83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Wise Choices with special guest Kevin Kelly

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

On this edition of Wise Choices with Eric Bischoff, Eric welcomes legendary wrestling commentator/ring announcer Kevin Kelly to the show. The guys discuss the state of ring announcing/commentary, what's good and what needs to change. Kevin also shares stories of his time in the WWE, NJPW, ROH and AEW. Eric and Kevin also answer questions from our LIVE YouTube audience. MANSCAPED - Make Father's Day last all year with some help from our friends at Manscaped! Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at Manscaped.com. 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 ArenaClub.com/WRESTLEBIZ  BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code WRESTLEBIZ at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s BlueChew.com, promo code WRESTLEBIZ to receive your first month FREE. SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at https://www.savewithconrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqQc7Pa1u4plPXq-d1pHqQ/join BECOME A 83 WEEK MEMBER NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@83weeks/membership Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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For imprint, for certain. All right. Little look behind the scenes, little technical difficulties as we open up. This episode of Wise Choices, you're truly Eric Bischoff here with you on a beautiful Saturday morning. Great to have all of you here with us. We've got quite a few people here already. I dig it. I dig it, but we've got a special guest.

A guy that, you know, if I've met him before, it had to be very briefly, we've never really crossed. paths professionally. So I'm anxious to talk to our next guest without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, a big wise choices, 83 weeks.com round of applause digitally, if nothing else. Kevin Kelly. Kevin, how are you, man? I am good. Eric, yes.

We've interacted just briefly, said hello in passing a couple of different times, but never had the opportunity to work together. So this will be our longest chat. We'll see how it goes. I love it. And we're starting things off right, because right off the bat, we've got Connie Lean, gifted 20, not 5, not 10, not 15, but 20, 83 weeks memberships here on 83 weeks.com. We thank you for that, Corey.

That is outstanding. Mike Bullock, new member here at 83 weeks.com. We're doing a lot of fun things here, interviews like this. Occasionally I'll go off on a ranch every now and then, and we just kind of cover wrestling from a little different angle here at Wise Choices, but glad to have you all here with us. So, Kevin, what are you up to now? We're going to get to where you've been,

but let's start with where you're at now. What are you up to today? Well, over the last year, in fact, exactly a year, it's been pretty topsy-turvy in my life. A year ago this weekend, we started doing AEW collision. And things were going well. And then things started to take a turn for me personally. and professionally within the company

and I was asking a lot of questions and I'm sure we'll get to some of that but right now I'm doing a lot of teaching I'm teaching I'm just trying to work with young announcers as much as I can try to help get them ready

to be able to jump into the seat there's quite a few good ones out there already but there's so many young hungry men and women who want the opportunity let's teach them the skills that they need to know and let's see if the next generation of wrestling announcers can be better than this one, can be better than the previous ones. You know, just staying busy, spending time at home with the family,

and doing everything that I can to kind of keep my mind occupied in a positive vein. Well, good for you. Good for you. Let's talk about wrestling announcing, because that's one of the things that I do talk about fairly consistently, whether it's on 83 weeks, the podcast, or here on Weiss Choices, or 83 Weeks.com, YouTube. I've got a very strong opinion about announcing and wrestling announcing in particular. And let me hear from you. And you, you did it for a long time in a lot of, you know, WW, Ring of Honor, AEW, as you just mentioned, MLW in its earliest incarnations.

You know, New Japan Pro Wrestling. You were on the English team, English speaking team there. What do you think makes a good play-by-play announcer? The best advice and the most frequent advice that I give to play-by-play announcers is that it's not about you. It is about your audience and it is about the talent in the ring and that you need to be entertaining enough to keep the audience's attention, but never to turn the focus on you. So, yeah, you might have some great catchphrases. You might have some witticisms that tickle you and others. But invariably, it's about the talent in the ring because that's what the audience cares about. That's what the audience sees.

That's who they pay money to see. Your job is to make them bigger and better. And really, that's kind of where my philosophy starts. The sound and the flavor of the announcing is dependent upon the product. And obviously, American TV is a lot different than, you know, live American TV is one thing. Japanese wrestling for an American audience, but broadcast from Japan is completely different. So it just depends on where you are. But if you start with that as your goal, you're off to the good start.

And you can adapt with talent and vocabulary over time. One of the issues that I have with current announcing and wrestling, and this is across the board. I'm not picking out any one company, is that so often whether you have a color and play-by-play team or you've got a three-person team, so often I hear three announcers essentially sharing color commentator duties. There's very little distinction between the way a play-by-play, a current play-by-play announcer handles his or her duties and the way a color commentary person should handle his or her duties. To me, it's just all kind of one color commentary team. And I feel that the urgency and the ability to make the television audience feel like they're in the arena

versus sitting at home and watching a television is really impacted when you don't have a good play-by-play person who's describing the action. You know, Vernan, you told me early on when I first started doing play by play, because I had never done it before, never even thought about doing that. And the way he started me out was just keep in mind that you're a wrestling fan that just happens to have the best seat in the house. Yeah. And you're describing the action and not just the action in the ring,

but the environment inside of that venue and you're describing it in a way so that if a person was sitting and listening to wrestling because he or she was sight impaired for example they could still feel like they were there they could still in their imagination see for lack of a better term what's going on inside of the ring and i think that's lost You know, if you listen to any other sports presentation, a live action presentation, you get that distinct play-by-play describing the environment, what the venue smells like, what it feels like,

you know, how human is it outside, or inside the arena? I mean, just describe every aspect of it. So someone sitting at home can allow their imaginations to feel like they're there. As opposed to a three-man color commentary team who's just filling in blanks that don't necessarily need to be filled in. There is a, and again, what's the job of the play-by-play announcer in a three-man booth? Well, he's the quarterback. He hands the ball off.

And he makes, you know, he helps get the salient points through with the whomever the, you know, if it's a color commentator and a guest wrestler, obviously the guest wrestler would be the focus for that segment, whomever it might be, however it's set up. but they have to dish the ball and they have to be aware of the big picture. They have to be in tune with the match, the rhythm and the beat of the match, because every match should be a different pace and a different tone. That's where I notice, you know, like some announcers, they don't recognize. Like, there's a hot tag coming and I'm screaming at the TV.

There's a hot tag coming. Well, they, you know, there's the hot tag and they're still in Storyville. It's like, you can't miss those moments. moments. But you're right, Eric, you know, we did that a lot in Japan. In fact, we got emails more than once from sight impaired fans who said, thank you for doing such a great job of describing the action, but also the arena. And because, again, it's such a unique place for me to be in, as an American, to be in Japan and to describe what the building is like, the arena itself and then the neighboring, you know, surroundings and how we, how long it took

to get there and how humid it would be in the building, which was common in Japan. So, yeah, there was a lot of, there was a lot of that descriptive language, but we had a lot more time to play with. With American TV, it's go, go, go, and commercial break, and you've got four minutes. So it's, it's kind of tough to do that with the way the TV is set up. That's why it's like, whether it's WWE or whether it's AEW, they still produce TV the same way when the formats were written for, you know, the first Raw as War episodes starting in 1997.

It's SEGs 1, 6, and 10, and 1 5 and 10, whatever is your crossover. And that's, they try to make sure that they do TV that way. And it's, it is what it is, but it's kind of limiting. I wish there was a fresh viewpoint on trying to bring American wrestling television into the TVs of America. What's been your most memorable experience as an announcer throughout the years? Oh, I mean, standing, you know, in front of 70,000 people at, you know, in the Astrodome for WrestleMania 17 and then going to launching Ring of Honor, which was very, you know,

launching Ring of Honor on television with Sinclair was very, very proud moment. And then going to Japan and spending eight years in Japan. That was, obviously, I think for me, that was, that was the most exciting, most. fun time I've had as an announcer was getting to experience that whole journey. You know, when you can do events in building small and large all across the country, it's, you know, it's pretty special. You were a part of the infamous Brian Pilman gun angle. I blame you.

