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You're locked in. This is what we have here,
folks. You're the only show that
matters. The Queen of the Crop, Duke
loves wrestling and there is no one that does it better than
your house. I have come here to chew bubble
gum and kick ass. Thank you.
And I'm all out of bother you. Hey, everybody, this is Eric
Bischoff. And you.
You. Yeah, you.
You're listening to Duke Loves Wrestling.
Brothers and sisters, the River City Wrestling Con was so
tremendous. It ended up being the most
successful pro wrestling convention in the history of the
state of Florida. And certainly many of you
listeners out there, you made that happen.
So thank you. And you were rewarded with some
of the biggest names in the history of pro wrestling and
certainly our guest on this episode is one of them that you
can't stop talking about. It was so cool for many of you
to meet this guy. And now we're here to talk about
a little bit. The one the only Mr. Eric
Bischoff, how you doing there? I am just living large, my
friend, living large out here in Cody, WY, heart of the rodeo
capital of Wyoming. They have a rodeo here every
night. It's awesome.
But the mountains are beautiful, the weather's beautiful,
tourists are pouring in, money is being made.
It's just a wonderful thing. I love it, I love it.
But before we get into that, 'cause I definitely want to ask
you about your connection to Cody and what that means to you
from a spiritual standpoint, 'cause I think there's a,
there's a story to be told there.
The River City wrestling caught. I mean, just your, your
impression of this convention. I believe it was the first time
that you had personally been there.
What did you think? I was blown away to be honest
and and I've worked with a lot of great promoters around the
country, around the world. As a matter of fact, I just did
a tour of Australia a couple weeks ago and last fall did a
tour of was it Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, UK,
where else did I go? That's about it.
But I've I've toured all over the place and worked with some
really good promoters and I have not worked with a better
promoter, not been to a better run event.
It was so well put together. And the thing I loved about it
too was the venue, You know, the hotel, the Convention Center,
there was a lot of room. I mean, there was big crowds.
You had, you had a hell of a turn out and you had a lot of
talent, but it was easy to move around in it in, you know, I've
been to, I've been to conventions that man, it's just
our elbow to elbow. You can hardly move and you
can't, you don't even really get to see half of what you came to
see because it's so crowded. And this was laid out in such a
way that, you know, people could move around freely and get to
see everybody and do everything. And, you know, nice restaurant
in the in the hotel. So All in all, it was like a
scale of one to 10, brother. That was a 10 out of 10 for me.
And then on top of it, I'd never been to Saint Augustine.
I'd heard about it, never been there.
I've been to Florida about, I don't know, a million and 1/2
times never been to Saint Augustine.
So when I flew, I get in the night night early and I just
took an Uber 20 minute ride, walked around and was just
absolutely amazed. I can't wait to come back.
I saw at least a dozen restaurants that I have to go
back to. I mean really cool place.
Wow, high praise not only for the River City Wrestling Con,
but for Saint Augustine in general.
So shout out to the whole area there.
You folks are doing something special when a a world traveler
like Eric Bischoff puts you over like that.
Wow. Well, I mean, I mean, I mean the
town, I'm a big, I love history. I'm always fascinated with
history. I always have that since I was a
little kid. It's the only, only thing in
school that really interested me was history.
But you know, the city has done such a great job of preserving
some of the original architecture and, and a few of
the original buildings and the rest of it, really, they've done
such a good job of maintaining it to keep its character and not
let it get overly commercialized, which is usually
what happens to a beautiful place like Saint Augustine over
time. It's just, it gets
overdeveloped. But the city and the state have
done such a great job of preserving the history.
It's fascinating, fascinating place with great restaurants on
the beach. What more could one ask for?
I love it. That's that's a that's an and a
half right there. You better bottle that one up
there. Saint Augustine.
And certainly I want to give a special shout out to Sam Bate
and his son Nick Bate. You know, the folks that put on
the River City Wrestling Con each year.
That's a father and son duo family business.
From what I hear from so many different people, they do
business the right way. You know, they're they're not
out here trying to cheat anybody.
They're just trying to give great entertainment to the fans
and put you legends in the wrestling in a position where
you know you have a great day's work.
And certainly the combination of the two is why this brand
continues to be successful. Very, very impressed.
Got to hang out with him. We went out to lunch the day
after the events and you got a chance to get to know him
because, you know, the day of an event, everybody's so busy and
there's a million things going on, so it's hard to really get
to know someone the day of. So we hung out at the hotel and
grabbed a bite afterwards the next day.
And just cool too. You know what's fun for me, man,
I love seeing a father and son team.
I mean, it's to me one of the, you know, I got to work with my
son in the wrestling business for quite a long time.
And it's so special not only working together.
And I think in the case of Sam and Nick, definitely building up
a successful business, obviously.
But you know, just to have that thing in common with your son
for me as a dad. And I would think for, you know,
Nick having that relationship with his father and that thing
in that thing in common, this business in common and wrestling
in common, because they both love wrestling and they're both
very, very knowledgeable. But to have that kind of that
kind of a project to work on together is a very special
thing. So it made it even double cool
for me. I love that, you know, you're
that kind of guy, Eric, We, we were talking a little bit
offline about the fact that you're an educator.
