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Who killed WCW. That's the question
posed by the new four part Vice TV

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series that is just premiered, and
here in the Lapsed Fan, we're going

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to make it our mission for the
next little while to not only attempt to

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answer that question, but tackle it
to the ground into submission from a fans

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perspective. Dare I say a lapsed
fans perspective? And it's called for because

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just when you point the finger for
the downfall of WCW, you realize there's

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someone right behind you pointing at you. Welcome in Jack and Carnacio, a

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JP sorrow from that cast, and
boy are we excited to partner up with

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a longtime friend of the show and
a man who has meticulously researched the fall

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of World Championship Wrestling, perhaps more
than anyone. He, of course,

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is the author of Nitro, The
Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's

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WCW, as well as former WCW
hanto Eric Bischoff's second book, Grateful,

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and the recently released Sitting Ringside by
former law time WCW ring announcer Dave Penzer,

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and for years he's collaborated with former
WSW producer Neil Pruitt to on Earth

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and bring forth such great detail about
the comings, the goings, the ups,

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the downs, the maneuverings, the
machinations of a once great wrestling company.

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Guy Evans, thanks so much for
being here and in fact suggesting we

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even do this in the first place. Oh, it's a pleasure just listening

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to that intro. I just thought, Man, no one does this podcast

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thing like you, guys, So
congratulations on ten years. It's not a

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surprise that it's gone so well for
you, and I'm very happy to be

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speaking with you about this series today. Excellent. Well thanks guy, and

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you're off on the right foot.
You've paid the appropriate premute, which is

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always important, right boss, that's
right. I know that's mandatory. Right

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from the stove. Kiss the ring. Kiss the ring, and we can

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move on quickly. The squared circle. Call it what you will. It's

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right, I mean, kiss the
square circle. It's good. Just wipe

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being around the bush. I mean, guy, you have thought of the

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question from as many ankles as anybody. You're featured in the Vice series.

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The TLF played a little bit of
role on the front end, consulting with

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the writer of the show and Evan
Husny about how to perhaps structure a four

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act look at the collapse of WCW. And I'm just interested in starting with

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you. I mean, if you
have to assign I don't know, fifty

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one percent blame for the collapse of
WCW, of course there's a million culprits.

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Where does your head go, knowing
all you know about the subject.

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My head goes to the fantastic final
episode of this series where that question is

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going to be posed to all of
the interviewees, including myself. And if

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I was to give you a direct
answer now, there would be I would

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be, you know, preempting that
magnificent final episode. So I suggest we

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revisit that after episode four. How
does that sound? It sounds good.

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Now, did you approach the book
with that sort of framing? Did you

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approach the book as you know,
let's let's build not a case against an

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individual. Of course you wouldn't seek
to do that, but let's seek to

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understand why, you know, this
gallery of characters are blamed. And did

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you tilt towards one side of the
house, the Turner side of the house,

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the wrestling operation side of the house. In the final analysis, can

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you give us at least that well, I think you know what I will

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say is, in doing the book, one of the things that became abundantly

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clear quite early on was the fact
that this dysfunctional relationship between Turner Broadcasting and

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WCW that was really going to be
sort of the overarching theme throughout the book,

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that was going to tie all of
the contents together. And I think

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I underestimated that going in to kind
of answer your question, I had an

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appreciation for it. I understood generally
that the corporate people, shall we say,

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we're not fans of having wrestling on
the air, especially in the high

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profile time slots that it was.
But once I actually got to meet with

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these people in many cases and speak
to them on the phone in other cases,

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I really sort of saw that that
vitriol in some particular examples, you

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know, up close and personal,
and you know, almost with that exception,

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and I think in the series you're
going to see one or two of

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those exceptions, but almost with that
exception, there was a mix of you

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know, embarrassment and you know,
disbelief at times that we're making this such

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a big part of the programming schedule. So I think that's a very important

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part, you know, possibly the
most important aspect of the WCW story to

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understand, and I think prior to
the book coming out that hadn't been investigated

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really in any appreciable detail. Of
course, that doesn't discount the fact that

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you know, WCW clearly did themselves
no favors if you look at a lot

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of the nature of the programming prior
to the Nitro era, you look at

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what happened once things really started to
unravel, which I'm sure we're going to

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go into when Raw of course made
it come back in the ratings, and

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need we even touch on the sheer
insanity of the last eighteen months or so.

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Let's not sit here and pretend that
you know we were putting on just

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this this, these amazing cards and
amazing shows. It was stellar programming from

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top to bottom. And if it
wasn't for the suits, you know,

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we would still be around today.
Clearly that wasn't the case. But clearly

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or equally, you have to take
a well rounded, sort of holistic view

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at all of those factors to accurately
determine why what happened to WCW actually did

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happen. In the end, Amen
and that embarrassment to have that under the

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turner. You know, corporate agus
is is so on thesis for us at

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TLF as we are constantly you know, seeking out proof points, right Boston,

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I mean this is this is not
something to be proud of your chest.

