Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Eric Bischoff On What Vince McMahon Is Doing In Retirement, CM Punk's Next Move, Why AEW's Ratings Are Down

Episode Date: December 27, 2022

Eric Bischoff (@ebischoff) is a professional wrestling personality, podcaster, entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author. He joins Chris Van Vliet inside the Blue Wire Studios at Wynn Las Vegas to talk about his new book called "Gratitude", the recent negative comments he made about Ric Flair on his podcast "83 Weeks", why his co-host Conrad Thompson is a business genius, what he thinks Vince McMahon is doing since retiring from WWE, his thoughts on MJF in AEW, what he thinks CM Punk will do next, what he is grateful for and much more! Check out Eric Bischoff's podcast "83 Weeks" at: http://adfreeshows.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about Chris Van Vliet and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bleas! Oh my goodness, so good to see you, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Vleet. Hope it's been a great holiday season for you. And guess what? He's back and better than ever.

Yeah, Eric Bishop back with us on the show. This is our third interview together. And so happy to be doing this one in person at the beautiful, incredible, incredible. Blue Wire Studios at the Wind Las Vegas. And you know, the great thing about Eric is he speaks his mind about everything. If you listen to his podcast 83 weeks, you know that he never pulls any punches. And that's definitely the case during this conversation. Also, also, you know that I end every conversation talking about gratitude and asking my

guess what are three things they're grateful for. Well, Eric Bischoff's new book is called Grateful. So, I mean, how fitting is that? Speaking of being grateful, so grateful for Naverren R-RV. Wow, what a username there. Thank you so much for the review that you left on Apple Podcasts. We're reading one out on every single episode. This one says, all-time favorite.

This is one of my favorite podcasts to listen to and to get advice from. You can hear the passion in Chris's voice, and the guests are just amazing. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I'll keep reading one out on every single episode. And by the way, if you haven't subscribed yet to the show, you're not following the show. Take a second right now to click follow or subscribe on whatever app it is that you're listening on right now. Also, take a screenshot, tag us on social media to let us know you're listening and so that we can share it out as well.

Eric is at E. Bischoff on Twitter. He's at the real Eric Bischoff on Instagram. I'm at Chris Van Vleet everywhere except for TikTok, Chris. That van Vleet on TikTok. Let's get into this. Ladies and gentlemen, Eric Bischoff. Eric, so grateful to have you here. Because when I found out that you had a book called Grateful,

I said we need to make this happen. And if possible, make it happen in person. So thank you for making the trip here. Oh, thank you for the invitation. I live in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming. So when I get a chance to come out to Las Vegas and put my toe into civilization again, it kind of feels good. Bright lights of the city.

Yeah, well, this is a weird civilization. But I'm only going to be here for 24 hours. Okay. I mean, anything more than that in Las Vegas, I think might be three days. I was just talking to my buddy Bruce Pritchard. I just missed him. He was out here for like five days.

Oh, five days. It's way too many. That's exactly what Bruce said. He said, I learned finally that three days is the maximum. Yes, yes. I'm a big gratitude person. I start every day.

I say out loud three things I'm grateful for. I do it before I go to bed as well. Good for you. And that's how I end every podcast as well. I ask my guess, what are three things they're grateful for? Because I think that so many people don't focus on what they have in their life, and they're far too focused on the things that they don't have.

And that's where all their attention is. Might not be able to see it here, but I got it. Every once in a while, I put it on my risk because every once in a while I have to remind myself. But yeah, you're right, man. Why did it take so long to write another book? You know, I didn't think I had anything to say, to be honest. You mean, and even with the first book, Controversy creates cash when I was first

approached about that. I was, everybody knows everything about what happened back then. Does anybody care? Isn't that really a book? Is it? Really a book? Title's so good. And, well, I came up with that.

But the process of going through your, in that case, my life story, as it related to wrestling up until 2006. There's so much of it I forgot about, you know, just you're living in that moment. You're doing it. You're thinking about what's next. I never took the time to appreciate it and be. grateful for what I had achieved. But when you sit down and you go through it in a book, you go, wow, this is pretty interesting.

And then with grateful Guy Evans, who was the co-writer, called me and he said, listen, I've been listening to your podcast. I think you've got another book in you. And I said the same thing. I said, wow, really? What? And he kind of laid it out to me. Okay, let's give that a try.

And it was really a fun experience. What you and Conrad do with 83 weeks, I think so interesting because sure, you're talking about pro wrestling, but what you're really talking about, what really works here is you're talking about nostalgia. And nostalgia is like this very powerful drug because every time that you guys bring up an episode, people go, oh, I remember that.

That was this part of my life and I was doing this, maybe I was dating this person or whatever it happens to be. And like, just, nostalgia is just so powerful. It is. And that was another thing. I mean, all of this is kind of like for me swimming upstream. because when Conrad first reached out to me about doing a podcast, I had tried one previously, didn't go anywhere, chemistry wasn't right, whatever.

And when Conrad called me, I was excited because he was already having a tremendous amount of success with Bruce Pritchard in his podcast. Yeah. Like real success. So I knew Conrad knew what he was doing, but when I asked him, I said, well, Conrad, what do you think about a format? What's the show soundline? What's it look like? He goes, ah, we're going to, you know, Monday Night War's era, nostalgia. And I'm like, oh, man, Monday night worse.

There's been books. There's been DVDs. There's been 2,000 shoot interviews. There's been, you know, it's like, come on. He goes, now it'll work. And I just trusted him. You know, I trusted his instinct instead of my own. And he was so on the money.

And he's done a phenomenal, not just with my podcast, but he's got like, I don't know, 37 others or whatever it is. Like every week is like, oh, we got this Hall of Famer who's going to do a podcast. Like, I don't know, I don't know how Conrad does this. Does he have more hours in the day than the rest of us? No, but I'll tell you, well, I think Conrad is one of those people that even when he's sleeping, he's thinking, you know what I mean, planning, strategizing, solving, imagining, even in his sleep. But he also has a great team of people.

That's one of the first things I learned about Conrad Thompson is he's one of those people that attracts. really quality people. And if you go into his office, anybody that you meet in his office, whether it's on the mortgage side of his business or the podcast side of his business, are people that you just want to be around. You just want to be their friend.

You want to spend time with them. Because they're just generally great people, but they're all really talented too. And he just attracts them. I've never met anybody that Conrad is either friends with or works with. that I don't want to spend time with. Just a really unique thing about Conrad.

Of all the episodes you guys have done, what's the one that fans talk to you about the most? Probably Starcade 97, what Conrad yelled at me. You guys got pretty heated. He did. He was MF and me. He was doing all kinds of, he was, oh, it got hot.

It got really hot. And people still talk about it all the time. And, you know, And here's what happens. Now we're getting towards the end of December. So everybody's going to say on this date, 205 years ago, well, Paul Kogan beat Sting because he didn't have a tan. I get that all the time.

We're doing a watch a while. Yeah, with Nick Patrick. With Nick Patrick. We're going to do a watchdog. I haven't talked to, I talked to Nick Patrick for the first time on the phone to ask him if you'd be willing to do this. That's the first time I've talked to Nick Patrick. And I don't know. how many decades has it been since I left WCW?

It's been a long time. And, you know, Nick's got his point of view and his memory of things. I have mine, so we'll see how it goes. Hogan not having a tan is like Samson in the Bible, not having his hair. No, Hogan had a tan. Sting didn't have the tan. Oh, that's right. Sting didn't have the tan.