You're, you're somebody who does a great job of expressing very
complex issues and breaking them down in a way that allows people
to digest it and understand it. And one of the things that I
picked up on about you through the years is the fact that
you're very, very tuned into family.
You never miss a moment to put over your son and talk about how
proud you are of him now he's raising his own family and what
have you. You're always putting over your
daughter and, and how great she's doing in her career and,
and building her own family now and what have you.
And you never miss an opportunity to put over your
lovely wife, Lori. And this isn't, you know,
because you have to or something that is even conscious, in my
opinion, just listening. It's really a, a, a thing where
this is your partner in life, not just your wife, but somebody
who you legitimately have built an entire life, raised your kids
and somebody who you lean on because she's so important to
you. And, and vice versa.
Talk to me about this whole notion of family and and how
you're so rooted in it and and therefore able to express it so
freely. You know, I, I, I, I, well,
first of all, to me and I've and my wife and I've been together.
We've been married for 40 year. It'll be 40 years in August.
We were together two years before that.
So we've been, we've been together for a long time and
certainly have gotten to know each other very, very well.
And she probably knows me better than I know myself, as the
saying goes, but it's true. It's true.
But you know, she's always been very supportive and, and really
more of a, a motivator or, or, or inspiration than anything
else. Because we both love, we, we
have passion for work, we have passion for our family, we have
passion for creating opportunities for our family.
And it's one of the things that I've learned in my, my, the ups
and downs of my career, both financial and otherwise, is I've
learned to value things much differently than I did when I
was in my 30s and 40s and even my 50s.
You know, I, I made the mistake I think a lot of people make,
especially people like myself who came into a lot of money at
a fairly young age without having ever had any experience
with that, that kind of financial responsibility.
And it's so easy to to fill your life with things.
And I filled my life with lots of things, you know, Porsches
and Corvettes and airplanes, you name it.
Anything but a boat. I never bought a boat.
But over time you learn that those things don't really, I've
learned, I shouldn't say you. I've learned that those things
do not make me happy at all. They're fun.
Don't get me wrong. Not knocking it by any stretch,
But there's a difference between fun and happy.
There's a difference between fun and joy.
There's a massive difference. And I've learned over time that
family is the most valuable thing to me because it is what
brings me most joy and happiness.
But you know, boats can't make, you can't bring.
You can't bring me joy. Airplanes didn't bring me joy.
I got my pilot's license. I flew all over the country.
I got my instrument rating, I got certified to fly high
performance complex aircraft. I had a blast, but it didn't
fulfill me. It was just fun.
But family, family fulfills me and it's it's what I do
everything for. It's why I work.
It's why I always, I'll work till the day I die.
I'll never retire ever, because as long as I'm capable of
helping to create opportunity for my wife and my kids, I will
do that till I draw my last breath because it's the most
important thing to me. Wow, what a what a response
there. How does Cody WY factor into
this? Because you literally could live
anywhere in the world and you've lived in in various places
throughout your career here. But Cody WY, what has drawn you
there to the point where it's like, you know what, this is my
home. This is where we're going to set
up shop and be till the end too. I grew up in Detroit in in the
50s and the 60s on the east side of Detroit.
Eminem's, what was it, Eight Mile?
What was the name of the Eminem movie?
I lived on 10 Mile. He lived.
He was talking about Eight Mile and Gratian.
I went, I lived at 10 Mile and Gratian, 2 miles from there.
Actually, Eminem and I went to the same elementary school,
believe it or not. Different, different times,
obviously. But yeah, so I, I mean, and as a
kid growing up in Detroit in a very lower, lower middle income
environment, I dreamt of seeing mountains.
I, you know, I, I grew up watching Bonanza and the
Virginia, no, westerns were really big back in the 50s and
the 60s. And I grew up watching, you
know, Gunsmoke and, and all of them.
And to see those images of mountains and cattle and horses,
just as a young kid, it just fascinated me.
And when I was 22 years old, a friend of mine invited me out.
He was going to be here anyway, and he invited me to come out.
I was living in Minneapolis at the time, had never been West of
Minnesota, believe it or not. And again, even at 22 years old,
had never seen mountains ever. So my buddy invited me out and I
said hell yeah. I jumped in my car and I drove
out from Minneapolis about 1000 miles, 1200 miles drove out.
And I remember pulling into Cody about 5:00 in the morning, maybe
4/30, 4:45 and I was pulling into Cody and it was, now this
is summertime and and Cody fills up a tourist in the summertime.
It's crazy fun, but at 5:00, 5/30 in the morning, it was
dead. There was no, nobody was moving.
The sun has just starting to come up.
It's very peaceful. And I pulled in and just as I
parked my car and I got out to just look around, the sun's
coming up and it's hitting the mountains all around me.
And even though this was July, there was still snow on the
mountains. So you get the the golden
sunrise, kind of an orange, pinkish color, actually just a
beautiful blue sky. But the sun is still that weird
color of pinkish orange and it's bouncing off the snow in the
mountains. And it was just so cool.
