83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Wise Choices: Should The WWE Draft Stay Or Go?

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

On this episode of Wise Choices, Eric is joined by his 83Weeks co-host Conrad Thompson to discuss the 2024 WWE Draft. Eric shares his thoughts on if the draft is even worth the time anymore. ARENA CLUB - Whether you’re buying, selling, trading, or displaying—Arena Club is the card-collecting platform you have to check out. Get 10% off your first purchase at https://arenaclub.com/WRESTLEBIZ  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. MANSCAPED - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at https://www.manscaped.com/ . 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

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks.com. Thank you for joining us live on YouTube. It is a Wednesday afternoon, just a few hours before Kenny Omega returns to AEW Dynamite. But that's not why we're here today. We're here with the founder of the NWO. The only man who kicked Vince McMahon's ass, not once, but 83 times in a row. WB Hall of Famer. Eric Bischoff wants to talk about the draft.

Eric, this caught me off guard, man. Normally when we've been doing these, we're talking about a big WrestleMania moment or some big pay-per-view that's coming or you just want to take some shots at your old pal Tony Con. But the draft,

what's got you going about the draft today, Eric? No, and it's, well, first of all, thanks for joining me here. It's a lot of easier for me or more comfortable, I guess, to do a show with someone I can bounce off of. And who calls out my bullshit, by the way, because I am quite capable of going off on a tangent and spewing some shit. But that's why I love this show.

It's so much fun to do. No, you know, I did, in all fairness and honesty, I did not see the draft. I was traveling. I had to be in Baltimore and yada, yada, yada. Didn't see it, but having read a lot of the responses to it, having seen what I've seen by going back and looking at clips of it, whatever, I just have a sense. And I've had this feeling now for quite some time, several years, that maybe it's just time to kill the draft. kill the draft you're too young to remember that conrad but back in my day when i was 17 years old we each had a number we got it when you're 18 you get a number it's your draft number and when your

number's called you're going into the army or the navy or the marines or whatever but you're you've been drafted and right shortly after i i registered for the draft and while i didn't get a draft my number was number three. I actually long story short. The point is the draft, they killed the draft. And I think it's time to kill the WWE draft. Because again, based on the comments that I read, it was a big

lot of nothing. Nobody really went anywhere. No real impact. And it just got me thinking about why even have it. Wow. Originally, and I get the original intent, was to create a brand separation in order to take advantage of brand loyalty. And I think in a beginning, not putting myself in the middle of this, but I think there was a period of time where it got kind of interesting.

early on, and especially when I was the general manager of Raw and Stephanie McMahon was a general manager of Smackdown, so you essentially had a by default McMahon-Bischoff kind of, you know, scripted battle going on. And it was fun and entertaining because it was still Bischoff and McMahon, just a different version of it, right? And it was an interesting attempt early on to help to distinguish the two brands to create or try to create rivalries based on the loyalties of the viewers to each brand. And like I say, for a while, it was fun. I just don't think it matters anymore.

I think times have changed. Viewing patterns have changed. I think primarily that there's a duplication of the audience so extensive that you've got the same people watching the same shows anyway so nobody's loyal to the brand. Yeah, no-brainer. They may have some favorite wrestlers on each show,

but since they're watching both shows anyway, it doesn't make any difference. Does that make sense? so you know I never thought there was any brand loyalty now I mean I know there is brand loyalty in wrestling but it's AEW or WWE it's not raw or smackdown right never have I ever had a friend and and because you know people in in real life they don't say the show they just say hey you watch WWE and the answer to that is almost never yeah raw but never smackdown that show sucks now when it was a taped show

show certainly but now that smackdown is seemingly the a show and it's on fox i don't know man it doesn't feel like that sort of brand loyalty thing is ever going to happen for on smackdown no no and like i said i agree with you i think from the very beginning it's not like duplication is something that just evolved as a as a as a uh a result of you know television viewing habit evolution i'm not suggesting that for a second i'm just suggesting because early on when it was new when there was actually two shows, we actually tried to create a sense of loyalty to each brand. The method that they used to try to tell that story and create that loyalty was a little more interesting than it is today.

One's red, one's blue. Other than that, I don't give a fuck. That's the extent of brand loyalty today because everybody's watching both shows for the most part. So as a result of that, well, here's how it manifested. so there's this continued attempt like we've just seen to push focus create interest in the draft because who knows what's going to happen right and then nothing really does in it even if it did it didn't matter anyway so what you do without knowing you're doing it is you're letting your audience down you're building them up i'm going to get something special oh this is

It's going to be cool. I can't wait. I'm going to watch with my friends. And nothing really happens. It's not bad. But it didn't live up to the expectation. So if you can't live up to the expectations that you've created for your audience, it's kind of like death by a thousand cuts. It's not going to kill you. Not one of them is going to hurt. But you keep doing it over and over and over and over again. And all of a sudden you become. the one that over promises and under delivers. That's never good. It's always good to go the other way. So I just think the time has come to explore, and I don't have like an answer. Like if somebody called me, if Bruce called me and said,

all right, Eric, I got a deal. There's a million dollars in cash in a briefcase. Come on out here to Stanford. And if you could give me one idea that you're absolutely sure is going to work will buy it from you for a million dollars in cash. I'd try to bullshit my way into it, but the truth is I wouldn't have an honest way to do it

that I was sure is going to work. But I have a pretty good idea, or at least a starting point, to think about. Because often I think solutions are best found in an environment where all doors are open. you've heard the saying there's no such thing as a bad idea that's not really true there are i'm a living fucking proof but if you if you walk into a meeting where everybody knows we're not looking for a solution here but i want to hear as many what ifs as we can come up with and some

of we're going to be we're going to laugh we're all going to get a chuckle and some are we're going to be so bad we're not even going to laugh at them but somewhere in there's going to be a kernel of something that we can start building upon and collaborate on. So that's what I'm suggesting here is let's, if we can assume, for the sake of argument, and I think we can, because we're all reasonably intelligent people, at least here at 83 weeks.com.

