree. All right, what else we got? Wise guy, hook is okay, but tries to be a bad ass, ask too much, too too much.

It's like the dumb gimmick done seriously. Nobody is scared of a 23-year-old. I get what you're saying. He's young. He's learning. He's learning in an environment that's going to be tough to make progress in just because of the nature of what's going on there. I think when young talent, regardless of how much potential they have,

tries too hard because they're not given proper direction or they're being produced in a way that allows the talent to expose their own weaknesses, that's where the art comes in. That's where the experience comes in. and I agree with you on this particular promo. I have seen other promos, one in particular that Hook did with Samoa Joe months ago that I thought was fucking awesome.

And I immediately went to Twix and put it over like a mucker father because it was that good. But in that particular promo, Hook was very understated his character got over with me at least because you could feel that there was something burning and building inside of Hook and he was trying his best to suppress it that created a sense of inner turmoil and tension and he did it so well that I was convinced that this guy's

going to be in a rocket ship real soon because that's a hard. hard thing to achieve. If you're not an experienced actor or a professional wrestler that's had the privilege and the opportunity to be directed by someone that has a really good feel to how to make a promo feel believable, and there aren't many people out there that know how to do it or willing to teach it. It's the best way to say it. But I saw that in Hook's promo with Samoa Joe a while back. What I saw on this one, on this particular promo, and why I agree with you is because whoever was producing

book in this promo allowed him to try too hard. He was pushing his character too hard so that it passed the believability threshold and just got into awkward. had Dax or the producer or the director that was directing him at the time brought him back to a little bit more of that understated, dangerous, edgy, brooding character that I saw with Samoa Joe. That would have worked.

But instead, he overplayed his opportunity, probably went a little too far, and exposed himself for his lack of experience in the process. Notice that I didn't say lack of potential. There's a difference. I think Hook has a tremendous amount of potential. He's a very unique character. He's different than a lot of other characters.

Does he have the size? No. Does it matter? Not really. If you've got a great character and you're being directed and produced properly and you're learning properly, you could take advantage of the fact that, I don't know, Ray Mysterio.

There was a lot of other things that got Ray Mysterio over, But being the underdog is not a bad thing in professional wrestling. And learning how to build upon that is a fucking awesome thing. All right. Next question. Josh, Matlock, Mercedes, taking her first bump was great. I agree. And there was some good lines, but a lot of the promos were just repeats of what's

already been said over and over and over again. The bump was cool. I agree. It's pretty much what I was, I guess, trying to say or maybe came close to saying. the finish was good. It was well executed. Seeing her take that bump was important. But the dialogue,

fuck. Again, not the talents fault. The way that promo was constructed, whether it was by my good friend, Jen Pepperman, who is a writer in AEW, from my understanding, I don't know that it's accurate or not. Mercedes actually made sure she brought Jen Pepperman from the WWE over to AEW

because Jen and Mercedes worked together in WWE and before had a good relationship. At least that's my understanding. I'm not testifying to a fact. I'm just telling you what I've been led to believe, and it kind of makes sense. You've got at some point to recognize that less is more with someone who isn't really very good with a mic in her hand, and that is Mercedes not very good. Maybe she's got some potential. Maybe she'll get there.

But there's a reason you didn't see a lot of promos out of her in WWE. Yet she got over like a mugger father, right? Because they protected her from herself. That's what your ultimately Tony Kahn's job is if he's really, truly the head of creative beyond just the title. In many cases, it's in the movie business, television business, your director, really has the final say, well, actually the network or the studio has the final say, but up until that point, your director, if it's a movie or television show, calls the shots. In some cases, television, it can be an executive producer when the titles actually mean

something, and they're not just a vanity title, which happens to be the case all the times in movies and television shows. But somebody should acknowledge that this young lady, as talented as she is, and so many other areas, just isn't very talented when it comes to narrative and protect her. Don't allow her to overexpose herself. Don't give her the creative control, whether it's contractual or implied and inferred. Don't allow her to demand more dialogue because either she thinks she's good at it or because she thinks it will make her, it'll get her more over.

she's her own worst enemy if she believes that the more she talks the better she's the better off she is because it's exactly the opposite so we all man same page you and me josh same freaking page this is fun i hope you guys are enjoying it as much as i am because i'm actually having a blast and i appreciate you guys being with us mark k look at mark all dapper in his suit i like that I'm going to be wearing my WWE suits. Let me ask, I'm going to get to the question. I'll tell you about this. Stone Cold's injury began in June 96, two years later.

