83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Wise Choices: Ask Eric Anything

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

On this edition of Wise Choices, Eric is back from a quick family trip and is catching up on all your burning questions. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at https://www.manscaped.com/ 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

Well, hello, everybody. It is so good to be back in the bunkhouse slash treehouse. I always joke that it looks like a tree house because it kind of does. But it's actually a guest house or bunk house, we used to call it, when we had a ton of visitors here. And it's so good to be back in my own environment, surrounded by wood pictures. And of course, all of you. Thanks for joining here.

I'm going to switch over to see if I can get some of these comments. I'm with Super Dave and Aunt Evans. Aunt Evans is my Sherpa Geisman along this mountain, this mountain climb I'm trying to take here at YouTube. So always appreciate Ant's guidance and his knowledge. And Super Dave is here to clean up all of my messes because fuck, you know how that goes, right? Super Day, we're going to kick this up by answering some questions that we didn't get to

in a couple of our other wise choices. So let's kick this thing off. David Hernandez, have you played the AEW video game? And are you aware of the controversy surrounding the game, particularly the complaints about the cost of downloadable new characters? David, thank you very much for that question. Sorry for the delayed answer. But I'm kind of peripherally, that's a tough word for me this early in the morning, David.

I'm kind of aware of it. I have friends that are in the video game industry as developers and publishers, and that's a small world. They all know what's going on with other people's projects and things like that. So, you know, I've heard just passing comments in things that indicate to me that it's been a pretty dismal failure from what I heard. Don't know if it's true. My name is not Dave Meltzer. I'm telling you right now, this is thirdhand information that has not been verified. but what I have heard from people in the industry

that the game went dramatically over budget like dramatically and that it just didn't do that well on the initial downloads but I don't know much about it beyond that so I refrain from commenting about things that I don't know anything about and am clear when I'm passing along unsubstantiated

rumors because that's what that is. It's a fucking rumor. All right. Who's next? F-T-3. That's cool. F-T-3. I like that. It's got a ring to it. Eric, do you think with Raw moving to Netflix will likely get a show similar to Formula One, Drive to Survive, following different WWE talent throughout the year. It seems like a logical move. First of all, it's a cool idea. I think any additional content or any additional platforms that allow the viewer to get to know the talent without ruining their character. And that's the tricky part. I did a seminar for Ken Anderson in Minneapolis this past week while I was there. And I talked about how to get your character over, more specifically, the importance of structuring promos and making sure that you have a beginning in a moment.

middle and an end and where to emphasize the things that are important in your promo and all that kind of stuff. But one of the questions that came up in that seminar from one of the students was, what about social media? Do you think social media is making it harder now for individual talents to get their characters over? Or do you think it's easier? And I think the answer is both. Potentially, I think social media or any other form or platform like you're talking about here is a great thing if it gives you a little bit more, if you can relate to a specific talent more because of something you've learned, all right? But much like social media, you've got to be aware that you're still promoting a character here. So you've got to keep a little bit of that character

alive. Otherwise, you know, you've got, for example, people in social media, they're nothing but, you know, they're trying to be baby faces and they tell you about rescuing puppies and walking old ladies across the street and virtue signaling and, you know, all the other things that people think they're going to give them likes and follows. And then they're portraying this evil desperately heal on television in wrestling. Actors and actresses could get away with that in Hollywood because everybody knows that these are not real people, that they're actors and actresses. But in wrestling, even though it shouldn't be this way, the fact that the audience has been conditioned for so long to believe that the characters that they see on TV are close

to the characters that they are walking around in real life. And you don't want to pop that bubble. You don't want to disconnect a fan base from a character by revealing too much of what that individual is really like that conflicts with the character that they're trying to portray, whether it's in social media or a show like this. But if it can be done and it can be done, I think it's a great way to. to, again, connect with the audience and make the audience care about somebody.

Great question, though. I love that. So I like doing questions right off the back because it gets me in a flow. Okay, what do we got? Brian Richardson, love the show. I love that you love the show, Brian. Thank you very much. What are the chances Cody is better in the chase

than as champion? Another great question. I often say that those who listen to the podcast, 83 weeks or following me here on wise choices or anything else that I do tend to be the most enlightened group of wrestling fans out there. They have an understanding of the industry beyond what they read in the dirt sheet and the absolutely silly shit that exists in social media. But it's a great question. And the honest answer is I'm not sure yet. The one thing, And I noted this a couple of weeks ago, Cody Rhodes is as close to that traditional ultra baby face character that we've seen in a long time, probably since John Cena.