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Just the the you know, the
interviews in the episode alone, and

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just how disgusted they were, just
how like, just how appalled they were

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that Brad Brad Siegel in particular,
that bad ah. I was like,

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Brad Siegel is a is a heaven
sent individual just for his disdain, his

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absolute distain. And I love that, and I love that it's that it's

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really really real that they fucking hate
it. Oh, it absolutely is.

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And I think it's interesting you mentioned
Dick Cheatham and if ever there was a

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just a perfect name for a series
on a wrestling company, that would be

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a yeah, he's the only one
not cheating anybody. Yeah, right,

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you're going to see as time goes
on and these four episodes progress. He

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was one of those exceptions that I
was just alluding to. There, someone

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who was a genuine fan of the
programming and actually loves professional wrestling to this

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day. I maintain frequent contact with
him actually, and he still goes to

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shows to this very day and supports
it the way he has, you know,

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pretty much his whole adult life.
But you know that that obviously wasn't

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the case for the large majority of
the people who mattered within Turner Broadcasting.

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And again, I think most people
have some kind of an awareness for that,

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but it's a different cattle of fish
when you actually hear it from these

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people personally. And I can think
of even some high profile executives that I

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spoke to who weren't willing to be
quoted in the book, but were willing

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to talk to me on a sort
of off the record basis, and you

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know, some of the things that
they had to say really kind of took

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me aback. I kind of had
the same impression that I think you guys

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did in watching this first episode,
which was like, Man, these guys

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really did hate this shit. This
is not an act. They were really

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embarrassed to have to go to these
functions or to go to a work conference

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or what have you. And when
someone asked them what's the highest rated programming

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on their networks, they would have
to turn around and say, wrestling,

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that's what's so satisfying about it.
Yes, yes, it's not just that

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they have to acknowledge it's somewhere in
the thicket of programming. It's the reason

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that their ratings look so good when
it comes to the weekly top ten.

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And what's great about it too,
What I think the most fascinating thing about

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it is that there they would rather
not have the ratings. They would rather

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what they're saying, at least to
me in my opinion, what they're saying

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is they would rather cut the whole
fucking thing out of the programming and be

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like third or fourth best rather than
be number one. Well, you know,

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it's funny because Brad Siegel really only
takes power in late nineteen ninety nine,

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and he's the one, as we've
seen in episode one and probably we'll

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see in future episodes, and had
a sense of already that's willing to give

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voice to that negative animus. You
know, a lot of folks say people

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had that disdain for wrestling and do
a great job in the book Died cracking

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down people who were aware of ww's
reputation on the ad sales side. These

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aren't people who look down at WCW, but these are people who had to

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deal with the fact that everyone they
had to sell commercial time during Nitro two

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look down on it right, and
I think one of the most insightful comments

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in the book. It's somewhat towards
the back of the book, there's a

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TNT executive who comments on this notion
that you often hear people go into,

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especially on the wrestling side, where
they'll say, we were still drawing millions

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of viewers at the end. We
were still Yes, we weren't where we

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were at our peak, but man, you know, the Turner Networks would

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take those numbers today. And essentially
he makes the point that, yes,

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drawing viewership is one thing, but
if you can't actually get anyone to advertise

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against that viewership, then it's not
necessarily all for nought. But obviously you're

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not maximizing those eyeballs on your channel. So I think that was always the

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age old problem with WCW and with
wrestling at that time, and to a

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large extent still today as well,
although perhaps it's not as big of an

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issue as it was back in the
nineties. But being able to guaranteed money,

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but being able to being able to
sell to advertise as the idea that

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they should be associated with that product
was always a problem for WCW, and

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there's a specific chapter in the book
where we go into that, and I

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think again, as the series progresses, you're going to hear more to that

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end as well. Well, then
you mentioned guaranteed money. The thing about

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this time period of WCW's boom was
that the cable networks weren't necessarily feeling as

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desperate as they would a decade or
a decade two decades later to get audience,

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you know, as as people cut
the cord, and as the cable

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universe in the United States shrinks and
shrinks and shrinks as the years progress and

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a streaming takes off, all of
a sudden, it's like, well,

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shit, I don't care how hard
it is to sell ads against raw this

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is our only hope to stay relevant
and linear. So you know, let's

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stop being so personnicity about you know, the attitude. Plus, there's a

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generational changeover in these ad departments where
you know, new bosses take the helm

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who don't have the negative sort of
viewpoint of wrestling. But back then,

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I think, you know, we'll
probably hear from Brad Siegel and others.

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There was sort of a swagger of
like we're TNT, like it's not a

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problem. These are great numbers,
but if we can't make money off the

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ads, you know, we're not
thinking there's no other way under God's blue

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sky to get those kind of numbers. And in fact, the guy we

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know that, Brad was pretty confident
that movies should be the thing. And

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you know TNT was a network largely
defined by you know, movies, and

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that the original Nitro was like a
movie thing. It was a Saturday Night

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Nitro special Movie Night with action movies
and things like that, and Brad's movie

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Hollywood movies for guys who like movies. Yeah, that was that was TBS.