He's champ. Hell yeah, chance during the journey. Does the same apply to swerve? Thanks, Eric. I don't know, man, we'll watch. I haven't watched enough of, I've seen clips of swerve. I saw clips of his first match in AW after winning the championship. So I've seen clips and highlights and matches, but I haven't watched enough yet.

to get a feel for whether the audience is really behind Swerve at this point or not. Based on what I saw today on YouTube, the highlight reel from last night's show, he's got a long way to go. And it's not his fault. Absolutely not his fault. Right now, in my opinion, intentionally or not,

and I believe it's not, swerver is being set up to fail. And that's a damn shame. It's a damn shame for the belt in terms of creating very, value in making something feel important, they're diminishing the belt, the championship, one of the highest stakes, presumably in the company,

by making his matches an afterthought and making him the C story as opposed to the A and B story, because that is exactly what's happening. The way the shows are being formatted, the lack of story and buildup going into his matches, the fact that he's being placed in the middle, of a show instead of in the main event position all are subtle sometimes almost invisible signals to the audience that this don't mean shit something else does but this is just we're gonna

we're gonna check the box folks but that's it and that's really doing swerve and the championship of a real disservice in my humble okay it's not humble fuck it in my opinion there you go thanks for the question no mark appreciate it very much okay we have time for a couple more I should ask before we go on super Dave how many more super chats do we have we have about four more super chats and then we have questions from our live audience all right we're gonna get to let's get to the four super chats and then we'll jump in and get to the live audience gotcha and on deck we have I'm gonna leave you know

Ilya, Sandman? That's a cool name. I wish I could pronounce it. I'm sorry. Hi, Eric, what's stopping Tony Con from hiring a couple good writers to support these rematch? To support these rematches and provide good backstory. So, no, in-ring action, just stories. No, no, no, don't give me wrong.

Perhaps I'm not interpreting your question wrong or reading your question right. I should say. First of all, what's stopping? Tony Con from hiring good writers. I mean, Jen Pepperman, as I referenced, is a, I worked with her for a brief period of time in WWE. She's won Emmys in daytime television, which are soap operas, which are what?

Nothing more than female wrestling. Not females wrestling, but if wrestling is a male soap opera, soap operas are a female soap opera. In the end of the day, the thing that they most have in common is they're both episodic storytelling formats. that's how they grow and survive.

Jen is one of the best at it, and she's in AEW. They didn't even have to hire anybody. You just have to give somebody enough latitude to do what they're good at doing and not getting their way with silly-ass freaking dream matches popping up out of the ground every five minutes or letting the rest of the talent on a show

decide for themselves what their stories are and what they'll do and what they want to, because if you don't know that that's going on or you don't believe it's going on, it's because you're not talking to anybody that's willing to tell you the truth who's really there. I have. I do. And there is a strong element from someone who is guilty of it himself, who was guilty of it himself, of letting the students run the class. It's the best way I can say it.

So nothing stopping them at all. It would help dramatically. I don't think there's a better example. Sandman, I'm going to cut your name and half, Sam, man. You know, you look at WWE, you look at the formula in WWE, arguably what's working. They're shattering records everywhere they go. They're breaking new ground everywhere they go. Their audience is growing, not just their television audience, but their global audience is growing.