I don't know about what's going on outside of this world, and I know in my fucking world, you've got some bright sunbitches in here. All right, including you, one of the brightest. What if we could, first of all, do you agree or disagree with what I've said? I agree. I mean, I think the whole draft needs to be retooled. I do think the one thing that got right this year is they did it right around the NFL draft. So just where everybody else is

at least talking about the draft, I thought that was well done. But as I watched the show, I kind of thought this is probably just a lame duck concept that nobody has a ton of confidence in, but respectfully they know we're up against NBA playoffs. I mean, they're going to get destroyed. and if you're going to get destroyed in the ratings anyway, why not have a, I mean, because listen, we can be honest. Sometimes you and I record an episode of 83 weeks when we get done, we're like, God damn, that was a great show. And then other times we're like, we try, you know, listen, you get in a home run every single time. And so it just feels like this is probably easy television to write and to format and it's passable and it's a placeholder.

If you know you're going to get your ass beat anyway by counter programming, don't prod out your best stuff. So I like it from that regard, but I'm with you. It's not compelling. It's not exciting. I can't wait for the next one. And I really don't care who goes because there's very there's no implications. There's no stakes. There's absolutely zero stakes. And that leads me to a possible what if scenario. Because you're always going to have a situation where, okay, you've just run out of stories with this talent right here. You've just, you've done everything you can do. There's just no matchups that look interesting on paper that we can figure out here.

But over here, you know, there's some stuff here we haven't touched yet. There's some stuff here we can go back to because we didn't really exploit it as much as we could have. Whatever. So what if rather than a draft coming once a year, what if a draft can happen anytime, 365 days a year? What if a talent can request a draft? And then that becomes the beginning, the inciting incident, the first domino to fall in a chain of storyline dominoes that all lead to something special.

It always takes that one domino. So maybe if, and again, I'm having fun with that to just try to illustrate the point, that it can be storyline driven, whereas the draft is we have it now isn't. So you bring this guy over here, put this guy over here, There's no story yet. They've been drafted. There's no story yet. Now, you can create a story from there, but what if the story starts before a talent is drafted or requests to be drafted?

Now, 365 days a year, you've got a storytelling device. And you can go as deep with that storytelling device as you want to. You could have the general manager, which now has a meaningful role, as opposed to just reading names off a piece of paper and try to convince the audience of something they're never going to be convinced of that you actually had a hand in it. But you could ask for it like a real general manager would. You could request a trade. Or if you're a talent, you can request a trade of the general manager.

Who may not want to give you that? Because that general manager knows it has implications for him or her. So there's just so many different ways that if you just said, you know what, throughout the year, a general manager can request. a draft, a talent can request a draft of the general manager. Hell, Paul Aveck can demand a draft to better balance both brands. It kind of makes sense. It could be true.

So I just think there's so much there to work with. You know what? If you're in a hobby, it's not easy being a fan of ripping, or repacks, we hype ourselves up thinking that we could pull a 1985 Tops WWF Wrestling Hulk Hogan rookie card, right? You could buy it on eBay right now for $54,000, but you tear that pack open, hoping, just hoping it's going to be there. But with zero transparency at available cards and hit rates, it's all just a shot in the dark. Until now, introducing slab packs from arena club.com.

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So whether you're buying, selling, trading, displaying, Arena Club is a card collecting platform that you have got to check out. Right now, you can get 10% off your first purchase by going to arena club.com slash wrestlebiz. Now, that's a crazy offer. 10% off a $400 slap back. That's $40. You're on your way to be ahead of the game. Anyways, that's arena club.com slash wrestlebiz for your first 10% off purchase. It's interesting to think about what it could look like.

And I do want to briefly say, I think they've got the GM thing figured out. I like Adam Pearson, Israel. I like Nick Aldous and his role. But I'm with you. There's just really no consequence. Let's talk about some of the results. and who's moving around and who's not moving around. You know, there's a lot of folks who were not named in this process,

Alexa Bliss, Big E, uh, Carmela, Charlotte Flair, Jimmy Uso. And there's a whole lot of folks who, you know, we don't know where they're going to wind up, including two really, really big dogs, Roman Raines and Brock Lesnar. And I thought it was interesting when they didn't announce that Brock Lesnar was drafted to one or the other. They're keeping that in their back pocket for a surprise. And I don't want to give a spoiler on the show. but there's photos floating around that there's another talent who's already in France in advance

of the big pay-per-view this weekend and it makes me wonder like did you think you would see something in this draft that didn't happen a friend of mine actually said when this whole mass release for the Indian contingent happened including gender Mahal hey this has got to be a storyline and I kind of agreed why else would you do that unless there was some sort of storyline. And then I thought, maybe they're going to do something at the draft. I kind of half-ass expected some sort of a little angle or something with gender being the leader. And that didn't happen. Was there anything you expected, whether it was Brock or gender or something else that just never came? No, I didn't. I honestly didn't have any expectations because I've

had this perception of the draft for a long time. It just is what it is. It's just a reshuffling of the deck for an opportunity to try to come up with something that makes sense. I'm sure more thought is given to it than that, but I'm just summarizing. No, I had no expectations. I didn't think of, you know, I don't fantasy books. So I wasn't sitting back, you know, on Friday nights going, what would I do? That wasn't my deal. But I just think it, look, it's boring.

It's nothing. There's no stakes. There's no real story. There's no real reason other than internally. And the audience really doesn't give a shit. So why do it? Especially when you can take a version of that and actually come up. up with some ideas that people do give a shit and by the way i know you know the rap is oh you never

criticize wwe here you go folks take it learn to love it and i just do want to point out even though you know rock's got a new show coming out who killed wcd just to show you that i don't pander i ain't worried about it you don't care what the rock thinks to me as a person or even as a professional. But I do want The Rock to know that today is the first day of Asian Pacific American months. Let's everybody give a big round of applause to Rock and the bloodthike. Oh my gosh, what's wrong with you?

Hey, you brought up to Rock. By the way, if you've got comments or questions about the draft for Eric, we want to get those. And I do want to talk about the Rock because he's been making some headlines. We'll table the Rock for a few minutes. And let's do some questions here. C2C Radio Show says, the draft used to make me want to do fantasy drafts for

wwee now it makes me consider not watching thank you for the donation there c2c and i kind of agree i did not watch either draft episode live i knew i could just devr them and fast forward them and find the good stuff and they always do the recap graphic at the end saying okay in this round here's who went where so i got my information and i could move on one compliment i can give them is they did a nice job introducing the talent they called up from NXT.

