83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Wise Choices: Wrestling Storytelling

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

On this episode of Wise Choices, Eric discusses a three part series he is going to that will teach the basic building blocks of telling a compelling story. 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 FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at https://www.patreon.com/adfreeshows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody. Did you miss me? Did you miss me half as much as I've missed you? It's been a full almost 24 hours since we met last. And I've got to tell you, I've been looking forward to this. This is going to be different, folks, because you know how I am about different than. And this is why I love YouTube. That's why I love all of you who are following here.

Members especially love you guys. because we can try things that are different. We can experiment with formulas, with structure, find new ways to be engaging in entertainment. And guess what? Some of them are going to work great. And some of them, not so much. But you don't know if you don't try, right?

That's the beauty of all of this. Because it would be very easy for me to find a formula that did pretty well and worked pretty well. well and say, okay, there's a formula, we're done, let's go. It's good. People love it. But if you keep doing it over and over and over again, you don't push yourself to find a different angle, to find a different way, different formula. You never really know what's possible. You get comfortable. And you know what I feel about comfort. Comfort is a thief. So in order to be uncomfortable, I have to try new things, and that's what I'm about to do today.

Now, as I said yesterday, when we were together, a brief moment, a brief interlude, if you will, just the chaos, the confusion, the debate, the arguments, the just crazy stuff that's out there on the Internet, primarily Twitter for me, because I don't go into Reddit and all these. I just don't. I'm an ex-guy. Big fan of Elon Musk, satellites, neural links, helping paralyzed people, operate computers with a thought. It does so many cool things.

But what I wanted to talk about with story today, and what I want to talk about is the confusion that I see out there. People think, and I use AEW, for example, but it's like, you know, oh, AEW has great stories. Excellent. Oh, I love their story. They have too many stories. We're going to talk about that at a minute. And so people like me believe, if there are already stories, they're horrible, and it might as well not be stories. But I think the biggest thing that came out of just watching the discourse, if you want to call it, that's being very kind. The discourse on social media over the weekend about story and AW in particular. Suggested to me that people don't even

know how to define a story. Like people that are supposed to be journalists that are covering the industry, I don't think they really know what a story is. Or otherwise, they wouldn't be so confused about whether they exist or not. Now, you've seen some of the discourse between Brian Alvarez and Dave Mouser where there's evidently some drama and conflict because Ryan thinks one way about this story or lack there of an E.W. And of course, Dave Mouser is in his role as the active lead surrogate for EEW, of course, is, you know, defending the product. And two things occur to me. And actually, it didn't occur to me until I got a bevy, a bevy of social media comments and questions directed to me, some of them on my DMs,

asking whether and I think this whole thing between Alvarez and Meltzer is of work, because clearly, I mean, you have to be blind not to see that Dave Belzer is losing credibility. with every breath he takes and maybe this is a way to kind of breathe some new life into their subscription base and maybe it's all a work and if that's true i applaud them if it's if they're trying to make their product more entertaining by taking an adversarial wool between each other and having some drama and conflict and debate good for them i hope it's a work because if it's real oh my gosh what are we in for Anyway, here's an example of some of the comments. And Super Dave, just pull them up at random.

I don't have any preface. I just kind of curated a bunch of them that I've seen on social media that stood out to me a little bit. Let's see what we got, Super Dave. Here's one. First round pick, MD. I need a fourth option. AEW has too many storylines that I don't care about. Well, I'm glad you're here.

I'm really glad you're here because we're going to attempt over the course. course of the next three weeks, beginning next week, we're going to have some time together and maybe we'll have a better idea of whether what you're seeing is a story or the fact that there is no story is why you're bored with it. Let's get a couple more. There were some smartasses in there. I was hoping to get in because I really wanted to make them famous today and maybe we'll figure them out. I'm a part of the 73%. We'll talk about that in a minute. And I have watched the AEW since its debut on TNT. I won't say AEW never had a story, but in recent years it's been little to none. Dendence ratings and lack of stars tell you that. Wordlow, FTR, Swerer,

Ricky Starch, all hot and then cold because of no story. Okay, now the reason this is interesting is because Dave Meltzer, my favorite foe journalist, the cosplay king of wrestling journalism, suggest that the people that don't believe that AEWs have story, like me, Jim Cornett, Chris Pritchard, Dutch Mantel, bully Ray, on and on and on and on. Well, the reason we feel that way is because we don't watch the product. Now, we watch the product, just like the individual did that posted that last comment. We just don't see it, brother. Now, maybe you do, Mr. Magoo.

Dave belts there. Maybe you're looking through those AEW colored glasses that you must live in and you see something that obviously no one else does. Maybe 25, 28% of the audience agrees with you. We'll talk about that in a moment. But for the most part, there ain't no stories, brother. There's what you, Dave, Mr. McGoo, thinks that there are things represent story. But do they really? And one of the other things I did the other day, because I, you know, here in 83 weeks, we've got members and I take extra care to provide some unique content to our members. And every other day, if I can, I don't want to just fill air. So I make sure I've got something that at least I'm excited about talking about. But the other day, I was, you know, setting this up as the idea was literally forming in my head as I'm addressing our members.

It's exclusive content. And I compared AEW to a microwave. And then as I often do, which is why I love working with Conrad Thompson, because he can keep me on track. Because if left him on my own devices, I'll end up in the weeds somewhere. And first I'll end up in another zip code, then I'm in another state. And then somebody's asking me for my passport. And while the time I get squared around, I don't even remember what I was talking about to begin with, right? So I started talking about or I started using the example of AEW is like a microwave.

Now, here's what I mean by that. I'm trying to recreate my exclusive 83 weeks of members video. If I was in a room with 100 people, I lined them all up, 100 people, say ages 18 to 49. And I said, ladies and gentlemen, everybody in this room, I want you to pay close attention. because in this bag, I have $100,000 in cash. That's right.