No, he showed up looking like a glass of cold milk. Dude, get ready. Prep. Why wasn't he ready? You know, this is going to suck. But I can't. I can just tell you from my, I can tell you what was going on from my perspective, right? I don't want to try to get into somebody else's head.

That's not fair. And I have a ton of respect for Steve Borden and affection for him. So I'm going to do the best I can. But it was a judgment call. And we got to a point where both Hulk and I didn't feel like Sting's head was in the game. And it didn't look like he was really, I don't want to say excited about what he was about to do, but we've been building this thing up for over a year. And everybody else was excited about it.

And the amps were pretty high going into that day. And when we finally sat down to talk about what we were going to do and how we were going to do it, we didn't feel like we were connecting. And it was a judgment call. So what I wish I wouldn't have made. I wish I would have gone any other way with it, obviously. But, you know, I've also learned in the process of learning how to be grateful is to look for the brighter side of things, even though they're miserable or can be temporarily,

but look for the things that came out of it positively. And, you know, it was an unfortunate situation, but we made the best of it, tried to make the best of it. And I'm still making money with it because I'm doing a lot of the end of the month. So there's that. With the situations like this, sometimes, you know, there's things that have happened in your career that's maybe not comfortable to talk about. Yet you still talk about it with Conrad on maybe three weeks. And I'm curious if you ever approach an episode and go, man, if I tell the real story here, I'm going to piss a lot of people off.

No, I've made a fortune pissing people. I have no inhibitions when it comes to speaking my mind. Controversy creates cash. It does. It does. Plus, it frees you. Like, I try not to keep things in. You know, when you said, well, you know, talking about things that were uncomfortable or, you know, failures or whatever.

I don't mind talking about that stuff. I actually feel liberated talking about that stuff. Because I've learned to embrace it, you know. And again, it all comes back to, you know, and really it's my wife. It's one that's really over time, 38 years. years, 40 years has taught me how to become grateful and taught me the discipline and perhaps the instinct to look for the brighter side of things and the negative side of things. But I don't mind talking about it. Because it's all part of it, man. Yeah, but I just feel like in the wrestling world,

though, you know, you're going to have, you're going to have heat with people. And, you know, I'm sure there's been a lot of things you've talked about on the show where people are like, come on. I can't believe you, I can't believe you said that. Yeah. That probably happens. occasionally, but it's not, I'm never, I don't do it out of, I'm not trying to be mean. I'm trying to hurt anybody's feelings. I'm not trying to piss people off. I'm just being honest as I can be. And sometimes my delivery is a little aggressive.

But that's just part of who I am. It's not me being mean or disrespectful. It's just my point of view. And I, you know, listen, I've spent 30 some odd years listening to people. say things about me that weren't true or put me into situations that never existed or, or, you know, suggest that they were inside of my mind and could, you know, tell the world what I was thinking at a particular moment. I've listened to that and I've learned not to get mad about it. You know what I mean? So if I can learn to not get angry about the things other people say

to me, then damn it, they can get used to it too. So what's going on here with Rick Flair? You guys are saying all kinds of not nice things about each other right now. Yeah, I'm, that's a weird one. You know, six months ago, I was out having cocktails with Rick Flair and Wendy. You know, I ran into him in an autograph signing at a convention in Houston about a year ago. We just had the greatest time. He called me in my room. He said, come on down.

Woo! You know, got the text. And then all of a sudden, you know, I get blindsided. And I don't know. I don't know what got into Rick. I don't know what maybe somebody said something to him that I said or he heard me say something that rubbed him the wrong way or he had some kind of a flashback. But I honestly don't know. But I, and even last night, you know, when I was, I got into Vegas here, I would sit down having a beer and I'm looking through my social media and I see stuff that Rick said.

I fired back. As soon as I was done, I went, that's it. I'm just not doing this. I have a lot of affection for Rick. I don't know why. I love Rick. Everybody loves Rick. And I'm sure I'm not the only one that loves Rick that doesn't know why they love Rick.

He's got that personality, right? But, and I have a lot of respect for him. And I'm just, I don't want to engage anymore in a social media thing. Rick wants to sit down and face-to-face and have a conversation. and, you know, tell me what I did wrong or how I irritated and we're pissed him off, whatever. I'm happy to do that and put it behind us and move on. But as far as the social media stuff, we're probably not going to talk about on my podcast anymore. So I just hoping it just goes away.

So this has just been on social media. You guys haven't actually. No, I don't even know what I did. I don't even know what I said. I called Conrad. I said, Conrad. I said Conrad. What the hell?

What? Conrad now? He doesn't know. He doesn't know. I feel like this just boils down to, this happens a lot, this just boils down to, this is pro wrestling. But it's, it's beyond that. You know, and honestly, if, is it personal? Well, clearly, you know, I don't remember what year it was.

I'd been in WWE for a couple of years. And while I was in WWE, the week before the incident I'm about to tell you, I'm, you know, I show up at Monday Night Raw, we do TV, Rick's there, Aaron Anderson's We go out for a beer after the show. Rick said, Eric, come on. Aren't I. We're going to the hotel bar. Come on, join us.

Boom. We said the bar had a great time. Yeah. Like old times, right? Following week, I show up at Monday Night Raw. I'm sitting in what they call the TV office. It was like a prop office in case they needed that. But I always used it for a dressing room because nobody else used it.

I had the whole place to myself. Yeah. Had a couch, chair. I like that. So I'm in there. And I'm talking to my wife on the phone. I said my wife and my real estate attorney because we were closing on a piece of property.

So I'm on a three-way conference call with my attorney and my wife. I'm sitting in a chair. Rick comes walking into the TV office. Arne's behind him. Jonathan Coachman's behind him. I'm talking on the phone. Cool.

I mean, it wasn't my office. It was everybody. Sure. I just happen to use it. And while I'm on the phone, Rick comes over and he just starts yelling and screaming at me. You MF or you jump out of your chair. and I'm talking on the phone, and he starts firing shots at me.

He's throwing punches him. Connected three times while I'm on the phone. Wow. Now here's the deal. Rick Flair's been throwing working punches for so long. I don't think he knows how to throw a real punch. And that's part that, and I'm not saying that to be funny or try to be a tough guy, because I'm not. But he hit me three times, and I still had the phone in my hand.

And I thought, for a minute, it was, is this a work? Is there a camera? Am I in a scene that nobody told me about? Because he, you know, bam, bam, bam, bam, three times. And then his lips started bleeding after he hit me the third time. He was so mad. He bit his own lip.

He started bleeding all over himself. And I'm thinking what? And I wouldn't fight him. What's he so mad about? Well, to this day, I don't know, because we never really talked about it. But I've been able to kind of piece together. There was a point in time in Rick's life that, It was a challenging time in his personal life.

And somehow my name got thrown into a conversation or something. And it just sent him into a tailspin and he got pissed off at me all over again. Wow. Over something that happened 10 years earlier, 15 years earlier, just coming in and start firing a live rounds. Wow. And I came to say, Rick, I'm not going to fight you. We're just not going to fight you. Well, you would have destroyed him with your knowledge.

No, it's not that. I don't know if I would have or not. But it wasn't bad. There's a lot of wrestlers that you'd be able to. beat up, I'm sure. Probably still. What are you trying to get? You're trying to get my ass kick now, aren't you?