For instance, when there was a lady drafted to Monday Night Raw from from NXT, I wasn't immediately familiar with her. They went to the performance center, we interviewed her, and then we saw a package that introduced her to the audience that hasn't watched NXT. I was among them. I thought that was well done. They did a nice job explaining who these folks are if they're not normally on Raw or

SmackDown. Yeah, and I think that's an interesting element, too, if there was a little bit of change in the way they presented this, is, you know, just because you could have a 365-day-year draft opportunity for all your main roster talent, there's nothing to say that you can't annually or semi-annually, I think semi-annually could be more interesting, have an NXT draft. All of a sudden, your NXT rosters are available for the draft. Unless they're in, and they can be drafted in an emergency situation,

if indeed you have somebody that's just red-hot or potentially red-hot coming out of NXT, you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, you could do that or in a case of an injury, much like real sport. So there could be a tinge of reality to it, or you can 365 days a year request an emergency draft out of NXT only in case of emergency. There's so many things you can do that are so much more interesting than this annual make-believe draft that nobody gives a shit about. They just don't. Quit pretending they do. They don't.

And it's not just because of the competition. It's just not interesting. No stakes. No storyline. Really not a lot of implications. And you can check out the, you could get all the information you want to satisfy whatever curiosity you have while you're sitting in a bar

having a hot dog at 10 o'clock on your phone. Just there. give me something meaningful. Give me something with a story. Give me something with steaks. Ever since I got on a carnivore diet, I talk about steaks way more than I ever do it. I love the carnivore diet.

I love it. I love it. Someday we'll do a show on White's choices, just about the carnivore diet. Yeah, let's do that. I like that. It's not the worst thing. Eggs and bacon for me this morning,

real tide. Travis Medway wants to say, they should bring in contracts and pay as part of the storylines scripted contract links etc talent use social media to highlight negotiations now course he's saying all this in k-fay but i actually like that hear me out here eric once upon a time keep that question up there for us sylva once upon a time we would see things in wrestling like hey we've got a 50,000 battle royal or the winner of this jim crockett promotions tag team tournament they're going to win a hundred thousand dollars we used to actually say dollar amounts and pretend that income was

part of it and i say that because think they were trying to mirror price fighting and professional sports and we know that talent have it in their contracts in real life if they hit this many yards or this many home runs or what have you they can get those bonuses and we often hear people talk about oh he's playing for the second contract he's in a contract year i like that idea of introducing more of that into wrestling what say you i absolutely do i absolutely do i absolutely do i was thinking about that idea oh wow back a year or two ago just in a random thought i was having probably while i was walking my dog nicky is again because you and i have talked about states so much what are the stakes now you know for someone gets a world title what does that really mean

well we know just because we know it means you're probably getting more money contractually you're going to work a lot harder. We're going to be seeing more of you. You're going to be a D.A story. But those things are kind of unrelatable compared to somebody winning a fight. Winner, winner gets a million dollars, loser gets nothing.

That's relatable. Right? So as in prize fighting, as you just pointed out, and I'm agreeing with you, yeah, the stakes have always been the money because that's what people can relate to. The average person is not going to relate to being in the A story for the rest of the year. They don't even know what that is, and they could care less.

It doesn't connect, but money connects. So why not find a way? And this, Travis, great, great observation. Yes, we're going to do talk about your friend Richard that ditched his buddies for WrestleMania. I reached out, I reached out to you, Richard. I tried to convince you to go, but you ignored me. 30 years, you and your buddies have been watching WrestleMania together.

Despite a plea for me, what in the name of fuck, Richard? What happened to you? Get it together, man. These are your friends. This is your legacy. 30 years of watching WrestleMania and you blow it off? Like somebody asking you out for a shitty cup of coffee? get it together anywhere i think it could be a great opportunity to to create stakes to create backdrop

for story to create your inciting moments that you could build upon there's so many different ways and i think the fact that you have nxte down there that you even have more latitude with as you just described i think it's fucking awesome let's talk a little bit about uh some of the other questions that we've got here and i do have some w w topics i want to bring up uh but Jana has a great question here. They should do the draft as its own special event on Peacog, the Sunday after backlash. NFL doesn't have theirs during games, right?

I have loose ends from WrestleMania and reset. I have trades throughout the year. I kind of like that idea. Me too. Sunday after a pay-review, that's good. You know what else I like about it? Jana, very, very good, really good. And this is, again, one of those what-if,

this is we're all sitting in a room we're sitting in the 83 weeks dot com conference room we're no we're not in the conference room we're in the writer's room once you walk into the writer's room you know that no matter what idea you come up with there is no bad idea in that room now don't bring that shit to the production suites but in this room no bad ideas because you hope that you come up with something like janet just did It's a thought starter. It's something you can start building upon. It's like Legos.

You put one here. Oh, let's take that one here. Oh, look at this one over here. And before you know it, you got Lego shit. Like really cool Lego shit. And this is a good one. Now, let me tell you why I think it's a good one. It's not enough just to say, oh, it's a good one.

Anybody can do that. I'm going to tell you why I think it's good. because one of the things that I think we've, at least from my perspective, to me, Al Rhodes leads to WrestleMania. Now, some of it doesn't matter until you start getting about six months out. And you start really beginning to kind of be able to guess. Oh, I wonder if this is going to be their A story. And this would probably be their B story.

This will be their C story. You know, and so on. You start to be able to get a feel, a set. for what WrestleMania at least might look like, about six months out, maybe more. But one of the things I like about WrestleMania is it's always been to me a reset, whether it's been defined as such or not. I think internally it's always been communicated to me. It's certainly before I ever went to work with WWE as a talent or otherwise,

that WrestleMania is it. And after WrestleMania, we start all new stories. It makes sense to me. And I think to the degree that it's either a plan or it just happens by default because of culture and time and history, that seems to be what happens. And that's like what right now, people are saying, oh, WWE just feels a little flat to me. And it probably is partly because of the competition. We all know it happens every freaking year. It's not like it's a surprise this year or last year or the year before or for the last 20 fucking years because it happened to me too.

You know it's coming. So are you going to spend all your best resources at a time when you know that it really doesn't matter so much? Or are you going to pace yourself, much like you would in a wrestling match? If you're going to go 60 minutes, are you going to go out there and start fucking popping off, you know, finishing move after finishing move and bouncing out? Oh, yeah, you do that sometimes. But for the most part, you're not going to come out and try to get the final, you know, one, two, three pop. In the beginning of the match, you're going to pace that. You're going to let the audience rise.