They're creating more business-to-business opportunities in the wrestling industry. than has ever existed before and it's based on a formula of telling great stories with great characters not fucking dream matches with no history no backstory no discipline to the storytelling just throwing stuff up against a wall justifying it with angles or referring to shit that doesn't matter as backstory i agree with you 100 if you're calling for more disciplined storytelling thank you i appreciate that i'm sorry for butchering your name brother i really am patrick white has become a youtube member yeah everybody get patrick a big round of applause welcome to the family and by the way i i try to post exclusive commentary to our videos to our our members

that only they get to see it's on youtube you'll get notified if you've hit your notification you'll know about it. And right now, for the last few days, I've been documenting my five-day water fast, and it's going great. But I go into great detail. I talk about things like autophagy and ketosis and states of euphoria. All of those things. I talk about exclusively to our YouTube members. Now, I'm only going to be doing that two more times. I'm going to talk about it later today. I'll give everybody an update. And tomorrow, which is the last day of my fast. Yay, I can't fucking wait.

But, yeah, being a YouTube member here at 83 weeks, you get some shit you don't expect. And I will be talking about more things wrestling related in that exclusive member commentary in videos, all kinds of fun stuff happening there. There's a rumor, I don't know, it's just a rumor, at this point that there may be, we'll call it a semi-daily news update.

that occurs every single morning, well, not every single morning, almost every single morning, but a morning news update during the week talking about the news that developed late in the day or the night before, along with some other non-wrestling stuff mixed in just to keep it fun and interesting.

Wacky shit. Wacky shit. A lot of wacky shit going on. Have you seen some of Dave Meltzer's post lately? The motherfucker's off the rails. he's losing the shit the wheels are wobbling they haven't fallen off yet completely but they're wobble like a mark of father there's people calling them out on his bullshit oh my god i'm going to talk about that more tomorrow on 83 weeks as well as by the way i haven't touched on ratings because well the ratings aren't out yet for last night show and i think last night show and my show here today um when the ratings come out for last night show

we're going to get a pretty good indication whether my analysis and breakdown of the show is accurate or if I'm completely off the mark. I'm not normally in the mood to give predictions, mostly because I get bored with it because when I predict something, I am right over 98% of the time.

Now, that's where I'm at right now. I think I'm at like 98.2.25. Normally I hover around that 93 in change percent category in terms of my predictions being right on the money like for example i i predicted that endeavor would end up being in the hunt for wwe back before anybody mentioned endeavor i called that shit it's a fact called it called it and when it finally happened it was like ooh that was interesting but i'm usually right about things and that's why i get bored with predicting things because i'm right so often that it doesn't really

challenge me. But I'm going to make an exception for you people. For you, I'm going to make an exception here and suggest that even with the overrun, overrun. I forgot to talk about that during the breakdown. I'm going to talk about it in a minute. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the average rating for the show, I'm going to call it 700.000. I'm going to call it 700. hundred thousand could be a little more could be a little less I know I predicted months ago the WWE would be below 700 before May 15th I've already been right once I called it for anybody else did I called it months weeks before it happened I gave a deadline May 15th I called it below 700,000 and bam sure enough it happened because I'm right as

rain. This is what it is. But I'm going to throw out the number, $700,000. I'm also going to suggest that Dax's match with Okada was boring enough. It wasn't able to hold the audience. That it probably did less than

20% of the first segment. What does that matter? It matters because that's what the show is built around. It's your A story and your B story, as I talked about earlier. Maybe one of these days soon, very fucking soon. I'm going to sit down for an hour and we're going to talk about A, B, C, and D stories and how they're important and how to construct them over a three-month arc. I may be even a, I may, I may get my hands on a show Bible, a show Bible that breaks down the story arcs for all of the ABC and D story talent over the

course of three months for a major television network. Because I think I still have it. And I'll probably get sued or something like that for divulging it because I don't know if I should or not or could or not or can or not. But fucking, I'm going to do it anyway. because it will really help people understand what I'm talking about when I say A stories, B stories, D stories, or what a story arc really is. What does that mean story arc?