And maybe in some ways, even more so than John Cena, because John Cena, obviously, through various times throughout his career, of course, he was like the, you know, he had that rapper kind of gimmick. going on. And it was good. And it worked. And it was timely. But that didn't really feel like the real John Cena, at least not to me, partially because I know John. And it worked with it. But with Cody Rhodes, what do you see in the ring is not far from the real guy. And I think when you have that pure as the driven snow baby face that Cody's representing right now, there is a chance. that some people will tire of it and that character will need to get an edge because if you look across the landscape of television movie, TV characters, especially in wrestling, it's, they like that baby face, but with that fine line where they could cross that line and get pretty

vicious. So far I haven't seen a lot of that out of Cody. So far I haven't seen any fatigue in the audience because they're just getting a little bit tired of the pure baby face but we'll see time will tell one thing i do know is that cody's a very very smart guy and he's surrounded by a lot of really smart people that can kind of see and sense that happening maybe before the audience in general does and hopefully if that's the case they'll make some very subtle shifts in the way he's being presented and voila we may have a new version of cody roads or not we'll see that american nightmare thing could work in a lot of different ways, couldn't it? Great question.

Love you guys. Appreciate it, Brian. What else we got? James Martin. Hey, Eric, the episode of SmackDown where you reveal yourself at Billy and Chuck's wedding was one of my favorite moments in progress. Thank you. One of mine, too, brother.

You know, I think if I think, really, if I think back to the, in terms of what I've done on camera, there's two things that really stand out of my mind. One is Chuck and Billy Wedding, where I was the minister, and the other was working with Stone Cold, Steve Austin. in a match at No Way Out in Montreal. Those are the two things. When I think about highlights for me personally, those are the two that jump out of me, most of all.

Great question, James. Love you for sending it, brother. Thank you. And Joshua Crampton wants to know, if TK offers Eric an EP Booker position, would he take it? No, I would. And look, it's got really nothing to do with how I feel about AEW or Tony Khan.

It's really not that. It's more about where I'm at in my life right now. and every day that goes by, I'm appreciating my freedom, my flexibility, and more importantly, my ability to live where I want to live and do what I want to do on my own schedule. So committing to anybody, whether it be Tony or AEW or anybody or WWE or TNA or anybody else that would happen to call or anybody outside of wrestling that would happen to call that would offer a position that would be as intense as an executive producer or I hate to use

term booker it's dated but you know what i mean booker um either of those opportunities would require a huge investment of my time in emotion and i'm just not at a place and probably travel and i'm just not in a place anymore where that's interesting to me it's really not i you know could i make a lot more money sure but i don't care i'm i love the life i have right now and I don't see any opportunity really enticing me to change that. But great question. I appreciate it, brother. Little Jimmy Sorensen, one of my favorites.

Jimmy Sorensen, one of the coolest guys around. I dig you, Jimmy. Big part of the ad for you shows, family, shows up at a lot of our events. Always good to see Jimmy Sorrensen. Eric, have you thought about doing a sit-down live chat with Sunny? Oh, no. I do that every time I talk to Sunny. We sit down and mostly, Sonny, I listen.

I'm just kidding you, Sonny. Yeah, who knows? Maybe sometime that'll happen. Sonny and I go way back like 1975 or six is when we first met each other. So, you know, we've got a lot of history, some fun stories to tell. But who knows? That may happen. Thanks, Jimmy.

Appreciate it to your brother. Mike Browning says, I want AEW to do well because I think it's healthy for the ethos. Remember what I said? Enlightened ethos. It's the first time anybody's asked me a question on a wrestling platform and used the word ethos, either in an answer or a question. So Mike Browning score big points with me right now. I want AEW to do well.

I think it's healthy for the ethos to have more than one player, but I don't like them. Not even a little bit. Simple care, brother. Not being a smart ass. Don't watch them. That's all. I think for me, look, I'm pretty hard on AEW because most of the time they deserve it. But my passion about pointing out the flaws, the mistakes, the errors, and I've been doing it now for over two years.

And all of the things that I predicted were going to happen because of my issues two years ago, two and a half years ago, are no coming to fruition. And I don't say that. And Ed Evans just reminded me of this a little bit before the call. I'm not saying that because I know every fucking thing in the world about how to run a wrestling company or produce a television show. I just know a lot of shit because I learned the hard way. And for me, when I see people doing the same things, particularly when they repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again,

while they have this amazing opportunity, which being on Turner Broadcasting is and having the funding to pursue this thing called AEW is a massive opportunity that hardly anybody will ever get in again in the future. And to see that opportunity kind of circling the drain mostly because of making the same mistakes, not only making the same mistakes that I made, which anybody paying attention should be able to learn from pretty easily, but inventing new ones. And that's not to say, Mike, that everybody's going to make a mistake.

