83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Wise Choices: Tony's Paris Adventure

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

On this edition of Wise Choices, Eric is taking viewer questions on Tony Khan's trip to Paris, WBD learning they're nine billion dollars in the hole, Mercedes Mone's terrible mic skills, and why he believes AEW is wasting a great opportunity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. We are live. I wanted you all to get a good look at the hat because this is like a legit trucker's hat. It's like old school. I like it. But when I wear it, it makes it harder for me to read comments and that kind of stuff. So I turn it around. But if you want your version, dude, 83weeks.com, get your easy e-stuff.

Show the world that you were informed, that you were one of the most enlightened. astute erudite wrestling fans anywhere on the planet partly because damn you check us out here at 83 weeks.com I know I've been a little I've been missing in action I almost feel like I've taken the summer off it's only been a week or two had an anniversary 40 years my wife mrs. B Lori is her name is put up with me for 40 actually 42 years because we together for two years before we got married, 42 years she has put up with me. Can you imagine? It's hard for me to imagine.

But we've had a blast, and we celebrated our anniversary. Those of you at 83 weeks.com, I spent a few moments at the sushi bar in Missoula, Montana. I know it sounds funny, a sushi bar in Missoula, Montana, but I have to tell you, it's called Hana Sushi, H-N-A-Souche-H-A-Sou shoo. if you're ever in Missoula, you definitely need to check it out because the sushi was off the charts good. I had very low expectations. I'm in Missoula, Montana with my bride.

And I found this sushi bar. And I noticed that it was owned by Japanese. That's always a good sign. Japanese, traditional Japanese sushi chefs have a much different opinion or approach to serving sushi, then a lot of the strip mall sushi bars, don't get me wrong, I've had some amazing strip mall sushi. So I'm not knocking it because it's in a strip mall.

But overall, your strip mall sushi tends to be very, very basic in terms of varieties and not the highest quality. Not bad. Don't get me wrong. Don't be afraid to eat in one. I'm not suggesting that. But when you've developed and acquired the taste that I have and Mrs. B in sushi, the difference between.

average sushi and what we enjoy is night and day it's a night and day it's a difference between going to a sizzler steakhouse for a new york strip steak and going to a fine steakhouse like the 1889 steakhouse in missoula montana which we went to the following night now this one really blew me away i had fairly high expectations again steak meat cattle mountains Montana kind of go hand in hand right You've seen Yellowstone. You know the deal. But holy grunt, did it blow me away? I was shocked.

Anyway, that was our weekend. I cut a few promos for exclusive members over here at 83weeks.com and shared it with you. So I hope you enjoyed that. All right, let's get down to business here. I know we've got some great questions going on here. And I'm going to get to a lot of them. If you've got paid questions, we will get to them. More than likely, we'll get to them towards the end of this.

episode, which will probably be in 45 minutes or an hour, because I've got some ground I want to cover, and it's hard for me to go back and forth between subject matter. I lose my train of thought. Those of you that listen to me on 83 weeks, you know that. I'll get halfway through answering the question, and I'll forget what the question was, because I just go off on these tangents, and I spend all this time in the weeds. Anyway, let's get to it. Let's talk about Tony Kahn's weekend in Paris with David Zasloff.

I'm going to have fun with this. I'm going to try to have fun with this. But there's clearly a lot going on at Warner Brothers Discovery. A lot. Like somebody woke up yesterday morning and realized they were worth $9 billion less than they thought they were when they went to bed the night before. I kind of understand how that happens because there's such voodoo accounting that takes. place in all businesses, and I'm not suggesting it's not legal. It's legal. It's called Gap. Generally accepted accounting principles is the term they used to cover their own ass

to do some funky shit when it comes to accounting. Like stuff did it. We did it. And we went to the bank and sat down with their banker and tried to explain ourselves. They'd be closing down your checking account and taking your credit cards. But, you know, corporations, they get away with things that humans regular average people can't but yeah they woke up nine billion dollars in a hole 9.1 exactly which means CNN is worth absolutely zip what an amazing thing it's been written it's been documented by many others far more familiar and involved in the financial business than I ever will be or has been have been but the AOL time Warner merger has gone down, I think, as one of the most disastrous mergers in corporate history.

Media mergers, it has to be and probably will be for generations to come. And it's the gift that keeps on giving. Every time that company makes it move, it gets worse. CNN used to be the leader in world cable news. Look at it now. It's a punchline. $9 billion less than they thought. Yikes.

And they're suing the NBA because they didn't get the right. So I don't know anything about that claim. It's too complicated. I'm not even going to try to take a position on it other than it's a hell of a move. I'm not sure what they hope to gain. I can't imagine that anybody thinks it's going to be resolved in some manner in which Warner Brothers Discovery is going to actually get the rights that they claim that they had a right to renew. Perhaps it's a play for settlement because clearly if you're $9.1 billion in a hole and you can find yourself a legal payday,

by all means, have at it. I get it. But wow, what a mess. I have contacts in the industry at very high levels, not at Warner Brothers Discovery. I want to make that clear, outside of that company, but very, very much involved in the entertainment business on the executive level, high executive level. Who tell me that, in their opinion, Warner Brothers Discovery is going to be sold off in pieces. I don't know that that's true.

I hope it's not. But nonetheless, that's the buzz. Hold on one second. I'm going to lose this idiot. Okay. Hold on. It's too hard for me to talk while my phone's buzzing, drives me crazy. But despite everything that's going on or not going on with the NBA

and realizing that David Zezlof, realizing that he woke up in the morning and he was $9 billion in a hole, you've got AEW who is reportedly outside of their negotiation period, meaning that they can go out and have presentations and conversations and meetings and negotiate with other parties who may be interested in carrying AEW, and that's really what I want to talk about. I found it interesting that Tony feels the need, much like Dixie Con, I mean, Dixie Carter. I did that on purpose, but it's easy to do because there's a lot of similarities.