Next time I'm going to an event. I'm just saying, ah, let's see. Eric said he could be you on. Right, yeah. You're a black belt in. What is it? Well, it's a very Americanized version of Taekwondo. June Re, J-H-O-O-N-R-H-E, was a Korean

Taekwondo master that came to the United States, right on, I think, in the 50s or 60s, and was teaching martial arts. really modified, you know, if you look at traditional Taekwondo, which is the Korean style of martial art, it's a lot of, it's probably 75, 80% kicking techniques, hand techniques, although they exist. It might as well not. And what June Reed did is really modified that Korean style of martial art and still utilizing a emphasis on kicking, but really made the hand techniques, the punching techniques, much more practical. So it would not have been working punching.

No. No, nor would they have been the traditional punches that you normally see in, like, if you watch, Taekwondo is an Olympic sport. So if you watch Taekwondo in the Olympics, it doesn't really look like anything that you could really believe would be a self-defense. I mean, it's a sport. Yeah. But you watch the punching technique. If you're into martial arts, you watch that. Okay, well, that'll get you killed. You know, but if you modify, you know, the punching techniques and take advantage of the kicking style, it can be pretty effective. The interesting thing about you and the time of prominence for you in WCW and WWE is if fans don't like something, they go, Eric Bischoff, I can't believe it.

But if they do like something, they go, Eric Bischop. Ah, it's great. Same with Vince Rousseau, I think, too. Like, you guys were the brains behind the stuff that people loved and also the stuff that people loved to hate. I'm going to let you live through that one, but go ahead. I'm just kidding. Look, it's part of life, right? It's take with the good with a bat.

You know, nobody's going to bet a thousand in anything they do. And unfortunately, you know, for some of the things that we do, it's pretty high profile. So when you succeed, you have the potential of succeeding at a very high level. And when you fail, the whole world gets to make fun of you and pick it apart. Are there times when you're looking at something? And I'm not picking on anything specific. But is there a time when you look at a storyline and you go,

that's just going to be bad, but we don't have anything better. So I guess we'll just run with it anyway. I don't think consciously I've ever thought that. You know, and again, you know, you're looking at a two-hour show, for example. Are there storylines on that two-hour show that you don't think are really going to resonate? Sure. They're not meant to. They're part of the buffet.

They're not the main course. and not everything can be the Sting Hogan storyline. You know, not everything can be an NWO storyline. Sometimes you just have what I refer to as C and D stories that are down the story list, so to speak, and you put them out there and hope that they start to resonate. And you can, you see something out of that storyline or the audience's reaction to that storyline,

and it makes you go, Oh, wait a minute. What if we do this next week? And all of a sudden, your C or D storyline, that's just there. I hate to say filler because it's disrespectful to the people that are doing it.

I don't mean it to be. But it is what it is. And you put those C and D storylines out there and they start to develop and evolve and you see a reaction on the crowd. Your hope is that it becomes a C story, that becomes a B story, that can become an A story.

Can you give us a great example of one of those? that ended up becoming an A story and you went, wow, the fans really made this happen. Yeah, Bill Goldberg. Bill Goldberg is the perfect example. Bill Goldberg didn't even get a letter next to his storyline. He was like, what's after Z? We need a what's after Z story category because that's what Bill Goldberg was when he came in. And by that, I mean, Bill Goldberg came in.

He's out of the NFL. Elite athlete, no question. Great looking character. Looks like he came right out of central casting for wrestling. Put him into the power plant for a very short period of time. And then thought, okay, let's see how the crowd reacts to him in what we call a dark match. And for your listeners or people watching, a dark match is simply, you know, a match that, you show up for a live television presentation, a production, and you have a couple matches before you go.

the air live. You do that for a couple of reasons. What is you want to warm up the crowd a little bit if they need it. The other is you want to take some of your younger talent that don't have experience working in front of a crowd and get them out there on a limited basis. It's not the real thing, but it's a lot better than just wrestling in the training facility. So we brought Bill out and the reaction to Bill Goldberg when he came storming down the ramp was like, whoa, wait a minute. holy smokes let's see if that happens again next week do the same thing again next week it's even more so following week even more so it's like all right he's only been in a power plant for about four months but we got to get him on TV and that storyline was a reaction to the audience

wow that that whole career was a reaction to the audience wow that's a that's a great example I never would have expected you to say Goldberg. Yeah. Well, you know, I had to think about it for a minute. You know, because I've only been involved with, you know, a couple three or four thousand story lines. And they all just, you know, they all kind of blend together sometimes. But that's, I think is the most perfect example because it's, and that's what I think

makes professional wrestling such a cool thing. Because as a producer, director, whatever you want to call it, writer, you get 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, 15, 20,000. people telling you every week, you get a focus group. You're getting free research. It's not even free. They're paying you to give you the research. But you have to learn to listen.

And not every venue is the same. Not every crowd is the same. Crowds have personalities, just like venues have personalities. Cities have personalities. So you can't just listen to one audience. That's what we're going to do. But if you listen carefully, you'll sense a pattern.

and you'll sense momentum. Do you think there was a point maybe in the last year or so when WWE stopped listening? Because I feel like when Vince left and Triple H kind of took over things, there was a real shift there. It seemed like what the crowd was cheering for, they started to lean into a little bit more.

I felt like WWE wasn't doing that for a long time. Hard for me, because I wasn't on the inside, obviously when Vince left. I was there for four months. I worked with Vince almost every day. And on those days, we did work together, it was often for hours and hours and hours. So I don't want to suggest I know Vince McMahon because I really don't. I don't think anybody does outside of his immediate family.

I think we all get little glimpses of him, but I don't think very few people really, really know Vince McI. My experience was that Vince had a strong vision, clearly. Look where WWE is today. Absolutely. So clearly he's had a strong vision throughout his life. And the challenge I think for me and for the people that I worked with at that time on a creative side of things were to come up with things that would get Vince's attention in a positive way. You never knew what that was going to be because there was no consistency in it. Every day it was a brand new day.

You know, it's not like I could not get a read on Vince McMahon. And I think that's stifled. creativity a lot. You know, you've heard the stories and I, and I, and I, and I don't mean to show these experiences as like a tell all or, or anything negative because it worked for them. And it worked for Vince McAnne. So I wish I could have figured that out. But, you know, you've heard the stories of showing up at television and, you know, one o'clock in the afternoon tearing up a script and starting from scratch. Those aren't exaggerations. And that, that process or lack thereof is not conducive to great creativity.

And I think, I'm guessing on this, okay, I want to be clear about that, because I don't know Paul Levec very well either, you and I've worked with him for a long time around him. Paul had been a part of that creative process long enough to know what the weak points were, to know what was holding it back, to know what was frustrating, the people that were charged with coming up with good creative. And I think Paul made a lot of those changes very quickly. And I would imagine that the quality of the writing, the quality of the creative, got much tighter.

The writers got more confidence because it was a little bit more of a predictable environment and just the quality came up as a result. That's my take. What do you think Vincent Mann does in retirement? Like, is he golfing? Is he fishing? Is he sailing around the world?

I don't know, brother. Like I said, I don't know him. I have no idea when he's, I know he's interested in cars. He's got nice cars. But I've never heard a story of him like going golfing. Or yachting or fishing. I don't think he ever did anything but work and work out. Well, maybe he's going to get in the best shape ever.

Me and Vince McMahon are now competing. I don't know. See how great we can look on May 19th of next year. Well, you're on your way, dude. I saw that picture the other day going, oh, I'm starting my journey and I'm looking. I mean you're starting your journey, brother? It's good lighting. You look like you're in a cover of Men's Fitness magazine.