That's your fault. You didn't blame me for what the fuck. I wasn't there. You started this whole Brian Pilman thing, letting him be crazy. I didn't let him he was just he was just crazy all on his own that's true I just tried to ride that horse I didn't try I didn't try to lead it anywhere I know you couldn't what was that like and that was that was a fairly controversial time well fairly is not the right word that was a very controversial moment yeah um there was again you you know you're always

kind of in the mo I'm in the bubble of wrestling so I'm not really thinking of it in terms of like, what kind of impact is this going to have if Brian Pillman flashes a gun on live TV and if they're, you know, making it like there's gunshots bringing out in the house? Again, it's, you know, classic movie genre, you know, horror movie, Alfred Hitchcock, all those different things with the trapped man in the wheelchair and is a sail that coming to get him and the wife in the house and the screaming and the lights going out. But beyond that, when you looked at the personalities that were involved, and what they were really trying to do.

But again, a lot of it got taken away as soon as he flashes the gun. And that's what everybody, especially USA, freaked out about. And, you know, Vince trying to make good, as a starter's pistol and this and that. We didn't even think about it. And coming in the next day, and the first person I see is Tommy Carlucci.

And he's in charge of international at the time. And, of course, international standards are different than American standards. much different he's tearing his hair out like what did you do to me what's rock that's one of the things people don't realize that you know you're producing television here in the united states or the domestic u.s. audience and here in the united states you know violence is kind of like you know violence on television is you know standard fair you see it almost everywhere you can't it away from it. Sexuality, however, up until the last five or 10 years, has kind of been off

limits for television. You know, there would be some cable channels, you know, that would allow more than others. But for the most part, you know, any kind of nudity or sexual innuendo has been challenged in the U.S. compared to Europe. Now, in Europe, you'll see TV commercials. I remember when I was a kid, I was 17 years old. I was a student exchange. I was a part of a student exchange program, and I went to school in Germany for a brief period of time, my senior year. And I lived in a small town outside of Munich, a little town called Haslach, which was in the black forest. It was basically an agricultural community, pretty isolated, a pretty small town. And I remember the first time I was living with a German family that spoke very little English.

That was the whole idea for us to be kind of immersed in German culture and live with a family. And I remember sitting in the living room in the evening after dinner watching television and a commercial comes on and what we were watching. It didn't matter. We were watching in television, a commercial comes on. There's a woman in the shower, soaping up. There's a soap commercial, shampoo commercial, one or the other. Dude, no big deal.

I'm 17 years old and I'm looking around a room going, what are we watching? This is cool. I'm going to move to Germany. But violence is treated much differently. Right. And I remember specifically, you know, when we would produce our shows for WCW and then we would distribute them, for example, in Germany or in the UK. And they edited the shit out of those shows because so much of what was appropriate for American television,

even for wrestling, was way inappropriate for international television. So I understand how Tommy was pulling his hair up. Because basically three quarters of your show is going to end up on the floor. Yeah. And now what are we going to do to fill time? Because again, it's, you still have to have a two-hour episode. Where's he going to get the footage from? What matches is he going to replay from previous weeks?

How's he going to do it and explain it? And the fans aren't dumb because it was the infancy of the Internet. So they kind of knew what was going on. But, you know, like, for example, anytime, you know, we've seen, we've seen Flair. We've seen everybody do it a thousand times, macho man, go out the ring, the baby face is pursuing, begging off, begging off, and he grabs the girl who grabbed Miss Elizabeth and stand her in the way, like, user is the human shield. That you can't show, cut away. But that's an easy fix. That's a crowd shot. That's another camera angle. You can't fix, you know, Brian Pillman

pulling a- You can't fix a 20-minute segment with a gun. No, no, there's no coming back. So, yeah, there was a lot of heat on us, but it was, you know, it was all good in the, in the end. And, you know, it's still one of the most frequent questions that I get asked about anything. What was it like? And not knowing where we were going, it was a white knuckle ride being there live on TV and never knowing when Vince was going to come to you with the earpiece in my ear, hoping that I could hear him, hoping that I could get the cue and figuring out like, okay, where am I, what am I doing? Because we legitimately took defensive positions.

What would we do if it was real? Well, I went and hid the dining room, you know, because it was adjacent to the room. room where Brian was sitting in. And it's like, okay, let's, let's pretend to be in here. But, but then you get caught up in it. You're really feeling it. Like, oh, my God, there's an assailant coming. Stone Cold Steve Austin is going to mow through Brian and grab a hold of me. So it was very exciting and thrilling. And, you know, obviously television changes. I don't know if anybody will ever duplicate the magic with Brian Pilman and Steve Austin at the helm. Even Brian, who was in his, you know it physically was was in a weakened state mentally was as sharp as ever and the wheels

were always turning with that guy all right guys blink if you haven't purchased a father's day gift yet yeah thought so well today's episode is brought to you by manscaped the leaders in below the waist grooming now maybe your old man has had a bush since the 70s and you know that's okay things change with the time sometimes dads change a little slowly But our friends at Manscape, well, they've crafted the total package for his special day. Whether it's for the boys downstairs, his beard, or even the best pair of underwear that you can find out there. Manscape as his base is covered. Head on over to Manscape.com and get 20% off plus free shipping with the code Russell Biz.

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Here's how you do it. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code Russellbiz at Manscaped.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at Manscape.com and you use the code Russellbiz. Never forget where you came from, if you know what I mean. Happy Father's Day from everybody at Manscaped. What year was the gun incident? we were just talking about what year was that 90 it was 97 had to have been seven yeah you started in wwee in 96 correct yeah June of 96 in fact you and I had talked just before that um because I had done a

brief um 4A with with wCW warming up the crowd at the MGM tapings which was so much fun and you and I spoke on the phone and you were very polite to me and and said you know hey I've just you had just hired Gene O'Kerland, so you didn't really have a spot, but to keep in touch and to go from there. And, you know, in the meantime, I had gotten the opportunity to work with, with WWF. So you arrive in WWF in 1996. That was before, I think Vince McMahon came out in November of 97 and said, okay, we're going to change the way we're doing things. We're not going to offend the audience anymore. basically he was he was letting everybody know that the attitude era was coming yeah which was

before there was an official attitude era so that had that happened in late 97 what changed internally now in terms of your day to day you get hired in 96 Vince has a certain way he wants to do things at that point in time he's still producing his show for a teen and pre-teen audience. Meanwhile, over to WCW, we're going after 18 to 49-year-olds. We're doing all the crazy NWO shit. WWE's still doing, going to clown shit, animated, kind of cartoonish wrestling. And so Vince made that change, that decision to kind of follow,

but lack of better way of saying it, the format that WCW had developed going after that 18 to 49-year-old audience. okay what was the was there any was there any direction was there a conversation did did did did viz McMahon sit down with all of you and say okay we're now going to transition we're going to approach the business differently if that conversation occurred how did it affect you well it was you know being new and you know so still taking direction again i was hired to replace vince now jay jr slid in his chair vince wanted to get away from doing commentary to focus more on the producing it uh so jr slides into his chair

i slide into jr spot of doing a lot of international things and whatever so i was the new guy i was lower on the totem pole uh but what happened was there was a lot of rally from within the tv studio from kevin dunn's crew that they wanted a new vision. They wanted something fresh. They were watching what Nitro was doing and imploring Vince through Kevin Dunn to try to take a more aggressive approach. And they did it.

They started to do it with the billionaire Ted skits. At least that was their first attempt. But they were pushing Vince towards getting there and being more edgy. So then the, the format of the show and the look of the show kind of stays the same through the beginning of 96, the end of 96. We get our profit sharing things. And it's the first time in quite a few years that nobody got any profit sharing because there weren't any profits because the company was $6 million in the hole. And that was Vincent Linda's money at the time. And we're having profit improbability meetings, you know, turn off lights, lower the AC, you know, whatever. So the television studio, Dave Sottie, Chris Chambers, those guys, continuing to beat this drum. We've got to do something.