I see the looks on your faces. $100,000 in cash. I am prepared to give $1,000 to each and every one of you. And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, and the reason I ask you to leave your phones at the door so you don't have access to them is I don't want you to Google this shit. That doesn't mean you know anything.

That just means you know enough where to find the answer, which in and of itself is fairly impressive. But it's not the point. The point is I'm going to ask you a question. And if any one of you or all of you can answer this question, I'll give you each $1,000. dollars you ready for that everybody understand no talking amongst yourselves no cheating tell me how a microwave works how does a microwave make your food hot three two one you've got

thirty seconds and you know what while they were thinking about thousand dollars How does it, you put in the time and you hit starts and then you wait and a light goes on and food spins around on a little plate and pull it out and it's hot. That's how it works. It's a microwave. But that's not how a microwave works. That's not how it makes your food out. That wasn't the answer to the question. The question, functionally, how does a microwave oven work?

The short answer is, a microwave oven works vis-a-vis radio signals, extremely short-wave, high-frequency radio signals. And those radio signals, radio waves, not signals, radio waves, create vibration within the molecules, particularly if there's moisture within the product that you're heating up, which is why your coffee cup doesn't get hot necessarily when you put it in a microwave because there's no moisture in a coffee cup per se. The liquid in the cup does get hot, but the cup itself doesn't. Why? Because there's no water molecules. There are no water molecules in the cup itself. The food gets hot because there's water in the food

or in this case coffee. So those high frequency radio waves create vibration within whatever it is you have in a microwave. Guess what vibration creates? heat. So a microwave oven works, primarily heat your food, through the use of a very high-frequency radio wave, hence microwave. Now, what the fuck does that have to do with AEW and stories? Because I think much like a microwave,

which everybody uses, most everybody, there is common as, I don't know, pots and pans anymore to come with your apartment. If you run a cheap apartment, it's got a microwave, more than likely. So although everybody uses them, very few people know how they work. And I think AEW, based on a lot of the comments that I've seen, people are confused about storyline because they don't know what a storyline is. Just like they don't know how a microwave oven works, how can you comment on a good story or a bad story

if you can't even define a story? And you can't just say, well, this guy is wrestling, this guy, and this, you know, they have history together. That's not a story. It's an excuse for a match. That's some lazy shit right there. Or their story goes back to five years ago or 10 years ago. Backstory is not a story.

Backstory could be a starting point. Backstory could be the reason for a story. But in and of itself, it's not a story. Just competing to see who wins and who loses. In and of itself, I guess. I just couldn't call it a story. Not the way I look at this. But evidently a lot of other people do.

Let's take a look at the graph because I posted this on social media. I wanted to get some conversation going about the quality of story and or if they even exist just to get an idea what people were really thinking about. Superdeeb, we got that? All right, so here's what I put up the other day. And by the way, that was supposed to be a question mark, not a dollar sign, because even I'm not perfect. What do you think? AEW has great storylines, 19.6. AEW, this is a Dave Meltzer theory. AEW has too many stories, 8%.

So what are you got? Almost 28% of the audience believes there are either great stories or too many of them. It's an interesting stat because 72.4% of the respondents and there was about 7,000, I think, I can't remember off the top of my head,

but it was enough. 72% of them said AEW, has no storylines. I would be one of those. But again, according to Dave Mouser, that 72.4% represents people, well, they don't even watch. They're just, oh, here's his favorite, bad faith. And the way Dave would put this, and this is how you can tell, you know, people that follow Dave because they all respond kind of like him. And it almost always starts off with, imagine, 72% of the people, People don't believe there's a story because they don't watch the show. You know, he starts with, imagine, it's so predictable.

But no, I posit position that a lot of people are watching AEW who don't believe there are any stories in who are disappointed with a product. We're not watching it anymore. Who are not buying tickets to go to events. And that's not just my opinion. That's backed up by the data. So when you take Dave Meltzer's weird shit out of it and you look at, now, let's also be honest and fair.

These people are responding to a post I put up on my ex-social media site. Presumably a good number of them are going to be people that follow me. Well, they follow me for a reason. So they're likely to lean into my position. I take that into account, by the way. but it's not as it's not as close as you may think there's a lot of people that follow me that just love to bust my balls and that's okay too i have fun with that i enjoy it it's entertaining and sometimes i create great content out of it so after reading about all of this and seeing

all of the confusion about whether there's a story or too many stories or not enough stories or whatever i thought why don't we break it down why don't we at least try to get an understanding of what is and what isn't a story. How do we do that? Well, there's, I guess, different ways to do it, but here's my story. As I've said so many times, when I first put my toe in the water

on the creative side of the business, it really wasn't until late 1995. Once Turner hand me the opportunity to create a primetime television show that would compete directly head-to-head against WWF at the time on USA Network. Up until that point, I had always delegated creative because I didn't have any confidence in myself. I had never done it. I had never really been exposed to the process.

I had been exposed to every other aspect of the business from marketing to promotion to television production, syndication, sales, sponsorship development, all the other aspects of television and wrestling I had had hands-on experience in at one level or another. But creative was the one area of the industry that I never, ever got near. But when it was my job on the line, really,

to create this project for Ted, I knew I had to get my hands dirty. I no longer had the luxury of delegating. It's great to be a macro manager versus a micromanager. When you've got great people around you and everybody's on the same page, everybody knows the vision, that's a wonderful thing. But we weren't there. This was something I had to get in the trench and learn. And I learned on the job from day one.

And in the process from that first day, when I, I guess, officially thrust myself into the midst of the creative process for at least the nitro format, it was how it started. I started learning by trial and error. That started in 1995 and stuck with me until the time I left, WCW. It stuck with me while I was in TNA, but by the time I got to TNA, after I'd had that time off. Oh, and by the way, it stuck with me while I was in WWE. I thought about what I had learned. I started thinking about there's got to be a formula.