You're starting your journey. As I brush the cookie crumbs off my belly As I'm looking at your picture Well, thank you. Just good lighting. Just really good lighting. Decent genetics. And I haven't been eating as much pizza as I usually do.

That's it. You don't have fake abs, right? Like liver king. You know, I think those are real abs. I don't think those are implants. I don't know. How would you do fake implant? How would you do fake abdomen implants?

That's a thing. That would be weird. They look weird, though. His still, I mean, we're going way off on a tangent here. His look natural, I feel like. It's just weird that when he sits, he's still so ripped that his abs are there. I don't know. No, either.

I don't. I don't know. Do you keep up with wrestling? A little bit. And I get that it's a lot to watch. Well, here's the deal. I don't enjoy wrestling for the same reasons that a lot of people enjoy wrestling. I don't watch wrestling as a lot of people enjoy wrestling.

I don't watch wrestling as a form of entertainment. I'm not interested really as much as what goes on inside of the ring as I am about the business of the wrestling business. So when I watch wrestling, I'm looking at lighting, I'm looking at audio, I'm looking at the way interviews are produced. I'm looking for new ways that narrative is being utilized and how it's being utilized. I got excited about the white rabbit gimmick. It's different. Show me something different. Just show me something different.

And you'll give me excited. You'll get my attention. But, you know, for a long time, it's just like it's the same old thing. The format's the same. Nothing's changed. The name's changed. But the format hasn't changed. The product hasn't really changed.

And you've been pretty critical, too. Like, you've been pretty critical about AEW specifically. Yeah. probably more than I probably should have. But I'm just being honest. You know, a lot of the things that I said a year ago, year and a half ago, some of the things I predicted a year ago, year and a half ago, are all now coming true.

You know, for example, when I said to Tony Conner, and this was what started last October or November. I made a comment. I said, Tony, just shut up and wrestle. Quit comparing yourself to. the WWE. Quit trying to create this cosplay competition between you and WWE because that's exactly what it was. They weren't really competing head to head. But Tony wanted to, Tony, I think, was trying real hard to recreate that Monday Night War

level of excitement. And I get that. You know, new wrestling company, you want that energy. And I get that. But to constantly keep comparing yourself to WWE in a way to try to create the perception that you're actually competing. when you're really not. That bothered me. But that's not why I spoke out. I spoke out because what I saw happening was Tony was losing it, the goodwill. When Tony came out with AEW, the audience wanted AEW to be so successful.

The audience was starving for an alternative to WWE. He had all of that goodwill coming through the door. But when you start taking pot shots and you start comparing yourself in a way that's not realistic, The audience sees through that. And then a lot of the talents started to do that. And I said, stop, man. Let the audience put you over. And that's a mistake that a lot of people, even in the business today,

haven't figured out. A mistake that they continue to make is, you know, getting yourself over doesn't mean coming out telling a world how great you are. Getting yourself over is getting the audience to do that. for you. And that seems like really simple, but that's the art, right? That's hard to do.

And a perfect example, Diamond Dallas Page. When Diamond Dallas Page was breaking, when he was transitioning from being a manager and a color commentator, right, you want to be a full-time wrestler. Yep. He had every gimmick, no demand.

He'd come down the aisle and he had girls on each arm. He's wearing a fur coat. He's wearing bling. He's got Elton John, sunglasses, his bow on, chewing gum, smoking a cigar, big giant rings on his finger. He was like a kaleidoscope of gimmicks. He took everybody's gimmick. He took dusty roads. He took Jake Roberts. He took Jesse Ventura. He took everybody. Yeah. And I pulled him aside one day. I said, dude, you got to lose all that. No more gimmicks. Just be you. Be that blue collar guy.

Be the guy from New Jersey who you are. And people will gravitate towards you. But you come out, dressed up like 15 other people, they're not going to, it's not going to play. And he did it. And he started and he took off. Now, not just because of that, but that was a big part of it. Who would you say is really over right now or who's doing it right right now? I mean, most recently I'd have to, I love watching MJF. He's fascinating to me. He's a guy that he loves heat. He embraces. healed them. And it's not cheap heat either. No.

The amazing thing is his music hits and there's still a lot of people that cheer him because I'm like, oh my God, this is going to be so entertaining. And then he still finds a way in his promo to get you to absolutely hate him. He's brilliant. He is, and we're just seeing it, he's only 24 years old. I have genes older than him. No, Levi jeans, not genes, jeans, not genetic genes. I mean, I have cheese older than him.

He's 26, I think. think. 26. Yeah. Okay. Well, all right. I still have jeans old than him. But he's so good. And I think the reason, well, there's a lot of reasons why he's good, I'm sure, but one of the reasons is he loves it. A lot of guys that play heels on TV aren't heels in real life and don't want to be. They want to be like it's human nature. Nobody wants to be disliked. Yeah. Right. And I think wrestling in particular because it's not like being an actor. You know, you can be a villain in a movie. and everybody knows you're playing a movie.

Right. But for whatever reason in wrestling, you're a villain in wrestling. People think you're a villain in real life. It's such a weird thing. It's true, though. Nobody walks up to Anthony Hopkins and expects him to be a handle a lecture.

Or they wouldn't walk up to it. Exactly. You're right. But you're right. When someone's a heel, there's, yeah, it bleeds over in real life.

It does. It does. And what makes it, what makes it fascinating for me, you know, on the outside, looking in now to the wrestling industry, is that I love watching how some talents are using social media really effective.

And how some talents aren't. And that surprises me because rest was usually pretty good at figuring out ways to, you know, stay relevant and get themselves over and things like that. But Becky Lynch, you know, I didn't even know who Becky Lynch was until I came across a couple of her social media posts on Twitter. this was back in probably 2018. Wow, that's pretty good. I'm going to check her out.

I'm going to watch that video. All of a sudden, I'm tuning in to Monday Night Raw or whatever she was on at the time. I'm tuning in to watch Becky Lynch, who I only knew about because I really was intrigued with how well she used her social media. Do you think K-Fabe is completely dead or is it still alive in some instances like that?

Oh, I think it can be. That also is the art. art, right? Like, everybody with, is K-Fa-Bel-Ir-Beliver-Ded-Den? Well, it's been dead for a long time. If you talk to people back in the 50s, in the 60s, in the 70s, in the 80s, you know, when wrestling really was that closely held secret, right? And it's certainly, you know, Vince McMahon came out and told everybody was scripted entertainment, but way back whenever, 80s, right? So we all know, but there's still ways to create that magic, that mystery. Is it real or isn't it real?

These guys really hate what's true or what's not true. And I think that's for me the art and the magic of writing good wrestling is getting the audience to the point where they don't know if it's real or not and they really don't care because they're emotionally invested. They're no longer thinking about it. They're feeling it. If people have to think about what they're watching, they're not feeling it. Whereas if they're feeling it, they're not thinking about it.

They're just with it. And that, again, that's the art. And it's not easy. If it was easy, you would see it all the time. We don't know. Really great storylines come along, what, once every five years? Yeah. I feel like we had one with CM Punk.

And then it kind of just all self-employed. I don't know. Like, what's your take on? What's going on there, knowing what you know? I don't know. I mean, I just, it's a big, it's a trainer record. That's all I know. I mean, I wasn't a big fan of punk to begin with.