You're going to bring them down a little bit. You're going to bring them back up again. You're going to go on a roller coaster ride. And each one of those peaks is going to get a little higher than the one before it until, wow, you've got your three count and your finish. Well, if you look at programming that way, you've got it. You've been building so much intensity leading up to WrestleMania. You actually have to let the audience take a little breather, only so you can build them back up. again and get that anticipation going again and since this is happening anyway and since we're

seeing new stories develop as we go I mean as recently as the last couple of weeks seen some interesting matchups Randy Orton Kevin Owens some stuff this is looking I like it this is looking good but what if we take Janice suggestion and tell the audience we're resetting. Now you're going to continue some stories. I know you are. You're going to have to find out a way to address that. And it can be done. You're only limited by your own lack of imagination. No bad ideas. We can figure it out. We're all smart people here. But I love the idea because it's a declaration of intent. A declaration of intent is a little bit like a branding statement. They're great if you live up to them. They're powerful as

fuck if you actually demonstrate how you live up to it and i think this is a great opportunity to create the declaration of intent and getting your audience on board to be prepared for new stories and they would engage in a different way or at least at a different level early on reminds me conrad if you ever has anybody ever said hey conrad you should check out this TV show. Yeah. And then you and then you you check out that show. Have you ever gone, eh, I'm not feeling it.

Yeah. And maybe you'll try one more episode and go, I'm not sure about this one. I'll give it one more shot. And then by the third episode, you go, oh, I get it now. Absolutely. Yeah. That's happened before many times. And that's what's happening now post-Rustlemenia.

it's the same thing why not declare your intent and you really book your show creatively like your season ends at russamania and the new season begins some stories will continue and some of them are going to be fresh and i think the audience will expect that they will get on board and get intense again when the appropriate time comes. And the appropriate time is letting that story build a little bit. Give it a couple weeks. Give it a month or two. You're not going to come out of the shoot hot.

So, anyway, that's why I love Janet's idea. I really like that idea. 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. Guys, you remember the days when you were always ready to go,

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They've been a fan for 40 years now. I went to my first mania this year finally. Just wanted to thank you for all the years of content. Love this podcast. Well, thank you, Jamie. We appreciate that. A great deal. A shout out to Jack McCurry, who says, hey Eric, just wanted to say I've read both of your books recently, including

finishing grateful today. Excellent reads for sure. Thank you very much, Jack. I appreciate that. Shout out to Corey, who says seasonal trades would be a nice refresh roster to expose audience to new feuds, would be good GM segments on fighting for trade talent. Here's another comment from Navy 4181. The 2004 draft was very entertaining. They should have included Eric and Paul Heyman to make the announcements for the 2024 draft picks. I got to tell you. And that was another fun one too, you know, because you had two strong characters both me and stephanie we were both decent characters and paul and i were

you know paul's a far better character than i've ever been but we were pretty strong up there together even the little goofy stuff that i did with steve austin even though that was part of a broader story it still was entertaining and i think there's an opportunity there but i think this opportunity is better and you'll see and you'd see it used more often that being season not just seasonal trades but you know 365 days we're going to time out on some draft questions here and I want to thank Drew for signing up he's a new member here at 83 weeks.com appreciate you jumping on the NWO train here with us or the Bischoff world order maybe that's the new BWO Travis Medway hey we got to give you some love man you gifted 5 83 weeks

memberships for us here at 83 weeks.com we greatly appreciate that we're going to them to good use. Super awesome of you. Thank you for all of your support. Uh, we got a couple more here. How about Jake from Wendy City? He says, Eric, has Dave Meltzer ever been this aggravating and annoying during your WCW days as he is today? That's interesting. Are you more annoyed, are you more annoyed by Eric today or Dave today than you were back then or about the same? No, I think it had more impact on me because I, and it's one of the reasons why I think the guy's such a piece of shit parasite is because I had a front row seat even before I got into management to see

how certain talents use Dave like the useful idiot he's always been in order to get enough print that will ultimately land in front of some moron who thinks that that's actually Dave's site is actually a good source of information that's representative of the wrestling business and audience. and then watched how people reacted to that in management. And before I got in the management, when I was a C-Squot talent, I would literally, there was a guy named Jeff Carr. He was a program director at TBS.

There was a lot of executives at TBS that were a higher ranking than he was. Certainly a program director is really not that prestigious of a management position. It's a great position. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think anybody aspires to be a program director. It's just a step along the way. way to a better position in the industry. But Jeff Carr was the only one that actually watched wrestling.

This was back before I even got there, certainly right after I first got there. So by default, people with intern and broadcasting who didn't want to spend the time to watch wrestling or learn anything about the product that was on their network or even form an opinion of their own would do what, you know, basically a vast majority of people do when they're lazy is they look for a shortcut oh i know i'll just call jeff carr and see what he thinks well jeff carr was a dave melzer mark thought that dave actually knew what he was talking about then jeff car even though he was a low-ranking mid-level manager and tbs management in tbs would have an undue level of influence to the people above him because they were lazy

they didn't want to learn on their own they had no interest in the product whatsoever and resented the fact that they even had it on their network. So it's just a lot easier to call Jeff Gar and do whatever he thinks. I witnessed that firsthand before I ever got into management, which is why my opinion of Dave Meltzer in his shit site, his shit-stained dirt sheet is so detrimental to the business because today, believe it or not, there are still people who are unduly influenced

and think that this moron actually, knows what the fuck he's talking about. So, yeah, sometimes I get a little hot. I think now, Jake, to be honest with you, I find him more entertaining. And it's entertaining to me because now, not only me, Pritchard and so many other people in the industry have a platform that can call him out. And he's too stupid to recognize the fact that he can't get away with the dumb shit that he used to get away with.

Because now we can speed check him. You have to be a speed. not a fact checker, a speed checker, because this guy screw shit up so often, you've got to pay close attention. AOTV production says, hey, Eric, someone on YouTube suggested a one-time podcast with you, Bruce, and Jim Cornett talking smack about Dave Meltzer. My God, I think the internet. I'm in.