One of which is they feel the need to negotiate and promote in social media. Nothing wrong with promoting your social media. I do it all the time. I did it this afternoon to let all of you. know that I was going to be here doing a wise choices episode. Nothing one. But it comes to a point where some of the stuff that Tony's doing is so freaking transparent and weak. It makes him look weak. It makes his company look weak. It's a reflection of poor leadership and lack of experience. What do I mean? I mean when you're constantly putting over the network head. In this

case, David Zazloff. Oh, I had a great weekend with David Zazloff in Paris. We have such a bright future. There's Mr. Zavala, 60 years old, wakes up in the morning. Holy crap, I'm $9 billion in a hole. What do I do? I'm going to go hang out with Tony Kahn in Paris. That's what I'll do. But, of course, Tony was trying to communicate to his audience, as small as it may be. And, you know, I understand why. There's a collective kind of low IQ amongst the hardcore AEW audiences. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, I guess.

But Tony fills the need to create the illusion, the perception, more of an illusion than a perception at this point. Delusion might be even more appropriate. that there's some kind of, you know, bang going on. I think the only thing that's going on between AEW and Warner Brothers, I have no insight information, but I would imagine everything at Warner Brothers is iced, including AEW in negotiations. I would imagine that there are very few, if any, decisions or commitments that are being made other than day-to-day operational ones, simply because they are $9 billion in the hole.

It makes it tough. And I would imagine, I have no one said information, I want to make that clear. This is just a guess on my part, having been in the entertainment business for 30 years at a very high level, including dealing with network executives, including David Zasloff, who I produced shows for with my partner, Jason Hervey, backwards, Zazloff oversaw discovery. So it's not that I'm unfamiliar with this process with the people in it. But I would imagine everything is on hold and will be TBDed to be. be determined once the issue with NBA, for sure, is resolved to whatever degree it can be in the short term. And they figure out how to get out of the $9 billion ditch that they're in. But what's interesting is that Tony felt the need or the impulse, I think is probably more likely,

the impulse to put this statement out that he and Zasloff were in Paris together and joining the Olympics and talking about AEW's future. I don't know. Could happen. Could have happened. I doubt it. But it would have been meaningless under current circumstances. But the ironic part, and this is the point that I wanted to make,

is if Tony Kahn is indeed outside of their exclusive negotiation window, why would you grovel at the feet of a guy who's not able to make a decision about your brand or extending your agreement? if indeed that's true. Again, it could be wrong. We've got some room here. It just seemed bizarre to me. It seemed like so many things that we see out of AEW, particularly Tony Con.

It just reeks of insecurity and desperation. Another example, and I just saw this. I didn't save it. No, maybe I did. Maybe I did. Let me take a look. because it really is, it's interesting. Let me just see if I can find it here.

I save this stuff, you know. I go, you know, I'm going to talk about this on wise choices. All right, so I'm going to look at my wise choices bookmark, and maybe I can find the actual post that I'm referring to. Okay, this is the one. Let me pull it up. I'll read a little bit, but I'm not going to read the whole thing. AEW president, Tony Khan, known for his deep passion for prorestinal wrestling.

Okay, he's a mark. That's just another way of seeing. And in Tony's case, it's beyond passion. He is a collector of real-life wrestling action figures because he's a mark. Recently, Tony Khan claimed that numerous individuals are attempting to sabotage AEW's success. Really? Who might that be? He doesn't name names. Tony Con continues to shape EW's direction according to his vision. What is your vision, Tony? Originally your vision, not just to be an alternative, but you were going to be sports-centric. Wins and losses matter,

and professional wrestling was going to be presented in a way more similar to sports. That didn't last long. It was a dumb, dumb, dumb idea to begin with because you book yourself into a freaking corner you never get out of, which is why it didn't last very long. But you tried to go back a couple times and every time you dipped your toe in the water and it was about a two week failed experiment and we're done, other than an occasional random comment in your commentary. So your vision has been lacking from day one, which is one of your problems. You wanted to the alternative. That was your stated mission initially, but you abandoned it very, very quickly and became a very poor Kmart Blue Light Special imitation of WWE. And you're not very good at it.

All right. Reports indicate that AEW talent are often left in the dark about their creative direction. I've heard a lot of that. And I went through it, man, when things are going bad, when the wheels are falling off and you're desperate and you're trying to make moves, one of the first things that goes wrong in your company is lack of communication. When things are going great, everybody's communicating, everybody's checking in, everybody's on the same page. But when the wheels start getting a little wobbly, that's when communication suffers. And apparently that's what's happening inside of AEW. because, you know, this is not the first time we've heard this. Additionally, AEW has faced challenges with declining ticket sales.

That's putting it fucking mildly. What did they have last night? 2,500 people for Dynamite in Winston-Salem. With Jeff Jarrett and Brian Danielson. Special appearance by Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. 2,500 people or whatever it was, less than 3,000. That's more than D. declining. That's a precipitous drop. Unbelievable, really. It happened that quickly is what makes

it unbelievable. Okay, declining ticket sales and ratings. Same thing with rating. These ratings, what do they do? 622,000 people last night. Yeah, it had an 832 or 852,000 lead in. So it's not like people weren't watching TBS and we're all watching the Olympics. had an 832,000 viewer lead-in, and you immediately dropped with one of your biggest acts almost 100,000. And it began to continue to drop all the way to the overrun, which overruns are designed to end on a high note. There's a reason you create overruns.

And you've totally blown the formula. You've screwed it up to the point where it's completely useless to you because you don't know how to use that particular device to create a compelling television show that encourages people to tune in the next week. That's why you have an overrun because things are going. Things are going so crazy, out of control, spontaneity. You need to go longer. You can't afford to go off the air right now because we've got to stay on this action and we finally get to the end of the show and whatever you resolve in the overrun. But as a cliffhanger it's something that compels you to tune in the following week your overrun was the lowest

rated segment of the show well i don't know that that's ever happened before somebody didn't happen under my watch i don't think it's ever happened in wwee where you're overrun which is the reason it should become one of the highest rated segments of your show number one is because of the intensity of the action but more importantly because of the bill that that final match gets throughout the entire show, the tension that you create, the anticipation that is a result of the tension and the drama that you're creating

throughout the entire episode leading until this classic matchup, the final match of the show that you've been talking about, and then it's so intense that you have to run over because you cannot afford to miss anything. That's the idea behind an overrun. These dumb some bitches advertise it. Hey, tune it tonight because we're going to have an overrun. What the fuck?