There has to be a way, because I look back at all the things that I did that were successful, all the storylines, and there were a few. You only had one good idea of the NWO. Not really true. But certainly didn't have any stories that were as successful as the NWO, but there were some great stories in there as well. And I had a shit ton of horrible examples of story. So in my mind, I kind of went through and thought about all the great ideas,

good ideas, even the decent ideas that we had in WCW, not just mine, but other people's as well. And I started thinking about, I asked myself the question, why did those stories work? What made those stories successful? What are the elements? What's the common ingredients between the stories that worked

and what was lacking in the stories that didn't work? And then I would study the stories that didn't work. Just the ugly ones, the bombs, the ones I don't want to talk about. What Conrad says, I'm going to take you down a row. We're going to go for a ride down.

Memory Lane. especially when I hear in 1999, because I know it all was the shits. There wasn't an example of a good story. Anything that he comes up with, Conrad comes up with from 1999, is going to be on the list of things that I study to find out what was wrong with that story. So the idea that you can only learn from reading a book or only learn from always being successful, I don't subscribe to that theory. I learn more from my mistakes, from my choice,

choices, my bad choices. I learn more from that by analyzing it than I do sometimes by looking at some of the ideas that worked. So I've always been thinking about, I've dreamt, not dreamt that would be too strong, I've always really wanted to develop a formula that one could use to help guide the creation of a great wrestling story. And TNA, I took what I had learned from my successes and from my failures and began to kind of hone in on this formula in a very, very rough way. I hadn't reduced it to paper or it wasn't something I had on my computer. It's just something that I've been thinking about starting in 1995

and haven't quit thinking about it until this very moment, actually. When I went to WWE in 2019, I don't know that I've ever shared this before. I think I had two meetings with Vince. The first one was just an initial, hey, how are you? And then after the, hey, how are you? Catch up. He said, we'll get back to you in a week or so with an offer. They did.

Came in for the second meeting. We had one more meeting and then I got the offer. But one of the things that Vince and I talked about, and I think it was in the first meeting, was where my interest lies. Because Vince literally asked me, what do you want to do? He wanted to bring me in. He made that clear.

But he literally asked me, what do you want to do? And I made it clear to him that I really wasn't interested necessarily in the creative, to be a part of the creative team. And he wasn't interested in that either. And that really wasn't my interest. The role, as it was described to me, was to oversee the creative team and make it more effective and efficient. And the reason I got really excited about that opportunity is because by 2019,

I had come much closer to having an actual formula that I was about ready to try to implement in a more formal way, meaning get everybody on board. Okay, here's the story arc. Here's the three-act structure. Excuse me. Here's the three-act structure. Let's build this story. story are leading to this pay-per-view, this big live event, whatever it may be, to the end

of the story. And let's work towards building that story using this framework of this formula that I had been literally developing since 1995. And given the role that I was given, or having the role that I was given, ultimately, would allow me to try to get at least part of my team on board to develop this concept more fully. Because truthfully, I didn't really want us worked for WW, even though I got hired in 2019. And by that point, I really needed the bread, by the way, no secrets there. It was a great financial opportunity for me when I really needed one. But that's not what got me excited. What got me excited was that on this level in WWE, I was going to actually be able to make this formula become a real thing

so that when I left WWE and the day I took that job, my goal was to be out of there within two years. That's why we didn't sell our house. That's why we didn't pack our furniture. That's why we basically threw my dog in a truck with a U-Haul in about a month worth of clothes and a few odds and ends and moved on out to Stanford, Connecticut because I didn't have any intention of being there for more than 24 months. But in that 24-month period of time, I was hoping to develop this formula and perfected in such a way that even after I was gone, it would shape the way people approach to crafting stories in professional wrestling long after I was gone. That was my ultimate goal.

Fortunately, I was never able to adapt to the WWE system and culture. Never really had a chance to work on that because given the fire hose nature of the way things were being done in WWE at the time with regard to creative and the way Vince liked doing things, there was really no opportunity to focus on that. And, of course, before my coffee really got cold, I was out the door. But I've never quit thinking about what is the story? How do you create a good wrestling story on a consistent basis? How do you improve the odds?

Because even using a great formula, you're not going to hit all the time. Anybody that's been in the creative business knows that if you're batting 50-50, you're a fucking rock star, right? But how do I get to 50-50? How do I get to 60-40? What if, by the grace of God, I could get to 70-30? That's game-changing. That's generationally life-changing if one could really refine that formula.

And that's been kind of my thing. It's a hobby of mine. And when I analyze things, even when I'm watching things recreationally, I'm looking for the transition between the first act and the second act. I'm looking for the plot points that really build the foundation of the story and propel a story forward. But I'm also thinking about how would I adapt that to a wrestling story? Because a story arc and the plot points that are part of it for a novel or even a feature

film are different or not applicable to a wrestling story. Because a wrestling story, the narrative, a lot of its physical narrative, it's in the ring. That story has to support or amplify the audible narrative, color play by play, interviews backstage, interviews in the ring, whatever. So you've got to marry these different forms of narrative, particularly because of the physical narrative. it requires that a wrestling story arc probably has different plot points and requisites than say a storyline or three-act structure for a novel. So how do we do this? Now, I know I'm setting this all up.

This isn't nearly as exciting as it's going to get. Trust me, I can make this fun too. You guys know me well enough. But I thought, okay, how do I do this? If I'm going to invite people to my party and my party, and my party is all about let's discuss story where's the starting point excuse me will i take a sip of coffee how do we do it so i thought why not go to an inspiration an author a very famous author who literally wrote the book back in 1949 or 46.

I think it was 1949. The book was called Hero with a Thousand Faces. The authors of a gentleman by the name of Joseph Campbell. Hero with a thousand faces kind of morphed into Hero's journey because that's really what it's all about. Before we get into that, let's talk about Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was a writer, clearly, but he also studied mythology, and he worked with archaeologists and people who study ancient cultures and learned about those stories. Now, we're talking about periods of time when this is before anything, no mail, no telephone, no telegraph, no iPhones, no anything.