I'm in. And I know Bruce will be in. And I'll be the first to say, I'll donate my portion of that revenue to anybody's favorite charity. Wow, how about that? Jackpot Dave is with us here live at 83 weeks.com and he says, well, he's actually got a pretty good idea. Have the talents competing to showcase their abilities during the shows with the GMs

and a ticker throughout the show announcing picks. Drafts should be solely from NXT, trades from being from, should be from Raw slash Smackdown. God, we got a great writer's room in here. These are some of the what-if kind of questions that you could build a mountain on. This is good stuff. Think about the NFL combine, Eric, and how that's really a chance for the kids to show what they can do

and prove their draft status and worthiness and value to a team. They can showcase their skills in that combine. Maybe there could be a WWE combine. That would be the exact same thing. But you could state your case and maybe have some clips and things like that. And you're introducing to a man. audience, some of the characters that are in NXT, and maybe they'll switch it over the next day on Tuesday and check it out. I think this is a great idea, Eric. I think it's so far. I mean,

I hate to, you know, rank ideas because they're all great ideas and all of them are great, great starting points. Like, we've heard a couple ideas here. And this one from Jackpot Davis is, I think kind of at the top. Because it provides a platform, a structured, easy to understand fully integrated platform from which you can springboard so many different ideas and so many different ways to showcase talent. Going back to duplication of audience, which has always been the case in wrestling. I think there's, I don't know, I'm going to pick a number and I think I'm probably going to be close. I'm going to say 3.5 million weekly, like regular professional wrestling viewers out there. I think.

I think, WWE gets 85% of that number that are watching both raw and smackdown some combination they're off.

I think the rest is spread around everybody else. Now my percentages may be off. I'm not sitting down trying to figure out the formula.

I'm just giving you examples. But NXT is not taking advantage of that duplication, is it? If it did, the number they're getting would be much higher.

I think NXT does have its own audience, much more so than Raw or SmackDown. So if I'm writing SmackDown or I'm writing Raw, or I'm overseeing them both, Bruce, are you listening? I'm asking myself, how do I make my NXT talent more interesting to an audience that isn't watching NXT? because I want to encourage the duplication. I want a higher percentage of people that watch Raw and or Smackdown to check out at XT because the numbers would suggest at least they might not be. This idea is a great way to accomplish that. Now you've got guys from that talent coming in from NXT that are trying out.

Whether they get picked up or not doesn't fucking matter. an audience that otherwise doesn't know who they are or what they do are getting to sample the product and maybe there's a chance that they'll end up at the destination and I see as a result. I love this idea. We got the smartest mucker fathers anywhere in the 83 weeks.com writers room. Shout out to Josh Henney, my man who's a regular with us over to adfree shows.com. He's hanging out with us today at 83 weeks.com and he just gifted 10 members ships thank you so much for that josh that's awesome i appreciate all your support hey josh and i hope you're uh i know i haven't reached out to yet i will but i hope you're uh getting through these tornadoes

okay evidently you are because you're here but uh you've been thinking about you if i didn't hear from you on this thing i would have been worried uh nicky the good says do you think a bischoff versus melzer live debate could sell out the garden come on man the garden i don't know about that but that would be fun would you consider a live debate would they have melzer Here's why I'm hesitating. I have no desire to ever get physical with anybody ever again. Oh, no. Because I'm old.

And, yeah, I used to do a lot of really cool shit and was pretty fairly capable. But it's not like riding a bike. So I know what my limitations are. But despite that, sitting across the table from him, listening to him, distort, lie, rewrite history, I'm not 100% sure I'd be good at that. I get too hot talking about him. There are times when I have to settle myself down.

I don't know if I had the ability to reach over and grab him by the throat that that would be a good thing. For me, I don't care about him. it's just not a good it's just not a good environment for me to be in demons row he's agreeing with these ideas we've had so far he says thank you for the memories eric i think the wdb draft is corny if they do it like the NFL all nxte call-ups so they cry getting drafted and the number one draft pick from each show gets a king of the ring type push for a title shot i could see that that gives some real stakes to being

the number one draft pick i mean that that makes a lot of sense i'm like you I do too. And, and DeMessera, here's another reason why, right? Because that emotion that we're talking about here that was just kind of thrown in there just a little bit is the most important part of this because that's a real reaction. If you put these people on live,

this young talent who've been busting their asses in the fucking heat and humidity down at NXT and getting called up to the big show, seems like something that may happen three years, four years, if I'm lucky, because that's reality. What if you create this environment, and you catch these kids like kids, young adults live, that moment that they, especially if they don't know what's coming, see, they're, yeah, now we're talking about creating realistic situations that will create drama in emotion in a way that no scripted situation could or scripted format could. You're taking a real

moment, contrived, yes. You're taking a real moment and you're putting someone's future behind a curtain and they don't know if they're going to get it or the person next to them is going to get it. And when that curtain opens and they realizes it's their future that's taking that next step. The emotion you're going to get from that individual is so real that it makes everything around it feel more real. Fuck, that's the magic. That's like Vergani used to say, you know, it's not whether they love your hitch as long as they feel strongly one way or the other. And looking for that similarly, looking for that gray area in the match or maybe a matchup between, you know, in a storyline or angle between two individuals where the viewer, because

you know they are anyway even before you know even in the 60s and the 70s when k fabe was so live i'm promising you 90% of the audience was probably watching going on i know the rest of the stuff is just bullshit but that these two guys really do hate each other that's what the business was built on the rest of the stuff was entertainment even back then they didn't call it that they would have got your teeth out if you would accuse them of it because they were protecting that one part of the show that was real That was the magic. That was the David Copperfield magic trick.

That doesn't exist anymore. But these types of situations do. Grab them. I'm suggesting that Super Dave Silva sends at least chops the show up and sends a copy of it over to Bruce and Paul immediately, immediately, clip this show and send it over to him because these are great ideas. Well, it's a great idea to hit that subscribe button and turn on the notifications bell if you haven't already. Eric and I are going live at least once a week here and Eric's going to do it whenever

something major breaks. It's 83 weeks.com. It's totally free. Hit that subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell so you don't miss a minute of it. And we're going to start building and cultivating some more paywalled content for our members that you want to check out as well. Yeah, by the way, Conrad, I know I've been slow on a draw as far as our membership. but I'm recording private kind of members only videos that I'll do throughout the week. I don't want to promise any number of them, but I'll do them whenever I'm inspired. I get inspired all the time.

I already started doing it. So there's value in them memberships and it'll become more valuable as time goes up. Speaking of valuable, there's a report out this week on the WWE side of things that I should ask you about. Drew McIntyre signed a very valuable contract. And there's been a lot of discussion about the turnover and talent relations and AEW's television rights and WWE going to Netflix and what does all this mean for some of these new talents during this TKO endeavor era?