Anyway, I digress. Just a little shit like that just drives me crazy. And then, of course, Tony blames people outside of the company for criticizing the product and suggest that people like me, like Jim Cornett, like just about anybody, the comments anywhere where Tony Khan makes a statement, where they're burying the show. They're burying the show, Tony, because your show sucks. It's not because anybody has an agenda. It's because people have very high hopes. They had very high expectations. You had a tremendous amount of people five years ago that were rooting for your success,

including me. And you blew it because your vision, or dare I say, lack thereof was only the beginning of your problem. The biggest problem is you do not have a feel or creative. you don't have a clue how to produce television you're a mere child when it comes to your abilities your talent your instincts in producing television and your audience is telling you that they don't like it that's what's going on and we could talk about all the examples for the last two years I have pointed out what I thought was going to happen and it's all come true all of my critiques and he started out as fairly constructive critiques in the very

beginning all of my critiques were aimed at hopefully maybe somebody hearing something that would make them go home maybe we should try that free advice if you will pointing out that your your product needs to be episodic it needs to be story driven as opposed to dream match driven for no apparent reason just matches thrown up against the wall because they're dream matches there are only dream matches to you tony and to dabe melzer and the people like you at dave melzer the vast majority of the audience have have lost faith in your product because you continually keep doing the same things over and over and over despite the fact that they are clearly not working but hey blame everybody else blame me play jim cornet blame all of the people that that comment

you go to wrestling ink and wait for a story that tony con comes out with and gets published and then read the story but more importantly read the comments that's your audience reacting to the product and the more tony that you keep coming out like you did today in that interview well it was posted today i don't know when the interview took place and you keep blaming other others for your lack of success and the fact that your ticket sales are falling off a cliff, your ratings are falling off a cliff. No one's watching your show, not enough of an audience to matter. That's on you, Tony.

That's not on anybody else. Unbelievable. All right. Let's move on. I didn't mean to beat up on Tony quite that bad. Let's see what I got here. All right, I'm going to let that go. I'm going to go back to my original.

You know, let's talk about Mercedes, Mercedes, Monet. Again, I've got nothing against Mercedes. I don't really know her. You know, I worked in WWE briefly while she was there, never really had any interaction whatsoever with her, but respected the hell out of her. Great performer. Unbelievable in the ring.

Great, he had a unique appearance. There was something mysterious. There was a mystique about Sasha Banks. But WWE knew how to use, utilize Sasha Banks' strengths. But more importantly, WWE understood her limitations and produced her around her limitations. What does Tony Kahn do? He gives her the ball. He gives her creative control.

For some reason, Mercedes-Money, previously Sasha Banks, feels like she's Great, she's a great promo. One of the reasons I never heard her do promos in WWE is WWE knew better. She cannot carry a promo. She should never be allowed to open her mouth. Every time she opens her mouth, her stock goes down. And it's to the point now where I don't know if she's worth anything. You think Camille's getting a rub because she came out there?

And by the way, did you watch the entrance? Of course, Mercedes-Mone. It's all about Camille. This is her big moment. And we're going to talk about Jen Pepperman, by the way. I saw that come up, John Hayes. We're going to talk about Jim Pepperman in just a moment as part of this, because I dig Jen peppermint.

I got a lot of respect for. But Mercedes-Money has creative control, reportedly. Again, I don't know that as a fact. I'm not Dave Meltzer. I don't state things as facts unless I know that they are facts. so reportedly she has creative control and if that is true she apparently thinks she can handle a lot of dialogue she's wrong and tony con doesn't have the balls or the ability or both to say hey mercedes let's let's back this up a little bit because

i'm a data analyst that's like my thing people you know dame melcher and everybody talks about how great i am at data analytics and providing that to the the NFL, blah, blah, blah, blah, which all may be true. But clearly he doesn't have the ability to research his own data and look at his own analytics. Because if he did, he'd be going, shit, this isn't working. She's horrible. She was introduced poorly.

The setup was horrible. Man, it wasn't horrible. It was just not effective. But when she started talking her stock, $5 million, reportedly, annually, limited number of dates, reportedly, and a seven-figure contract reportedly for Jen Pepperman. Who's a friend of mine? I know who I just think the world of.

I don't know that it's a fact. I have not had any conversations with Jen. I would not compromise her position or her relationship with anybody by communicating with her while she's working for AEW. I have too much respect for her for that. And I'm her cheerleader, but she is a writer, director with a tremendous track record. Jim Pepperman understands episodic television. She's an Emmy Award winner, director, writer of daytime television, soap operas.

And that's what professional wrestling should be, is a soap opera. opera not a dream match festival it's so i'm going to go i'm going to stick with jen and mercedes i think the world i had a chance to work with jen a little bit we didn't like work together deep on anything creatively but i interacted enough with her we challenged each other enough even over a short period of time that being four months where i immediately gained respect for her. Not only because she was really good as a writer, not only because she really understood episodic television and the unique nature of it and how important it is in professional wrestling, but she's got gut. She's a strong woman. She will stand up. I watched her

in meetings that I was in with Vince McMahon, who can be a very intimidating individual. She wasn't intimidated, she was respectful, but she stood her ground. And I think the world of her, but regardless of how talented Jen Pepperman is, she is a writer, she is a director, probably in this case a producer as well. She can't go out and cut the promo for Mercedes. She can't grab the mic and do it. No matter how good a writer is, no matter how good a director is, if the performer, actor, actress, wrestler,

whether it be theatrical, television, Broadway, if the talent doesn't have any talent, it doesn't matter who's writing or who's directing. And the fact that Tony gave creative control to someone who has never demonstrated the ability to be good at creative, because he certainly didn't have creative control of WWE, to get to spend five million dollars a year plus on a talent and give that talent creative control

and then once you do realize that she's going to drive her own character and by the way your company into the ditch and not do anything about it that's interesting but maybe it's everybody else's fault maybe it's because you know to be an AEW is to be on under constant attack because you're the challenger brand Tony you keep bringing that up you're the challenger brand you are not the challenger brand. Who are you challenging? You're only challenging the bottom of the barrel. You're getting really close to establishing a new record.