And I, I said to myself that moment, someday I'm going to
live here. Someday I'm going to live in
this town. No, I, I was 22.
I had like $104.00 in my pocket. I think I had a $200.00 limit on
my one MasterCard. So it's not like I had a, you
know, a plan. But I just knew someday I wanted
to, to live here. And eventually, you know, I got
my wife out here and she fell in love with it.
And here we are. Built a house here in 90.
We started the house in 97, finished at 98.
That's awesome. And, and folks, definitely check
out Eric on social media, some of the most beautiful photos
you'll ever see. And, and this is his scenery.
This is on his deck. He looks out and and just as
Conrad Thompson would say you, you live in a postcard, Eric.
Well, I live right outside of Yellowstone National Park, about
47 miles east or West of here, so I'm directly east.
In fact, if you're sitting on my deck and you're looking to the
West, you're looking up into the valley that takes you right into
Yellowstone. So it is beautiful and millions
of people from all over the world come here every summer to
enjoy the scenery and all the things that you know this area
of Cody, WY has to offer. There's a great museum here.
One of the best natural museum, Natural History museums are
here. Buffalo Bill Cody Museum is
here. The Museum of the West.
There's, there's like 5 museums under wood roof.
There's a rodeo every night of the week from June 1st all the
way to September 1st I think, or September 3rd.
There's a rodeo every night and there's river rafting, horseback
riding, amazing world class trout fishing, you know, up and
down the rivers here coming out of Yellowstone.
So there's a lot to be said for living here.
You, I, we give up a lot. You know, there's the
convenience. You know what I need to fly
somewhere. For example, tomorrow I'm flying
to Fort Lauderdale, I've got to drive 2 hours to the airport,
you know, to, to make sure when I'm, you know, get on a flight
that's actually going to leave. So, you know, there's now a big
variety of restaurants and, and that kind of thing, which is why
when I go to a place like Saint Augustine, that's the first
thing I do is start looking for good restaurants.
And like I said, Saint Augustine blew me away.
There was like, there's two French restaurants I want to try
and it's unbelievable. But you know, I do without a lot
of that stuff, but I make up for it in freedom.
And I live on 20 acres. I, all my neighbors are 15 or 20
acres, so we're spread out and on top of each other.
I look up into Yellowstone National Park.
The weather's beautiful here and it's all the stuff I like.
You know, I like to ride horses and hunt and fish and hike and
all that still outdoorsy stuff I still like to do.
Incredible, incredible and hunting, fishing, loving every
day, right? Isn't that the the song there?
Yeah, yeah. I don't hunt as much as I used
to. I hunt for food.
I don't hunt for sport. My I'm my wife and I love wild
games. So I'll usually take an elk
every other year and, and A and a deer or two depending on what,
what kind of supply we need. But I, I, I, I like to hunt
waterfowl like duck and, and geese, upland birds like
pheasant. I I do love to hunt those, but
we, we also love to eat and we eat everything we hunt.
My wife hunts with me as well. That's see, here we go again.
It's that whole life partner thing again, just naturally
introduce her into the conversation.
It means something. It it, it definitely shows your
character when it doesn't always have to be about you.
Because certainly that's what we've seen from stars throughout
history. You're a guy that you're, you're
not afraid to share the spotlight.
In fact, you, you go out of your way to highlight the people who
matter most to you. And it's, it's a really
interesting quality 'cause I, in my opinion, I think that that
also bears fruit in other avenues as well.
And I believe that that's part of the reason why to this day,
Eric Bischoff as a brand is still relevant.
And people will literally pay money to come see you because
you've managed to put out enough good juju in the world, so to
speak, with how you've treated others.
It's not always perfect. We know that.
We've heard the stories, you read the books, shout out to Guy
Evans and what have you. But for the most part, man,
you're, you're a pretty grounded guy.
And, and you really put a lot of emphasis on family and your
close friends. And it shows.
It definitely shows that. Look, I like to connect.
You know, one of the things that I, I really, really enjoy about
doing an event like River City, I have, I don't know if it's a
philosophy or whatever, doesn't matter.
It's how my brain works. So it works for me.
I'm, I'm pretty convinced that when fans come up for
autographs, they don't really care about the autograph.
The autograph is just the excuse to get an opportunity to make a
connection. And even though I sign my
autograph, I know for a fact, or I believe I should say for a
fact. That that's not why the person
has been standing in line is and is willing to part with money.
It's because they want to have a conversation.
They want to feel like even if it's just for a moment or a
couple minutes, that they're getting to know you and that
you'll remember them just like they know you and remember you.
So when I do these sessions, I love to make sure that I take
the time to look everybody in the eye.
And I'll almost always if they're shy, cause a lot of
people are, they don't know what to say, they're nervous or
whatever. I'll just start asking them
questions. You have a dog?
What kind of dog? Cool.
I used to have one of those where I had a friend who had
one. You know, you just, whatever,
talk about something they don't expect, because then they'll
just start talking and not thinking about what they're
going to say. And then before you know it,
you're having a pretty good conversation with someone you
just met, you know, a minute ago.