And these cultures, we're going back in the beginning of stories. telling time, okay? And these cultures were all separated. They're disparate. They were all spread out and they were isolated. There was no communication between these various cultures on different continents. But Joseph Campbell, in his research, discovered that the stories that existed, the mythology that existed back in these ancient cultures and these different places around the world, these different tribes around the world, all had certain common denominators in their stories in mythology. Well, how could that be?

It's not like today when if somebody comes up with a good movie and a good idea for a movie, two weeks later, somebody will be copying a version of it and coming out with something that kind of looks the same, but it's a little different. It's before all that. It's human. These are the elements that satisfy the human imagination, spark interest. And that was kind of the beginning of coming up with the, I guess it's called a thesis. Or in this case, it was a book called A Man with a Thousand Faces that kind of took all of this research

and came up with a way, a formula of storytelling. Now, you may say, yeah, but that's it, Hollywood. bullshit that doesn't want me dude George Lucas gave credit to Joseph Campbell for the success of the Star Wars franchise in fact I think Super Dave do we have that quote up here I think it was quote number three I wrote many this is this is George Lucas speaking about Joseph Campbell and the strength of his work I wrote many drafts of this work referring to Star Wars And then I stumbled across this hero with a thousand faces. It was the first time that I really began to focus.

I went around in circles for a long time, trying to come up with stories. And the script rambled all over and I ended up with hundreds of pages. It was the hero with a thousand faces that just took what was about 500 pages and said, here's the story, here's the end, here's the focus, here's the way it's all laid out. It was all there. and had been there for thousands and thousands of years. As Mr. Campbell pointed out, and I said, this is it. After reading more of Joe's books, I began to understand how I could do this.

And I think that probably is a thought, and that's, again, George Lucas, acknowledging Joseph Campbell and the help that George Lucas received in creating and writing that what became a monster franchise. Because there was a path, there was a formula. there was a starting point. And there were identifiable points along a story arc that if you hit them, if you check those boxes, chances are much better than if you don't,

that you may have a successful story. I stumbled across this. Now, this is before, I didn't read Joseph Campbell until about seven years ago. So I had been, you know, been out of wrestling for quite a while at that point in time, but I was always thinking about this formula. It started back in 1995 when I sat down with a yellow legal pad and said,

okay, how do I do this? And by trial and error and learning on the job, I came up with a story, anticipation, reality, surprise, and action, which worked exceedingly well for me. That represented a formula, and that's probably the reason why I believe to this very fucking moment, And it's one of the reasons I'm here with you guys today is I do believe there is a formula. It would have to be adapted.

I've thought a lot about that too. And I'm not going to get into the details of it. But it can be adapted to the wrestling product to give any given story at least a better chance of being successful than by not following the formula. Comedians use formula. Talk to a stand-up comedian. I took a class on writing comedy, not because I ever wanted to be a writer, but because I wanted to understand the formulas that exist in the world of comedy, just like I wanted to understand the formulas that exist

and know more about what Joseph Campbell had to say when it comes to literature, or in his case, film or television. So I've been exploring formulas in various forms of entertainment for a long time, including music, people that write music, not because I want to become a music writer, because I want to understand the formula because there's cross-application opportunities. There's not a one-size-fits-all, but you can look at wrestling and go,

I'm going to take a little bit from this comedian's formula. I'm going to take a lot from Mr. Campbell's formula because it's been proven time and time and time again to ring the cash register. And I'm going to modify them and come up with the wrestling formula so that at least a new storyline has a reasonable chance of being successful, as opposed to not having a formula, not having a plan, and kind of coming up with it as you go.

The odds of that being successful are about one in a hundred. All right? So that's what that was all about. So what we're going to do, and I'm going to answer questions here, so by the way, I am encouraging you because I'm here for a while for you guys. I want to answer some questions, but I knew that this is going to be something in order to explain what I was going to try to do, had to kind of focus a little bit. more and now go back and forth for questions.

Encourage your super chats. And hey, by the way, you want to bury me? You think what I'm doing is bullshit. You disagree with what I say. I want to hear from you too. I'm going to make you pay mucker further. So you've got to super chat that shit. But don't be afraid.

I love it. I love it all. This is fun for me. Now, before we get into the questions, here's an example. Next week, we're going to start. And you all know if you've been listening. to me at all. I believe a good story has to have a beginning and a middle and an end. It's so fucking fundamental. But it's that basis of storytelling that gets you to a great story arc and

hopefully a great story. So what we're going to do starting next week is we're going to break down what is an act one? How does an act one apply to professional wrestling storylines? what are the plot points? What are the beats? What are the moments that you have to achieve within that first act in a wrestling storyline in order for it to be successful? What are they? How do we do that? And we'll discuss that. And here's an example of what I'm talking about. Super Dave. Can we take a look at our three-act structure? Because we're going to use this as the basis of everything that we do. This is just one example. It's a three-act structure. The first act is setting everything up. The second one is confrontation. The third one's resolution.

And there's about 17 beats below that, not represented here. Probably broken down a little more detail. But there's about 17 beats that go into this process. Plot points, if you will. Beats, I call them. Same thing in order for a three-act structure to fulfill its mission. So we're going to start next week with Act 1. We're going to talk about all kinds of things.

We're going to talk about some of the stuff we're seeing right now and whether or not it has an act one or if it has the elements that are required in an act one to be successful. And then we two, we're going to do act two, three, we're going to do act three. And at the end of Act three, I am going to take a current AEW story from its beginning to the very end or to where we are at the end of the third week because I'm going to be following the elite. Tony Khan, Team Elite, whatever storyline. And we're going to break it down week by week by week, and we're going to talk about it as it relates to a three-act structure. But more importantly, the elements, the plot points, the beats that go into that structure to see if one even exists.