Everybody, that mistake isn't even the right answer, even right comment. Nobody in the world of creating anything is going to be on the money 100% of the time. It is not. great writers, directors, producers, feature films, shit the bet on a regular basis. Now, you don't hear a lot about those failures because they usually pull them out of the theaters or take them off TV pretty quickly.

But, man, you can't be in a creative business without creating something that you wish you wouldn't of at some point in time. But again, the answer is not to just keep throwing things up against the wall, but the answer is to ask yourself the question, why didn't it work? What was it I could have done differently that could have made an idea or a story, a program, or character? What could I have done differently to make it work? As opposed to just go, if I could, it didn't work, let's go on and throw some more shit up

against the wall without doing any real analysis or understanding the audience and why they're reacting or not reacting the way they are or in some cases aren't. There you go, Mike. Thanks for the question. I appreciate it, brother. Hey, they're all you beach babes. Are you watching along right now? I'm wondering, where is Eric Bischoff? We're a man-scape t-shirt? Is it simply because he loves to support the sponsors that he works with? No, no, no, you'd be wrong about that.

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RussellBiz at Manscaped.com. That's 20% off. plus free shipping with the code Russellbiz at Manscape.com. The summer sun is here today, so trust Manscape. It's a little late, but hopefully it answered your question. PURP, Dyrwitch, perp, wait a minute, I see hair, purple hair, it's a nickname. Otherwise, I was going to be going, wait a minute, where did that name come from? I was going to invite you for a baked dinner while you were in Australia, Eric,

but didn't think you'd want to drive six hours. While you were right on the money with that one, Perp, that was a fast turnaround. About 25 hours of travel to get there, about 15 hours back, I was only there for a couple days. Between the jet lag and my schedule, I wouldn't have been able to go anywhere. But I appreciate the thought, sometimes the thought in reality. It's just as valuable as actually going out to dinner. But I appreciate that.

Who else do we have? AEW, this is from Swazi. AEW has the more intriguing top star. Cool. MJF will be a star and taking AEW to a whole new level. Cody is stale and an early 90s face knockoff. Well, that's kind of what we were just talking about, isn't it? Cody is that pure 90s baby face.

that Hogan used to be in the 80s, to agree, early 90s. And we'll see, we'll see if the audience gets tired of that or not. I agree with you on MJF. I agree with parts of it. I don't think MJF is going to take AEW to a whole new level because it's not a talent-driven issue. It's a creative-driven issue. I think you could drop Undertaker into the center of the ring

from a helicopter, have him repelled down like Sting did, right, put him in the center of the ring and start a program with him in AEW, and if Tony Khan is booking it, it's just not going to matter. It's not a talent-driven issue. It's bigger than that. And it's not even about just the writing. It's about the vision, the strategy, the tactics that support the writing or the writing that supports the strategy and the tactics and strategy and tactics to grow an audience. That's the real issue.

It's not talent-driven. But I do agree that MJF is probably one of the most exciting new talents in either company right now. No question about it. I agree with you there. Thanks, Wazi. Appreciate you very much, my man. Get to a couple more. Trigger cheese.

I love these names. Trigger cheese. like to know where that came from you and christie always had great chemistry christie olson used to do a show called after 83 weeks a youtube show and that was fun to do i really i really did enjoy doing it but it was just again kind of a scheduling conflict and all that uh do you think there's a chance you'll work on something again down the road love all your shows keep it up absolutely i i think a lot of christie she's really i think a underappreciated talent and has got a lot going for her she loves wrestling she follows it closely she knows what she's talking about so absolutely i hope

in fact i've recommended christie to a few people that i know that are in the television business that we're looking for somebody to fill a role like christie could fill so i think the world of her and yes we'll probably do something down the road i just don't know when or where but you can you can pretty much bank on that she's a cool chick is cool chick okay to say am i going to get like me too for saying cool chick super dave what do you think no no i think i think i think you've earned the ability to call somebody a cool chick well and maybe because i'm older and it's just kind of goes along with the era and the culture that i grew up in i don't know yeah like if you drop groovy right