And that's what they remember. They may take the autograph,
they may put it on their table and show people for a week or
two and then whatever, but they'll always remember the
conversation. Well said.
Speaking of which, I just got a
text from Devon Dudley. WWE Hall of Famer he is.
Yeah. Yeah, Devon.
He and I actually just started a new show together.
Devon and the Duke just put out our third episode.
But Devon said that you're a good friend of his.
He actually mentioned that on the previous episode, so he told
me to give you a shout out there.
Devon's great. He's, you know, there's a, I've
made a lot of friends in, in, in the industry.
Some of them are casual friends. You know what I call passive
friends, meaning, hey, you see him, you know, you're happy to
see each other, you'll catch up and then you go about your life
and maybe not talk to them again for another six months or a
year. And then there's, you know, that
other level friend that you, you stay in touch with and and so
forth. And then there's no special
people like diva on and, and there's a few others that you
look forward to seeing them because there's they're happy
people. By that, I mean they just have a
positive energy. I mean, I don't think I've ever
seen Devon not smiling outside of the ring.
Now, inside of the ring is different, but just in his just
demeanor, you know, I, I, I did a convention with him a couple,
a mother or two ago whenever we were next to each other.
And he's just, every time I looked over, man, he's smiling,
he's laughing, he's interacting with, you know, fans, not just
signing autographs, looking down at the table, you know, handing
them out, trying to get through the line as quick as he could.
He's having fun. And when he's having fun, the
people around him have fun. And that's why I like being
around him 'cause he just always, he always makes me
smile. He's a good dude.
Yeah, he's a good. You know, it's crazy too.
I don't know if you knew this Eric, but when Devon had a
stroke a couple years ago they literally had to do some there
in his head to rewire some things so he could walk again.
Wow, I did not know that. This guy that you were just
with, he was at River City as well.
So you see him walking and talking, always smiling, same
old diva and what have you. They literally had to do brain
surgery to get him to walk again.
And the fact that he still is functional as he is, is is
literally a miracle. Yeah, I know.
I I saw him at River City, but I saw him a a month or two before
that. We ran into each other and, and
I learned a lot about him there growing up in a, in a religious
family and, and, and where his values came from and how he grew
up. We had a great conversation.
I learned more about him that day than I knew in all the years
that I worked with him. So that's another reason why I
love doing these kind of conventions is you get a chance
to actually sit down and have a conversation with people you've
known for 20 years about something other than the finish
or, or what we're going to do with the next pay-per-view.
It's awesome. Or, or the payday, you know,
going back a little further, Jeez, you know, Speaking of
which I I had to do this year. Vito Legrazo wants to know what
did you think of his new suit? Because you know, he's, he's the
dawn of wrestling now. And, and he was at River City.
He he was in everybody's pictures in the background
wearing this, this Godfather S suit.
What what did you think of Big Vito's digs there?
I, I I'm impressed. I am impressed with the level of
detail and the quality of of what he was wearing.
He looked very Guido ish so good job.
You hear that Vito? You, you've just got put over by
the man, Eric Bischoff. There you go, You know, sharp
dressed man, big Vito Lograsso there.
I'm going to tell you a story 'cause you, you asked me a
question before we recorded. You asked me how we got
connected. Eric and I want to go back a
little over eight years ago, the pod father himself, Conrad
Thompson, he starts a podcast with his now father-in-law, Ric
Flair. And I would reach out to Conrad
because I had just started Duclos Rasan right around the
same time. And I would reach out to Conrad
and, and say, hey, man, you know, I, you know, I enjoyed
this part of the show and compare notes and what have you
and, and basically give a review of each episode 'cause I was
also learning from him different things.
You know what I mean? Here you, you have a Hall of
Famer right there who's telling all these stories.
And sometimes they'd have guests.
So it was really cool to listen to Conrad evolve as a podcast
host and pick up little tips and tricks along the way.
So we struck up a nice rapport with each other and Conrad's
been on the show a bunch of times.
So very, very helpful, especially in the beginning of
the Duke Club's wrestling brand. So Fast forward now, Nick Pate
hits me up and he says, hey, I have somebody that wants to
bring Eric Bischoff to the River City Wrestling con.
We we think it'll be a big hit because, you know, fans keep
asking for him. I can't get a Direct Line to
him. And I said, well, I think I know
a guy. So I reached out to Conrad and
and Conrad right away shot me your information, which I passed
along to Nick. And that's how that whole
situation happened there. Well, very cool and thank you
for that. By the way, a little extra
effort there paid off. I was, hey, very appreciative of
that. It was, it was worth it, Eric.
And, and again, you're a guy who there was a period of time where
Eric Bischoff was spoken of in a negative light and people really
couldn't pinpoint why. They just knew Bischoff was bad
and Oh yeah, Bischoff, Bischoff. And what's really interesting
from my perspective, and I want you to correct me if, if you, if
your perspective is different on this, I believe that 83 weeks,
you and Conrad doing that show has completely readjusted things
and, and has allowed history to be very kind to you because
people have actually taken the time to listen to your side and
hear the real story of what was going on, whether they like it
or not, This is what happened. And I think that in the end, you
come out looking like a regular normal guy and, and people
respect you a lot more because of it.