We've got to do something. They do a show where it's split from Kuwait and America, because they've done a Kuwaiti tour. And the ratings came in and they were dismal. And Vince pulled, J.R. Bruce, Pat Patterson, I'm not sure who else. Vince Russo all into a room and said, okay, boys, we got to do something different. What are we doing? and Russo had a copy of Raw magazine with him, said, this is what we're doing on the publications end.

You know, it's edgy. We're shooting with the audience. We're not, you know, pulling any punches. We still have the WWF magazine for the kids. But, you know, this is where, you know, we're trying to heighten a sense of discord. Look, we got Sunny in bikinis. We got this.

We got that. Okay, good. That's interesting. So I think all of that combined with what Sahadi and Chambers and those guys at the TV studio were talking about led to the birth of Raw's war. And where Vince started to take the advice of others and move into this edgier, darker direction, he started to see the success. We had this fatal four-way match involving Mick Foley as a main event of TV. And it was also with Brett, Sid, and Steve Austin in that show, and there was a whole lot of moving pieces.

It was a wild, crazy, edgy, raw show. And so that was where I noticed that he started to get comfortable with that producing that type of TV and that it was going to work. Rousseau pushing him all the time coming up with crazy ideas and feeding him and Vince's wheels are turning and he's ruminating on all of it and taking ideas from different people and creating this vision in his mind. That was really how it all began. So it wasn't one person saying, let's do this. And it certainly didn't start with Vince. It started with others pushing Vince into that direction. But then, you know, Vince as a, when the houses are full and business is up, Vince is, and just like all the boys, are happy.

So it starts to become easier to get things through. And everybody's a little more loosey-goosey and it's a lot of fun to produce TV when you're riding high and seemingly can do no wrong. How did Vince's approach to directing you as an announcer, because of an infamous, you know, Vince, announcers had to have their earpieces in. And I've sat next to Vince in guerrilla and listened to him direct announcers. And it, I don't know that I, well, could I have done it? Probably would I have wanted to do it? Absolutely not.

Because it just, it takes your imagination completely out of the game. At that point, you're just, your fucking artificial intelligence. Yeah. That's what you really are. He was nice with me. ever had an issue. He didn't yell at me. I don't know why. Occasionally, he would throw me some curves. Like you said, getting you off your train of thought could be he feeds me a line for a moment that's just passed. And now I'm trying to figure out if I can weave that line back in

and would be able to say, well, a few moments, you know, and then I kind of got back into it. well, where we saw this a moment ago, Vince Line. Now here's where we are. So I always tried my best and always sought, like, feedback out after the show. And Vince was always compliment. You're doing good, doing well. Good job, pal. You know, I would be sent to go do interviews that would be,

sometimes I would record interviews at house shows. I would go out on the weekend, shoot some things, and so they could be put into the show live. And he was always like, he did great with Brett, you know, go and do it this week, you know,

blah, blah, blah, all the Brett stuff. He was always really nice. I never had an issue with him once. He got, he got crossed with me one time because we had the pre-tape crew

and we were racing to get something done with Vince. And I think the PA or somebody had gotten Vince, Vince is standing there and the PA crew wasn't ready. I didn't have a microphone. What the fuck good is a announcer without a microphone? well none at all sir but that was it he wasn't mad at me he was just frustrated because we weren't ready but uh yeah i mean oh i've just poor jr he'd come back look like he had been 15 rounds with joe fraser you know after a show just beaten up and michael cole too same

thing everybody nick quit you believe how long michael cole's been sitting behind that mike it's amazing right i mean this guy he's he needs some kind of kind of an award, like an Ironman award, just to have lived through everything he's lived through at that desk behind that mic and come out reasonably healthy mentally and emotionally. I don't know Michael Cole, but I'm not, I don't know him well, but I know him well enough to know. He's pretty basic, healthy, normal guy. It's amazing that he could maintain that level of normalcy after having spent that many hours behind the microphone listening to Vince McMahon in your ear.

Right. not an alcoholic maybe you know but maybe working at it like like motorists in the business maybe trying um no and again he started as a you know a war correspondent in radio you know was in bosnia for the war in the early 90s and then comes out of that and jumps into uh you know jumps into wrestling jumps into WWF and literally in the hot seat uh having to produce things on the fly, in his ear all the time, doing the best that he can. I think only now he's starting to get the recognition for being really good and well-deserved because he is. He's tremendous. Because, again, Vince is not in his ear anymore. I'm not sure what the structure is,

whether it's Paul or whomever might be telling him things, feeding him the lines. But you can just hear it. It's a lot more relaxed. It's a lot more personable. And as a result, it's better. So, again, appreciation and kudos to Michael Cole, who does definitely deserve that Ironman Award. I think that's a great idea. Everybody remembers that one special card is a kid that got them into collecting. For me, it was Terry Bradshaw. I lived in Pittsburgh. Just moved to Pittsburgh during Terry Bradshaw's rookie year, and everybody was collecting everything, Terry Bradshaw.

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Get 10% off your first purchase and start doing some fun, collecting. So let's take a couple of questions here and acknowledge some of our new members. Michael Merritt is a new member here on Wise Choices, 83weeks.com. Thank you very much. Michael, glad you're on board. Sean Mouncee. Mouncee. Either way.

If I mispronounce it, I apologize. Another 83 weeks YouTube member, appreciate that very much. And just Fauna, another new member. We love this. John ID 999 has a question or a statement. Been loving and wise choices, keep up the great work. Thank you very much, John. I have a blast doing it.

Super Dave Silva makes it look good. We get guests like Kevin Kelly who makes it interesting. I get to work in my bunkhouse. Fucking life is awesome. Thanks for being here. A couple more questions. We got one for you, Kevin. This is from Carney Lean.

Hey, Kevin, do you have an announce? Do you have an announcer you feel is? Okay. Hey, Kevin, do you have an announcer you feel is best at that? Mount Rushmore, if you will, baby. So you had to pick one announcer today who is the best or deserves to be on your Mount Rushmore Hall of Fame as an announcer. Who would that be?

Who would they be? Baby. Well, obviously, Michael Cole for all of his longevity and his tenure. And, I mean, certainly Jim Ross for what he's done in the industry over the years, certainly deserves that spot. Same with Tony Chavani, who we always give love and praise to. And then I would be struggling to find a fourth out of the current announcers. I worry that the W.W.E. announcers underneath Michael Cole have fallen into the

trap of sounding like Michael Cole. It was the trap that all of the female announcers, female ring announcers, sounded like Lillian Garcia. Samantha Irwin is the first one to break that mold and begin to develop her own sound. And she's amazing. So we could put her on that list of currents. So you have to be careful not to sound like someone else. You cannot be afraid to develop your own style and your own way of doing things, whether it was Tom Phillips or Rich Bikini or now Vic Joseph and on and on. They have that same pattern and pattern of Michael Cole and it's fine, but we already

have Michael Cole. develop your own voice. We used to say to bring it out all the time. Don't sound like Howard Finkel. We've already got a Howard Finkel, and you're not Howard Finkel. And Chimel was great at having his own sound. So I think that, again, announcers today need to not be afraid to develop their own sound. And when you get an opportunity at the desk, you've got to make the most of it.