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It the I don't remember. I
could be wrong. I can picture

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the graphic though, Yes, CBS, which tells you everything you need to

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know. Same thing, really,
same principle, especially when Thunder goes to

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to TBS in January of nineteen ninety
eight. But guy, that was the

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thing, right, I mean these
guys they were, yeah, they were

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disdainful of wrestling. But but what
JP's talking about that the willingness to just

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not even have those ratings. They
were sort of, I don't know,

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cocky enough, delusional, enough,
some may say to think that they could

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just as easily replace that audience with
an audience they could actually monetize from an

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ad sales perspective before guaranteed money.
That's right, And I would also add

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to some of the points that you
raise there. I think one of the

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main differences when we think about the
environment today as compared to back then,

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is just how fragmented the landscape has
become with respect to media consumption. So

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it was really imperative at that particular
time for something like WCW to really go

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after the mass audience, whereas today, I think because we're all sort of

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in our own silos now where we
digest content whenever we want to, and

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obviously on demand has been a thing
for quite some time, and there's a

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million different ways to tune into something. You know, it's a completely different

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set of circumstances to compare the two. And you know, there's all kinds

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of interesting, you know, subcultures
and phenomena going on today that probably none

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of us have any idea about.
Sometimes I'll go on social media and see

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that there's, you know, a
band playing in Times Square and there's tens

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of thousands of people there and they
think to them and I'm sure it is

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on an objective level, this is
a really big deal and it's a man

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that you've never heard of before.
That wasn't the case back in the nineties,

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right, So I think that's also
something else to keep in mind when

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you think about just how important it
was for WCW to monetize those four or

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five million people that they had at
their peak watching their shows. And I

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think a key insight from episode one
and during the course of TLF tackles who

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killed WCW. We're gonna let the
episode sort of be our guide. You

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know, We're going to aim to
put more meat on the bone in the

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skeleton that they present in the forty
five minutes or whatever it is that they

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have, and try to be additive
as much as you know, sit back

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and critique the episodes that that's not
our highest and best use, especially considering

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the intellectual capital of one guy Evans
and how much he knows about the ins

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and outs. So we're gonna consider
this more of a companion guide to the

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series and sort of, like you
know, asides footnotes, things that wouldn't

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necessarily make a cohesive make it fit
nicely into a cohesive video narrative in the

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traditional para, you know, restrictions
of television, but like we always do

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here, we don't give a fuck
about that. We used to go and

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go and go and go until the
corpse is exhausted, and and to that

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and to that extent. You know, one of the key insights I think

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we hear in episode one from Brad
Siegel and it never clicked in with me

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until he said it this way.
We were TNT. We were incredibly competitive

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with the USA Network to be the
number one network on cable. And if

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the reason JP the USA network is
number one and Cable is Monday Night Raw,

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then all of a sudden, Monday
Nitro isn't such a bad thing,

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no matter how personal distaste. How
else were they going to compete with the

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audience that USA was able to draw. That's extremely true. I mean,

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you know, if if if that's
your if if if Raw and WW or

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you're number one program, you know
your your main opponent in terms of viewership

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and ratings and success and whatever,
then yeah, you got to kind of

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fight fire with fire, fire with
fire, And you know, in our

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Black Saturday series, we talked about
the beginning of the tensions between Ten Turner

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and Vince McMahon. It's so long
seated, this competition of Turner probably having

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a bee in his bonnet. Guy, I mean, what we're gonna hear

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from Ted Turner's son, which was
a great get by the Vice Cup throughout

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the course of the series, Ted
of course suffering from dementia and isn't necessarily

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someone that can that can hold court
on on what the Grand Scheme was kind

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of like a smaller part of his
operation, but one that was near and

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dear to his heart. I mean
that everyone seems to confirm that, but

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here you have a situation where you
can start to see a Ted Turner who

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really would be intrigued by the idea, even if it put the rest of

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his direct reports in an uncomfortable position. That you know, it's it's not

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only an ego thing to try to
knock Vin's office perch, it's also sound

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business, because that's why we're number
two to USA Network. Yeah, I

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think when I heard those comments from
Brad Siegel, that reminded me of something

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that I had talked about in one
of my interviews for this series. Because

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again, as you'll see, as
the episodes progress. I ended up doing

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two interviews for this, and in
one of the interviews, the question was

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asked, Okay, we've established that
the Turner people hated wrestling, so why

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on earth would they at some point
have been pushing for a second show?