Drew McIntyre's going nowhere and removed even really the possibility of that in an interview he did with Pat McAfee basically saying I was never leaving w i for one and thrilled that drew mackintyre is sticking around and it would have been hard for me to imagine him leaving right now wouldn't you agree sure i just laughed at any suggestion that he would because it would it was no i am so excited for him he is such a class act forget about how great he is as a talent and he is his promos are the best i love his promos his promo fricking rock it's the accent it's the whole physical presence is look his timing in his promos people talk about timing in the ring and it's very very important

there are some who are fucking artists at it and some who aren't randy orton i think he's got some of the best timing in the business inside the ring that's just my opinion and i'm not an expert on this subject no one will argue that i i just love it but when it comes to promos mucker fathers, I have a much different perspective. And I think Drew is right now one of the best. Dig it, and I knew he wasn't going anywhere. And forget about all that good stuff. It's just such a class act.

He's another guy. Talk about somebody that could be the face of the company. Talk about an aspirational character. Who wouldn't want to be Drew McIntyre? I mean, if I could walk around any street in the America in a fucking skirt and know that nothing anybody was going to say would matter because it's not a damn thing anybody could do about it. I'd wear a skirt. I mean, a kilt. I'd wear one anyway. You're about to get a word upside your head calling it a skirt.

I know. I'm sorry. I tried to cover my own ass. I'm sorry. Go back and listen to all the good shit I just said about it. Just go back to that. Rewan. Hit rewind now, Drew. Uh, our man, Aunt Evans is helping us with YouTube today. And he ran a poll on our community tab there. And it says, would you watch Easy E versus Meltzer debate? Yes, take my money. Got 68%. Nah, got 8%. And only if it was in the Tokyo Dome got 24%. So people are having fun with this. And there's been a lot of people having fun, fantasy booking. What's next for Vince McMahon? And I've said on your show a few weeks ago, my prediction was he'd be in the wrestling business again by next year's

WrestleMania. I stand by that prediction. And at the time, boy, I got clickbaited and quote tweeted just every which way, telling me how stupid that was. Who would dare?

Why would you even assume that? And then a few days later, Vince hired a PR company that has helped Disney and Kobe Bryant and every other major player. And I heard over the weekend, and this just can't be real,

but I heard over, over the weekend that this PR firm is $11,000 an hour, Eric. You know what that means? Tony can announce it. He's going to be doing remote. He's not able to travel. No, no, no. I'm talking about Vince McMahon.

No, I know. I think Vince is going to be the new general manager. Oh, Jesus Christ. No. Think about it. Vince is a billionaire. Shod's a billionaire. Hell, Tony's probably got some of that.

that he's a billionaire you got fucking billionaires everywhere you can swing a cat by the tail and not hitting a millionaire down there somewhere you got all these millionaires floating around Tony needs a big pop you need something to turn that company around come on now that ain't this isn't an interesting business he misses it I say the scenario pay I say this story this story writes itself yeah I don't think it's going to be like when you showed up on raw and there was a big hug you don't know that well I think there's a non-compete until next January and I can't imagine him actually going to work for anybody else he's gonna now maybe if he was an investor in

AEW or something like that but I don't think that's going to happen I think he'd want to start his own thing and I've actually predicted that I think you'll probably partner with some Saudi folks and I think he can get some major players like Stone Cold Steve Austin and there's probably a whole host of others I don't think Vince McMahon is going away quietly. Based on his filings and trying to say, hey, we're going to not debate this in public. We're going to go to arbitration like the terms of the NDA said. And now he's hired this big PR firm. Those don't feel like moves that are made by someone who's trying to write off into the sunset to me. Isn't that amazing? I mean, I can't come out. I don't want

I said from day one that Vince McMahon, this is when I worked for him, I did an interview with somebody. And they asked me, you know, what's been something like? And like, I couldn't answer it because he's one of the most complicated people I've ever met in my life. The most complex person I have ever met in my life. And trying to get inside of that head, I'm not sure anybody can. Maybe his wife and kids at some point. But this is a, this is a, this This is not, this is not, it's not your average person in any way, shape, or form. He had some, that I saw. And I really, I didn't spend a lot of time around him.

I mean, I spent a lot of time around him, unfortunately, in an office environment. Right. I never really got to know him, never socialized with him, never even had a casual conversation with him, every syllable of every word we ever exchanged when I worked. for him was business. So I don't know what he's like, and I don't know what his goals are. But I think you're right. I mean, if I was going to go float around a boat with a bevy of beauties and a bounty of good food, I wouldn't be spent at $11,000 an hour on a PR firm. No, I'd be doing other shit. I'd be late on a beach. I'd be drinking a bide drink,

something with an umbrella in it, with a big old funny summer hat on. and I'd be throwing coconuts and the tourists that were walking by my beachfront property. Just throw them coconuts. So people around me would go, that motherfucker's throwing coconuts at us. Stay away from that.

Stay the fuck off his beach. He's trying to kill you with a coconut. Yeah, I think that, I think you're describing a character from the monkey in the cartoon, the family guy. Let's talk about some other news and headlines. They don't throw monkey shit.

They don't throw coconuts. One of these days on YouTube, maybe the next one you and I do it together, I'm going to tell you why I fucking hate monkeys. You got hate the monkeys. I fucking hate monkeys. And this has been something that's been with before. Are those spot monkeys?

I mean, just clarify what you're talking. No, no. I'm talking about a fucking zoo like monkey, like the kind of. All right. And you go seeing a zoo and you kid, you go,

you fucking monkey cute. Let me tell you, mucker fathers doing nothing cute about a monkey. Evil little fucking creatures of Satan. Wow. No, I hate them. I fucking hate monkeys. This episode is brought to you by our friends and manscaped. Did you know that one man every hour, every day, is diagnosed with testicular cancer? In fact, testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer amongst men age 15 to 35. With April being National Testicular Cancer Awareness Month. Our friends over at Manscape have partnered with the Testicular Cancer Society to help

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did care of your mentals and your balls and your chickens. Let's do a few more questions. But first, I wanted to ask you about this report that came out about the Rock. This made mainstream headlines everywhere. It's not really WWE related. But the Ramp posted an article that was an exclusive for them. And basically they detailed the experience of making that Ryan Reynolds movie, uh, I think it was a red notice, uh, or red one rather. And it went over budget by like