And you've got to just go down swinging with your best, you know, with your best way. You can't throw your change up. up at your at the home run hitter and hope to get away with it you've got to beat him with your fastball and that's what you have to do when you're an announcer when you get a shot take it another question from dm forever kevin kelly thoughts on pat macafee's impact on wrestling what's your take it's it's good at times for me it's a little much and and i think again it's um as he gets more experienced with it, he'll develop more of that feel. You know, the Pat McAfee show can't extend to, you know, to wrestling as well. But it's, it doesn't bother me per se. I think it's fun. I think

it's interesting. It's different. It's a great crossover. And he's the right look and feel and personality for the spot. I do enjoy his, you know, his Pittsburgh, you know, quips and different things that he plays with with his word play and different things. He's fun. He's edgy and unpredictable, which is always great. So it, for me, is a very good color man. I think that's the perfect spot for him. Just again, you know, you've got to reel him in every once in a while, which is not a bad problem to have. We've got a comment here or a question from Eskabam, wants to know if I still practice karate. I have to kick my own ass every single morning to get out of bed.

That's as close as I get to practicing karate. James Soren said, Eric is a legendary enlightening icon. Well, thank you for much. Thank you so much for that. And much respect to Kevin Kelly. Thank you, James. James is a hardcore, loyal follower here, part of the ad free show. family. And speaking of ad-free shows family, Travis Medway, ask Eric. Hey, guys, occasionally,

they have to get a little closer. Occasionally, WWE commentators used to read out tweets. Do you think that commentating can go more fan interactive, such as you guys do on the podcast, in-show questions, etc. What do you think about that? Make it interactive so that while we're watching the show, we're hearing from people in the audience? We used to do it in Ring of Honor during live shows, mostly because we were losing the pay-per-view feed with Go Fight Live because it was so poorly done that we would, you know, hey, are we back in the air? Somebody tweet me and let me know.

But we used to do it all the time with New Japan. And it worked because we had the time to do it. We treated it more like baseball where it was two guys having. And Steve Carino and I would talk about it all the time, that we were two guys in the booth having a chat about wrestling. and just two buddies watching the matches and it was fun and we would work off each other well but we read tweets and things like that all the time

because it would help us embrace the community that was watching these maniacs that are getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning to watch live wrestling from Japan. So it helped endear us. It's got to move fast and again, it needs to be a short, sweet, well-written message for us to get it

because things are moving so fast at the desk, it would be easy to overlook or read it incorrectly. You've got to have a good producer on the side to flash it up on the screen. Greg Jacobson wants to know. Do you like Marl Rondello's style, if I said that right, I'm reading it wrong, style of announcing, you know who we're talking about.

Yeah, Mara Ronello, no. I understand his point of view, but again, reliance on catchphrases and it was more focused on getting himself over than getting the talent over. In my opinion, that may not be where his heart was or what his idea was, but for me, that was the end result. So I would try to be the anti-Marro Rinaloa and not rely on pop culture, not rely on different things, but just simply the talent themselves to get that over, to have those descriptive phrases based around their actions. But again, different flavor, as Dr. Tom Pritchard says, different flavors of

ice cream. So he was a different flavor for me. Good observation. Jimmy Belinko. God, I'm so bad at names, and hopefully I didn't mash that up too much. Hey, Kevin, loved your commentating. Sorry to hear about what happened in AEW. We're going to get into that in just a few moments. What are your plans for the future now? Are you going back to WWE or New Japan Pro Wrestling? Also, what do you think of Jericho's new gimmick? The learning tree is, you know, it's a work in progress as they all are, but you can never discount Chris Jericho's ability to get new things over. It's like he always wants to

challenge himself and do different things. It's, it is where he sees himself at this time in his career. So let's look at it from that point of view. And I think that that will help the audience embrace it. It is a little inside baseball and that might be where some people miss out. I don't have any plans to go back to New Japan because I got them my replacement in Walker Stewart, who's now 22 years old, Eric, has a big, deep voice. And it just just graduated from the University of Oklahoma TV radio guy doing stuff on campus. and was driving around hustling while he was a full-time student

and did over a hundred different indie shows in a year. I was like, no, this guy. How cool is that? I want to talk to this guy. I want to get him on the show. Yeah, he's nuts. And so I was like, okay, this guy likes the road. This guy likes the pressure.

Let's see what he can do. And he's taken to it like a fish to water. Again, it's difficult when you're young. You know this from going to Germany. it's culture shock it's you know all those different things but he's adapting to it well and the audience is taking to him which is course the most important thing that and he has a good sidekick which helps in chris charlton who's experienced with japanese wrestling and is helping ease him into the role they're jelling as a team so i don't plan on going back maybe if

if they would have me come back for a big show or something like that i would love to and i have I have no doubt that WWE would they would probably have 50 other announcers in mind before they would bring me back. But of course if they called, I would love to go back to do one more go-round with the rock or have some fun. I've got

so many friends there. You know, it would be a blast to go back for a one-time thing. A lot I want to cover here, and I'm not sure we're going to be able to cover it all in this show. But when did you start working in Japan consistently? what year uh 2016 2016 i don't know what new japan was like in 2016 my experience with new japan

was when anoki was there and and masasaito and mr bajjo running the business and it was a different business back then but what what is the state of new japan pro wrestling compared to the 80s and the 90s what would you say the state of new japan is and terms of popularity and success within Japan compared to, again, the New Japan Pro Wrestling that I was familiar with. Right. Well, right now, New Japan is the clear number one promotion in Japan. It's not even close.

And, of course, when you were there and when Inoki was in charge, there was always all Japan and then all Japan splintered off into Noah. there was the rising mixed martial arts scene. There were other promotions that were coming up all the time. Tenru's deal. So it was a competitive atmosphere. There's no more competition in Japan. And wrestling viewership overall in Japan is waning.

Right now, New Japan, because when I was there in 2016, you had star after star after star. And slowly, Shinski Nakamura being the first. homegrown big name who leaves the promotion foreigners always came in and out so a j styles kenny omega those guys going away uh stars aging out like eugen agatha tens on kojima aging uh but you still got okada you still got naito you still got tanahashi those are your big three uh tanahashi now really slowing as he's getting into his mid 40s nightto's starting to show the the cracks in his armor not really backfilling with anybody else there's a dojo system and it's

percolating but not really there yet then okada leaves it is now in a full rebuild um this is akin to any professional sports franchise realizing that we can no longer just rely on these past names but rather we have to develop our own new talent from within i think they're building it the right way. The only problem is it's taking it's going to take a long time because everything in Japanese wrestling takes a long time. So they're really relying on a whole new core of young guys to help turn the business around, which is not on its ass, but it's not what it was. And the rising tide raises many ships. There aren't any other ships to help rise New Japan. So if somebody gets hot, let's say no one were to get hot back in the day or all Japan gets hot, then that helps

New Japan's business. There isn't anybody else to help. Stardom is, you know, now splintered with Rossi Ogawa leaving and moving over and starting his Marigold promotion. Stardom was the clear number two. New Japan number one, startum number two and everybody else, three, four, five, six, it didn't matter because their numbers were all in the mud. So full rebuild, it's going to take five years or so to get everybody to wear their, you know, main event worthy level stars in all the fans' eyes. But they've got a good core of mom's dad's kids in the crowds as opposed to a bunch of 30-something-year-old men just sitting there with their arms folded and a dead audience. So at least you've got the youth. They still sell a ton of birch. So the business itself is,

healthy, but, and payroll will be lower. So they'll do all right. But, you know, subscriptions to world are way down and the business is not what it was when I was there. Well, and again, when I was doing business with New Japan in the mid-90s throughout the late 90s, I don't know what their average attendance was, but of course, all the big shows that I went to were sold out, egg dough, sold out, Tokyo Dome, sold out, you know, Fukuoka sold out. Saka sold out.

What I'm hearing now is New Japan is averaging around 3,500, an average audience of about 3,500 per event. That's pretty, I mean, that's not indie numbers, but it's not a lot better than indie numbers. No. I mean, it's, and I bring this up because New Japan has a mystique. guys like Dave Meltzer and people that focus on Japanese wrestling, which I think is cool, by the way.