I think he was overhyped. I think there was a great mystique. I don't want to take that away from him. There was a tremendous mistake. When he dropped that pipe palm, you know, that was like rebelling against the man, right? Yeah, yeah. That's everybody in America, deep down inside at one point in their life wishes they could do what he did. Yeah.

Right. And that's what created that mystique. Yep. And that mystic lived, even though he, you know, showed up in UFC a couple times and got pretty much humiliated. It didn't matter. He still had that mystique with the wrestling fans. And when he got to AEW, I was excited because I was interested to see how that would work. But if you go back and you listen to his opening promo, what did he do? He said he ripped Tal Kogan. If you have to get yourself over with that kind of cheap heat, you're not over. You don't know how to get over. He was

living off of the momentum that was created for him in the WWE. He was living off of the mystique. He had it in his hands. And I think the way he was produced, his creative, I didn't find it compelling at all. He's out there wrestling nobody's. I thought that was strange that he would wrestle. Like, I wanted to see him in the marquee match. I wanted to see him wrestling people that we had never seen him before. But see, you're talking about, now you're a fan, right? But if you're, if you're, if You've got to put your head, your mind inside of the mind of a guy like CM Punk in that era of performer. We're like, oh, no, we're going to, we're going to prove that we're going to give back. Brother, you're not that over yet to start giving it back to anybody.

You're not even, I'm not even sure you're really over quite yet. But immediately it's all, I know, he's coming out and he's going to give the young guys an opportunity. Yeah, that's a cool thing in a locker room. Yeah. But that's not what the audience wants to see. They wanted to see the marque matches just like you did. If they could bottle that return, because that was one of the greatest crowd reactions at the perfect time.

Like we were just starting to come back from, you know, being locked away in our houses for two years. It was one of the first, you know, sold out crowds in his hometown in Chicago. Bottling that, I think that's one of the greatest pops in the history of wrestling. It was. It was a great opportunity. But I don't think it was managed all that well. And I don't know where, you know, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know him personally at all. In fact, I don't even think we've ever said words to each other face to face. I'm just not sure where his head was at either. I never felt like he was really fully invested. I wonder why he truly came back. We'll probably never know. Money.

He had plenty of money, no? I don't know. You never have too much money. Is that what you're saying? It's pretty young. You know, you be, you know, what's a lot of money? A couple million bucks. Live on a couple million bucks for the next 60 or 70 years.

Yeah. You know, you never have enough money. I guess that's the thing. You can never have too much money. I just think that if you could have that moment and somehow expand it out more, that it could have been magic. It could have been magic because it was there. It was all right there. And it just, they slow, not so slowly, let the air out of the balloon.

And it just, I mean, you know, it. And I know it's sometimes unfair, but go back and just look at his ratings. Look at the impact that CM Punk had on television ratings. It's the only thing that's black and white, right? And he came out strong and slowly week after week after week after week that continued to lose audience. The audience came, they saw, and they left and they didn't come back. What does that tell you? Why do we still talk about ratings in 2022, almost 2020,

when the model has shifted so much from that archaic Nielsen model. Has it? Absolutely. It's like one Nielsen box represents 10,000 people. It's always been in a way. I know. It's so stupid. But it's the only thing that we have.

I get it. But just because I didn't watch that episode of Dynamite doesn't mean I didn't watch his return on YouTube or my buddy shared me a video of it on Twitter or something like that. There's no way to try it. Well, there is, I guess, a way to track that. But Nielsen still drives the advertising business. I get that. Until Park Avenue, until the advertising in Madison Avenue, until the key players in the advertising industry adapt a different way to track viewership and engagement, it's all you have.

And I know, because I've worked in television my whole career. It's just, it's so stupid. Like, it's... I had a guy when I first got into wrestling. I got hired by Vergani, AWA. There was a guy there by the name of Mike Shields. He was actually responsible for me getting hired. Mike was a television syndication guy.

He used to work for Jerry Jarrett down in Nashville, Memphis, one or the other. He was a really, really smart guy behind the scenes. And Mike had to sit down and explain to me how Nielsen worked. He was teaching me how to sell syndication. I was selling wrestling around the country. That was my job. So I had to be able to discuss ratings and shares and households using television and all that, you know, I had to learn all the buzzwords, right?

What it all meant? And he said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to fly a couple because we subscribed or he subscribed to Nielsen. He was a subscriber at the time. He said, I'm going to have a couple of sales reps come in, sit down and explain to us how Nielsen works. I'm just going, yay, excited, this is going to be great. I'm going to be smart. I can't wait.

This guy came in. and about halfway through, it was an hour meeting, about halfway through, I'm thinking, this guy's so full of shit. This is voodoo. This can't possibly work. Does anybody believe in this stuff? I have never known anybody to own Nielsen Rating Box.

I've never even known anybody to know anybody that owns one. I think it's voodoo. I think it's... There's just a better way, like, you know, back in the 80s and 90s when we would turn on our TV to watch Friends or Seinfeld or Frasier, or any of those big shows at that time

or the Oscar ratings back then were massive. Obviously, you know, raw and nitro. It's not that same way anymore. I turn on my TV on Sunday to watch football. And that's kind of it. But shows like Yellowstone, 14 million viewers outperforming NFL on Monday night football. I mean, they'll still come to watch

if you provide them something compelling. But like Friends was getting like, 40 million back in the day. True. It's a different time and people are still, I don't know, it feels like a comparison of like email the fax machines to me. Like they're just two completely different worlds. I agree with you.

And like I said, until somebody kind of, for years I've heard up, in fact, I had a guy call me about 10 years ago that wanted to become part, wanted me to become part of a company that was trying to become the alternative to Nielsen. And I went out to New York and I listened and I met with them and I was fascinated. But my first thought was nobody's going to adapt it.

You can come up with a different way of doing it, but getting people to adapt that model. Just think about what would happen to the entire advertising industry. If all of a sudden somebody came up and said, no, this is how we're going to do it from now. I mean, Netflix knows what we watch all the time. Hulu knows what we watch all the time. So in the same way, I would imagine sling or direct. direct TV stream or dish TV or whatever they are. They all know what we're watching. Why can't we just click a consent box to say, yeah, yeah, report this back to the network? I think they'll be great.

Boom. I think we just, we just have a huge problem. Wow. We should start an agency. I think we should. You got another business in you? No. You've got so many things going on, I feel like. No, I jokingly say I want to slow down because part of me does. I've got a grandson, our first grandson. I want to spend as much time as I can with him. He's down in Florida. My wife, I live in Wyoming, our son and his wife and her grandson live down in Clearwater, Florida. So, you know, I want to spend more time down there.

But I also know myself, I don't do well with time on my hands. I'm my own worst enemy. I've got to keep myself busy. I've got to learn something new. I've got to try something new. I've got to explore something different. I've never played around to golf. I don't go out on boats.

So you'd be running in the same problem that we were talking about with Vince McMahon. Yeah. I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I have to stay busy creatively. I have to explore stuff. I've always found it fascinating that there was a point in time where you were able to appear on AEW and then you were able to appear on WWE. How have you been able to keep those relationships so good?

Maybe the AEW one, not so much. Yeah, that was probably not so good anymore, but, you know, that was my choice. I knew when I said what I was going to say, that probably be the last time I get in. And you were okay with that? Oh, yeah, I was fine with that. This is what I love about you. You're like, I don't, you know, I don't care what people say. Well, or think.