Anybody else that would be in your position that would have been hired, that would have been held accountable, would have been fired a long time ago. You're in a unique position, Tony, because, well, it's your money. You can blow as much of it as you want because you have an almost unlimited source of it. It's good for you. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I wouldn't mind being in that position.

But that's the only reason that you still exist on television as a personality. You're able to pay for it. You'd have been fired a long time ago if you would be held accountable for anything. Anyway, what else are we going to talk about? I forgot Mercedes. I hope I cover the Jen Pepperman thing enough because I know it's come up a lot. and I know people are interested in what I have to say about her because I have talked about what a fan I am of her.

By the way, she's a sweet person too. She's a really fun person to be wrong. Great sense of humor. Met her kids. One of her kids. Pretty cool. All right. So the weekend of Paris.

Ratings and review of last night's dynamite. Let's talk about that a little bit. I did watch the show. Actually, I watched it this morning. I recorded it last night. I got up about 4.30 this morning. And about 5 o'clock started watching it. primarily because I wanted to see Jeff smash with Brian Danielson.

Really, you know, hats off, nothing but respect for Jeff. Again, I don't talk to Jeff because he's there at AEW and I don't want to create any issues of the perception of issues. So I don't talk to Jeff. Conrad talks to Jim. I don't talk to Joe. I like Jim. Like Karen. Like Cody.

But nonetheless, I haven't talked to Jeff. But I was curious, you know, Jeff's been around a long time, man. He's been around forever. And I was really curious. to see what this match was going to look like. And I'm generally a fan or used to be a fan of Brian Danielson. I've kind of lost interest in him over the last year, year and a half. I'll talk about why.

You still think he's a phenomenal performer and has all the potential in the world. But the direction that he's been taking with this hardcore Japanese presentation is just completely unimpressive to me. It just doesn't matter. It certainly is not a reflection of what Brian Danielson is capable of. doing it's not a reflection of the art it's just some thing that apparently a lot of people in ewe have because you see it all the time that's ridiculously fake bony looking bullshit chop fast forearm fast where they stay in there and just beat on each other you know i get it every once in a while but are you kidding me it's just ridiculous and i just i think it it overshadows so much

and particularly in Brian's case, you know, what he's capable of doing in terms of a more traditional type of match. And that's what I was hoping I was going to see. But instead, I saw what is essentially a hardcore, anything goes match, falls count anywhere, garbage match. That's what it was.

It did not show me the best of what Jeff Cher is capable of doing because Jeff is one of the best in terms of telling a story in the ring. He really, really is. Of all the people that I've worked with over the last 30 years, If I was running a wrestling company today and I wanted somebody working with me

that could really lay out matches and bring stories to the match that reflect the story that we used to set up the match, it would be Jeff Jared. He's really, really experienced and has a great feel and unique talent for that particular form of the art. But instead, we got a False Count Anywhere match, which, by the way, tell that referee to get the hell away

from the camera that i can't remember her name but that the referee whatever her name is it's like she's just mugging for the camera 100% of the time a referee should be like the garnish on the plate shouldn't see it just really oh there it is over there and it's sweeping off the plate she's like in every shot oh she's selling everything it's so distracting it's so phony looking that it actually takes away from the match why is not somebody with an AEW pointing that out because other people are I'm not the only one that feels this way she is absolutely horrible send her to referee school somebody sit her down and go girl it's not about you it really isn't about you it's about the match and you're only in

the shot when it's absolutely necessary and then get the hell out of the shot She's right there. She's like Jimmy Hart used to do that all the time. Anytime Hulk Hogan was doing a promo, Jimmy'd be like looking up over here. She's like the Jimmy heart of referees. She's going to find a way to get her mug into any shot she can. It's actually comical if it wasn't so detrimental to the product itself.

But nobody's saying anything about it. Just letting it happen. That's cool. She likes to do it. let her do it. Unbelievable. What did they deliver last night? 622,000 viewers with an open of 832,000. They averaged 200,000 less. Is that it? Yeah, 200,000 less viewers than they opened up with as an average. I'm sorry, that's got nothing to do with the Olympics, Dave Meltzer, who is another reason why so many people are down on AEW, because Dave,

is a surrogate for his buddy Tony Kahn and his two best buddies who named a wrestling move after him, whatever the Jackson kids, whoever they are now. And he tries, Dave Meltzer tries so hard to make excuses for AEW that it actually brings disdain from the general audience because everybody can see through his bullshit, but Dave, he actually thinks he's good at it. And he's not. It's so transparent.

It's ridiculous. And the harder Dave Meltzer and people like him, including the ridiculous fan base of AEW who are on social media, not all AEW fans, but the loud ones, the noisiest ones, who we find on social media, who defend absolutely everything under any circumstances. They just don't get it. They don't get it.

622,000 people watch that show. We're getting to the point where by this time next summer, well, by this time next year, late summer, I'll be able to do a YouTube cooking show live. Like, I'll just cook up a couple steaks on a grill, and I'll live stream it, and I'll come pretty close. That's how bad it is. And it's not everybody else's fault, Tony.

It's your fault. You're not a booker. You're never going to be recognized as anybody who's had a long-lasting impact on the wrestling industry. You haven't changed anything. You've provided a lot of income to a lot of people. We're always going to be grateful to you for that. You made some people millionaires that would otherwise never be even close to thinking about how to do that. And I'm happy for them.

And they should be grateful to you. But other than spending a shit ton of money in a business that you're no good at, that's the legacy of AEW and Tony Con it will be unless something changes something changes rapidly which brings me to Shane McMahon I forgot all about that it wasn't even on my list to talk about

but how fun was that Shane McMahon Tony Conn in the room oh that's exciting let's create some excitement I don't know if anything will happen I don't know what the meeting was about I like Shane. I respect Shane.