I love the Japanese presentation. I'm not knocking anything here, just observing. But there's this mystique about New Japan Pro Wrestling that people try to, some people try to import here into the U.S. to try to establish a significance that existed in the 90s for New Japan Pro Wrestling, but quite frankly, does not exist to, today on the world stage. It's an interesting promotion. It provides a presentation that's different than what we're normally seeing here in the U.S. But my bitch is to try to suggest

that New Japan has even remotely the influence on the world stage that it had back in the 90s I think is a little misleading. I think you've done a good job of pointing out where they're that, what they need to do and where the future could be. But a lot of emphasis, you know, and I see AEW in particular, trying to ride that wave of significance, this perceived significance of New Japan pro wrestling talent like they're, the cream of the crop, when in fact they're, some of them are very good and very interesting to watch, no doubt about it, but to suggest that there's a, you know, a great muda, for example, in the current roster or somebody of that level,

Jushin Thunderliger and all the things that he accomplished. I think they've got a long way to go to rebuild. And I'm wondering how much of a distraction New Japan's attempt to establish themselves here in the United States is taking away from what they need to do in Japan. Or do you think it's complementary? I think it's, again, it's a separate business. They have different people that are in charge of the operation, as it is, in America.

And all it really is is just, okay, who is available, which wrestlers are available on this day? So obviously, Japan is first and primary. We need, no, you can't have Naito, you can't have Hiromut Takahashi. You can't have our big stars, you know, America, for these days. States. And they always do try to work hand in hand. But yeah, the idea of, of chasing business in America with the mystique of New Japan Pro Wrestling is fool's gold. It's a fool's errand. You're not going to get it. And the reason why it was hot when New Japan started running shows in America the first time was built around the guys like the Bucks and Kenny Omega

and those guys coming over because the elite was so hot then. It wasn't necessarily that New Japan was coming over to the states with, you know, this red-hot roster. There were guys they wanted to see like Okada and Tadahashi and Naito. But it was built around the Americans who had, you know, who had made their names in Japan and there was a mystique around them. And they were so hot with what they were doing on YouTube. So after that, then it was like, okay, diminishing returns and they're struggling to draw a house. they do okay. Each U.S. show probably draws on average about 2,000 people. But, you know, they're running smaller venues. And it's not that premiere. It's not that big of a deal anymore. Like you said, in Japan, the numbers average about 3,500. They had sold out the building in Osaka, which is a like, it could be set up for as many as 5,000. Let's say 5,000 is a round number. And they had sold that out 27 times in a row pre-pandemic. now they're struggling to sell it out again they've gotten close a couple of times and i think sold

it out once but it may have been there was only one time that it was sold out sold out where they put fans above the video board in the entrance way that was what i always considered sold out i've only seen that once since then and but that's an indicator to me because osaka's their hottest town. Corican sells out, but again, they ran that building to death during the pandemic because there wasn't any place else to go. So it's hard to get, if they could just focus on running Corrican and make that the primary, run Corcoran, run Osaka. Those are your two big buildings and you can program these guys getting over much quicker than if you're worried about spreading yourself thin and doing all these things. That makes a tremendous amount of sense, especially in a

rebuild environment. Yeah. It's going to go back, you know, marshal your resources, do an inventory, make sure you've got everything you need. It's almost like starting over again. Yeah. Start out small, get it hot, you know, let people in other markets realize that, wow, this is fun, this is exciting, this is something I want to be a part of by promoting it, however you end up promoting it in Japan. But you almost have to go back to square one. Yeah. You know, I did the same thing in WCW when I took over WCW and had the ability to make decisions with things other than the look of the show as I shut down house shows. Because if you looked at the house show business and you realize that every time you go out the door,

you're actually losing money. The best way to fix that is not to go out the door more often because you're just going to lose more money. But to save those. resources, whether they're human resources or financial resources, marshal those resources, put them into something that can have an immediate impact on the perception of your business or the performance of your business and then grow back to what you were at one point or where you want to be. But you're absolutely right, Kevin, to spread yourself so thin and try to fix all of these markets, you know, with a limited roster of young talent that's just now beginning to get over, maybe some of them are more over than others. But it is a slow process.

You know, people think that all you need is a really good idea and a great talent. It's not it. And it takes time for the audience to accept me. It's probably, I don't know what it's like in Japan. But here in the United States, I've said this many, many times. Pick one person other than The Rock and Bill Goldberg who are able to get over and establish themselves as leaders in the industry in less than 10 years. Just point me to one person that's been able to make it in the business to reach that level of success.

It hasn't been in the business for at least 10 years. No. I think it'd be hard to find one. And what that says is, okay, so let's be patient and let's be smart. But as you can tell, I get passionate talking about this because these are the things that, you know, we would be on the bus and we'd be talking about because the boys themselves would see how the business was changing. And it's like, we need to be doing this. We need to be doing that. They didn't listen to us.

But, you know, now they're forced to. Ocada's departure changed everything because that's losing, that's losing your home run hitter. That's losing the Great Luda. That's losing, you know, that would be WCW losing Halka. Kogan he's that he meant that much to the promotion at this stage of the game uh so again they'll get it back they have the right people in charge it's just going to take time let's get to a couple more questions here Travis Midway again wants to know hey guys has there ever been anyone better than mean jean at getting a runaway train back on the track that's an interesting question

thank you Travis that's an interesting question because as an announcer you know especially if you're the stick band during interviews. Now, I'll go back to my era when things were way less scripted. If they weren't scripted at all, you'd have a couple of bullet points you talk about. They weren't even written on paper. You just kind of go over them before the promo. But a lot of times, talent would just go off, depending on who they are. I mean, Roddy Piper, you never knew what was coming out of his mouth.

You could go over the interview and I'm going to say this and let's make sure we get this point in. Let's make sure we get that point in. And let's not forget to promote the match because that's what's coming up next week three two one go and rottie would be talking about internal combustion engine design yeah i mean it just you never knew what was going to come out of his mouth was there anybody better at bean jean being jean than reeling that talent back in and getting them back on track he just had such a style and and i think travis you could have edited that even shorter has there ever been

anyone better than mean gene period no no question mark it would be not period kevin uh no the answer is no uh iconic voice iconic look uh everything that you needed uh for that spot but again that's through years and years of repetition and doing it knowing the boys and knowing the talent and understanding how to do it and where to be in an eye on time so many little things that go into it. And much like you, I mean, you came up in radio before you got into wrestling. And I think Mean Gene did as well. And I think learning, learning radio, especially, you know, in probably the 50s in the 60s and

70s when Gene was in it, radio was a different business than that is now. And I think Gene's skill sets that we saw and benefited from in professional wrestling, the foundation of those skill sets were really built in his. understanding and how to do radio, how to create emotion, how to create an image, how to engage his listening audience so that they were actually visualizing the things that he was talking about. They could only hear audibly. That's the magic, I think, of a great announcer.

To this day, like on weekends, I'll listen to CBS Sports Radio, especially on Sunday, because I love the way the sportscasters talk about. whatever sport they're covering at the moment. They tell you stories. They allow you to use your imagination. So someone like me, who's not necessarily really into basketball, you know, I'll watch it during the playoffs and the finals just because I do. But I'm not like into basketball, into the NBA.