$50 million. And the quote is, Johnson was laid an average of seven to eight hours per day and missed several entire days of production, ballooning costs by at least 50 million, according to three insiders, who insisted on anonymity for fear of being fired. and there's been some comments and reports that he and Ryan Reynolds got into a shouting match and all this other silliness some of that's been walked back now but wbr actually came to the rescue and said no actually rock was a great contributor to wrestlemania he wasn't on time he was early i don't know how this is the story but all the sudden it is what do you make of this report about the rocks uh maybe bad habits in hollywood including peeing and bottles

have you throw it away I mean some really off the wall accusations here uh look if anybody has learned that you can't believe at anything that you read you shouldn't

it's me it's the very reason I hate shit stains like Dave Meltzer because he's again guys like Dave and people who report based on anonymity because they don't want to get

trouble. No, it's because they're chicken shits. Because if you believed what you said and it's the truth, you wouldn't be afraid of anything. You'd have freedom. Speak your mind. So I don't buy any of it. I don't care about it. It's like, ugh. There's no way of knowing what's true, what's not true. What's an exaggeration? What was her second or third? I don't give a fuck about anything I don't see with my own eyes or my own observations. I mean this movie came out like three years ago this feels like kind of old news now and it feels like there is some sort of an agenda I don't know if there's some sort of anti-rock agenda I mean I know always in Hollywood people think the wrestling business is dirty

right underhanded dude wrestling business is like third grade compared to Hollywood I mean, it's child's play compared to Hollywood. Which is why you can't believe anything like this. You just, and if you do, you're going down a rabbit hole that you'll never come out of. Because if this could be true, then anything could be true. Just, you know, the first time somebody says, we were based on anonymous sources that don't want to be acknowledged or identified because they're fearful. of what you're fearful is somebody going to call you out of your bullshit that's what you're fearful of so excuse me while i kiss the sky because i got no time to spend on that kind of shit

we just ran another poll our man anne evans taking care of us here on youtube at 83 weeks dot com thank you all for watching with us be sure to hit that subscribe button turn on the notifications bell he ran another poll eric and he said is eric on to something vince and a w Yes, was 18%. I don't know, but it'd be awesome. Got 42%. And Vince McMahon, yuck, got 41%. Yeah, sounds like a PR tour is definitely in line for Vince

if he's planning on coming back into the wrestling space. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I just saw, I just see, I'm looking at a $200 super chat. About a dollar sign, but okay. Oh, okay. I'm going to answer it anyway. Yeah, it says, hey, it's 200 or something. Aaron, answer it, Eric, go ahead.

Hey, Eric. What? That's it. I mean, is that all you got? No, I'm saying what? What? Yeah. Thank you, man.

I'm having fun. And that's what this whole show is about. It's, look, I like to be serious. I like to get challenged by Conrad because he will call me out on my shit. and I appreciate it very much, but mostly I appreciate it because it just makes the show so much more fun for me. And if it's fun for me, it's fun for you and it's fun for you, you'll hit notifications so you never miss one.

The Joe Cranon show had a question for us. Aren't the non-compete stuff all null with the new law? No, that is not the case. That is not the case for high level executives. Vince McMahon would check that box. He probably can't do anything in wrestling and isn't going to challenge it until that expires in late January, which is why I think WrestleMania seems like a mighty fine time to announce your new thing.

You did a whole show with Mike Dawkins on non-competes and how they really and that would, by the way, I haven't had a chance to listen yet, but I know Mike. I know he's in as an attorney, he's knee-deep and intellectual property and all the laws that are associated with it, very involved in writing a lot of wrestling contracts and negotiating contracts. So anybody knows anything about non-competes. it's Mike Dawkins otherwise knows as known as the gimmick attorney around these parts but I will be checking up that show on my way to Detroit because I always like to learn something and I know I'm going to be able to learn something and it's still a hot topic earlier today Dawkins and I were talking to a talent can't say who of course about non-compete stuff and yeah I think everybody should check it out it's available now at adfreeshows.com. Want to show some love to Donovius, Mac?

He says, let's keep the party going. The more, the merrier. Donovius has always been a day one guy with us over at ad-free shows.com. Oh, and he says, hey, I joined in and gifted some memberships as well, fellas. Thanks, DeNovius. We appreciate you celebrating your one-month milestone with us. Thanks for being a member. Let's do a few questions here.

The Sandman wants to know. Hi, Eric. WCW is my first exposure to wrestling as a kid. Thanks for the memories. Question. Why wasn't Booker T placed in the main event? event position in 1998. I really liked this 2000 run,

but it seemed a bit late. I mean, it's a good question. It's a good observation, but while you're observing, go back in context and look at the roster in 1998, we were a little dense at the top. Timing is everything, and the timing just wasn't right for Booker.

It had nothing to do with anything other than timing at that point. Well said. Thanks for the love here on the show. Crazy J. Voices says, Mr. Bischoff been a fan since 2002. I had the honor of meeting you when you rode with Hulk Hogan and in New Orleans parade. Thanks for the

memory, sir. Ooh, that was fun. We were on a float. Really? Yeah. Hulk Hogan was the captain of the float. There's a name for it. I can't remember now.

And Marshall. Yeah. No, but you know, the different crews or different, different crews in New Orleans have their boat, their float and they're part of the parade. We were part of a very prominent crew. I should say Hulk was. I happen to be there because I helped arrange it.

But, yeah, that was wild. Being in the Mardi Gras parade, that's a whole different thing than observing it from your balcony or the street. It was awesome. The food was fantastic. We ate. Oh, my God. Because the family that owned the crew and sponsored, everything paid for everything,

They owned a series of restaurants around New Orleans, some of the best restaurants in New Orleans. So literally for like four days before Artigra, we'd have lunch in one of the restaurants. We'd have dinner and another one of the restaurants and a food was phenomenal. So good. Crip Door says, I love what you guys have been doing. Been a fan of Eric's for years. Thanks a lot for the love, Mr. Crip, door.

We greatly appreciate that. Indeed, brother. thank you little jimmy sorenson an o g member of ad free shows.com says did you know it's eric bischoff's birthday month eric that's uh that's coming up later this month what are your birthday plans anything fun this year i'm flying to l a on business on my birthday and i'm to spend a day or two there on business and more importantly visiting my daughter who just qualified for the boston marathon a couple weeks ago so she's going to help me celebrate my birthday in Los Angeles.