What do you think about that? Oh, I think it's true.
I think you're right. Keep in mind though, that it's
it's complicated in a way because my name is Eric Bischoff
and I was president of World Championship Wrestling, but I
played a character named Eric Bischoff that was the president
of World Championship Wrestling in the fact that I played myself
has and I did it effectively. It blurred the lines.
I had a fair amount of heat as a character for a while, but the
fact that I blurred the lines as well as I did for as long as I
did on national television in a very high profile, one of the
highest rated programs on cable TV for a couple of years.
So I think people got to know that character and because of I
was using my real name and I was using my real position as a as a
as a tool, as a storytelling device, people also got
confused. Their lines were blurred too.
And I think a lot of people assumed that that person that
they saw on TV doing all that dastardly stuff was the real
guy. So there's that.
And in fact, I can tell you a funny story about that in a
minute. And then there's the fact that
for 302524 years, the only narrative that existed for
wrestling fans outside of watching the show on television
was the newsletters slash dirt sheets, Dave Meltzer, Wade
Keller, couple other smaller ones pop up here and there.
And then of course, websites, you know, when, when the
Internet became a, a legitimate thing in the, in the 90s
beginning, you know, 'cause it was there, there was social
media even back in the early days of the Internet and
wrestling was always a big part of that.
But that was the narrative. So whatever the, whatever the
narrative was out there in the wrestling fandom is the
narrative that everybody bought into.
Well, all of a sudden podcast came along and now you get to
hear from guys like Bruce Prichard, who up until the time
Bruce had his podcast come out, Bruce never had a platform.
He didn't have a mailing list of 23451020 thousand subscribers.
He he did. I mean, it was just, and I was
the same way. I never had a platform.
I, I produced television. Some of the the big I produced
one of the biggest platforms in wrestling history at one point,
but I didn't use it to tell my side of the story.
So when podcasts started evolving and, you know, bruised
first, then Tony Shavani's came out, then mine came out and Ross
came out. Conan pops up with one.
Now Kevin Nash has got one. All of a sudden you're hearing
from the people that guys like Dave Meltzer have been pretty
much burying for 20 or 25 years and never had a chance to fire
back. Well, now they do.
And, and I think what's interesting and why I'm so
involved and why I enjoy it so much, it's because I'm really
beginning to see the shift in, in the composition of at least
the, the portion of the Internet that I deal with.
People are far more they're, they're thinking critically now.
They're not just taking what Dave Meltzer has to say as
gospel. They're beginning to see that
Dave Meltzer is kind of ABS artist.
He's very, very inaccurate. He his, his take on the business
is horrible and is proving to be horrible in a very public way.
He doesn't really understand the business of the business of
wrestling, although he suggested he studies it.
I don't know where he's studying.
But now that there's an alternative perspective from
people who are actually there, who actually worked in the
wrestling industry instead of in their apartment writing about
it, people are beginning to understand that one, wrestling
is a far more complicated business than people think it
is. It really is a complicated
business. And two, there's a lot of
information out there that's a lot more accurate than what
they've been able to find on the Internet or in dirt sheets like
Dave Meltzer. So it's fun to watch the
audience become more educated because I think the more you
understand, first of all, the business of the wrestling
business and how it functions and how complex it is, the
greater appreciation you have for it, even as a fan.
And nobody's ever been able to talk about the business of the
wrestling business before because no one had that
platform. And now we do.
A lot of the people that show up for autographs and want to meet
me are people, you know, almost, I would say six or seven out of
10 times will make a point of saying, and I really like your
podcast 'cause you talk about the business of the wrestling
business. I don't just tell stories about
what happened in the locker room and what happened on the road
and who ribbed who and you know, who hooked up with whose wife or
boyfriend or whatever. I, I don't, I don't talk about
that stuff 'cause I don't have any of that experience in my bag
of tricks, so to speak. But I do love to talk about the
business of the rest of the business.
And now that more people are beginning to understand it and
appreciate it, it gives them a different level of appreciation
for the entire industry. When we talk about story as much
as I do, 'cause I beat on it all the time and point out examples
of great storytelling, disciplined storytelling, how to
craft a story. All of a sudden now there's a
percentage of the audience, at least some, the people that
follow me, that are looking at story and they're looking for
plot points. They're looking for some of
those elements that typically make a great story and are
beginning to see when they exist in a story and when they don't.
And to me that's fun because again, I think along the same
lines, once you understand what goes into presenting wrestling
and even at the very beginning understand why people watch it,
why do people watch wrestling in it?
And people have different answers, but it's a lot.
It's no different really than going to a movie or watching any
other television show. It's, you want to go on a
journey with your heroes and, and, and, and they're villains
and you want to disconnect and get absorbed into that story and
into those characters and kind of live vicariously, even if
it's subconsciously just live through the characters that
you're watching in the story. Wrestling's no different.