And maybe that's why that story isn't getting over. There's all the reasons, but primarily because it's really not a story. Anyway, that's what we're going to do. I know this isn't my typical rant, rave, holler, all that kind of crap. And it's fun, don't give me wrong. I'm going to keep doing that shit. But this is something I feel is important. And if nothing else, whether you agree with it, whether you disagree with it,

you'll at least understand my position and why when I say, I think that story sucks, or I don't even think there is a story, it's because just like a microwave oven, if it didn't have the components in the oven that created, the radio waves. Yes, you would still have an oven. You would still have the microwave mounted in your kitchen or on the table. It is still a microwave. It just doesn't function. Which is why I think when people look at story in AEWs, especially the surrogates, the advocates like Dave Meltzer, whose identity is really wrapped up in the success or failure of AEW. Why those people suggest not only do they have story, they have two

many stories. Well, we're going to find out, aren't we? This episode is brought to you by Bluetooth. Let's talk about sex. I mean, Conrad's favorite subject, but since Conrad's not here, let's talk about it anyway. Guys, you remember the days when you were always ready to go,

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I'm teaching a class and I don't want to feel that way because nobody would want to be in my class. Let's ring them up. Josh Hennie, is there a story structure that hasn't been used and has potential in which AEW could use? I hope Tony is watching and taking notes.

I mean, story structure is very basic. You just took a look at the graph. What's challenging is, and this is where someone's imagination is going to have to come up. This has been my kind of mental hobby for a while is trying to refine a formula based on a 3-X structure that you could use as a template or creating storylines, kind of like I used to when I used my Sarsa formula.

Somebody pitch a story to me, an angle, an idea to me. I would look at that angle through the potential or that idea through the lens, I should say, of a Sarsa formula. Is there a potential for story? Good, if there is, good. are there ways and opportunities to create anticipation can we add a sense of reality to it is there an opportunity to throw in a surprise at a certain point within the art and will the action live up to the rest of the formula well i wanted to take that a step further so the answer

your question is josh absolutely and maybe by the end of the next three or four weeks somebody in AEW will look at this and go oh okay i kind of get it i mean i'm giving it away for free but i don't give you fuck. If it makes a product better, steal it. Begging you to steal it. I watched AEW last night. Please steal this shit. Begging you. All right. Boom. Let's do another one. John Cooney. At wrestling school, my coach always used the storytelling between Avengers Infinity War and Endgame as an example of how to tell a great story by making the audience want more. That is the money. That's the money shot. It's not a porn hub money shot. That's a storytelling money shot. We want any more. Whether it's week to week, that's called episodic television.

I mean, I'm watching some stuff on, I'm streaming some stuff right now. By the way, I'm watching a new series. I don't know if you all have seen it. It's called Sugar, an Apple. Wow. Talk about. interesting elements in storytelling. I've seen things in that series that I've never seen done before. Even in terms of the editing to advance the story and set the tone of the movement and the characters. Fucking awesome.

Check that out. The other one I just watched is we've got Jeff Daniels in it. It's a short series. It's a close series. It's not going to go on. It's one season with Jeff Daniels. I think it's called A Man is Full. Yeah, a man is full, unbelievably good.

But when I'm watching these things that I really love, I'm watching for plot points, the transitions between acts, to recognize when I'm about to enter the next phase of the story. But it's much the same here, as your wrestling coach was teaching you. When you learn to appreciate and see the creative elements that exist, and stuff that really, really works and then determine how to apply it to what you're doing, that's when the magic happens.

Happened for me, by accident, by trial and error, with the Sarsa formula in the NWO. So there you go. All right, one more. No, a whole lot more. We're not going anywhere, folks. No false finishes here, Mucker Fathers. We're going Broadway.

I don't get why Tony doesn't get help or give the pencil. Oh, you must read the sheets. Give the pencil to someone with much more experience. The most obvious answer to me is Jeff Gerard. Lee, I appreciate that comment. And I wholeheartedly agree with you. You know, it's been the mystery from day one to me because Tony has so many resources. He has the financial resources to have the best of everything within AEW, including a creative team.

But Tony, for some reason, and this is where I think it gets weird, Tony, I think, almost more than he wants financial success, because let's face it, he doesn't need it. Truth be no, he doesn't need financial success with AEW. What he really wants is to be recognized as the next Paul Heyman. Or the next Vince McMahon. Maybe not today, but where Vince McMan. what Vince McMahon achieved maybe to a small degree he even wants to be what Eric

Bischoff was back in the 90s and create a new way of presenting the wrestling product and actually have a real positive impact on the industry overall you can see in some of his commentary and some of the things that he says that's really what he wants and Tony I think in his mind doesn't feel like he can achieve that if somebody who's really good at creative comes in and has success. It will be that person's success. It won't be Tony's success. And I know that sounds ridiculous to those of us

who really wouldn't care who gets the success or who gets credit, but that's what Tony really wants. He wants the validation of being a Paul Heyman or Vince McMahon, or yes, even an area shop. In the sense that we achieved something within the industry that was special in its time. I think that's the only reason that makes sense because it's not a financial thing.

He wants to be that guy. The truth is he doesn't have the talent nor the experience. Tony is an analytical guy. In my experience, there are two types of people, and there's a lot of in between, essentially. You have people who are by nature, very analytical, very pragmatic, very logical, They're lawyers, architects, engineers, doctors. Then you have people who are the creative types. They're all over the freaking map.

You're very unorganized, generally not very disciplined, easily distracted with bright, shiny objects. That's me. A lot of difficulty focus on the task at hand. Let's put it that way. I think Tony's, based on what I've read about him and heard others who have worked closely with him, he is brilliant when it comes to data and analytics and analysis. But when it comes to creative, he doesn't have a fucking clue.