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Right? This is when the topic
of thunder came up. Exactly. They

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were asking me, I try to
square that circle for us or make sense

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of that. And you know,
the phrase that came to mind in the

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moment as I was answering that question
was, you know, you hear this

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00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:33.960
phrase the institutional imperative, which kind
of explains how organizations changed their behavior over

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time and people within those organizations as
a result based on circumstances and the environment

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changing. And I think what I'm
getting at here is I interpreted Brad Segel's

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comments in episode one to say,
you know, yes, I was clearly

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not a fan of the idea of
wrestling being on primetime on Monday night,

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But seeing as Ted made up his
mind, and as you know from reading

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the book, and if you do
any kind of study on Ted Turner,

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you'll know that he was a guy
that once he made a decision that was

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that he was going to happen.
There was going to be no discussion.

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Your job now is to make it
happen to the best of your ability.

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I interpreted that as him showing us
or giving us some insight into his rationalization

250
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of how do I proceed in my
role now, seeing as the person who

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is, you know, the owner
of this corporation has made that decision.

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So you know, again they were
able to I think people like Brad Siegel

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were able to rationalize it based on
those terms. But I don't think that

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discounts from the fact that that long
term I don't think there were any sort

255
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of visions or any kind of idea
that this was going to be a staple

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of the programming schedule. I'm sure
the mindset was more along the lines of,

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okay, Ted said, it's going
to happen, So it's going to

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happen, so let's try to milk
this thing for as long as we can,

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which you know, that's a big
part of the story of WCW as

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well, And we don't really care
about the long term repercussions because we don't

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want it on the air waves anyway. Well, JP, it's pulse check

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time. I want to start an
episode one by asking you the question,

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and then after all four episodes have
aired, I want to ask the question

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again. Yes, who do you
feel like you are most likely to point

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the finger at when it comes to
the central question here? Who killed WCW?

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My mom a fuck off totally because
she didn't want me to watch aw

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W, and so that started the
company. Let's still here. Yeah,

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now, you know I was trying
to think of you know, I mean

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there is the Okay, who do
I think killed WCW? Jim Crockett selling

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the company? Okay, by selling
the car, right, so you call

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it, well, by selling it
to by basically selling his stuff to Turner.

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You know, it died there,
It died eventually. But that's a

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little too you know, like kind
of smart assy. It's interesting. I

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mean, it really is a question
of how about far back do you want

275
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to go? I mean I guess, I guess. Here's the thing,

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like I think about it like this
in actually, you know, to really

277
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go there you look at it like
this a guy. It's not even that

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he with the selling of it.
I think that the Jim Crockett fucked his

279
00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:22.119
own company by by doing the spending
that he did. You know, we've

280
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talked about that. We talked about
during the Star Care Memorial tour. It's

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00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:30.200
like, Yeah, his excessive spending. I wonder, I question and and

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think maybe if he hadn't done all
that spending, saved a little bit of

283
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money and stopped trying to be you
know, vincig Mann and Rick Flair,

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if he had actually kept control of
his own company, what would have happened

285
00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:45.720
with it? Would it have been
would it have been more successful later on?

286
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I don't know, maybe not.
Maybe, Well Crockett wouldn't have been

287
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in my short list. I will
say this, if you're going to start

288
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pointing the finger at the salaries that
ww wrestlers were able to command and do

289
00:19:56.599 --> 00:19:59.920
the ATM Eric thing and talk about
Cameru teen money and talk about creative control

290
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:02.039
and all that, Yeah, if
you're going to point the finger at that,

291
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you really do need to go back
to Jim Crockett Junior, because he

292
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was the one that started slinging out
guaranteed deals to Road Warriors, Luger,

293
00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:11.160
anybody who's threatened to go to WWF
after he had gone in on a million

294
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dollars in eighty five to take over
the TBS time slot and became sort of

295
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the institutional thing we would come to
know as WCW. And he was the

296
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one because he didn't want to lose
this talent at a key time, Any

297
00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:25.039
structured the contract such that, you
know, all right, eventually we'll get

298
00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:26.400
the pay per view proceeds in and
we can pay a balloon payment at the

299
00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:30.960
tail end of the contract. And
those balloon payments came up the revenues either

300
00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:34.119
weren't there or weren't arriving at the
cadence expected. Then no, Dusty blames

301
00:20:34.119 --> 00:20:37.359
the accountant, and the rest is
history. But that's where it started.