What is an arc? And how does it apply to professional wrestling? These are all things that should be discussed. Nobody else is doing it. So it's incumbent upon me to enlighten you, the most enlightened audience I know of, when it comes to professional wrestling, so that you could help enlighten you. me. I love that symbiotic kind of a relationship where everybody wins. It's awesome. All right. Let's get to, let's wrap them up. So I'm boring people to death. Now I'm not.

You people love this shit, don't you? Tyler Dunn. Do you think booking Roman similar to Sting and the NW takeover, completely changing his character with the bloodline taking over would be a wise choice? Thank you for using wise choice. Or let Roman continue to be himself. It's an option. It's one that I would certainly think about, but given the depth of potential in the bloodline storyline, because of the new people that are coming into it and the direction that it's taking, ever since the Hatfield's in McCoy's, fucking inner family turmoil and conflict makes great entertainment. So there's a, there's a, plethora.

When was the last time you heard anybody use plethora in a podcast or YouTube show? I beg to know. Please let me know if you do. But I think there's so much potential in Bloodline that I don't think it's a necessity. You know, the Sting storyline necessitated a change from what the character that Sting was pre-NWO to what it became as the crow. The story actually defined. the character, because Sting was betrayed.

He felt betrayed by people who are closest to him, which was the catalyst, the inciting incident, if you will, DeVe. The inciting incident to morph Sting from the previously bright and shiny object, high-energy object character, you know what I mean, to this brooding, scary, almost morrow. dangerous brooding character it was it was that character was defined by the story in the betrayal by his friends Lex Lugar Steiner brothers everybody doubting Sting

well if you're Steve Borton if you're staying I'm sorry if you're staying it's like you might you people know me how could you even think or suggest that I could be guilty of the dastardly deed that I'm being accused of of doing that's what I mean by betrayal. That was the premise, if you will, of that story and that evolution of that character. Do I think that Roman needs that? I don't think so, because again, there's so much potential in the existing story. But it could be an interesting device to help accelerate that story or create more interest in it. But we're just going to have to wait to see how it plays out. But it's an option. It's so much fun. Thank you guys. I mean that. I really have

fun doing this it's kind of cool i'll be 69 years old at the end of this month i'm in better shape now than i was when i was 40 i'm having a fucking blast life is good folks in no small part due to you guys and a great team of people that i get to work with doing this and the podcast and everything else i do so thank you all very much demons row still stoked that I can message O.G. Eric, what do you think about Damien Priest? I like him a lot and I don't like how he's being booked. Do you think he'll be a star? I see, I'm with you, man. I see something there. I can't honestly say I've watched him closely enough to determine whether he's being held back or used him properly. I don't like to use that term used him properly. But usually it comes

down to writing and scripting or excuse me writing and vision tactics and strategy in a way but uh i agree that i see a lot of potential i can't honestly comment on whether or not he's being written for or booked i can use him the term to book properly but i'll pay more attention because i do see a lot of potential in that character but thank you very much mr row I don't want to call you a demon. Jana. Yana or Jana or Jana. Either way.

I'm thrilled to death through here. You know, this is such a testicle festival. Every time I do something on social media or live podcasts or even over at ad-free shows. And we do have some hot women over there, some great women over there, some loyal fans over there. I'm going to name names because I don't want them. But for the most part, we're about 98% male audience, 25 to 49. Proud to have, advertisers love them, which is why my life is so good right now. But if you keep up a T&A, what's your favorite thing about the product?