I would have liked to work more with Shane. I got to work with him a little bit in 2019 in his program with Kevin Owens. That was fun for me. I really enjoyed working with Kevin and Shane. By the way, Dave Meltzer made a comment about me and how I ruined WCW and I believe that Kevin Owens would never be a top star.

Not true. I've always put Kevin Owens over. I don't know where Dave Meltzer gets his shit. Like that. Those words never came out of my mouth. Ever. In fact, always the opposite because I really, really admire Kevin, enjoy his work and think he's capable of doing even more than he has. So where Dave Meltzer makes up his stuff or gets it from is beyond me. But I did see the comment. I thought it was appropriate to bring it up. But yeah, Shane, hey, maybe, you know, I don't know what Shane's into right now. I know he was into a lot of distribution over in China. And perhaps that was a conversation, which would make sense. perhaps Shane feels like he's got something to prove. I can't imagine Shane working closely with Tony Khan. There's just an oil and water thing going on there. Maybe.

Hopefully, I think any kind of influence right now would be a positive for AEW. Because if they're able to get a renewal, which is up in the air at this point for all the reasons we've already talked about, If they are indeed able to get a renewal, what is that going to accomplish? You're going to continue losing audience until nobody shows up. Just look at the trends. Do you think in a couple weeks, once everybody's interest and attention is going over to college football, you think that we're going to be able to gain momentum, even there might not be any head-to-head conflicts?

the collective consciousness is moving away from general entertainment amongst men 18 to 39 in particular in particular over to college football that's going to be the conversation that's what people will be watching you know on ESPN on Wednesday getting ready to figure out how to place their bets for the following weekend that's what I mean there won't be direct competition there'll be a lot of ancillary competition because once college football hits and then and then the NFL hits and now everybody's betting and everybody's paid in and now we've got pools and we've got fantasy teams.

Trust me, it's not going to get any easier this fall. I don't know. So maybe the answer is Shane McMahon. Maybe Tony will hit Rock Bottom and realize that he's just not going to be able to be that guy because he wants so badly to be a Paul Heyman back when Paul had ECW. He wants so badly to be recognized as Vince McClub. Man, hell, he probably wishes he could have been Eric Bischoff back in the 90s.

It ain't going to happen, Tony. You do not have a fraction of the instinct or talent that would take you to get there. So maybe bring in Shane. If you can do a deal with Shane, do it. Or do it a deal with just about anybody that has actual experience in the industry and isn't going to be a yes man or a yes woman for your crazy. stuff all right i'm about ready to take some questions here i don't think i have anything else to say on those subjects so let's open it up have some fun here it's that time of the show ladies

and gentlemen super dave what do you have well first off let's give a big shout out to mr josh hennie who gifted 2583 weeks dot com memberships out today so we love our mr josh hennie Josh couldn't be with us here, and I appreciate that very much, Josh. Just had a tough day today. He's a funeral director. He had a 12-year-old that passed, and he had to provide services for that family, which has to be an incredibly difficult thing. So, Josh, thank you very much, man.

We wish you could have been here, but thoroughly respect and understand why you weren't. And thank you so much for your generosity. He's very, very cool. Josh did have a question that he dropped earlier. He wanted to know with another week at 622,000 viewerships, when do the excuses in the other programs do not matter anymore, such as the Olympics, NBA, football, baseball, and so on. You know, I'm not sure I understand, completely understand Josh's question,

but I think I do. Let me give you an example. WWE is going up against the Olympics. their the drop in their viewership year over year last year they didn't have the Olympics 2% 3% single single single digits AEWs in double digits 18% 23% 26% why is that that's what I mean about Dave Meltzer and in surrogates like him making excuses to the point where anybody that's even remotely paying attention is going, wait a minute. If it's not really affecting WWE, they're going against the Olympics. Why is it having such

a devastating impact on AEW? Because AEW's programming is not compelling. It's just not compelling. The stories, and I know there's a lot of people like, yeah, but there's long-term storytelling, there's stories. And they, you know, Dave Meltzer said there's so many stories gone on my eW that that's a problem you can't keep track of them all oh don't even give me started that is like one of the stupid as fucking things even Dave Meltzer has ever said talked about this on 83 weeks this morning which is going to drop tomorrow by the way Friday morning boy meets girl boy gets girl we lose his girl boy gets girl back That's a story.

It's not compelling. Nobody's going to give a shit. Nobody's going to go out of their way to listen or watch that story because it's not compelling. That's an example of the stories in the EW. Okay, I guess you could call it a story. Kind of like boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. It's a story. Nobody gives a shit because it's not interesting.

It's not compelling. It doesn't have the elements that make a story compelling because Tony Kahn doesn't know what the elements are. He doesn't have any feel. He doesn't have any instinct. He has zero experience. So he makes dream matches or lets the talent book, which is another thing. But I hear a lot about second hand, third hand. Not directly.

never directly talent's booking their own shit they're out there having fun they're checking their boxes and getting big checks in the mail it's not compelling if it was you wouldn't have such a precipitous drop in viewership ticket sales and every other metric

but what about Wembley fuck Wembley and anybody that thinks that that's any kind of a barometer it is an outlier that has a lot more to do with the rabid fan base in the UK than it has to do with AEW. All right. Hold on. Hold on. I saw a comment fly by there that I think I might want to take a look at. Sorry you had to do with that. Okay, never mind. The comment wasn't directed towards me. All right, Super Dave, keep him coming. Keep him coming. This is fun. This is a part of the show I really like.

Michael, Gavin, Ali. Hey, Eric, are you and Conrad? Are you and Conrad going to cover WCW New Blood Rising next week, August 13th, 2000? Maybe. Do you think AW will reach a television deal with Paramount to air on the Paramount Network or MTV? You know, let me deal with Paramount first. I doubt it. They've, you know, no, I don't see it. You know, they've had, and I'm not even sure what the relationship is now, Paramount,

Viacom. There was a relationship there. one i think paramount became viacom or vice versa i don't even know i haven't been paying attention but if if no long story short absolutely not they will not do a deal that's a problem that tony's having right now and i should probably circle back just a little bit thank you michael gabin ali for bringing this up because i did forget to kind of finish a thought you know tony con talking about his you know weekend in paris with david zasloff like it sounds like a movie thriller movie trailer um a w is fucking damaged goods let me tell you i spent a spent 10 12 years

as a producer of independent television producer with my partner jason hervey we created produced and delivered television shows to a variety of networks including paramount Viacom, have a fair amount of experience in that world. So I'm not just telling you what I think may be going on without the benefit of having experienced it myself. But when I tell you that no network wants to take any other network's sloppy seconds, as crude as that may sound, it doesn't begin to accurately describe the disdain or the resistance of one network to take another network's leftovers.