I love that. That's awesome, man. American hippie number seven says, can we get an 83 week live reaction for an AW dynamite or a pay-per-view one night? You up for that, Eric? You want to recap a dynamite and react to one of those one day? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I absolutely do. And truth be told, we had originally talked about doing that for backlash this weekend, but because I'm going to be out of town and I'm never really sure what kind of a Wi-Fi connection I'm going to have,

whatever hotel I'm staying at, they'll tell you, oh, yeah, it's good. We have such speed, and you get there, and they don't. So opted not to do it, that and the fact that I'll have a lot of family stuff going on, but really do want to not only for AEW and dynamite, but for, or excuse me, AEW dynamite and their paper abuse, but also for WWE stuff and NXT stuff and TNA stuff. TNA's getting a little interesting to me right now. I'm going to start making a point of checking out more frequently. because there's some good stuff going on over there behind the scenes.

I know there's a lot of controversy right now given it's got to more and all that, but just I'm interested. Let's put it that way. And yes, we will. We will. Eric, did you know as soon as you said you were flying the L.A. on your birthday and earthquake happened in California?

I'm not making that up. That really just happened. See, they're excited about me getting there. I love you for that. How can you do that? deny it. You can talk about circumstances all you want. But when Eric Bischoff says he's going to L.A. and his birthday and the ground shake. Earthquake immediately at that point in time.

If that is not a sign, then you're just a sheep. I'll be honest. I don't think there's any chance we can beat that. I say we cut it and we close today's episode. Thank you guys for joining us live here on 83 weeks.com. If you haven't already, hit the subscribe. button turn on the notifications bell uh you want to be a part of this next time we're going live and by the way we've got brand new content coming exclusively for members you heard eric say he's going to start cranking that out this week and we've also got to play catch up with some questions that you guys have asked on older videos that actually weren't live we're going to get to those this month as well we appreciate all the support in our new venture

here at 83 weeks dot com and i see your hate i know you want bully back i'm sorry i think bully was like an every now and again thing. I don't think it'll be a regular thing, but neither am I. So if you're a Conrad hater, it just so happens that I was candy and convenient for Eric, I don't know that I'll be here every week, Eric. I think, uh, people just like I was going to do the show without you. There's no way I could have carried this thing for the and kept it fun and interesting because if I'm just rabbling off by myself, there's nobody to put me in

check and call me on my shit. And that gets boring for me. So, nah, look, bully, Bullies like fudge. Like, Ludge is good every once in a while. We don't want fudge every day. And plus,

here's the truth. I love bully. But bully and I think alike on so much stuff that it would be hard to have the kind of dynamic that you and I. It's not going to be back and forth. No. And he'll trust me, bully will call me on my bullshit.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it just doesn't happen as often because ideologically, when it comes to wrestling, we think so much alike. Well, we appreciate you guys tuning in and hanging out with us today live. Eric, I can't wait to do this again with you, man. It's fun to actually have the live interaction, even if, you know, I'm getting a little bit of heat here and there. I'm good with it.

And I got to ask you, though, I know tonight you're traveling. Do you want to make a call for what you think is going to happen tonight on Dynamite? because what we've heard is Tony Kahn's not traveling because he's injured and he can't travel. We know that Kenny Omega is returning to television tonight in Winnipeg. And there's a lot of rumor and innuendo that there may be somebody else hanging out there.

If you were going to name a new on-air GM, one who's not technically going to be wrestling all the time, is there somebody hanging out there? there that you would look to? Scott Moore. How, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how is that not obvious? What about Sting? I mean, would I do it?

Sure, I do it. Do I think Sting would do it? Yeah. Maybe. If it was an occasional role in and out. If they go with Kenny Omega tonight, hypothetically, you got to wonder, is that. role, the GM role, going to be a permanent fixture

on television, because it doesn't, if he's not going to wrestle anymore. I mean, here's the thing once you become that once you take on that role. Well, hang on now. Here's what I was saying. He's injured right now. He can't wrestle. I know. So if this gets him back on television in his

hometown and involves the other EVPs, he can be a very important cog in the wheel. But when he's up and going again and ready to wrestle, if he hands those reins off to someone else, that'll be interesting to see if that continues it's a little kabukiish but i could get with it well here's what i mean i think the idea when when a w first launched was they weren't going to do that sort of thing the gm sort of thing i kind of felt like they were moving away

from all the wwe type stuff you know where there's a conversation happening backstage and we're going to pretend like we don't see the camera and all that they're pretty heavy-handed with that up front, I don't know. It's hard for me to imagine there being a permanent GM role on the show is where I was getting to. No, I, I, I, well, I don't know because that's, you know, once again, you're going to get into the mind of Tony Khan, but look, they came out and said a lot of things that they were going to do differently that separated them and made them the alternative.

And that lasted for about a minute. And now they're just a lesser version of what WWE, WWE has been doing for years. Except for they're putting in a lot of these dream matches, high caliber, high athletic quality people. Yes, that's different in a lot of ways. But essentially, it's this, you know, look what they're doing with the women and the, who's the chick that rubs their tits all over everybody's face and her ass in her face? Tony Storm. I mean, that's, I love her work, by the way.

I'm not knocking the work, but to suggest that now they're, they're the alternative. No, they're not. But let me go back. When they came out early on and said, we're not going to do that general manager thing, authority figure saying, I get the intent and the desire, but here's the reality.

Without an authority figure, you have no structure. You have no parameters. You have no rules that can be, that can be brought. I mean, you've got nothing. You've got no order. There has to be a structure like any true sport

and the process of that sport, whether it be the referees or the general, managers or the team owners or commissioner you've got authority figures all over the fucking place that are truly a part of the story of sports stories you listen to talking talking heads and you listen to ESPN all they're talking about right now are GMs and and and and team owners and you know what to me it's just such a part of it so when you come out and say well we're not going to do any of that well you you painted yourself in the corner just like they painted themselves in a corner when they said oh no we're going to base everything on you know

wins losses really Mercedes 30 others i could think of if i had 10 minutes to do it it you can't and when you paint yourself into those corners you disappoint the audience that did buy into your brand promise or your brand statement because you're now you're doing the app exactly the opposite of what you promised them in the beginning that's where you lose goodwill and I think having it will add some structure hopefully potentially could add some structure to an otherwise kind of random of series events that take place at least it gives them a platform to work from whether or not they do it different question well we appreciate you guys doing it with us today at 83 weeks dot com hit that subscribe button turn on the

notifications bill because next time we're going to do it live Right here on 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. As an adult, don't we all miss spring break? Nothing like taking a week off from all your responsibilities. Well, here's the next best thing for adults. A spring break from house payments. Savewithconrad.com can help you get rid of all your credit card debt, just like that. We're routinely helping our listeners, say, 5, 6, 7, even 800 bucks a month.

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