And once you begin to see those parallels and understand it, you
appreciate it more. So I, I'm, I'm, I'm liking that
fans are really paying more attention to the details of the
wrestling industry and are eager to learn about it.
And I think the fact that, you know, so many people have great
podcasts now. Undertaker's got a podcast.
Chris Van Vleet's podcast is outstanding.
Jim Cornette's podcast. You know, Jim's kind of, you
know, he's he, he's a little toxic, isn't the word 'cause
that's not fair. It's too strong.
But he's, he's acidic. You got to be a little careful
how close you get to Jim Cornette, depending on your
point of view. But I think, you know, he's a,
he's a smart guy. I don't agree with sometimes the
way he says things, but that's, that's his choice.
That's his business choice. But he's smart and he's got a
great, he's got a great perspective, whether anyone
agrees with it or not, including myself.
Sometimes I do, often times I do, but sometimes I don't.
But he's a great, great podcast to listen to too.
I already mentioned Conan, you know, from a town site.
Kevin Nash is one of the smartest guys I know in the
wrestling business. He's a really smart guy.
You got to catch him in the right mood probably, you know,
and sometimes he's a little, shall I say, relaxed.
But you know when Kevin's, when Kevin's had something important
to talk about, he is one of the most intelligent,
conversationalist and critical thinkers that I know in the
wrestling business. You know, Eric, I'm, I'm glad
you, you took us down that road because I got to tell you when I
started this show over eight years ago, I tried to do the
rumors thing and, and you know, that's, that's what everybody's
doing. We're going to talk about the
rumors and what's in the, what's in the websites and the dirt
sheets and all that. And you know, I couldn't, I
couldn't get more than 100 listens if I tried, right?
Because what is that? And who the hell am I?
As soon as I started focusing on interviews and bringing the
actual people on the show to talk about their lives, not just
in wrestling but in general, who are you as a person, Suddenly
everything changed. And it's important to get the
people who actually experienced it the actual experts as opposed
to trying to pretend like you are an expert.
And I, that's my frustration with with Meltzer and a lot of
other folks, they never actually get people on the record who
know what they're talking about. It's always, I'm the guy.
I know everything. And in reality, Dave Meltzer was
never a television executive. He never ran a wrestling.
So why am I listening to this guy tell me about what's
important to advertisers and what the ratings mean and, and
who's going to get what money based on this quarter hour, yada
yada. It's like, well, wait a second,
hold on. How do I know you're qualified
to even try to educate me on this, as opposed to somebody
like Eric Bischoff where that's literally your career?
That's what you've been doing. Even when you were selling ads,
that's what you were doing, right?
Yeah, and what what Dave does is he regurgitates some of the
stuff he just reads in the trades because it makes, when
you kind of regurgitate things you've read in the trades, it
it, it can make, make one sound at least to others who have no
idea what the industry is about. You can make yourself sound like
you know more than you really do just by picking up certain
things in the trades, right? That's number one.
Number two, he listens to low level.
He he he he probably has contacts at fairly low levels
within WWEI mean he's friends with Tony Kahn.
That's right off the bat in the in the EVP S, whatever their
names are now he's tight with them.
So, but I mean, with WWE, he's probably got sources, but
they're like mid card, lower mid card.
Or they're that version of management, meaning, yeah, they
work in the office, but they're pretty low, low level people who
engage in that kind of gossipy rumor bullshit, leaking
information. That's usually low level
players. And if there's somebody at a
higher level that's talking to them, and I know this is a fact,
there's no denying this. There are people that I am close
to and have been for a long time.
They don't do it directly, but indirectly.
They feed absolute nonsense to Meltzer because sometimes, not
as often anymore for humor, because sometimes people would
do it just to see if he'd actually take the bait and and
run with it. There's always a big joke in the
locker rooms. But that, that was quite a while
ago. But to blow him off scent or to
get the audience thinking that his audience does he just have a
footprint? You know, they're, they're,
they're a very small percentage of the overall viewing audience,
but they're very loud percentage.
You know, they may be 3% of the television viewing audience, but
they make 30% of the noise if you, if you know what I'm
saying. So they'll occasionally, you
know, feed him bullshit just to get him off off scent or just to
intentionally get something out there.
Exactly the opposite of what they really want because they
know he's a useful idiot in in the in in the urban dictionary
version of the words, he is a useful idiot.
But when it comes to actual inside information, he's sketchy
at best. I mean, there are and there's
guys that are good. Mike Johnson from PW Insider,
Very, very good integrity. If he prints it, I know he
sourced it and I know it's if it's not 100% on the money, it's
so damn close. Dave Shearer, same thing.
PW Insider, Sean Ras Sapp, Sean Sapp, Look, he's controversial
because he's he's not afraid to tell you what he thinks either,
but he's on the money and there are others there.
There are others. It's just unfortunate that
certain people like Dave, you know, he's an old guy.
He's it's my age, for crying out loud.