But I'll listen to CBS Sports Radio. And I'll get insight and become interested in something that I really don't have a lot of interest in because the announcers are so good. they tell a story they paint a picture they have an ability and it's an art it's a lost art but it's an art to engage the audience in an intellectual level just by the sounds of their voice and the words that they choose i think that's cool as shit and it's also on the rhythm on the beat not only was jean of course a DJ but he also was a musician and that having that understanding the rhythm

and the beat of what it is that you're doing, whether it's calling a match and a play-by-play, there is a rhythm to, because again, they say a match is like a dance, okay? And matches that are clumsy, it's two left-footed people stepping on each other's toes

trying to dance. But if you'll watch a dancing with the stars, you could see how some matches will have a faster pace, slower pace. And if you can gravitate on to that rhythm now you're now you're on the beat with them you know when to hit for example the post in and you know when to lay out you feel it because you're down with the rhythm and you

feel it in your soul it's not a question of needing to be told to stop talking you know it because it's there you're part of the dance it is part of the dance so if you have rhythm and if you're a musician and if you have those skill sets, you might do better at wrestling announcing or sports announcing as you accurately portrayed there with CBS Sports Radio. Those, yeah, that might be part of the skill set that is least talked about,

but in my opinion, it is very valuable. What are your thoughts on Logan Paul? This is from James Sorensen. What are your thoughts on Logan Paul and the eyeballs that he's brought to the table? I love it. Oh, my God, I love it. It is awesome.

first of all from a physical talent you have to respect what he's done taking to it so quickly working hard to be prepared uh he doesn't just show up to the building and you know tighten up his shoelaces and go out and wrestle he's preparing and practicing uh and again different arena different breed of cat than we're used to eric but it's a man oh man it's taken the showman and allow him to perform in the wrestling arena and he's taking it made it his own. He's

got big balls. I love it. interviewing President Trump. Love it. Whatever he can do to get over and to get his products over, he's doing it. It's really quite amazing. And the fact that he's been able to, yeah, he works hard. He puts

100% into it, which doesn't even begin to explain how fucking awesome he has become in the ring. This guy should theoretically, on paper at least, should be an NST running ropes as opposed to blowing people away on major paper views every time he steps into the ring. I go, what in the fuck? How could this guy be this good, this quick?

It's amazing to me. Kurt Angle was this good this quick. Yeah. But Kurtzian expected it. He was an Olympic. is an Olympic athlete. Yes. You know, as a wrestler, no doubt.

So you kind of, not that you expect it at all. That's not the right way to say it. Was, was anybody shocked that Olympic gold medalist as a wrestler would adapt to professional wrestling? Shocked, no. Surprise it happened as quickly, yes. But Logan Paul was not an Olympic athlete. Nope.

He's a fucking YouTube guy. And again, it's just, it's half. just that's those big balls that I appreciate to go out there. And he has to, and I don't mean to interrupt you, but he has to have a natural athleticism, not just the physical part of it, but to be able to mentally,

yeah, be able to see the picture. In other words, to go, okay, I got 12 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it is,

and I'm going to go out there and have a very complicated match in terms of how it's laid out. And oh, by the way, I'm going to be doing some shit that very few people could do effectively, even if they could pull it off, it didn't look that good. And I'm going to be doing some high-risk shit. The amount of mental skill and agility that that takes,

along with the physical part of it, to me, puts him at a level that I don't know that there's ever been anybody, including Kurt Angle, that's been able to make this much progress this fast. again, acknowledging that Kurt was an athlete from the time he was probably four as a wrestler. Logan Paul just came off. He came off the fucking bench as a YouTube guy and is now doing things that very few people that have been in the business for 10 or 15 years could do. It's amazing.

And that's, again, those types of guys are very rare. And WWE just always seems to, again, we always said Vince just finds a way, Vince would find a way to just step in shit and somehow get a diamond out of it. and it always seemed to benefit him, no matter what the situation. But here's another one that's just fallen into their laps through, well, we believe that this guy is a good athlete and we can get something out of him. And certainly the crossover appeal with his YouTube stuff will help. But I'm sure that nobody could have imagined that he would be as good as he is. You know, I doubt that Paul of X said, oh, we've got it here.

We've got this special guest star wrestler who's going to be incredible like no one's ever seen. I'm sure even they had to be shocked. and how good he is. I imagine. Jimmy Belenco, once again, sorry, one question for Eric Bischoff. Grace that either of you would see as a wise choice. I can't even read this. Sorry, one question for Eric Bishop. Any chance you'll come back to Melbourne.

I was in the hospital, so I missed out on meeting you earlier this year. You know, I don't have any plans right now to go back to Melbourne. Nothing on the calendar, but I really enjoyed my last trip there, a month or two, we go. And we'd love to come back. Always enjoy coming to Australia. So hopefully you're on the mend and you can make it next time. Yeah. 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, like if the wind changed direction or the temperature varied by two or three degrees, or

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Blu for their ongoing support of everything we do. Tyler Dunn, is there another talent other than, let me go here, okay, is there another talent other than Jordan Grace that either of you would see as a wise choice for WWE to bring in a similar way she was used at NXT? I'll leave that one to you because I'm kind of out of the loop on that. Well, again, you know, Jordan Grace in TNA is special. I think Steve Macklin is a ready-made because he spent so much time in NXT that I think there would be some crossover.

There would be fans who would remember him from NXT and he would have some ready-made rivals with people that are there. But obviously any star that, TNA is doing anything that they can to try to get some attention to get some relief from what they're doing. And what they're trying to do

is set up a relationship where WWE will send guys to them and, you know, TNA will get some buzz out of it and some rub or whatever. but it's it's not going to work and and eventually WWE is just going to take the pieces that they want because that's where the talent wants to be and TNA won't have the resources to keep them

so now that you've opened that door say goodbye to everybody in TNA that you spent time building and they'll continue to rely on guys that have recently been released from WWE and for minimal gains without developing any homegrown talent Unless, and this is just a, I don't know, I won't call it a fantasy, but a prognostication. And I'm usually right.

Like I'm running about night. I don't know if you keep track, a lot of people do. I'm right about 98.2, 23% of the time now, these predictions. Yeah, I've been on a role for the last couple of years. But perhaps there's something else at play between WWE and TNA. perhaps WWE now I would agree with you

if this would have been two years ago Vince McMahon in charge just because he's a carnivore and he would just eat up whatever was on the table and spit out the rest and move on I think that may be different now

and perhaps there is a strategy in place where there will be a full and ongoing when I say full support I mean within reason long-term support of WDW to T&A so that there can be that crossover. It could be different than we've seen in the past. Just because I think WWE business strategy is different now than it was in the past.

Could be wrong. Well, very rare, if you would be wrong, at 98.2 to 3%. No shit, right? So you should take that shit to the bank. Yeah. But again, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. But obviously, Jordan Grace has gotten some good attention from her, you know, going from, directly from T&A back into, back to NXT and we'll see what happens

down the road. But yeah, always, always. Ask a bum. I always, whenever I have a question I'm pondering, I can't seem to find the answer to. I will ask a bum every time because they have a clear perspective on life. Ask a bum wants to know, why did after 83 weeks end, I loved Christy? That'd be Christy Olson. and she is an amazing young lady i have nothing but respect and fondness towards her but after 83 weeks was just something fun that i did on thursday evenings um and it just got to be time consuming as i'm doing more and more of this type of thing it was less and less time to do just fun shit so that's what happened but i'm sure i'm going to be working with her again down the road because i dig her she's a

she's a great talent she's just a fun person one person denovius mac denovius is one of our loyal, long-term family members over at adfreyshows.com and just one hell of a good guy. Kevin, I am a huge fan of your work and thank you for your contributions to the business. My question is, do you think Cody being hunted is getting stale as opposed to him being the hunter? That's a really good question, Genovius. It is. I would say, well, that's what happens when the baby face. becomes the champion and you finally get the chase you've completed the chase you've

climbed the mountain and you've won now what and invariably those rains are usually short-term I figured Cody wins at mania which he did and he drops the belt at Somerslan we'll see because again that's just what happened people love the chase but then after the chase is over then we'll So how do you explain guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan and that's rock that's the other thing feed you had to feed heels to him you had to feed heels to those guys and and they've kind of they've really spent a lot of time on on widening this bloodline thing and have just had Cody kind of in a silo with with AJ Styles at this point so there's

not the depth of storytelling with Cody as the champion, but his story is that he's enjoying life as champion, victimized by one. But if they decide to start running heels at him, then it'll keep it lively. But that's, that's, do you think they have enough heels? No. That are, that are, because that's the thing. I was talking to Hawk the other day. Yesterday, as a matter of fact, and we were talking about the, uh, who killed WCW series, and some of the comments that were made from different individuals. in that series. And we were talking about, you know, the chase, which is better.