now that was your time period right you said groovy no no i didn't like groovy it got over it was one of those words and there's a lot of words like that it pisses me the fuck off it's one of the reason i get so riled up when i'm on social media you know you can you can see the pattern of certain individuals that latch on to certain words because it makes them sound smarter or more evolved than they really are you know and like Like, this one's more of a phrase and a word, but bad faith. Yeah. Like when douchebags on the internet start using bad faith as part of their argument,

they just take their duchdom to an entirely different level. Because you know they don't really know what they're talking about, but they use words that they see or they pick up in conversation with other people and they adapt it because it impresses them. I don't fucking do that. like every time i see melzer used the term bad you know the one thing you'll notice tony con and dame milzer used bad faith all the time more than just about anybody in the wrestling business that i understand or see and then you you read some of their followers and of course

they're all throwing it around like they know what the fuck they're talking about it's just funny and groovy was one of those words even when i was young it's like oh everybody's trying hard to be cool so everybody's throwing groovy into whatever sentence they could throw into to make them, to get themselves over. Fucking hate that. I never used the word groovy. Even when everybody else was using it, like the fucking monkeys.

Remember the band? No, you don't remember. Of course I remember the monkeys. I didn't think you were that old. I'm not that old, but I do, Nicolode and Nick at night used to always show the monkeys when I was younger.

That's where I got. I watched them develop, man. I went to a monkey concert once. Get the hell out of here. They had monkeys concerts. That's awesome. That's very cool. And my little.

Peter Dorr, Mickey Dolenz. Hey, I actually met, Wollins. I met Nikki Dolans in a bar over in Burbank, California. I think it's called Casamigo, was the name of the bar. It was kind of a famous, and it wasn't like a fancy restaurant. It was a Mexican restaurant slash bar. But it was really close to Universal Studios in Burbank. And I used to have an office right there on the Universal Lot.

And after work, Jason and I would always go over to Casamigo on the way home. Well, so did a lot of people in the entertainment business. So you'd occasionally not all the time. But like on a Friday, Thursday Friday, you'd go in there and you'd see somebody from the entertainment industry. Some of them big stars, some of them not. A lot of writers, directors, producers, kind of behind the scenes types would hang out there. But one night, Jason and I were in there and I'm pounding nacho chips and probably had a couple beers. and I look over to my left.

And there's Mickey Dolan's. How about that? Was he sitting alone? No, he was talking to somebody. I was going to interrupt him. You know, I didn't want to be that guy because he was, you know, he's probably talking business because that's what most people did at the bar. Bars and restaurants in Burbank and Hollywood at the time.

And I didn't want to be that guy. But I was, honestly, I wanted to be that guy. I just disciplined myself. Mickey was a good one of the bunch of money. David Jones, Peter, Peter Tor. Peter Torque was the cool one. Mickey Dolan's was a drummer. I'm a believer if I tried.

And I'm a believer. Oh, it was a great song. Perfect. But they, yeah, yeah, that was like when groovy first started coming out. I didn't even use it that. And I was a nerdyest little fucking 12-year-old kids you'd ever want to meet. So if anybody really deep down the side wanted to be cool, it was me. But even then, I had the better judgment, not to.

to try to be too cool because it just didn't fit. I love it. So you what I mean about just as you want to do a YouTube show? All you got to do is get people to ask you fun questions and the show fucking writes itself. We're 22 minutes in and we're having a blast. We're having a blast. And I've got to bail a little bit early today

because I've got an interview to do with Ant, by the way. And I want to prep for that. But let's keep going. We've got a bunch. Well, let's keep going. This is fun. Jackie Sangria. Cool name, bro.

I like it a lot. Eric, have you ever considered, there are many fans of yours that have never even watched WCW, but we're first introduced to you as the evil raw GM. The best raw GM of all time, I might add, although Adam Pierce is great. It happens all the time, brother.

Jackie Sangria, it happens all the time And when I go to, especially if I go to an autograph signing or a convention of some sort, I'm meeting people, you know, chatting and all that, you know, I'll see somebody that's, you know, 12, 14 years old. Oh, man, I love you in Nitro. Go, wait a minute. Come on now. Your parents probably weren't even illegal when I was on Nitro.