You got to be honest. I have to be honest with myself. Yeah, but sometimes there's things that are better. Thought and not said. You sound like my wife, no. You don't subscribe to that? I probably should a little more than I do. But I don't worry about it.

You know, it is what it is. But I think with back when I was kind of bouncing back between WWE and AEW, I called Bruce Pritchard. First time I got a call from AEW when they invited me in. I called Bruce. I said, just want to let you know out of courtesy, respect. of our friendship, because I'm still tight with Bruce. And please let Vince know.

If he's got a question about this or an issue, if he wants to talk me about it, please give me a shout. If not, I'm going to go ahead. And got the word back, absolutely. Go have a ball. It's just communication. That's all. Instead of just showing up there and them going,

what the heck? It's just courtesy. That's all. Really, it was just common courtesy. when you look at your entire career as a whole, you've done so many incredible things, what do you think is a moment that was a really low point for you and how did you get past it?

The lowest point for me, I've never discussed this ever. And I have to be a little careful about how I say. But during the AOL, time Warner, merger. There was a point sometime, I think it was about the

course, towards the end of 1998. WCW was rocking and rolling. We were making money hand over fist. Pregnings were great. I mean, couldn't have been better. And I think it was around August or September. I got

called him to Harvey Schiller's office. Harvey Schiller was my boss. He was a president of Turner Sports at the time. And it was a corporate attorney there. general counsel sitting in his office. I thought, well, this is weird. And they sent me down and said, Eric, we just, we have to, we have to share something with you. Wow, this is serious. For the last several months, we've been doing some private investigation work and some forensic accounting. And we just want you to know that because we've had to interview certain people in your company. And I thought,

well, okay, cool, why? And that's, I probably wasn't back home. I probably got a little more agitated. There might have been an F bomb in there somewhere. And, you know, the corporate council, general counsel, the same as Andy Bill. And he said, look, Eric, we had no choice because an executive from Time Warner, they told me how it all got started.

the executive from Time Warner went to a WCW event. It was one of our bigger events. Went to the event, ended up in an elevator with a guy wearing a WCW Nitro crew shirt. And his gentleman from Time Warner was a very, very senior executive on the legal side of Time Warner. Yeah. And this individual started asking the,

the guy in the WCW shirts. Oh, what do you do? Tell me about WCW. Well, this guy was a disgruntled. He wasn't really an employee. He was like a freelancer that every once in a while we would hire to rig, help set up ring, stuff like that. Yeah.

But he wasn't even on the regular payroll. It wasn't an employee. But this guy just unloaded all kinds of fabricated narrative, dirt sheet, Reddit type stuff. You know, dirt sheet or Reddit wasn't around. back here. Sure, yeah. But it was all the... Wow. Yeah, like Eric Bischoff was writing all the... This is the one that really got to me because, well, we were told, this individual time one, we're told that, you know, you're giving, you know, like your friend, Diamond Dills Page,

you gave him $1.5 million and you're getting a kickback. That was the narrative, right? Yeah. Somewhere this guy got a whole of it. And that hurt me. I don't know if it hurt me. I just, I lost faith, you know, because I had put so much into WCW at that point in time, so much into Nitron. I felt so good about it. I felt good about the people. I loved working with Ted Turner. He's an amazing person. I'd cut off a hand right now if I had a chance to go back to work for him if that was necessary.

But that just really bothered me. And I don't, I don't even know why. I think the lack of trust, the loyalty. Because your integrity was being questioned? Probably. You know, if they would have just come to me and said, hey, here's what we're here. But the idea that, you know, they didn't tell me until after their investigation was over, and they told me, by the way, you've got nothing to worry about.

We've been through you and your life and your finances and your friends and your neighbors. We know all about you and you've got nothing to worry about. Well, thank you very much. All because of this slob in the elevator. And I really lost a lot of, I, I, I, it put it dent in me, let's put it that way. By the feeling towards the company I worked for changed dramatically after that. How did you recover from?

Or did you not? I don't know. You know, I came home from that. I was ready to quit. A couple of other things that had happened. All of it related really to the merger, because things had changed so dramatically. I was convinced I was going to quit,

and then I talked myself out of it. To me, quitting is like a chicken shit thing to do. It's just, I don't know. I'd rather fight than quit. But, and that's probably what happened. You know, it's like, no, I'm going to stick this out. I'll make it work. You know, it's always my go-tito.

I can find a way to make it work. And sometimes you just can't. But I did lose, I lost connection to the company as a result of that. I didn't feel the same level of passion that I did before that. On the flip side of that, what's the moment in your career that you're most proud of? It's funny because they're happening still in a way. I love that. And talk about that in the book.

You know, there's, in the book, there's a chapter where I talk about learning to become grateful. And a lot of it has just happened over the last five, seven years, really. but I went to a wrestling event. I went to a convention. It was a Comic Con, actually, in Phoenix. And I was on a panel with Hulk Hogan and Sting. And I was hosting it. And there was a young lady in the back,

towards the end of this Q&A. The young lady stood up in the back and introduced herself, told me your story about her and her dad, used to watch wrestling when she was a little kid. It was the only time they really got to bond together. It was her father-daughter. Daddy daughter time.

That was it for the rest of the week. Yeah. And her father had passed away. And she just wanted to share that with me how much her father enjoyed wrestling. Fast forward. A couple weeks later, she tracks down my wife through social media, sends my wife a letter, and really goes into great detail about how much watching wrestling with her father meant to her. And now that her father had passed, how much more meaningful it was and how important it was for her to get a chance to say hi to me.

And Hulk can stick. Yeah. And then at the end of the letter, she goes, by the way, you know, I know this will never happen, but I'm getting married and I don't have any family. My mom's gone. My dad's gone. My only child.

So good work. This gets me every time. It gets me every single time. I love this. And she asked my wife, she said, do you think Eric would be willing to stand in for my dad? It's like, It took me about a minute.

Listen, that said, sure, we'll do that. Where's she getting married? Well, she happened to be getting married in Minneapolis. My wife and I are from there. My wife is. And I thought, well, hell, it's only a thousand miles. We'll just drive, throw the dog in a truck. We'll drive out to Minneapolis.

I'll walk her down the aisle. We'll say hello to your family and friends. We'll hang out. No big deal. And she has since become a really, really good friend of our family. Wow. And that's what I'm proud of. I'm proud of those moments.

I'm proud of creating an opportunity for a father and a daughter to bond over something. It just happened to be wrestling in their case. But that's a, God, dang. That's such a good story. But that's the type of thing that makes me grateful for the business I was in. And I didn't appreciate it then. Like, while I was doing it, I didn't appreciate it. I mean, I liked it.

Don't get me wrong. But I was so busy doing it that I never stopped and went. wow, this is excellent. This is good. People are working. People are enjoying this product on television. You know, we're making money. I never thought about it that way. I just thought about a thing I have to do next. And now I look at it different and I think the thing I'm most part of, now I go to conventions and signings. And I'll hear a story similar to that 15 times a day, 10 times a day. Maybe not quite as compelling, but, you know, I'll hear. story about how a guy coming up, I grew up watching wrestling with my dad or I grew up watching

with my brother, my uncle or my mom or whatever. It's just, and then they tell you these stories. And it makes you pretty proud that you're able to provide that entertainment. I feel like I've had these moments over the last maybe 10-ish years where I've just been so much more appreciative of moments like this, like experiencing this and appreciating it as it's happening, different events I've been to, different things I've experienced. And I think it's, you can't appreciate a moment after it's happened. You can just go, oh, that was a really cool thing.