And right now, Tony Kahn and AEW have zero leverage. Absolutely nothing. Because any network executive was, first of all, going to look at professional wrestling and go, why? It's too hard to sell. Advertisers don't really like it. Why do I want to take a look at professional wrestling? Oh, because it's a live action show and it delivers 600,000 viewers a week.

for 50, 60, $75 million a year? That's not a, I wouldn't want to be pitching that. Not if I planned on having a career in the television industry. Like if I was an agent and I had a client that came in with the AEW property, so would you help me sell this? I'd probably take a pass on that. I would find other things, more important, more profitable with more potential.

Because right now, if anybody looks at the last 18 months of AEW's trends, it's trending towards the toilet. So there's no leverage there whatsoever. I don't get off on a tangent. Sorry. Super Dave. Eat me. Sorry, right back.

Lady B. Have you seen Mercedes in character promos? She does on IG? absolutely fucking not. Like I'd rather chew off a finger than to watch any more of her than I had to. Ironically, she does them after her boring TV promos. It's almost night and day. Shocking that she's better when the camera is off.

Interesting observation. Thank you, Lady B. And I will be checking that out. That's interesting. It's an interesting observation. I wonder why that is. Sounds like, without having seen it, if it's true, if Mercedes is much more comfortable.

comfortable with a phone in her hand, cut in a promo, then she is in front of people out in the center of the ring. Okay, not ideal, but manageable. Work around it. That's my point. That's the difference between Sasha Banks and WWE and Mercedes Monet in AEW. One company knew how to produce her. The other company doesn't have a clue. But perhaps there's potential. there, and I will check it out. Very interesting. Thank you, Lady B. Rick 71, hello Eric. As an indie wrestling promoter myself, I watched the trends of TV wrestling. AEW success early on beefed up the indie scene as they flounder. We're seeing the effects at our level as well. I hate to hear that, but just a reminder, I had an opportunity

to talk to Brett Lauderdale over at GCW yesterday, as a matter of fact. And he's killing it he's killing it he's on his way to Tokyo to do a show over there for gcw and triller so independent wrestling and there are other independent wrestling promoters that i talk to on a fairly regular basis that are also experiencing tremendous success and i'm sorry to hear that that you are not but i i'm i'm going to have a hard time drawing a direct connection to the overall independent wrestling scene and AEW's dismal performances over the last 18 months or two years. Maybe there is, because I'm not as close to it as you are, my friend. So I will keep an open mind.

But to me, I just don't give that much significance to AEW. Perhaps it's something else in your market, maybe. But thank you for that, Rick. I appreciate that very much. And best of luck to you. Best of luck to you. There's anything ever I can do to promote one of your shows? put you up on Facebook, Twitter, put your stuff over, help you promote, reach out to me,

I'll take care of it. Because I have a lot of respect for independent wrestling promoters. You guys are, I know a lot of it is passion, most of it is passion, because it's tough to make a buck in the indie wrestling scene as a promoter, a lot of risk involved. And I really admire people who take risks and pursue their dreams. So if I can help you in any way, I will. Just DM me on X, Twitter. And I'll do what I can for you, brother.

Robert S. How does a good gimmick usually come about? Is it more about the performer? Or do ideas like a crow sting typically come from the creative team? There's no single answer, man. It's, in my experience, it's anything and everything. A car full of guys driving down the road, heading to the next town, drinking a couple beers in the back seat,

come up with a, hey, what if we do this? this. What if we do that? I've heard those, I've heard those stories for decades. And a lot of good ideas came of that. In my own experience, sitting around when we had Nitro, when we did our live show, and then there was an immediate replay following, a two-hour replay. A lot of us, when the show finished up, we'd get back to the hotel bar. We'd all gather at the hotel bar and watch the show that we just did. And in a lot of those conversations, as we're all getting together. It was a very fun time. There was a period of about a year, 18 months here when it was so much fun doing exactly what I just described. When everybody got together after

the show, we all hung out and watched the replay. And a lot of great ideas happened there. A lot of great ideas do come from a booking room, if you will, a collaborative effort amongst a team of people. Sometimes they're just shooting shit over lunch. Sometimes they're drilling in trying to come up with great ideas. So there's no single way. You know, I don't even think there's a pattern. Obviously, the majority of the ideas will come from a writing team who spend 60 hours a week trying to come up with good ideas. But a lot of great ideas just come from the talent themselves

or from somebody else outside the talent and outside the creative team. Great question, though. I like it. Greg Gunny, right? Why wouldn't anyone, why wouldn't anyone give her creative control to a malcontinent? who literally walked out of her job on national TV, the company that made her relevant. Yeah, that's a good point.

You know, there's a, but I would, to be fair, you know, I, first of all, I wouldn't have given her creative, I wouldn't give creative control to anybody who hasn't established

that they know what to do with it, who have a track record of booking their own stuff. That was an insane move. That was a desperate, oh, I got it. have her. I got to add one to my collection. She's going to be like the best toy I was able to buy, add to my collection of real life wrestling talent. I wouldn't have given

her creative control. But the fact that she walked out at WWE, look, that happens, man. Steve, so-called Steve Watson walked out. He convinced man couldn't come to a resolution of their conflict. Steve said, screw it. Going back to Texas. See you. So I don't know that I would have held that against her, but I certainly would have held the fact that she's never demonstrated any ability whatsoever to do anything positive creatively. She had demonstrated the ability to be a great performer when she was produced and directed.