You could beat him about the head with a good idea, and he wouldn't know it. Therein lies your problem. All right, enough of that. Let's do another one. Sayan scholar WCW Nitro's 83 weeks was magnificent but the weeks around that deserve respect too you had WWF in a submission hole from September 1995 to early 1999 many weeks back and forth that's very true you know we talk about 83 weeks what people forget it was well that was 83 weeks in a row the rest of the time we were neck and neck sometimes we would win sometimes they would win

So we were highly competitive with WWE before we dominated them in 1995 all the way through early 1999. Very good point. And I'm glad you brought it up. Because if I brought it up, people think I was putting myself over it. But says you brought it up. I'm just talking about it. Fuck, free pass. And I appreciate that.

Thank you very much, brother. Oh, wait a minute. Let's go back to the one. I forgot there was an end of that question. I missed it. Sorry, Super Dave. Do we have that last one again? All right, we'll come back to, oh, there, here we go.

If you make another channel, you could call it four years. Eh, doesn't have a ring to it, but maybe. All right, let's go on to the next one. Thank you for that. I appreciate that very much. American hippie, I love that. Elite versus CM Punk and A. Steele could have been a good story. And the same CM Punk versus Jack Pairfight would have been a great story.

Why did Tony, ruin both stories. You know, there's a lot of potential. You can make a story out of anything. You're only limited by your own lack of imagination and lack of formula. It's my position. My position anyway. You can make a story out of anything. There were some flashpoints there with Jack Perry and Punk that could have been if everybody was adults and Tony had a creative bone in his body or instinct. Sure, it could have been. Why did he ruin them both? I don't know. I don't know. That's the mystery. There's been a lot of, look at all the just amazingly top talent and quality talent that WW, excuse me, that AEW has brought in. Some of it from

from WW, others from around the world. Will Osprey, amazing talent, so excited to see him come to AEW, so much potential. But he's going to end up like everybody else. If he's not in a good story, nobody's going to care. I promise you. I am right, 98. 8.225% of the time on this topic, no one is going to care about Will Osprey by the time he spends another three months in the EW unless something changes. He'll just be another name on the roster like everybody else that came in with all kinds of fanfare, potential, goodwill, equity with the audience, only to end up in a witness protection program or ending up in matches that just don't mean a damn thing. And unfortunately, that's a reflection on the talent. It's not

fair but it is all right thanks for that american hippie you love the tag though by the way american hippie i used to you know i was kind of a hippie when hippies first started 1868 67 68 i'm still in detroit everything was starting to lean into that kind of hippie phase i remember it well i dug it's got it made a good hippie there used to be a place in detroit called the plum pit plum pit was on 10 mile and grash it heard of the movie eight miles Now, okay, I lived at 10 mile, 10 mile in grass shit. There was a little place called the plump pit. It's still there today.

It's not called the plump pit. It's called something else, but the building is still there, and it's still purple. It was like the first head shop. I had a paper route when I was 12 years old in Detroit, and every day I would stop in the head shop because they had incense and black lights and all the crazy shit I'd never seen before. Of course, really cool music, Santana, Jimmy Hendrix. It's wacky shit. I used to go in there and look for albums and posters and all kinds of stuff.

It was really cool. I don't know why I went there. What the fuck am I talking about? All right. Let's do some more. Guitar junkie. Deep Purple said it best. It's not the kiltz.

It's not the kiltz. The thrill of the chase. I believe this applies to wrestling in relationships. It's not the kills. I was thinking kiltz like kiltz, you know, like, But no, you're right. It's the hunt. It's the journey.

Couldn't have said a better guitar junkie. It's the journey. That's what this is all about. A good story takes the reader, takes the viewer, takes the listener on a journey. A great song is a story. Some of the best songs today are stories. Yeah, the music's great. Music's always got to be great if it's a song.

But the best ones tell a story. I agree, man. Cool on you. Appreciate that guitar, Jarky, very much. Adding to the legend that is anything associated with 83 weeks, we have the most enlightened audience in any wrestling universe. I don't care who you listen to, who your favorite podcaster is, who your favorite wrestling personality is.

This audience is the most enlightened wrestling audience on the face of the year. and I appreciate each and everyone. Corey Bloomberg. Hey, Eric, just wanted to say, I appreciate your defense of Ted Turner. I'm a loyal mucker father, sometimes to a fault. I grew up in the 80s and 90s in Atlanta,

and I have to say that city was made better because of that man. That is a great statement. I appreciate you very much for that because Ted doesn't get nearly the credit. He deserves for revitalizing and helping to build Atlanta at a time when nobody wanted to do business in Atlanta. I mean nobody. Good on you.

I currently live in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and this place is degenerate as fuck. Unfortunately, I agree with you. Minneapolis is not the Minneapolis that I grew up in back in the 70s, not even close. And it's very, very unfortunate. Good on you for acknowledging, Ted. Thank you for the opportunity for giving me an opportunity.

to do so. I appreciate you, Corey. Virgil Dawkins. Is it ridiculous for me to believe that Hogan was already slowly turning heel before joining NWO when he was wearing all black and feuding with Kevin Sullivan? You know, I mean, it's an interesting observation, a very astute observation by my dad. But it was more coincidence. There was not a plan behind it. It just was kind of like, I think I'm going to do this today instead. I think what you did see, though, and I think one of the reasons why you saw Hulk kind of

break character, because before that, he wouldn't go to the airport unless he was in red and yellow. He lived his character. I mean, much like Rick Flair. You didn't see Rick Flair out and about much when he wasn't looking like Rick Flair, suit, shoes, jewelry, live into character, right? Hulk was the same way with regard to his red and yellow. So for Hulk to break that character, particularly on television, suggests to me like you, that he was starting to just in my opinion

he was getting bored with the red and yellow and we could all see it really wasn't working as well even when Hulk first got there was oh Hulk oh great he's here but after this new car smell wore off which took about two or three months yeah all of a sudden the reactions he was getting

when he made his interests were quite different and they weren't nearly as strong as they had been I think Hulk was sensing that I know I did That's why I ended up flying down to his house at some point and tried to convince him to turn heel. And he showed me the door. But eventually came around when he saw the NWO opportunity kind of happening in front of his face. Very, very good one. All right.