You have a baby face champion that's fighting off all threats, or is it better to have a baby face champion that's chasing the heel? And I agree that if you have a Hulk Hogan scenario or a rock scenario or a Stone Cold Steve Austin scenario where you've got a lot of great heels to feed your baby face. Great. But you got to have the heels to do it. And they have to be real heels. They have to be people that the audience already has invested their hate into. Now, they got to be over. They got to be over his heels. They can't just be a wrestler that's playing the part of a heel. That's not heat. That's not going to create the emotion that a baby face needs to be successful if he's being

hunted. So it's a, it looks easy on paper, right? On Paper, all this shit is really fucking easy. Oh, yeah. But the dynamics of it, the emotions that you need to create are very difficult to create if you don't have the talent to do it. Right. Do you think, you think Cody will turn heel at some point in the near future? I think he can. That might be the way that he freshenes it up.

That's a, that's a COVID scenario as well. You've turned on me. I didn't turn on you. And that was how the rock turn. It's a Hogan turn. It's a Hogan turn. When Hogan turned heel, one of his first comments says, you're people. I mean, he shit all over the audience for believing in him as a baby face.

And I think in Hulk's mind, at least, the audience has started the turn on him a little bit before he turned heel. He wasn't getting the kind of reactions he was getting or he was used to back in the 80s and the early 90s. So that heel turn resonated because he shit all over the audience. Yeah. And it worked. Austin's heel turn was supposed to be the year before, but he was out with the neck injury. I didn't know that. That's new information. I like that. Steve was, Steve knew that the audience was going to get stale. Then he would get stale in their eyes. He was always trying to be

one step ahead. So the original plan was, and I don't know how the match or the scenario would have worked out, but that if Steve was healthy, he would have done that turn probably with the rock at WrestleMania 16, which wound up being a four-corner match, a McMahon in every corner, you know, as well. That was the main event of an otherwise forgettable

WrestleMania. But yeah, so it was supposed to happen the year before. Instagram of Wrestling wants to know why did you leave, WWE, Kevin? It was a financial thing. They were losing money. Steve quits and Rock goes to Hollywood

and business starts to Peter out and the invasion didn't work and they lost a ton of money in the XFL. So there was a span of time in February and March of 2003 where by department, they were just going along and cutting people. And I was at the end. So I was thankful for that. They gave me a generous severance package. I was thankful for that. But people from accounting and HR and production got let go the same day. it's just one of those things that financially happened from time to time within WWE all right let's transition because this is what a lot of people are waiting for let's talk about your time in AEW well started a year ago and how it began was me

contacting Tony Khan in fact I just saw a photo memory from a picture I had taken in Haneda Airport did a selfie a little quick post you know hey heading home after a wonderful time Dominion, blah, blah, blah. And it was there that Tony and I had reached out to Tony to see if he needed me or was thinking of using me for the upcoming Forbidden Door, the New Japan AEW COLAB. He got back to me and said, I want to talk to you, want to find out what your schedule is. Okay. So I said, well, I'm going to be home these weeks, but then I'm going back and I'm doing the G1.

So that's five weeks. And then after that, I'll be going back in September. And then, so we set up the call, and what he wanted was more than just one. He wanted me to be the announcer on Collision, the new show that was starting up. And it's okay. And he gave me the money. And I was already kind of like getting a little weary of these Japan trips, you know. You get a lot out of year.

Yeah, eight years. And it's a long time. So it was financially good. It was figured schedule-wise, it was great, you know, living in this, living back home. flying out once a week to go do TV? Yeah, sure, let's do it. Sounds fun, new show, see him punk, let's go.

So that was how it started. What happened? Everything was fine. Everything's going along just great. And then a couple of weeks in, like it was a personal thing with me and Ian Rickabani of all people, you know, the ROH announcer.

I just happened to be, after getting home from the G1 and jet lag, that I go online and I always followed, the New Japan board on Discord because I always wanted to know what the people were saying and I interacted with some of the people from time to time and it was fun and I he's on there just hammering me Eric just hammering me and I couldn't believe it and what set it what set me off was that you know and he was like oh Kevin did this and Kevin did this to me personally I thought we were friends and then the last thing he says is but where I really you know couldn't take

anymore was when he began promoting a Q&on conspiracy theory movie. Wait, what? Because I went to see the sound of freedom and I told people to get tickets for free. It's about child trafficking. How could anybody be against child trafficking?

Well, apparently it's a Q and on conspiracy theory movie, Eric. I don't know if you do that. And so, yeah, so that really pissed me off. I thought we were friends. So I contacted. By the way, Ian, if you're listening to this, you're fucking weird.

you're fucking weird and the people that think like you are fucking weird so there's that and so now I find myself like you know anytime I would post something on Twitter hey I'm promoting this cool thing oh you're just a Q&on conspiracy theorist wait a minute it's coming from so now you know it was the dog whistle right so now all the other loonies are coming out of the woodwork and so I had messaged him and it was like hey I thought we were friends what's going on oh you really, you really insulted me one too many times. I was like, I didn't remember insulting you at all. I thought we were friends.

I don't even know this guy, but I'm going to wake up every morning trying to figure out a new way to insult him. Oh, geez. We're in a group text and we're making fun of each other's baseball teams and each other all the time. How is this? Anyway, so I'm like, well, I'll just get over it. And I'm talking to my peers. And I'm like, hey, has Ian ever said anything to you? No, no, but you guys will work it out.

Yeah, I think we will work it out. And we don't work it out. So if time's going on, I'm getting more and more annoyed about it. And I called HR. And I was like, hey, I might be making a bigger deal out of this than it really is, but I'm going to just tell you something. And you let me know if you think I should bring it up to you guys. Like, is it actionable?

Is it something I should talk to HR about? Or it's just personality conflict? And I explained the whole situation. And they said, no, it sounds like an HR issue. Okay, I'm going to sit on it. I'm not going to do anything now. now we get to about November and I'm here's what changed they throw Tony Chivani in as the in the booth and Tony takes my spot as the play back place so I slide over to the third chair

I'm the only announcer to not call any matches on the pay-per-views like I would show up and I'd be dressed and I'm ready to go and the announcer assignments come out I'm the only one to not be on there I'm starting to take this personally and I'm starting to wonder if there's a connection between with what Ian said. Again, a certain sector of the fan base being what they are think that I'm a Q&on conspiracy wacko because I supported a film that talked about the horrors of child trafficking. And now I talk to HR. It's November. And I lay the whole case out. I send them all the screenshots. Okay, we'll take care of it. December, January. Nothing. Hey, by the way, HR. Did you guys ever do anything with that? Ian thing, I said you?

Yeah, we took care of it. The disciplinary committee met and it's taken care of. Okay, what happened? Well, we can't tell you because it's private. Okay, I get that, but I was the victim. Oh, well, sorry. So now I don't get any relief. And I don't know what happened.

Nothing changed. He wasn't fired. And that wasn't my goal. I kind of just wanted an apology and to be able to move on. And I also wanted to know, is this affecting the perception of me within the walls of the company? And I'm talking to Mike Bansary, the executive producer, co-executive producer with Tony Kahn. And he's assuring me that nothing's going on. He's trying to get me back on these pay-per-views.