But to give her the keys to the car when she's never demonstrated, she knew how to drive? Yeah, that's stupid. Just saying. Eric, our partner in crime, Aunt Evans, put up a poll. And the result came out that 40% of fans think that Monet is on the all-time fail list. It's hard to, I'm shocked that it's only 40%. I just can't.

And again, it's not personal because I don't know her. I have, you know, I have nothing against her. I would love to see her be successful. But I'm surprised 60% of the people don't agree with the 40%. It's just crazy. She is absolutely. Did you see the reaction she got last night? It was horrible.

By the way, Orange Cassidy, you suck. You have potential. I thought you were going to be kind of a cool, interesting character because you were so different. But I watched that promo last night. What a waste of fucking time. What was that? I have never seen anybody walk out of national television with less anything. It was one of the most horrible backstage promos I think I've ever seen.

Not because anybody made a mistake that there was just nothing there. There was no emotion. It didn't advance anything. It didn't improve anybody's character. it didn't create anticipation it didn't be any the only question i asked myself was why the fuck would you do that fucking horrible pull your head out of your ass orange cassidy this is the only opportunity you're ever going to get make the most of it put some time and effort into it put some thought into it i dare you i was excited about your character different as it was but that was

the reason i was because he's very orange cassidy is a very potentially relatable character Therefore, the grace of God, go I. He's one of those types of characters. The average person can look at Orange Cassidy and to see him on national television performing and doing all that great stuff and go, you know what? He's not 6'4.6 at 275 pounds, shredded. He doesn't, you know, he's not Eddie Guerrero.

He's not Ray Mysterio. He doesn't have that ability, but there's still something really cool about him. That's what I mean about, you know, he's an aspirational, inspirational character in that regard. But you've got to put some effort into it. Darby Allen, don't get me started. You're your shit so old. It's just not over.

You've got to clean it up. Be a pro. You're coming off like a garbage indie wrestler. You're not coming off as a star. I dare you. Put in some effort. Put in some time. Do your part to get the audience of that.

show above 622,000 viewers in prime time. And don't give me your bullshit day meldsum it to the Olympics excuse because it's not affecting WWE, not to any degree. Clean up your shit. That show was so bad last night. It really, really was bad. I missed the first 15 minutes of it. Maybe that 15 minutes was awesome.

But from the time my DVR picked it up until the time it went off the year, it was just The best part of it was Swerve Strickland and J.R. I think Swerve did a really good job at a promo. And J.R. makes it easy. That's what makes J.R. J.R., right? He sets you up. But you have to know what to do with that setup. You have to know how to present your character.

You have to know how to make that promo feel legit. And Swerve knocked it out of the park. He did a great job. That was the highlight of that show for me last night. It was one of the best interviews I've seen. There may have been other ones because I don't watch AEW every week. But I thought Swirf did a really, really good job, by the way. It's the only thing that made me go, that was really good.

Everything else is like, oh, why am I watching this? All right. What do we got? Gold standard. Poor MJF, stuck in India oblivion in AEW, even though he's making money. He's stuck in a creative oblivion. Yeah, I don't know what happened. And, you know, I really like the MJF character.

I get the feeling he's kind of getting back to what worked for him in the very beginning. It seemed like when he came back from the injury that he was almost pushing too hard, trying too hard, maybe evolving his character a little too much so that when he did come back, he didn't come back as the character that everybody loved to hate, but loved and missed. he came back as almost a different character and I think from what I've seen and I've watched quite a bit of MJF since his return it wasn't connecting the same way

as he did when he left when he was injured and now I'm getting the sense that we're kind of getting back to the original MJF character perhaps it's just me and he'll be able to pick up some steam again but MJF's issues have really very little to do with MJF. It has everything to do with Tony Kahn and the ridiculous lack of creative, lack of understanding of producing television, lack of vision, lack of direction. That's what's

hurting, not only MJF, but everybody else. Yep. Alex Hall, G.B. Love from England, E.B. Thank you, sir. I went to Wimbley for All In last year, had a great time with a non-wrestling fan. She tried to get into the product after the show, but ended up being a WWFAN instead. Well, hey, at least she's into wrestling. Could have been worse, bro. She could have looked at you and went, what the fuck am I doing with you?

Be gone with you. But that didn't happen if you did turn into a WWE fan. So be grateful. Thank you're lucky stars. You can only get better from here. The regulator, Ryan, not surprising the networks that air endless big bang. theory reruns and ridiculousness are free falling at value cable TV is depressing it is it really

is becoming you know i just you know what's depressing is the amount of money that i'm spending on streaming now holy crap in the beginning was like well this is pretty cool it's really cheap you get some good stuff now it's like oh i thought it was going to save money in the long run i'm not i'm spending more but there's some great stuff available you know vis-a-vis streaming and that's a problem. There's some really, really amazing content available. We're just, Ms. B and I are just now getting into a series called Outlanders, and I know it's been around for a long time. I know we're late to the party, but wow, is it good? It is so well written, produced. It's really, really cool. I've absolutely in love with that series.

You know how much that series cost to produce? When that series began, when it got more expensive as time went on, $10 million an episode. Yep. $10 million an episode. And it went on to become more expensive as a episode. became successful.

But that's the quality of television that's available on streaming platforms, and cable cannot compete with it. Sports, news. It's the only thing that'll compete, unless you're Warner Brothers Discovery and your CNN, and nobody watches that. Isn't it ironic? This news divisions of most networks, studios, the news division was the profit center. The news division allowed you to play in other forms of entertainment because the news division was so profitable that it could float other divisions of your company.