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00:20:37.480 --> 00:20:41.839
I mean, I'm sure somewhere in
the wrestling sphere, somewhere in the world

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00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:45.839
there was a what we consider a
guaranteed contract, unlike Vince's, where you

304
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know, you basically get paid based
on your position on the card on the

305
00:20:49.599 --> 00:20:52.880
night, in the gate that night, and of course some very opaque formula

306
00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:56.160
that he has in his head about
you know, where on the card you

307
00:20:56.200 --> 00:20:59.440
sit and how much you deserve.
But aside from that, I mean,

308
00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:03.079
it was it was Crockett doing that
to keep people from going to Vince that

309
00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:07.160
led to Ted inheriting that way of
doing business and those sorts of contracts that

310
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led to Jim Hurd, who was
of course appointed to head WCW after Turner

311
00:21:11.319 --> 00:21:14.640
purchased it in November of nineteen eighty
eight, to have to inherit that mindset

312
00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:19.759
as well and further extend the guaranteed
contract mentality at WCW. Bill Watts came

313
00:21:19.799 --> 00:21:23.920
and tried to dismantle it and of
course got sunned Kip Fry before Bill Watts

314
00:21:23.960 --> 00:21:30.200
accelerated it big time and signed some
deals that sent Bill Watts into a tizzy

315
00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:33.720
when he got his hands on the
reins. And then Bischoff, you know,

316
00:21:33.759 --> 00:21:36.319
sort of continued a tradition. Is
it's you know, of course he

317
00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:40.880
cut incredibly lucrative deals for Hull Kogan, unlike we've ever seen in the industry,

318
00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:42.400
and you can fault him for that
perhaps, but you can't. You

319
00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:45.240
can't rest at his feet the creation
of it, you know, for Vince,

320
00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:48.880
he had to start offering it in
ninety six because of Hollan Nash,

321
00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:52.000
and he offered it to Mark Marrow
and stuff. But just because Vince started

322
00:21:52.039 --> 00:21:55.680
doing it then doesn't mean that's that's
where it started. That was the genesis

323
00:21:55.680 --> 00:22:02.240
of it, I mean too,
and the uh oh I lost it.

324
00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:03.720
Never mind, I don't know.
Well, you were saying, Jim Crockett

325
00:22:03.720 --> 00:22:06.599
a bit tongue in cheek. Yeah, I was saying, would you really

326
00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:08.720
point to somebody else? I mean
not, I mean honestly, I don't

327
00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:14.319
know yet. You know, the
the there were a lot of interesting aspects

328
00:22:14.359 --> 00:22:18.680
of the episode that I thought were
really really cool. I don't know.

329
00:22:18.759 --> 00:22:19.759
I assume we're going to get there
at some point, so I won't.

330
00:22:19.759 --> 00:22:23.119
I won't really talk about it till
you're ready for it. But there are

331
00:22:23.119 --> 00:22:26.039
just some parts in there. I
was like, Wow, they like some

332
00:22:26.039 --> 00:22:30.799
some kind of truth that that has
been denied in some aspects, not necessarily

333
00:22:30.839 --> 00:22:34.319
about about the way it was run
or something or not whatnot. But I

334
00:22:34.359 --> 00:22:40.839
was just amazed at that, and
I I I'll stick with Jim Crockett for

335
00:22:40.920 --> 00:22:44.079
right now, but I'll tell you
what I really hope and I don't think

336
00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:49.880
it'll happen, but I really want
someone to say in an interview, fuck

337
00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:53.839
it it was me. I killed
w CW. Guy is that coming?

338
00:22:55.799 --> 00:23:02.279
Guy? Guy? Wait until episode
I'm still here. I know. Yes,

339
00:23:02.440 --> 00:23:06.559
Episode four is fantastic. I mean, let me just at this stage

340
00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:11.400
say what a fantastic job the vice
people in the Seven Bucks people did with

341
00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:14.039
this series. You know, they
reached out to me in October of last

342
00:23:14.119 --> 00:23:18.079
year, and originally I think the
idea was for me to be one of

343
00:23:18.119 --> 00:23:22.640
the interviewees in the series. And
they made it very clear that you know,

344
00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:26.559
the Nitro book had been you know, an inspiration for them. That

345
00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.599
was the word they used. And
I think Evan has said as much in

346
00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:33.319
the last week or so in some
of his interviews, which obviously was you

347
00:23:33.400 --> 00:23:37.799
know, a huge compliment in and
of itself, and you know, as

348
00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:42.039
we sort of talked a couple more
times, that evolved into them offering for

349
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:47.240
me to come aboard as a consultant
on the show. And so I was

350
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:53.039
really able to work very closely with
Tara and Dave to really talented producers advice,

351
00:23:53.079 --> 00:23:56.960
and then later on Evan himself and
Paul Taylor, who was the showrunner.

352
00:23:57.759 --> 00:24:00.960
So I've been that's worth I can
tell you. Sean Robb, who

353
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:07.160
Evan is also credited, who I
collaborated with a bit at the front end

354
00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:11.359
with Evan on how to frame this
thing. He was also very brought up

355
00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:14.559
to speed by the book as well, I mean what it does and you

356
00:24:14.680 --> 00:24:18.359
know this better than anybody because you
did it is it opens up a new

357
00:24:18.440 --> 00:24:22.880
category of people to talk to that
aren't just wrestling, people who actually have

358
00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:26.880
opinions about WCW, who actually remember
w CW and how it fit. Until

359
00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:30.960
your book came out, I'm not
sure we appreciated that there were, you

360
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:33.519
know, people in the Turner hierarchy
who were willing to hold court on this.