Let's do another one. I need some more coffee. How about you guys? Surely somebody out there wants to bust my chops about something. Okay. I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to say rower. underscore XD underscore 4, Ava.

I don't know. I said I wasn't going to do it, but I didn't wait. How to tell a story on indie shows with one month. That is a great. I love this question. That's a real challenge, right, in the indie scene. It's one thing when you're working for a company that produces wrestling for a television show, then it's just like any other television series.

You can script it out. You can plan it. You can create your art. You can create your plot points. You can manage it from that aspect. But what if you've only got, you know, one show, month at that point obviously you're very very limited to what you could do but you can use social media so let's say super dave sylva and i are both independent wrestlers and we're both going

to be on the card oh let's say in indiana sometime in june so about three weeks before that card we can use social media to set up a rivalry we can start feuding on the internet social media got promos on each other, you have to do it well, but that's one way of doing it. And then day of the show, then it comes down to, and you're not going to be able to do this with every match. It's just not practical, right, for an indie show, or even appropriate. But for, let's say, your main event, maybe your semi-main event, you give those guys some mic time, and maybe you only give it to your main event and you only give it to your

semi-main event because you don't want every match on an indie show having a promo because your show will be horrible it'll be too slow for an independent crowd it'll be too boring right and being as respectful as I can but being honest about it too none of those people very few of them will have the skill to do a good promo and even if they did have the skill they don't really have anything to talk about so give your main maybe your semi-main at least a couple minutes each early in the show to bring the audience up to speed with their feud. Give them the backstory. Let that audience know why these two are feuding.

Why are they there? Why did the promoter sign this match? What are the stakes in this match? Is there any history between these two? If there's not, make it up, it's creative. It's not a fucking documentary. Have some fun with it. Create a story if one doesn't exist already.

Just short enough, but concise enough to at least let the audience know why these two people are wrestling in a main event. If you can achieve that on an indie show, you've knocked it out of the park with regard to that effort and that element of the indie show. But great question. I love these kinds of questions. You guys are awesome.

Really? I mean, that's fun. Voie 5, do you think AW adopting an almost monthly pay-per-view schedule has helped or hindered their ability to tell stories, or did it just create different problems? First of all, they've never been able to tell a great story, so it neither helped nor hurt because it didn't exist in the first place. I think it's going to make it more difficult for them to learn how to tell great stories because they clearly don't, in my opinion.

It's not me beating up on them. They have zero ability or understanding of storytelling, right? That's my opinion based on what you're going to learn here over the next three weeks. I may not agree with it, but you'll at least learn where I'm coming from, right? So I think what's now with the monthly pay-per-views, it's going to make it more difficult for them to learn the discipline and the formula necessary to be successful in storytelling. So in a sense, it created a different problem to your point. Thank you very much for the question. I appreciate that.

That was outstanding. Oh, man, I am so caffeinated today. This is crazy. Super Day, bring me more. Greg Jacobson. Hi, Eric, your thoughts on Somerslam being two days. I just read about that this morning. In fact, Conrad and I and Super Day were recording 83 weeks,

which is going to drop tomorrow, by the way. Really good show, I think. If I do say so myself, kind of a long show. It was almost three hours, but a really in-depth look at the person, the career and the history of Stephen Riegel. Fascinating guy. Fascinating. Love doing that podcast this morning.

But yeah, that's when the news broke when we were recording. And by the way, that show will drop tomorrow. Somerslam being two days. I think it's awesome. And it's happening in Minneapolis. And I know when I was in Minneapolis visiting last time, everybody in Minneapolis was so excited about the opportunity to get WrestleMania.

And, of course, they didn't get WrestleMania. but now they are getting two nights of SummerSlam. So I know the city is excited. I'm sure they're going to be writing a big old fat check. And that's what I'm excited about because now we're starting to hear more and more of cities competing and writing big checks to bring WWE events into towns. And all that's going to do is continue to expand the industry, to represent growth in the industry.

And I think anything that represents growth from any wrestling company, that's a real contribution to the industry. And this is just another example of that continued expansion into the live event business and getting cities to pay for the opportunity to host your event. It's awesome, awesome. Great question. Thank you very much.

Haskell 420. Hello, Eric, from Long Island, New York. Starr is one of the who's going to win a title pre-match. New York Stars want to know who's going to win a title pre-match. Have you ever or know of a Booker who told the wrestler they're going to lose? I did. I can't, I mean, I didn't do it all the time. But in the stories that I was involved with where I had a hand in the development of the story,

I tried as often as I could to start at the end and work my way backwards. So a discussion of the finish had to take place before you could even begin putting the story together. That's another thing. We'll talk about that more as we break these things down. I firmly believe in, for me, I'm not classically true. I'm not even a, I think I went to a couple English classes in college, but maybe only a couple. So I don't really have any education in this area. Everything I've learned, I've learned just from doing it in the hard way in my experience.

But I've learned, along with the Sarsal formula, that for me and my creative process, the best way for me to think about an idea is to think about the very end of it. What does the last three minutes of this story look like to the viewer? And once I have that picture and the resolution of the story, in terms of a story arc element. Once I have the resolution and I can actually see it in my head, then I work backwards from that point to make sure that I've checked all the boxes along the way.

That's my way of doing it. Probably everybody's got their own way. But yeah, I would always tell them. It's one of the reasons why I never really understood winning and losing. I mean, once I did, I understood their insecurities. But I always looked at this creative process in wrestling is like getting an opportunity to play a character in a movie.

Just because you get shot at the end doesn't mean it's not a great role, not a great opportunity. I always had a hard time dealing with talent. I don't know if I'm ready to lose. I'm like, oh, my God. You're so stuck in the 60s. But anyway, great question. I appreciate it.

All right, we're going to do three more. And we're going to wrap this up. Three more. And I'm going to go rapid fire these muck of the fathers, too, because Aunt Evans told me, early on in this process. Do not, you know, YouTube doesn't like long goodbye. So I'm not goodbyeing anybody yet, but I'm giving a straight up heads up. Three more questions.