He's older than freaking dirt. He hasn't changed the way he
does business. It's all rumors and and nonsense
and his spin on his spin on bad rumors is what 70% of his
nonsense is about. And then he gets offended when
people call him out on it. It's just like Dave, it's pretty
obvious what you're doing and it's not that hard to see
through IT. People are going to call you out
when you're phony as you are. Is that why we have wise choices
now or this this is a a new show that you've recently put out?
Now why? Here's how wise choices happen.
I was doing a show called Strictly Business with Jon
Elbow. And we would try to record every
Thursday. But John's, you know, he's got
like he, he's a freelancer, you know, sports, radio, television
in New York. So he's, you know, gin comes up,
he's gone. So he's got his life that he's
got a schedule and manage. My life is not as busy as his,
but on any given day, I have no idea what I'm going to be doing
because my the nature of my business evolves on a day-to-day
basis. I could have a conference call
in an hour that I didn't plan on having this morning, but
business necessitates it. So I'm constantly moving my
schedule around as well. So I finally got to the point
where I said, John, this is getting too hard.
I'm I'm let's just put an end to this, figure out something in
the future. Because in the meantime, I want
to do a show that I can do solo on YouTube just so I don't have
to coordinate with anybody else's schedule or feel bad
because my schedule is impacting adversely somebody else because
it's changed at the last minute or whatever.
So I forget if I can just figure out something to do on YouTube
that's fun by myself, I'll just do that for a while until I
figure out a different way to approach strictly business.
So anyway, I'm starting to do that.
And right about them, Tony Khan, I, I, I made a point and, and
it's in fact, John Elba put something out on social media
thanking everybody that listens and just letting him know that
because of scheduling challenges, we're going to put
a, we're going to, we're going to put strictly business on
hold. And Tony Kahn gets on social
media and he goes, well, it's probably the a good thing that
fraud, fraud of a podcast has decided to.
And I said it's a why. Here's what he said.
Probably a wise choice for that fraud of a podcast, meaning 83
weeks my podcast or strictly business to sunset right before
we get our renewal with TBS. And I thought, OK, I was, I
wasn't going to pick on Tony anymore because number one, it's
low fat hanging fruit. It's so easy.
He makes it too easy and I can just get tired of doing it.
But that one kind of irritated me.
So I I named the show wise choices because of his post.
He said it was a wise choice to sunset strictly business.
So I said I'll just come up with another show called Wise Choices
and I smoked Tony. I smoked him like Cheech and
Chong would smoke a reefer and had a lot of fun with it, did
record number of views. And I thought, huh, Wise Choices
is a name for a good name for a YouTube show.
So I've been doing it ever since and the the nature of the show
changes. Sometimes it's interviews,
sometimes it's me ranting and raving about something that
irritates me. Sometimes, you know, we're
talking about breaking down stories.
What's an act one? How do you create an act one for
for professional wrestling? What is what is an act one?
How does it work? What are the plot points you
need in an act one you're trying to establish?
We have those types of conversations, so it's wise.
Choices can be anything I'm in the mood to do on any given day
on YouTube. I love it.
It's a great show, folks.
You definitely should check out Wise Choices.
In fact, the latest episode, Eric has a special guest in
Kevin Kelly, so I know that's going to be a hot one to listen
to there. You know, it's it and we'll,
we'll wrap on this, but it's interesting with Tony Khan, he
once jumped in my inbox, Eric, and just had a tantrum.
They were unclear about something on AW and I pointed it
out, but I was using the Dynamite hashtag as I was
pointing it out and everyone started lining up and, and
trying to argue with me about it.
And on a Wednesday at 11:30 AM, as if this guy doesn't have
something better to do, he's in my inbox demanding that I stop
rampaging and that he writes the show, so he should know what the
storyline should be. And maybe I not, maybe he told
me that I don't know what I'm talking about.
So then I pointed him to his own website.
And I said, well, Tony, this is what it says on your own website
on the recap of Dynamite. And the man literally said, oh,
I didn't know that was up there. He didn't even know on his own
website that they recap his television show.
What the hell? Are we doing here?
Tony is a a an extremely wealthy individual who is getting to
play out his childhood fantasies.
That's what this is. This is, this is.
If there was ever a classic vanity project, this would be
it. That's all it is.
It's not a business. If this was a business and Tony
actually was employed by an employer as opposed to being
funded by his father, Tony would have been fired six months in
maybe a year. He certainly would not exist on
anybody's payroll other than a loved ones.
Given the performance and and and the management issues that
have taken place inside of AW in the last couple of years,
especially the last 18 months, it's been a freaking disaster.
There's just not been a good move from a business
perspective, from a creative perspective.
Yeah, he goes, he writes a lot of big checks, gets a lot of
people to sign on the dotted line.
But that's not necessarily a talent that's just giving away
money. These are money motivated
individuals as they have every right and probably
responsibility to their families to be.
So no, no harm, no foul on talent, but it doesn't take much
when you've got the kind of money that Tony's throwing
around to lock up some decent names.
What do you do with them? What's he done with them?
Nothing. Absolutely not.
There has not been any return on investment from anything that
he's done creatively or in terms of talent.
It's a mess, but whatever. It's a vanity project and it
doesn't matter. That's why.