361
00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:37.799
That's right. So I just wanted
to make that point before we went

362
00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:42.359
any further, because I was just
so impressed with, you know, that

363
00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:47.240
professionalism and how they were approaching this
project and the fact that you know,

364
00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:51.039
they really wanted me to be a
big part of it. And you know,

365
00:24:51.200 --> 00:24:52.880
as I was, I was going
to go into there. You know,

366
00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:56.839
I've been seeing cuts of these episodes
now. I think the first time

367
00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:00.079
they sent me something was in March, and you know, every cut was

368
00:25:00.119 --> 00:25:04.359
just getting progressively better and better.
But I can't speak, I can't speak

369
00:25:04.440 --> 00:25:07.720
highly enough about the job that they
did. I mean I told Evan and

370
00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:11.599
Paul directly, I said, this
is this is an A plus project,

371
00:25:11.680 --> 00:25:15.759
and I think they for four episodes. You know this this could have been

372
00:25:15.799 --> 00:25:19.799
a ten or twenty episodes. Series. When you think about the history of

373
00:25:19.880 --> 00:25:23.920
WCW, but with the time that
they had especially and even if you put

374
00:25:23.960 --> 00:25:27.480
that factor to the to the side, they just did a wonderful job.

375
00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:33.480
So I just wanted to just wanted
to recognize that before we get any further,

376
00:25:33.480 --> 00:25:36.440
because I was very grateful, you
know, to have that opportunity and

377
00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:40.079
just you know, by the time
people listen to this, they would have

378
00:25:40.079 --> 00:25:41.759
seen the first episode and got a
feel. But trust me, as time

379
00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:45.480
goes on, this series just gets
better and better. Look forward to seeing

380
00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:49.119
that that play out. As for
me, who killed WCW. Vince McMahon

381
00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:55.160
killed WCW. It's pracce we heard
from him already, yess. Vince McMann

382
00:25:55.240 --> 00:26:02.240
killed WCW. What by regrouping when
he was on the ropes, by rallying,

383
00:26:02.359 --> 00:26:04.920
by being resourceful, by striking the
right court at the right time with

384
00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:10.400
Steve Austin and Mike Tyson, leaning
into a direction count while risk Guay was

385
00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:12.839
what the moment called for, stealing
when he had to steal. In terms

386
00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:18.039
of ECW and its approach to the
business, opening up the curtain, the

387
00:26:18.079 --> 00:26:22.160
curtain, opening up the kimono.
If you will, to Vince Russo's approach

388
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:27.599
and just having that bunker mentality of
war under siege and we're going to survive,

389
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:33.440
and we're going to surge back when
the enemy is loafing about on Christmas

390
00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:37.640
night. In general, Washington attacks, okay, crossing the Delaware. Bischoff

391
00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:41.720
didn't have that in a period when
the nWo started to crack and it wasn't

392
00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:45.960
guaranteed ratings anymore and the momentum reversed
in April of nineteen ninety eight. There

393
00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:48.960
was nothing there to punch back with
of cough consequence short of the hot shotting

394
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:55.559
of Goldberg winning the title, and
they replayed the aborted DDP Goldberg match for

395
00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:59.039
the final time. They won the
ratings in October ninety eight. There was

396
00:26:59.039 --> 00:27:02.079
good stuff that happened W ninety eight. There was decent stuff that happened in

397
00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:04.880
wcw A ninety nine. There wasn't
much of that in two thousand, but

398
00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:10.319
there wasn't anything that was coming back
from being put down on the canvas.

399
00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:14.200
It was. It was. It
was a one idea deal. And fortunately

400
00:27:14.359 --> 00:27:18.279
for Eric and and and his in
his company, in his his inner circle.

401
00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:21.920
It was also something that put Hulk
Hogan firmly in the spotlight, because,

402
00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:26.519
as we've talked about over ten years, the lapsed fan WCW could only

403
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:30.519
be as good as Hulk Hogan storyline. If Hogan stuff wasn't interesting in money

404
00:27:30.559 --> 00:27:34.640
and drawing ratings, WCW wasn't going
to It really was that simple. And

405
00:27:34.680 --> 00:27:37.839
when the nWo stopped working in terms
of just like you know, mail it

406
00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:41.680
in and we're going to beat him
every week, there was there was There

407
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:45.519
was very little foundation being built for
a day beyond that, And so I

408
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:48.319
got to say, Vince McMahon off
the top, I think I'm going to

409
00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:55.000
come around to a thesis that Brad
Siegel actually killed WCW and was happy to

410
00:27:55.039 --> 00:27:57.799
do it, in that he he
leaned in to what wasn't working in the

411
00:27:57.839 --> 00:28:02.720
form of Vince Russo at a time
when he could have shown a bit more

412
00:28:02.720 --> 00:28:07.519
interest in keeping the company alive,
and switched up and reconstituted the brain trust,

413
00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:10.680
going back to Bischoff and putting Bischoff
and Russo together, even though I

414
00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:12.240
haven't heard a single person tell me
they thought that was going to work,

415
00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:17.279
unless you listen to the all the
media. Rousso and Bischoff did that week

416
00:28:17.319 --> 00:28:21.480
where they couldn't have been more complimentary
towards each other in that honeymoon phase.