Let's do it, Super Dave. Rapid Fire. One, two, three, John Sawyer. Okay, I'll rephrase. Did you try to get taken into WCW? What story? What would the story be for me if you did? I can't sit here and try to conjure a story for the Undertaker if I would have brought

him in. That's too big of an ask here. But I never tried. I was always under the impression. him from people that knew Taker very, very well, he was never going to come. Now, Mark Halloway started in WCW, but by the time WCW could have potentially even be interesting to Undertaker, his relationship with Vince was such, Vince, was such. He was never going to leave.

He would have been with, if, if W.W.E would have gone down back in the 90s, Taker would have gone down with a ship. He would not have made the job. That's how loyal he is and why he has so much respect for me and everybody else that he's ever worked with. All right, one more, two more. Let's do him fast. The impeccable Twizomania.

That's pretty awesome. I'm sorry, but I have to keep it real. Adam Copeland has been downgraded. I mean, we just had WrestleMania 40, and I feel like he was supposed to be. That's kind of my point. It's got nothing to do with Adam Copeland. Adam Copeland is a phenomenal performer.

Adam Copeland is a better performer today, a more well-rounded performer today than he was at his peak in WW. The fact that Tony Conn and AEW haven't taken advantage of that is not Adam Copeland's fault. He doesn't book himself. And that's the travesty of Tony's ego, of Tony not being willing to listen to somebody who understands how to craft a story in wrestling. Tony, if you would just understand that if you had the strength of character and control over your own ego, and by the way, ego is not a bad thing. I have an ego.

Sometimes it's a bad thing. Sometimes it gets out of control. But I don't think you can aspire to be great at anything if one doesn't have an ego. The key is just to not let it get out of control. What's out of control? Thinking you're the only one that knows how. how to do something. That's out of control.

And that's what's happened to Adam Colcro. It's a fucking shame. He's an incredibly talented person. And so are a lot of people there that are just flailing away. Not because they don't have the talent. It's because they're not giving an opportunity to show it. Because there's no story as we're going to be defrailing. finding in the weeks to come. All right, one more. One more. Drum roll, please. Who's the lucky

winner? Nolan Hey, we've seen him here a lot. Eric, what's the story about selling ninja suits? That's like Greg Gandhi, a bunch of bullshit. I wasn't selling ninja suits. Greg is such a dip shit. If you're going to lie and you're going to tell a story, you're going to shit on somebody, have some actual truth to it before you distort it. There was no ninja suits. I created a game, along with my partner, Sonny Ono, called Ninja Star Wars. It was a live action kids game that actually got me into the wrestling industry. That's still existing. You can buy it today on Amazon. I shits you not. Somebody copied it, and you can still buy them today. It was a very cool idea. For two guys, you didn't know anything about the toy business. We had 5,000 of the

motherfuckers produced over to South Korea. We got them shipped over on a boat they got here. We're all excited. We got 5,000 these games. You're going to be rich. As soon as we got them unloaded, we went, well, where are we going to put them? Because none of us had a warehouse. And once we finally stored them in our friends and relatives and neighbors, yards, and garages, and addicts and basements, we just kind of knew where all of our shit was spread around Minneapolis. We went, oh, God, now how are we going to sell it? And that essentially was the setup for me breaking into the wrestling business because I went to Virgania and I said, hey, I got this game. I'll pay for the commercial, I'll produce the commercial, you put it on the air, and we'll split the profit

50-50. It's called an infomercial, not an infomercial. It's called the, oh, there's a name for it. I can't remember it right. 1-800 buy this. Suzanne Summers was doing Thymasters at the time. That's where I got the idea. I love Suzanne Summers, Thymaster promos. They were awesome. We did the same thing with a ninja game. So the bunch, sold a shitload of them. And that's how I got an offer to break into the wrestling business. So that's the story. But the ninja suit. I can tell when you say ninja suit because I've heard Greg Ganya say ninja suits a million times as he's told his bullshit story. All right, we're going to end it on that. I thank you all very, very, very much for joining me. This is not going to be a long goodbye,

but it's going to be a goodbye. We've got a lot going on this weekend. I'm going to be back into my typical rare ranting form and talking about all the great things that we see both at King of the Ring and Queen of the Ring and also at Double or nothing. Hopefully, these are going to be a lot of great stuff. There usually is in the paper views, and we'll talk about it. I'll talk about story and everything else that goes along with it. Starting next week, subscribe and hit notifications because honestly, folks, I'm going to be traveling a lot next week.

I'm in L.A. on business. Big secret. Can't talk about it. When I can, I will, but it's going to be fun. But I'll be in L.A. for three or four days on business. And while I'm there, I'm going to attempt endeavor to persevere and produce another first episode of Wise Choices where we take a really close-up look. and act one and how we can make the elements of required in an act one to actually fit

the professional wrestling genre that's what we're going to do and i want your input i want your ideas i want to really break it down to discuss it and have fun with it and i want to thank you very much for joining me because i am fucking out of here see you hey this is the national treasure nick oldis and i am recommending that you go to savewithconrad dot com for all your home buying needs if you listen to any of conrad's shows which i do on a regular basis. It's pretty hard to miss the fact that he's in the mortgage business. When the time came that we were looking to buy a place, it was really my first choice. I just got the feeling right from the start that Jimmy and Conrad and the whole team really wanted us to succeed. It felt

like it should. It felt like we were all on the same team. You know, it felt like we were in business together, which is to me is really how a home purchase and a mortgage process should feel. Not only would I recommend, say with Conrad to friends and co-workers, I have many times already. If I know that they're in the, you know, their house hunting, my first recommendation to them always is get in touch with Conrad. Like his team are the real deal and they will be straight up with you and do everything they can to get you in that house. NMLLST number 32416 equal housing lender, save with Conrad.com.