But if you're able to sit there in the moment and appreciate it as it's happening, I think there's something so special to that. That's the discipline, right? That's the art. And it is because that's a conscious, intentional thought. Intentional. It's such a good word for it. Because if you don't discipline.

yourself to look for those moments and be aware of these things that you should be grateful for. You won't. Yeah. And it becomes a memory. Yeah. And it won't mean nearly as much. But I'm with you, man. There's times.

And sometimes it's a little of stuff. I mean, it doesn't have to be a big aha moment or a big aha event or anything like that. There's been times when I've, I've been out on a hike with my dog and I just felt like I've just been so blessed. It's an overwhelming sensation. of joy. Yeah. And it's fleeting.

But, man, if you pay attention and you look for it, they happen more frequently throughout the course of a month or a week or a day. I watched the sunset in Joshua Tree a few weeks ago. That's badass. And I was just like, number one, I was like, you know, these happen every day, right? Like, I'm finding the time to go out and actually watch the sunset. In Joshua Tree, it's unbelievable.

It's another world. The sky lights up like this bright red. But I just took the moment. It was just me. I was with my fiance, but she was doing something inside the house with our friends. And I just sat out there. And you take that moment in.

And that's something I'll never forget. It's just a simple moment of watching the sunset. And I think we have those in our life all the time. And we don't appreciate them and we don't realize that sometimes. No doubt. I don't want to say I regret because I don't regret anything. Everything has led to me sitting right here. And how can I regret that?

But there are things that I wished I would have known then that I do now. And being appreciative and being grateful is probably the most, I don't want to say, again, not regretful. But the fact that I wasn't as appreciative and grateful as I should have been and could have been, I do regret that. Can you say this is the business that you were in? Are you inferring that you're not in this business anymore? No, I'm not. I talk about it. I'm on the outside looking in, but I'm not in the business. I mean, you make headlines almost every week about the business. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm, but that's just talking. I'm not in it. I'm not doing it. I'm not writing TV. I'm not producing TV. I'm not directing TV. You wish you were? No. No. Part of me does. Don't get me wrong.

I mean, I have to be honest with myself. I miss a really good collaborative creative process. I think he put three or four people in the room with the right chemistry. And that's what that's that's that's the hard part to creative people. But when you find that creative harmony with three or four or five people that work really well together, that's an experience unto itself. Is it hard for you to watch anything wrestling related and go, I would have done this? Or I would. Why did they do this? No. I mean, yes and no. I mean, I see things sometimes. I don't have a dog in a hunt.

I'm not invested in it. Yeah. They're not relatives of mine that are in there. They're just people I know. But sometimes things that seem so obvious to me, just for whatever reason, don't seem obvious to anybody else. And again,

I just, I want wrestling to be successful. I want AEW to be hugely successful. I want WW media. I have people there that I still consider some of my closest friends. And I've got friends in AEW. I want it to. be successful. I just hate seeing people making the same mistakes over and over and over again

and not thinking about ways to make it bigger. Since 2023 is right around the corner here, I'm curious if you think Cody Rose is going to be WWE champion in 2023. Gosh, I don't know. I just, I have no feel for Paul of X creative. I just, I just don't have a feel. Because fans are writing this as he'll come back and win the Rumble. And then he'll go on and maybe it's not at WrestleMania. Maybe it is, but Cody becomes a champ. And I think that that story could make a lot of sense. Well, it's a wonderful story, isn't it?

I mean, second generation. I mean, there are maybe a few more beloved characters and professional wrestling to Dusty Rhodes. I can't name one for me. But Dusty was so beloved and well respected. And then to have Cody follow in his father's footsteps, and men become a WWE champion? Come on.

That's a story. Good story. And I think that's why people are leaning into that speculation because it is such a good story. Well, they're also leaning into it because it means funny. Whenever someone's contract in WW would be up, they'd go, well, are they going to AEW? And I, years ago said, one day, somebody's going to go from AEW to WW.

Oh, I don't. You really think so? I'm like, yes, of course. Somebody's contract's going to be done in AEW. and they're going to go to WWE. I don't think anyone expected it to be Cody Rhodes, one of the guys who started it. I wouldn't have expected it, but boy, what a big move that was.

And what a hard, you know, I haven't talked to Cody about it. Cody and I are friends. We text each other now and again, but we don't chat. I would like to know what it was like for him to make that decision because it was not just a money decision. I don't believe. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure money was a factor.

It always is. But there was something more to it, the money. And I'd like to know what that is someday. I interviewed him right before double or nothing, very first one in 2019. And I just said, is there anything from WWE that you met? Actually, when he was ring of honor champion, I said, is there anything from WWE that you miss? And this actually might be really telling. This is 2018. He said, they have WrestleMania. Nobody else has WrestleMania. Nobody else has that Super Bowl like event. And in hindsight, you can look back on that and go, Hmm. That's interesting.

I think it was more than that. I think there was sure was. There was some frustration. Because WWE had WrestleMania when Cody was there before. Yeah. He was stardust, though. Yeah. Well, and that's why he left. He didn't feel creatively fulfilled and he didn't believe that anything would change in the near future.

And he went to WW so he could be in charge of his own destiny, which is, or went to A.W so he could be in charge of his own destiny. I mean, so much respect for them for doing that as well as everybody else. But something happened there. And I would imagine it was just creative frustration. Yeah. That would be my guess. I'm just curious.

I'm curious what's going to happen with all of that stuff. I've been saying for a while, I wonder if you'll agree with me that it's the best time to be a wrestling fan right now. It's a great time to be a wrestling fan. It really is. It's interesting. I think AEW is going to be fine. I think. I think they're going to be fine.

fine with this Warner discovery merger. I think they're going to come out of it. Okay. And I say that because I noticed the other day, maybe you know more about this than I do, but evidently, CBS is going to lead into AEW with a show that's produced by Dana White. Have you heard this? No. I don't know if it's true.

And I'm reluctant. I've already said it. So, Dana, I'm sorry if it's not true. But I just caught it briefly, but it sounded like it was a, a reality show. You've ever seen no slap contests? Yeah. Where they're going to have like a show based around those professional slapping

contests. Pretty good. Leading into AEW. Now, if that's true, if any of that's true, the reason I think that that bodes well for EW is because the network is now programming around a tent pole.

That's really good. Because right now the lead in is a movie, right? Yeah. That's the thing about, Even when Nitro was doing whatever we were doing at the peak of our success, our lead-ins sucked. And you would put something on afterwards and it would just crash.

The wrestling's destination television. It's destination. That's all anybody wants wrestling fans come. They watch the wrestling and then they leave. And that's always made wrestling a tough sell. But if TBS is found a way or somebody's found a way to program around, specifically around AEW, I think that's a good thing. sign for AEW in terms of what Warner Discovery thinks about them. And I think it's good programming

strategy because now you're building a night of testosterone-driven crazy stuff. Well, they've got something AEW, WWA, they've got something that so many other TV programs don't have and that's the element of live. And that really only exists right now with live sports. I guess you could say the news, but you can also just get the news on your phone. But it's like if there's not a live element, Why can't I just watch it on Hulu or Netflix or the next day? And you asked me a little earlier, what was one of the most proudest things about my career? And I don't normally get into the weeds with a question like that.