417
00:28:21.759 --> 00:28:26.279
But just that's that's where my head
is at right now. We'll see how

418
00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:29.960
and if my mind changes as as
as the week's progressed. But JP,

419
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:32.759
we've talked about this. We did
the Star Kid memorial tour, going through

420
00:28:32.799 --> 00:28:36.599
every starkad in order, and then
we did a how the nWo should have

421
00:28:36.680 --> 00:28:38.920
ended? Yes, the central question
here if we're talking about ninety six,

422
00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:44.240
seven, eight and nine, boy, WCW has to beat the nWo.

423
00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:47.319
There has to be oh, yeah, game there has to be a game

424
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:52.119
plan where WCW is enough on the
other side of the hottest angle the business

425
00:28:52.119 --> 00:28:55.079
has ever seen. Yeah. Oh
absolutely, there's no question about that.

426
00:28:55.079 --> 00:29:00.279
That's that is one of the uh, it's one of the big the big

427
00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:06.759
mistakes is that they I think is
that they didn't allow WCW to get the

428
00:29:06.799 --> 00:29:11.599
real upper hand when they should have. I mean, it's it's it just

429
00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:15.400
didn't make sense. It didn't make
sense to let it just draw out like

430
00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:18.319
that. And they they you know, they made a bunch of they made

431
00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:22.039
a bunch of mistakes with that,
not the least of which, of course,

432
00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:26.359
is the way they handled uh,
you know, sting a starka.

433
00:29:26.519 --> 00:29:30.319
We saw on Star K ninety seven
that even if they wanted to do precisely

434
00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:34.279
what they should have done, circumstances
were such contracts were such leverage was such

435
00:29:34.319 --> 00:29:38.279
that it just wasn't going to happen. It was just a place where lay

436
00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:41.400
up no brainer ideas went to die. And by the time it came out

437
00:29:41.400 --> 00:29:45.279
of the laundry in the dry cycle, it was like what were you thinking

438
00:29:45.400 --> 00:29:48.279
here? Yeah, like what is
this? Why is Hulk Hogan trying to

439
00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:52.839
insert himself into the angle where Goldberg
spears Brett hard in ninety nine in Toronto,

440
00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:56.599
Like what does he have to do
with anything? Yeah, I mean

441
00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:03.160
it's all frustrating. It actually it
actually makes me angry. It's even even

442
00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:07.319
think about it and go back there, because I wanted to be you know,

443
00:30:07.400 --> 00:30:10.880
I wanted to have worked. I
wanted it to to have you know,

444
00:30:10.920 --> 00:30:14.000
because we were watching, we know
what was in the heart of the

445
00:30:14.079 --> 00:30:18.519
fan. Ye would have kept them
watching WCW after the nWo angle came to

446
00:30:18.599 --> 00:30:22.680
a poetic end, and they just
they couldn't They couldn't do it. They

447
00:30:22.680 --> 00:30:32.759
couldn't move beyond the NWOS Lapsed Fan
Wrestling Podcast with Jack and Carno and JP

448
00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:45.920
Soros a Lapsed fan Wrestling podcast,
and to the point they prostituted it so

449
00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:51.200
much that it was unbelievably lame by
like two thousand. Yeah, you guys

450
00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:53.240
are right, and I think,
you know, as I'm listening to you,

451
00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:59.519
I'm thinking about something in the book
which really kind of gives you an

452
00:30:59.559 --> 00:31:02.440
idea of why it was so difficult
for them, I think, to move

453
00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:04.799
on from the nWo, aside from
some of the factors that you mentioned there.

454
00:31:06.279 --> 00:31:10.240
And there's a story in the book
about Brad Siegel, incidentally, sort

455
00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:17.119
of around February two thousand or so, holding a meeting with the creative team

456
00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:19.279
at the time, which of course
was being led by Kevin Sullivan, and

457
00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:26.799
basically saying, according to all parties
who have talked about it, all right,

458
00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:30.039
you know we had the nWo,
what's the next big idea? Guys

459
00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:34.880
like that was the exact phrase or
the exact question that he asked, what's

460
00:31:34.920 --> 00:31:38.920
the next big idea? And so
you can kind of see how within that

461
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:45.039
corporate environment it would have been very
difficult for them to move on from that,

462
00:31:45.160 --> 00:31:51.920
because here you've been able to develop
a storyline which actually resonates with people

463
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:56.480
who previously wouldn't have had any interest
in wrestling or wouldn't have seen the value

464
00:31:56.519 --> 00:31:57.920
in it, but could could have
got their heads around the idea that,