Currently, any storyline you're into would like to hear more of your TNA opinions going forward because I value your thoughts. And because I value you, Jana, John, John. Yana, Yanna. Because I value you, I am going to specifically put it on my calendar. I actually have a calendar now. I actually have someone, Evan Polisher, over to have free shows, who is managing my calendar so that I get the most out of every single day. Because I suck at that. I am the most unorganized person you'll ever meet in your life. I get distracted by bright, shiny objects that you people, wouldn't even begin to recognize. And I end up not getting the most out of every day. But I've changed that. I'm going to ask Evan Polisher to make sure that I put it on my calendar

to watch and review next week's TNA show. So then I can not only give you an opinion because you were so kind to give us a super chat, I'm going to dig in and give you a real effort in analyzing that. show. And I'll do a better job of answering that question next week, but I'm only doing it because you ask the question. So thank you very much. All right. We should be getting close here. Jason Sikosky, Sikoski, has become a YouTube member. And I am so grateful, but I mean that. I really am

grateful. Nothing gets me more excited. I know this is going to sound like I don't have a life, but clearly I do have a life. I've got an amazing wife that I've been married to. I've been with for over 42 years. She's hot. I mean, she's gorgeous. And she's got a great personality. And she spends her time giving to others. An amazing woman. I have two amazing children that I'm so proud of. My daughter is vice president of development in a major television production studio. in Los Angeles. My son is a very successful salesman in construction materials that are sold to people to build apartments and hotels and massive commercial buildings. He also donates a tremendous amount of his time to an organization called Baca, Bikers Against Child

Abuse. I'm going to talk a lot about that here because it's a long conversation, but my point is I have two amazingly successful, healthy children who are great human beings. And that's what I'm most proud of. I don't know how I got on the subject, but I did. But thank you. Thank you very much because it's you and the family of people that are members here and over at Abfrey shows and the people that just watch my stuff, that really bring a lot of joy to my life.

So to be at 69 years old, to be healthier than I was when I was 40, to an amazingly attractive wife that I've been together with as long as I have, 42 years, experiences that we've shared together, both in or as a result of the wrestling business and just in life in general. The fact that, you know, I've got a fairly substantial net worth, not bragging, just is what it is. I'm having fun doing this. I've got a great life, and you guys are a big part of that. So thank you very much.

All right. What else we got? Sian Scholar Sane Scholar I hate it when I don't get names right because it's kind of insulting and I don't mean it to be Love your show What's your favorite film and TV show

Oh favorite film is so much There's so many that I've loved over the years Television I'm a little I don't go to movies a lot But I'm really fascinated with the quality Of television that you can get now on streaming platforms. Note, current note, there's a new series.

I think it's on Apple. It's called Sugar with Colin Farrell. Fucking awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. The writing, the direction, the editing is phenomenal. I'm seeing new editing techniques that I've never seen before. Advancing story. different ways of doing it.

And it's just fascinating. Highly encourage you to check out. I'm pretty sure it's on Apple. Sugar with Colin Farrell. You could thank me later. My favorite movie, if I had to pick one, I would say it's the movie that I've watched the most over the years, going back and watched and rewashed and washed and washed.

Tombstone. Bell Kilmer. awesome movie I love westerns that's just an awesome one it's my go-to me and Garrett when Garrett's little kid we used to watch it together

we still watch it together he's 40 years old and we still watch Tombstone anytime we're together kind of like a Christmas movie for us all right

a couple more and then we're going to wrap it up that's it for all our questions oh I just saw dynamite radio. I'm not going to talk about it here. I'm going to save it. All I can say right now is tune in to 83 weeks tomorrow because we're going to have the results of some of the polls that we've talked about here. And we're going to talk about the ratings. I'm going to leave you with this. First of all, I'm going to answer Mindy Elam's question because it's a super chat. I don't want to leave anybody hanging. It is. Hi, Eric. So what? So what? So,

would like your, oh, so I would like your opinion on do you feel as if AEW is trying to mesh NWO and evil boss Vince personally, I feel like they're trying way too hard. I think, yeah, it's not working. Part of it is casting. I mean, it's, look, the parallels to the NW story are pretty obvious given what happened with Tony Con, but it's so weak. It's so sad. It's so weak. Now, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery not so much in this case anyway as far as leaving you here's i'm going to leave you with one thing to look forward to in tomorrow's 83 weeks and our discussion with ratings oh my god so long everybody thanks for joining see you tomorrow in 83 weeks