So what do you mean? You love my character on Nitro. Well, they get it on Peacock. Or I get people all the time more specifically, Jackie Sangria, that, yeah. Oh, man, that era when you were the raw GM, I really didn't know anything about WCW, but oh, that was so great. So that happens all the time. I think between Peacock, the streaming platform, and all of the nitros that exist there,

plus, you know, the couple of years that I spend as the Raw GM, there's an entire population of fans that remember me from Raw, but have no idea what I did in Nitro unless they're watching on the Peacock platform. So, yeah, it happens all the time. And I'm grateful for it. So there was a lot of other people in my category. Let me tell you, all of us who go around and are doing conventions and seeing people and doing autograph signings,

every one of us, whether we say it or not, are grateful to WWE and Peacock. Because it keeps us alive, man. And it keeps the nostalgia alive. It keeps the interest in the 80s in some cases or the 90s. It keeps all that stuff alive. And I think that's kind of cool. What else? UK Goley Network.

Okay. How about a two-week transfer window with a trade deadline instead, including all three shows, so you could get some call-ups as well, perhaps two weeks after Mania. See, this is taking us back to the conversation we had a week or two ago about, maybe the draft, as we've seen it now for the last couple of years, Maybe it's just kind of a, it was a good concept initially. It had a purpose initially, but I think it's just kind of gone flat. You know, it's like an ice cold beer.

When you take it out of the refrigerator, you take that first sip of that beer, you're thirsty, you've been out mowing the lawn or throwing a frisbee or doing whatever. It's hot outside. You come in, and the first thing you do is reach your refrigerator, and you grab an ice cold beer and you, you pop that, top off that beer and you take that first couple chugs and it's ice cold and those bubbles are doing their thing. They're massaging your throat. It's just unbelievable. And you set that beer down and then you get distracted, you go get on a phone call or go do something else. And you come back and you grab

that same beer because it was so good. That first pull was so good. But by the time you come back, it's warm and flat. I personally think as good as that ice cold beer was coming out of the refrigerator, it has gone flat. And this is a great, another great, you know, what-if question that could lead to some really interesting things to make the draft in WWE actually more interesting. Because right now it's just not.

It's just not. Not to me anyway. To each his own. A couple more here, I bet. Okay, Eric, these are coming from our live audience that are joining us right now. Oh, I love that. All right. So we have a couple of new members to our 83 weeks membership on our YouTube channel.

J-CX, J-G. That must be a random generated tag or identification. But yes, just became a new YouTube member. I really appreciate that because I love doing this YouTube stuff. It's fun for me. I really, really enjoy it if you couldn't tell. Sometimes I enjoy it too much. And I'm trying to temper that because, you know, I can get pretty excited pretty easily.

But, yeah, just use the word bad faith to me. Watch what happens. I dare you. But I do love doing this. And in the membership, being a member of this is really cool. And I'm going to be, in fact, next week, here's what I'm going to start doing next week. just for members, I'm going to do a five-day water fast. This will be my third one this year, actually.

Actually, no, third one since November. And I'm going to, because a lot of people ask me, what's that like? How do you do it? What do you experience while you're doing it? So these will be short. Every morning, I'm going to get up, let you know where I'm out of my fast, maybe talk about where my weight is, where my energy is, where the challenges are, I've learned on this water fast and I didn't learn on the previous ones.

But I'm going to do that five-day water fast starting Monday. So Monday morning will be my first morning and I'm going to do it throughout the five days to answer any questions people have about, I know, it sounds weird, right? But people have questions about water fast. I, for one, am a huge advocate of doing a water fast and I'll talk about why next week during our members only videos. But yeah. And then I'm going to talk about my following week, I'm going to go strict carnivore.

I'm about once I do the reset, and that's the way I look at doing a water fast. It's kind of a mental reset because it really forces me to discipline myself. And discipline is one of my flaws, lack of, is one of my flaws. I just, it's too easy for me to get distracted and interested in doing too many things and whatever. but going into a water fest forces me to discipline myself. And I do that because the other areas of my life need discipline as well, whether it's my work or my personal life or my spiritual life or whatever aspect of my life that needs to be improved upon,

all of it benefits from discipline. So that's why I do them primarily. And there's some other health benefits associated with them with why I do that. but I do the water fast, and then I go into, I'll probably do a month of being very, very strict about my carnivore diet, and that's where I really see big differences. And I'm going to do the same thing while I'm on a carnivore diet too. So, hey, it's not wrestling, but what the hell? It's interesting.

At least it is for me, and I hope it is for you. Wow. Lewis. Lewis, I've been waiting for you, Lewis. Thank you so much. We saw WCW slash NWO brand of pay-per-views. Did you consider co-branding the WCW-CW-N-W-Nitro? Good idea, Lewis.