He has no idea why Tony Kahn doesn't want me on the paper views, but I'm getting no answers and no relief. So then my mental health began to really take a serious downturn. This was really troubling me. And it was affecting my relationships at home. It was obviously affecting my work. And I was getting worse and worse. and beginning of March, it was the weekend of Sting's last show. I wanted to be there.

I wasn't booked. And I went off. And I went off on social media. And I called the poor HR lady and left her a message. And it was, I'm sure it was stiff. I don't remember what I said, Eric, but I'm sure it was stiff. Were you sober? Yes, I was.

All right. As long as it wasn't like one of those calls at, you know, midnight or one o'clock in the morning after you've had a bottle or two of wine. Nope. It was two o'clock. You got to fight you in the ass. Yeah, I just, again, and, oh, I know what it was that finally set me off. The week before on collision, I had done a little bit with Willie Hobbs.

I think Will Hobbs is the man. I think he's great. And Will Hobbs was in an ODQ match against Sammy Guevara. We set up the spot to where he walks in front of me. He thinks he hears me say something. And he said, what did you say? I didn't say anything about you. No, get up.

What did you say? Did I hear that right? Give me your belt. What? Give me your belt. And he starts taking my belt off so he could whip Sammy Gavarro with. So it's a good little spot. And I see like a, you know, a fan made a little thing and put it on YouTube.

But I'm reading the comments just, you know, because they're right underneath. Oh, Q and on conspiracy wacko, right wing, this, that, the other thing. Trump loving, suck ass. I'm like, I can't get away from this. So I blew my stack. And about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I leave stiff voicemail. And in the meantime, I'm trying to get, like, in with the psychiatrist that they tout as, you know, we have this mental health counseling as a team. Well, I need help, guys.

And I'm telling you I need help. I've told you, I'm losing my mental health is suffering. I've told you this time and time again. And so I, on my own, am trying to find these psychiatrists out and contact them and tell them what's going on. Finally, I did. and talking to them all day Sunday and Monday. And we're supposed to fly because we were taping TV Thursday that week. So I was flying out Thursday morning to Atlanta.

And Wednesday, the 6th, I got let go because of what I was saying online publicly about the company and the voicemail message that I had left for the nice HR lady. So what are you going to do? You suing them? Yeah. Of course. That's unfortunate. Tell me about Tony Combat.

Backstage. I mean, what, you know, I've been back, I think I did two AEW shows early on, didn't really spend a lot of time backstage. My impression is that Tony Con is completely, has no understanding at all of creative, has no understanding at all of television production, has no understanding at all of how to format a show. Am I right? Am I wrong? He's got good people around him that he doesn't utilize. His vision of what wrestling is, for me, works best on a small scale. People always wonder, why did PWG stay small? Well, they knew, I think, they knew that if they went big, that it would get stale fast. And they had to stay small to keep it special, to keep it niche. He wants to appeal to a niche audience with his vision of wrestling. But he thinks he can convince the people to watch on a grand scale.

And the other thing that he's done is he's made himself the face of the company. Unbelievable. And, you know, he's the one, he's, he's the one that's going now on TV interviews. He and, I saw he and, uh, Darby Allen were doing like a TV promotion, local morning news somewhere. It's like, man, that's not his skill set. No. I thought he was a numbers guy, an analytics guy. That doesn't appear to be his skill set either, because anybody who is an

analytics expert would look at the analytics for AEW and go, fuck, I may have thought that I was on the right track, but I am clearly on the wrong track because the numbers not only tell me so, they scream at me at the tops of their little number voices each and every fucking week. So how can this guy who is supposedly an analytics expert not look at the analytics of his own show and go wait a minute we're doing something wrong let's shift gears how does that not happen well numbers can lie eric you can you can skew the numbers any way you want creative accounting even those numbers don't lie bro i mean i know but if you if you choose to look at the glass half full you choose to look at the glass half full that's you know and again that's where belter and and that's what he does you

know he'll spin the numbers to to make them not smell so bad um i think that that can be done what's the morale like backstage it's the same you know it as has been reported what i always noticed was that there were a lot of people that were there that weren't being used that wanted to be used that had creative ideas but that weren't getting through so there would be a conga line of people outside tony's office waiting to get in to see him and nothing's nothing wrong with that but i don't ever remember a long line of wrestlers wanting to get in to see ving There were people to talk to. You could talk to a Pat Patterson and Jerry Briscoe.

You could talk to a Jack Lanza. There were agents that were respected that had Vince's ear that could take your message and say, hey, so-and-so's not happy with what's going on. And Vince would say, tell him this to placate him or bring him in and I'll talk to him. And Vince then could put the Vince Whammy on them and everything. The Vince Whammy. He put the Vince Whammy on you. you'd go in as pissed as could be and you'd come out and he's patting you on the back and shaking your hand

what changed uh nothing really i'm just i'm just happy now that is so true yeah that is such a true truism the vince who had me because you know i've been there myself yeah i'd spend two days going when i sit down in front of vince this is what i'm going to say this is how i'm going to say it These are the points I'm going to make. And I'm, by God, I'm going to make my point. I'm not leaving that room until I make my point. And I leave that room, and I don't know if I made my point or not, but I feel so much better about myself.

Yes. Nothing changed, to your point. Nothing changed. But God, I feel good. Yeah. So, you know, so there was never that level of satisfaction with the wrestlers in, in AW. And there was just a lot of people tripping over each other in catering and otherwise. with a lot of guys and girls just not sure of what their place is,

which leads to unsettling, which means when they do get a shot, what are they going to do? They're not going to work from a place of confidence. They're not going to work from a place of, I know my business and I know my value. Watch me go out and protect my own assets and do nothing. Again, the object of wrestling is to let the audience think that there is pain being inflicted, pain being absorbed but not really well no now i'm going to throw myself on my head to get over because

that's what tony likes that's the perception i'm going to do something wild and crazy here to get over and invariably it doesn't work and it doesn't get over and it leads to a lot of injuries it leads to injuries which you know becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy of when i get healthy then i'm going to be you know i'm going to do more because that's what he likes and it's it's i wouldn't say it's dysfunctional but it's just not functioning the way it should be at least when i was there um because again there were there was more unhappy talents more talents with just like what are you doing tonight i have no idea well it's five o'clock and we're going on the air live in a couple of hours well yeah that's why i'm waiting okay you know it was

a lot of that we got one more question here before we let you go came in late BP2K Uni wants to know. I just tuned in. This was for you, Kevin. How much collaboration did you have with Callis on the announcing style? Or did Gato just let him run free? Yeah, we never were told anything. Nobody ever said, in New Japan, nobody ever said, say this, not that.

Nobody ever said, don't talk about that. Don't go there. And that's the reason why Don Callis and I were able to gel and develop chemistry as a team, whereas he was kind of coming back into wrestling and not really following New Japan, but certainly New Kenny Omega. And that was what he built his style around, was, you know, looking through the prism of, it was just like Bobby Heenan, you know, Bobby Heenan would hate Hulk Hogan and everybody who was going after Hogan, he would instantly love.

This is going to be the guy to destroy Hulkomania. And it was kind of the same thing with Don Callis and Kenny Omega. So that's the reason why that worked. But yeah, nobody ever told us anything. They trusted us. It wasn't the language barrier. It was that there was trust there. We know you know what you're doing.

So go do. And it was wonderful. Very cool. Well, Kevin, thanks for joining us here today. It's a pleasure to talk to it. Unfortunately, it's taken us so many years to finally have a conversation. But let's do it again. I'm sure we'll see you down the road.

and have this opportunity again. Good luck to you and your future endeavors, and I mean that in the most positive way. Thank you. Not like you might otherwise hear it. But yeah, good luck to your brother, and let's stay in touch, and maybe we'll do this again.

We'll too. Thank you very much, Eric. Thanks, Dave. Thanks to everybody. Have a great weekend. All right. Hey, guys, Eric Bischoff here. Now, if you need cash without the controversy,

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