But the thing that I'm most proud of is the reason you're watching live wrestling every week is because of Nitro. Because when I launched Nitro, I knew it had to be live. It just had because live always works. WWE was live tape, live tape. We went live every single week. And I think that's the reason that wrestling is in the condition it's in today. It's as strong as it is today. Because that live, what else is live?

You're right. News, sports. And that's why WWE got the deal on with Fox that they got. Exactly right. For live content. Yep. I could ask you about a thousand different storylines and a thousand different things, but I'm so curious about the Billy and Chuck Wedding.

I know that this is so random too. Because I don't think anybody knew it was you. That was the priest. It was so good. And then you say three minutes and then you say, did I just hear myself say three minutes? And the crowd catches on. Can you talk about the buildup to the Billy and Chuck wedding

and your role in it? Yeah. Well before, I knew the storyline or what the scene was going to be what I was going to be involved. Someone from probably Bruce Pritchard came to me because he was my producer and said, hey, we're going to send you out to L.A. We're going to meet some special effects people. They're going to make a mask for you.

So go do that. Didn't tell you what it was for. No. Okay. No. Okay, great. So I went out and it was this special effects studio that, I mean, I walked in and they had all of the things that they've done for all of the movies and television series

and things that they've done, iconic stuff. And I went, wow, this is serious. This is a big place. It's serious. And I sat down and they built this mold of my head, my face. And it took about four hours, five hours, plaster cast and a whole nine yards. And I left in about three weeks later.

Now it's time to shoot the scene, right? It's time for that show. So I had to get to, there was in Minneapolis. I had to get to the building. There was a Target Center, like at 9 in the morning. Typically, I would show up around new call time. Yeah. But I had to show up at 9 because it was going to take three or four hours to get this makeup on.

And they wanted to get the makeup on me before anybody started showing up to the building. Because they didn't want anybody know it was me. Wow. And so I did. I got there and three, four hours got the makeup on. It was about middle of the day. I look in the mirror and it was like, wow, this is awesome. Now, I had been practicing because I knew what I was going to be doing a couple of a week before, I think.

So I've been trying to go, okay, how do I play this character? How do I, how do I disguise who I am and look old? So I took, you know who Jim Barnett is? Yeah. All right. Jim Barnett, oh, my boy, come here and tell me some dirt. That was Jim Barnett, right? So I took a little bit of Jim Barnett, and then my dad, my dad was paralyzed when he was very, very young.

He didn't have use of either of his hands for me. And his hand would be shaped in a way that it was, you know, it would shake a little bit. So I thought, I'm going to take a little of my dad. I'm going to think a little of Jim Barnett. I'm going to think all this makeup, and I'm going to have some fun. So I did. I came kind of hunched over. and my hands shaking and talking like this.

Now, here's the funny part. So there's a guy by the name of Brad Riggins. Brad's had been around wrestling for a long time. He was a liaison between New Japan Pro Wrestling and the U.S. So all the guy Gene was not the most flattering term for a foreigner. But all the foreign talent that would come into New Japan, Brad was the liaison there. He worked with Masa Sa. you know. Well, Brad, I've been friends with Brad since high school. He wrestled, I think,

180, and our captain wrestled 167 or 187. I had known Brad for ever since I was a kid. And I saw Brad, we'd been hunting and fishing together and all kinds of stuff. And I saw Brad standing backstage with his two stepdaughters. One was like 10 and one was eight or something like that. So I walked right up to Brad. Actually, I walked up to the little, the tallest of the two little girls. I said, Oh, you smell so nice. You like to come to my room and have some cookies. I'm hitting on this little girl.

And I'm keeping an eye on Brad because he was, like before Kurt Engel, it was Brad Riggins. He was a Greco-Roman Olympic team, 1880. I mean, he was the real deal. I want to be able to get away from him. of you before he rips my makeup off. He never knew. Wow.

I did that all day long. I'm walking around backstage. I'm going into the catering. Everybody, what's your name? Nobody knew. I walked up to Eddie Guerrero. I was messing with Eddie Guerrero. So bad right to his face.

I was saying, I don't remember what I said to Eddie, but I was intentionally saying stuff that I knew would piss them off because I wanted to see how far they'd go before they threw a punch at an old man. It was got of a test, right? Nobody knew what to do. So who was in on it? Billy, Chuck, and I'm guessing three-minute warning? Yeah.

And I'm not even sure what they knew. They might have figured out it was me that day. They may not even have known it was me. They would have said, here's what's going to happen. The preacher's going to pull off his mask without identifying who the preacher was going to be. I don't know. I never asked any of them about that. But that was, I had so much fun that day.

It was such a great performance and knowing that you really couldn't rehearse this. You just kind of went into it and did it. Yeah. That was fun. You know, Brian Goodworth was the head writer for WW at the time. I don't know if you've ever talked to Brian. No, I'd love to have him on the show. He is, he's a class act.

He's a brilliant guy, very talented, but he's a little shy. He doesn't like being out there too much. He was doing a bunch of interviews for his book recently. He's so talented. He's so talented. But he was in charge of writing back then. The attention to detail was pretty obvious. Yeah. Well, we're going to bring this full circle or we're going to end this where the conversation started, which is gratitude.

And I mentioned that all my conversations end asking my guests, where are three things they're grateful for. So what are they for you, Eric? What are three things you're grateful for right now? I'm grateful to be alive. I don't take any day for granted, you know, in this business, unfortunately. You're owning the business again. You're like, that is your business again. Well, yeah, see, I did it. It's a bad habit. But having been in the business. long as I had. You see too many people that are your peers, people that are younger than you that pass on way too early for stupid reasons. And I'm grateful I'm not one of them. I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful for my wife and my family because I appreciate them more now every

single day. And I think I'm grateful for my faith. I've always been a spiritual person, sometimes more, sometimes less throughout my life. But I think in the last five or ten years, Maybe it's just because I have more time on my hand. I think about my spirituality more. And I'm grateful for that. I can't imagine now going through life and having never really tuned into something that's more powerful than oneself. Yeah. Is that photo on the cover of your book, one that you took?

I did. I took it out with a phone. That's my dog, Nikki. Now, I don't have Nikki. Excuse me. That was my dog, Stevie. I don't have Stevie anymore. She got hit by car.

fortunately while I was away. But I have Nikki, Stevie, Nicky. Connecting those thoughts. I still have the hall pass. I do. I've had them for 30 years. You ever had a chance? No.

You never met Stevie Nix? No. I wish I could. Well, maybe. I know what guy knows a guy? Eric, it's always such a pleasure to talk to you. And thank you again for coming here. No, thank you, man.

This is fun. I really enjoyed this. Let's go grab a beer now. Bam, I'm in. Thank you so much. Thank you, buddy. There we go. Easy E!

Ladies and gentlemen, his book, Grateful is available now, and you can hear him and Conrad Thompson every week on their podcast, 83 weeks. They do such a good job there, and it's no wonder why that show is always at the top of the podcast charts. And go check out ad-freeshows.com

for all of the great shows that Conrad has on his network. work. Take a screenshot. Let us know you were listening to this episode and tag us. We'll share it out. Eric is at E. Bischoff on Twitter. He's at the real Eric Bischoff on Instagram. I'm at Chris Van Fleet and I'll leave you with the words of Camilla Irene Kimball, who says, you do not find a happy life. You make it. Be great. Be grateful. We'll see you on the next one. For some more insight. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. In the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock.

But there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of then?

To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Allie. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.