I can't honestly say that that was ever something that was considered or discussed. Perhaps it should have been, but I don't think it was. But that's a really good question. Another enlightened listener here on Wise Choices slash 83 weeks. were only the most intelligent, enlightened, open-minded fans who are willing to learn something outside of the Internet in a fucking dirt sheet. I love it.

All right. Isaac, Isaac, how in the hell are you, Isaac? Isaac, a Grammy award-winning writer-musician. Grammy award winner here with us on wise choices. I've been thinking about you, Isaac. I know you jumped in a little while ago a couple weeks ago, and I didn't really get a chance to say hi. But Mr. Bishop, you're on record.

It's drinking copious amounts of coffee. You think? What is your go-to brand of coffee? Oh, and happy Mother's Day to Mrs. B. Cheers, brother. Thank you, Isaac. My wife orders our coffee. She gets a...

If you knew my wife, you'd already know the answer to this question, but she did the research and has found an organic coffee that is the least acidic coffee in the market. And that's my go-to. It's smooth. It, you know, it cop a good buzz, which is the only reason I drink it. It's not like it tastes great. It's just coffee. It is what it is.

But it's got a good kick to it. And I love the fact that it's so low in acidic. acid, very low acinics. That just makes it easier for me to drink it. Isaac, I hope all as well, man. Crank out some good tunes. Isaac actually wrote the opening song to Wise Choices, excuse me, to strictly business the podcast that I had with John Alba.

Just said, here you go, brother. This is a Grammy award-winning musician. Just hands it to me as a gift. So we've got to thank you, Isaac. it's the best part of that show, or it was. Well, maybe not. But it was, it made it better, and I appreciate it. And maybe because it is such good music,

we should find a way to use it here on Wise Choices. We'll get to work on Ed Isaac. Good to hear from my brother, Hope All as well. Michael Skagans, do you think wrestling promotions like TNA would benefit going exclusively to a streaming service like RAW, or do you think it's too early to tell? That's such a good question. Michael, you probably wouldn't have heard this.

And I wouldn't expect you to know this, but when the rumors first came about about AEW and possibly Turner, while I was excited, I questioned, I didn't say this would be a better choice, but I did posit. How about that? It's the second time this year I've used the word posit in a YouTube or 83 weeks podcast. I submit to you. I submit to you that perhaps, especially given the deep pockets that Tony has, that if he would have had the patience, perhaps, not for sure, perhaps investing those resources into building up a streaming audience where you have their emails and all of their information, building up a database. that's something that a lot of television networks strive to have i can't tell you and this is now

going back to early 2000 well not early 2000 2012 13 14 15 when i was still pitching tv shows to networks almost one of the questions they would first talk about when we were casting those projects is okay i see why you'd want to use this talent but what kind of a footprint do they have in social media how can they help us move the needle how can they help us promote networks long ago realized that that database, that fan base that exists for an existing, for that exist with an existing personality or talent is a very valuable asset, which led me to submit the question and or posit. Would it not be a better idea to look forward into the future? Now we're going back to 2019 or whatever, to look forward into the future, look where the ball is going

thank you, Wayne, look where the puck is going, according to Wayne Gretzky, rather than playing where the puck is or in some cases was. And with that kind of analogy in mind, I thought, man, if I was Tony Kahn and had the billions of dollars that he has access to and passionate about launching this brand, rather than launching my brand into an environment that I know is a deteriorating environment because it's been going on in cable now for a long time, would it not be better to look long-term and invest an enormous amount of money to build my own platform so that when the time comes and I have enough critical mass that when I go in to pitch my show,

I'm not just pitching an idea. I'm pitching an asset, a proven asset, because that changes the dynamics of the discussion. and I just think it was an idea that I personally would have looked at. It would have not provided the short-term benefits. But in the long run, just imagine if today, as AEW is going into their negotiations, renegotiations, they said, well, look, we've got a database of 70, 80,000 active fans. and here's the viewership that we get on streaming because you can you can extrapolate those numbers you can project those numbers at least give you something to work with to help determine

whether a project has long legs or if it's a short-term project great great great great question so proud of our audience you guys are fucking brilliant this episode is brought to you by Blue Chew. Let's talk about sex. I mean, Conrad's favorite subject, but since Conrad's not here, let's talk about it anyway. Guys, you remember the days when you were always ready to go, like if the wind changed direction or the temperature varied by two or three degrees, or, you know, if it was daytime or nighttime, whatever, you were ready to go. Well, you can get back to that spot. Now you can increase your performance and get that extra confidence in bed. Listen up, bluechew.com. Bluechew is a unique online service, and they've been partners here

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than perhaps you ever thought you would be. That's bluechuk.com promo code wrestlebiz to receive your first month free. Visit bluechoo.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blu for their ongoing support of everything we do. Frank Bruno.