At least that was the case in Turner. Now it's a, it's a financial sinkhole. They can't even make news work, which is bizarre. But in cable, if you look at the top 10 in cable, it's typically either going to be sports. Predominantly the top 10 is going to be news and news related opinion shows. But yeah, regular programming. You know, network every once in a while, ABC, CBS, NBC, every once in a while they'll come up with something that's pretty interesting,

but it's rare. But if you look at the streaming platforms and just the amount of amazing high-quality variety, no matter what you're into, it's quite phenomenal, but it's definitely, I think cable TV is going to be the rotary phone of the future when it comes to entertainment. It will always be around, somebody's going to have one. it'll always be there but man glad i'm not in that business one of the reasons i was glad to get out of the television industry when i did back around 2015 it was about 2017 really

a series called dope man i think was the last project that jason might produce for a and television um tough business tough business josh honey again thoughts on nxtee going on the road to Chicago and St. Louis Live against A.W. to start on CW. Oh, is that happening? Super Dave. Is that the real thing there? Yep. I believe that's legit. Uh-oh. Right. And then head on. Head to head. Okay. Live NXT against live AEW. That's going to be fun. Wow. Can you imagine, can you imagine the whining that we're going to hear out of Tony Conning Company after that. The Challenger brand.

I love that, the Challenger brand. It's like if you own a hot dog stand in New York City, like down the street from a Ruth Chris Steakhouse, and you try to tell everybody you're the Challenger brand to Ruth Chris. I mean, you're serving hot. You're serving beef. They're serving beef. They're only a block away.

Same thing, right? You're the Challenger brand to Ruth Chris. Oh, this is going to be fun. I can't. When is this supposed to happen? Do you know, Super Dave? I'm looking up details right now. It's got to be soon, right?

Pretty soon. No, no, that's not until after the first of the year, if I remember correctly. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It's going on the next question. We'll come back to it. Dan Conforte. Does NXT already have a better women's division?

with the three yet debut signese, Stephanie Vakere. Uliad Delta also is EZE versus Tony Khan and Dave Meltzer in the works. I would take them both on at the same time. I would literally do a two-on-one. Handicap match. Bring it on. Somebody book it.

That'd be fun. I'm almost 70 years old, and I would do it. And I'd have fun doing it. It might be ugly as hell to watch. It would be fun. Don't give me any ideas. I do stupid shit with ideas like this.

I really do. I get myself in trouble. So I'm going to let it go at that. Thanks, Dan. We're encouraging me to make a fool of myself. Sloppy Joe. If AEW does get a TV deal with any network, do you think any wrestling promotion will ever get a national TV deal again?

Okay, this is a really, interesting point and it's one of the reasons why I get as passionate about being critical. It's one of the reasons why over two years ago when I first started pointing out some of the major flaws that I saw when everybody thought I was just said, oh man, yelling at the clouds and didn't know what I was talking about. It was no longer relevant. Didn't understand the new product. But I was right, wasn't I? I predicted this. No growth. equals death. Remember that, folks? You're either growing or you're dying. Does that sound familiar? It would, if you were listening to me on 83 weeks two years ago, as I talked about it,

predicted it, you're either growing or you're dying, and here we are. We're on the table. The paddles are out. We're about ready. We want to make sure if life support is necessary, that it's standing by. Get me a TV doctor. stat. We're losing the patient. It's bleeding out of the table. Tony Khan's looking for band-aids. I think it'll be really hard and it's one of the reasons that I think when I've been critical, it's because there's so few opportunities to have the opportunity that TonyCon and AEW had with TBS and what they done with that opportunity, I think is going to make it extremely difficult for anybody to

come down the road with a new idea to launch an alternative wrestling company. That's a fact. And you could thank Dave Meltzer, you can thank Tony Khan, you can thank all of the people that didn't want to listen to any criticism from anybody, whether it be me, Jim Coronet or the fans. It's a shame. But I do think that that's a serious issue. If AEW doesn't get a renewal, first of all, I don't think they're going to be able to shop. If they sell that, if they're able to land on another network, it is going to be an obscure network. It'll be, what is it, Access TV or HACTS, whatever it is. It'll be on some obscure cable channel that nobody watches. Look at what happened to TNA. Dixie Carter's TNA. They went from Spike to whatever they went to next to whatever they went to next to

gone. Again, going back to what I said earlier about no networks wants a no network, major network, wants another network's sloppy seconds, particularly sloppy seconds that are underperforming in a category that's hard to sell. It's a really tough spot. Tony has put him, he has booked himself. Tony Con has booked himself in the greatest handicap match ever. And that's him trying to sell AEW to another network because of the dismal performance,

because of the lack of growth, because of the lack of emphasis on great storytelling and great characters, and fantasy matches, dream matches, matches with wrestling stars that nobody's ever heard of before horrible vision piss poor execution all right sloppy jump we're going to do a couple more and then we're going to say goodbye and i'll do another show very soon and answer any questions that remain unanswered so you will get your love i promise you if you've booked a question on this show you will get an answer but right now we're going to swovie five hey eric booking long storylines do you pre-book contingencies in case of things like injury or you just deal with it when it happens. Wow. Great question. Deserves an honest answer. I never did. Always was aware

that the potential existed that an injury or any issue could have come up that will take you off target because it happened all the time. It's not unusual. Injuries is usually the biggest reason, but sometimes they're family issues, car accidents, contractual issues, any number of things. So you're always aware it could happen, but I never really, with the exception, one exception, one time in my 30-plus year career where there was an exception, and that was the NWO, Hulk Hogan turn. I was not 100% that Hulk Hogan was actually going to follow through with being the third man. So I did have a contingency in place

all the way up until the day of, including the day of. I did have a contingency. But anything else that we laid out long term, I did not. I just knew that there was a chance that I would have to figure it out if and when it happened.

Great question. I've had fun with you guys. I'm sorry, it's taking me so long to really do a great show. I don't know if it was a great show, but do a show like this. I've been on the run quite a bit this summer. It'll slow down sometime

around the middle of August and I'll be doing a lot more of this. My goal is to do a not a daily, but probably three or four times a week news show, kind of an update. I'd like to do it in the morning, have some fun with it, not take it too seriously, but drill into some stuff that's current. So that's going to come up probably beginning late August and September, probably get back into my exclusive content quite a bit more as the summer winds down and my schedule slows down. So a lot of fun stuff happening. I just want to thank you guys for being here, man. I have fun doing this show it's a little weird being solo fortunately you know ants with us here and super dave and i kind of make it a little

easier for me but uh i hope you guys have fun i love the participation love the questions and really appreciate each and every one of you guys so uh until next time make wise choices