That's why it doesn't matter. That's why Tony's not going to
listen to you. He's not going to listen to me.
He's not going to probably listen to anybody.
Maybe his dad. He's just going to do what 14
year old Tony Kahn would have done If if Tony if 14 year old
Tony Kahn had real wrestlers to play with instead of action
figures. Well, what do you mean?
Like get the wrestlers to convince you to to make a video
game before you your company's even stable.
You know they're giving away that video game now on
PlayStation. Yeah, I've, I've got some
friends that are, I'm fairly close to that are in the video
game business at very high levels.
We're talking about development and, and, and all coders, all
that. And that's a small world.
That video game world is, it's small, it's big.
I mean, it's powerful, it's huge financially.
But the world itself, Speaking of the movers and the Shakers
and the people that know what's going on in that world, it's a
very small world. And I got some pretty accurate
insight early on into the development of that game.
And it should, it should have been a movie.
And like, if you put Jack Black in it and a couple other really
funny characters, it would be an ideal comedy.
You take a bunch of wrestlers that don't know where.
Oh, but I play video games. Can you imagine, Duke?
You're on a plane. The, the, the, the, the, the,
the situation everybody's thought about at one point or
another, talked about what if I'm on a plane and the pilot
can't fly the plane? Could I land this plane?
Could I fly it? There's been movies made of it,
hell, bunch of times. But can you?
Can you? Can you imagine being in a
business where a guy says my experience and the reason I'm
spending 10s of millions of dollars on talent is because,
well, I used to watch it when I was a kid.
That's Sony Khan's experience. He grew up as a wrestling fan.
That's like a guy on an airplane going, well, I've flown.
I got million mile status on three different airlines.
Fuck, I can fly this plane no problem.
Throw that captain out of the seat, let me have at it because
I've got 2 million miles on my belt, under my belt, flying out,
flying as a passenger. So sure, I can fly.
Just like Tony grew up as a kid watching wrestling and becoming
passionate about it, and now all of a sudden thinks he can be a
pilot of his wrestling airplane. The problem is he can't.
He doesn't have a clue about what makes wrestling work for
the audience. He knows what made wrestling
work for him as a 14 year old watching ECW, but the audience
isn't going to respond to the same things that 14 year old
Tony Kahn used to respond to that.
That's the that's the dilemma. That's why AW is where it is.
And why? It's not going to change.
No reason for it too long as Tony's having fun, it's not
going to change. You just heard that from the one
person on the planet who was able to lead a company to defeat
the WWE consistently for 83 weeks and then some.
It was 104 in total, but who's counting?
Who's counting who's 83 in a row but 104 in total?
Listen, Eric, how can everybody listening right now keep up with
you and all the you got a million and one things going on
at one time. But if they want to keep up with
Eric Bischoff, see some of those great pictures, hear your
podcast, plug away, man. Yeah, I mean, I'm on X, formerly
Twitter at E Bischoff. I'm on Instagram at the real
Eric Bischoff. But really, you know, the
podcast 83 weeks wherever you get your favorite podcast drops
every Friday morning early and then on 80 threeweeks.com, which
is our YouTube channel. We do a lot of different stuff
over there. That's a fun that's a fun hang
out, pretty good community and we're about to do some really
cool stuff over there. So that's another good place.
So 80 threeweeks.com for YouTube E Bischoff on Twitter The real
Eric Bischoff on Instagram. I don't spend much time on
Instagram, to be honest. That's about it.
Before I let you go, Eric, I, I know that you're a, you're a
details oriented guy. So I have a crew on, on Twitter,
we call ourselves the coffee core.
It's coffee drinkers from all over the world.
You know, a lot of them are in the wrestling industry, many are
fans and what have you, but we always share our coffee recipes
and what have you daily. What did you drink this morning?
Eric, 'cause I, I know that this is a thing for you.
You know, you normally have multiple cups and what have you,
whether it was coffee or something else.
What? What did you wake up drinking
this morning? This morning I had Lori, my wife
made me what we call a fat coffee, which is we use Purity
coffee. It's a, a, a brand that we found
that we know to be tested organic and a really good
quality coffee. So we use that.
But she mixed in some collagen. She mixed in a tablespoon of MCT
oil. Google it if you don't know what
it is. It's really, really healthy.
It's a super nutritious fat and a little bit of butter in the
coffee. And I think it's just a small
shot of cream, just enough to add a little color to it.
And then she whips it all together in a blender.
It's real hot in the blender. It is just awesome, smooth and
silk. But because of the collagen and
the MCT oil in particular, it's a in the butter.
I'm, I'm, I'm on a carnivore diet, so I don't need any carbs
at all. I get all my energy from
nutritional fat, usually animal fat.
MCT oil is the only synthetic product I take.
But so butter in my coffee with the MCT oil is like a it's like
2 Red Bulls for the average person for me.
And I drank that and went right to the gym.
Got in a solid hour workout. Till next time, be kind to
yourselves and be kind to others.
Take it away. Tony Shivani.
Mr. Tony Cavani and we're definitely out of time on Duke
Love Wrestling.