Hey, Frank. What's going on? can't answer the question. But, Eric, I've been a part of AFS since it's inception, and you are the reason, you are the reason I stayed on. I love your insight and your opinions. I appreciate you so much. Frank, that means a lot to me because ad-free shows means a lot to me. And I'm going to be doing a lot more stuff on ad-free shows in the weeks to come. It's not all going to be about YouTube. It's not all going to be about the 83-weeks podcast because the ad-free shows family is it is like family to me and i'm very grateful to have to be a part of at free shows

along with a lot of other people so i appreciate that frank very much and uh be looking out because i got some new shit coming your way got a new member peter r thank you peter r appreciate you very much oh let's go back to to uh peter r just became a you number remember i love that brother I love when that happens. The more, the freaking merrier. And you're going to learn about wrestling. You're going to learn about water fast. You're going to learn a lot about shit that you probably didn't even know you were interested in.

And hopefully you will be. But if nothing else, we're going to have fun, right? We're going to have fun. I promise that. Mike Hoop. Hey, Mike Hoophoophoophoop. What's going on, brother? I hope all is well.

I hope all is well because I am having a blast. I did get to go to Detroit. I left last Thursday. almost a week we could go yesterday and uh got to hang with my brother and my sister um met them in detroit on thursday night went to clover leaf pizza clover leaf pizza on grashit avenue 10 mile in grashet actually it's an east point they used to call it east detroit but detroit detroit got such a bad rap that they wanted to they wanted to rebrand east detroit so they call it east point it sounds better maybe real estate value went up as we're

result. Who knows? But my brother and my sister and I went to Cloverleaf Pizza, which is where my mom and dad used to go when they first met. And Clover Leaf Pizza's famous pizza, they got an amazing thick crust pizza that I've not been able to find anybody that has anything remotely close to a Clover Leaf Pizza. Detroit has their own style of pizza. Chicago has Deep Dish, but Chicago Deep Dish is different than Detroit Deep Dish. And I learned a whole lot about the beginnings. How did deep dish pizzas come to be? Like who woke up one morning and said, you know what?

This flat stuff, thin crust, nah, thick crust, eh, I want to do a thick crust. Somebody broke the fucking paradigm, stomped the mold, threw it out the fucking window, and said, I'm going to give this deep dish a try. And they perfected that deep dish so much so that it found its way to Chicago. Deep dish pizza. There's a history behind it. Learn about it. Let me tell you something, has a little bit to do with discarded oil pans from the automotive industry in Detroit.

When oil pans to cars were flawed or a defect in any kind of a way, they were thrown out to be recycled. And some very, very, very ingenious Italians out of an Italian family that became famous for pizza in Detroit. And they didn't have a lot of money. They didn't have a lot of equipment. Times were tough. We're going back a long time now. He said, hey, there's these oil pans that have never been used. We could sterilize them and make pizza in them.

I shit you not. It's a story I heard. I'm not saying it's true. I'm just saying I heard it. It kind of makes sense. Think about it. Anyway, deep dish pizza. But we had fun.

We went over to my cousin Larry's house. And my second cousin, Scott and Michael and their kids. And my cousin, Kathy, who I haven't seen in decades, and a neighbor friend of ours. It's just a friend of the family. We had so much fun. We went over to, for my brother and sister to tour the house that we grew up in. And we're actually on our way to a store to buy some steaks because we're going to go over there and hang out and grill steaks and just kind of take a stroll down memory lane. And we're on our way to the house.

Because I'd been there a couple months ago, a month and a half ago, I'd seen it. my brother and sister had it and they were dying to see it but we were on our way there and we got a phone call from the lady that owns up and her name is jill she's a sweet lady and she was crying she could barely talk and she let us know that her father had just passed a couple hours ago what she called and obviously we couldn't make that happen so you know what that means it means i'm going back to detroit for some cloverly pizza and to grill some steaks and hang out with jill and her kids with my brother and sister. So, you know, something to look forward to.

All right, we've got a couple more minutes here. Jamie Barker. Jamie, what is going on, brother? I hope all is well with you. What do you think your biggest impact you've had on the wrestling business is? I appreciate that you keep it real all the time. This is kind of hard to talk about. It sounds like I'm putting myself over,

but as objectively as I can, as objective as I can be, I don't think, look, I was the first person to take wrestling live every single week in prime time. If you don't think that is a significant impact on the industry as we see it today in the value of professional wrestling is programming because it is one of the only live action, live, live action forms of entertainment out there. It's not a sport. It's not. You can convince yourself it is all you fucking want to, but it's not. But what it is is live action.

entertainment, which in many ways has the same attractiveness to a network as live sports because there's very little live anything that you can see. I knew it back in 1995 when I launched Nitro. It was the first thing that I said we have to do to distinguish us from WWE because they're live tape. Let's do live every week. That's one. I think objectively as I can be and I'm not perfect. But I think the cruiserweight division and the emphasis that we put on the cruiserweight division, the spotlight that we put on the cruiserweight division for extended period of time, we use it in the crossover, which other than the beginning of the show and the end of the show, the most valuable part of the show, if you're on from 8 to 10, is that 9 o'clock hour.

And to be able to have something that was so fast-paced, so interesting, so unique, so different than anything else anybody was watching, having that cruiserweight action, in the crossover segment more often than not, help make Nitro what Nitro became. And I think it's opened up the doors for a whole generation now of smaller, faster, more athletic talent that we're now seeing everywhere. But you rarely ever saw before the Cruiserweight Division on Nitro. And I'm not suggesting nobody else because I know the marks out there.

This guy hit it first. What about this? You fucking people. you make me laugh you do you make me laugh and I appreciate laughing I really do I mean especially when I'm on a flight I got nothing else to do and I'm got Wi-Fi on the flight I'm looking at this shit it's just it's fucking entertaining but while even Paul Heyman sure Paul used Ray Mysterio Paul used a lot of other guys that were ended up in the cruiserweight division but nobody had ever given them a platform nobody ever created the vision

specifically for them and I'm not talking about light heavyweights Because you'd see guys light, you'd see something like that advertised from time of time. But to create a real division, I think was one of the things that helped Nitro greatly. And I also think, more than anything, it's opened up a lot of doors for a lot of people. Unfortunately, some of them don't even recognize it or understand it because some of them are young kids that really weren't paying attention until they got much older. But anyway, great question. Those are the things I'm most proud of, by the way. I think introducing reality-based characters into the product, again, not that I wasn't the first,

I wasn't the first one to do it, I was the first one to do it well and consistently on a national primetime platform. And I think that had a big impact on the industry. I think if you go back and look at Nitro and some of the criticism that I received from the, you know, the douchebags on the outside looking in that had never been in the industry, like Dave Meltzer. Oh, my God, you're giving away pay-per-view quality matches on TV. He's going to kill the business. WCW is going to go out of business. Well, we all know how that turned out.

And again, these are all things that were a part of Nitro that I think still have a dramatic impact on the industry today. That's why when I talk, it's why I'm one of the reasons I'm so comfortable about, you know, showing my ass and talking about the things I fucked up. Because in balance, I'll take all the great things And the contribution that I think, again, I'm not 100% objective on this, but I think I know I'm comfortable knowing what I contributed in a very positive way

to the industry overall. And I'm proud of that, which is why it's so easy to fucking laugh at the stupid shit I did, just so you know. Thank you, brother. All right, we're going to have to wrap this up because I've got an interview to do. I was going to go off. I had a couple rants in mind. Hadn't figured them out yet.

I figured I'd just roll into them. But I've had so much fun answering these questions and I appreciate you guys so much. I didn't want to cut anybody short. But next time, next time, and it could be any time. So if you're not already, if you don't already have notifications hit and do that, you're not going to want to miss it.

Because sometimes this shit just hits me in a spur of the moment. And rather than going off on a tangent on social media, I'm just going to come out to the bunker. house here and go off on YouTube. So, okay, we got one more. I don't want to leave anybody hanging. Sallion Scholar is what it looks like to me. Hey, Eric, have you ever visited Wales?

Yes, I have a couple times. Or do you plan to go any conventions there one day? I hope to go to a conventioneer one day. The promoter that's in Wales that has reached out to be a couple of days, and he knows who I am, Jamie. So, yeah, I'd love to. I love Wales. Love the history in Wales.

I had no idea there was such a Roman historical. Roman influence in in Wales and I found that to be fascinating along just with the architecture and the people in the landscape in general. Okay, that's it. Everybody, I got to go. Thank you all very much. We'll see you next time.