465
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:02.079
okay, there's this group of rogue, you know, invading wrestlers who are

466
00:32:02.079 --> 00:32:06.079
trying to take over. It's a
hostile takeover, which was a phrase that

467
00:32:06.160 --> 00:32:08.440
was sort of on the public consciousness
in the eighties and the nineties. That's

468
00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:14.119
that's something you can kind of see
someone with a basic knowledge or you know,

469
00:32:14.279 --> 00:32:16.240
passing knowledge of wrestling, maybe they've
heard of hul Cogan and so forth,

470
00:32:16.319 --> 00:32:20.720
being intrigued by that. Oh wow, whule Cogan is bad. Now

471
00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:25.440
he's wearing black, He's leading this
group of bad guy wrestlers. That's something

472
00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:29.519
you can kind of get your teeth
into if you're not a fan. But

473
00:32:29.559 --> 00:32:31.799
of course, you know, you
guys know you know better than anyone when

474
00:32:31.839 --> 00:32:36.640
you look at the history of wrestling, you know, wrestling isn't this succession

475
00:32:36.680 --> 00:32:38.519
of big ideas after the other.
You know, there are times when you

476
00:32:39.039 --> 00:32:45.039
may stumble upon something you may you
know, fortuitously sort of find yourself in

477
00:32:45.079 --> 00:32:50.799
a situation where you get into a
position where an idea like that resonates.

478
00:32:51.319 --> 00:32:54.799
But it's not as if you know
you're you're developing a big idea, running

479
00:32:54.799 --> 00:32:59.279
with it for a season or two, and then transitioning into the next one.

480
00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:04.640
And so you can kind of see
the dilemma there and see how that

481
00:33:04.680 --> 00:33:07.319
would have caused them problems down the
road, because they set up this huge

482
00:33:07.400 --> 00:33:13.720
dynamic where essentially you know that people
have used the phrase overarching storyline. I

483
00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:15.440
would even say the nWo is beyond
that. It was you know, there

484
00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:21.279
was a point where I actually went
back recently. I'm working on well in

485
00:33:21.319 --> 00:33:23.200
the very final stages of another book
right now. And don't ask me why

486
00:33:23.240 --> 00:33:28.119
I know this, but if you
look at the number of times that the

487
00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:31.640
phrase nWo or New Build Order is
mentioned in a typical Nitro episode, we're

488
00:33:31.640 --> 00:33:37.279
talking about like sixty or seventy times, and I'm not kidding you, and

489
00:33:37.319 --> 00:33:39.759
that's not even taking into account you
know, wrestlers promos and things like that,

490
00:33:39.880 --> 00:33:44.920
right, So it was almost like
in every single segment, every single

491
00:33:44.960 --> 00:33:47.079
time a guy goes to the ring, even if he isn't feuding with Hogan,

492
00:33:47.119 --> 00:33:51.319
he's got to mention Hogan somehow he's
got a rant about the nWo.

493
00:33:51.759 --> 00:33:55.240
So you know, they just built
this this huge dynamic that was, I

494
00:33:55.279 --> 00:33:59.440
would say, always going to be
very, very difficult to pay off.

495
00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:04.640
And I would just add very quickly
in closing. One of the stories I

496
00:34:04.680 --> 00:34:07.119
remember including in the book, which
I kind of found a little bit intriguing,

497
00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:12.159
came from DDP and he was talking
about a conversation he had with with

498
00:34:12.360 --> 00:34:15.360
Eric in the early part of ninety
nine where he basically said, you know,

499
00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:19.000
look, dude, we've kind of
blown it, like there was never

500
00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:24.079
that decisive victory or any kind of
victory for WCW. The nWo basically have

501
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:28.840
one because there are continued presence on
the show and they're not going anywhere.

502
00:34:28.880 --> 00:34:30.880
They're dominating the main event scene.
So how about this for an idea,

503
00:34:30.960 --> 00:34:36.880
how about we decisively present things in
such a way where they have one and

504
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:39.000
let them take over for you know, two, three, four weeks,

505
00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:44.400
whatever whatever the case may be,
and then have you know, the WCW

506
00:34:44.519 --> 00:34:50.039
guys, you know, DDP himself
or Sting or Goldberg start the invasion from

507
00:34:50.079 --> 00:34:53.199
the other side. So an inversion
on the original nWo idea. Now you

508
00:34:53.239 --> 00:34:57.800
might look at that and say,
yeah, okay, nice idea. But

509
00:34:57.840 --> 00:35:00.400
by that point the nWo was already
stale. We you know, fans,

510
00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:05.400
a lot of fans wouldn't be interested
in, you know, in that kind

511
00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:07.440
of spin on things. But at
least it was better than what we got,

512
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:13.639
which because you know, the storyline, this massive storyline, completely fizzling

513
00:35:13.679 --> 00:35:16.039
out, and it kind of beggars
belief when you look at ninety nine and

514
00:35:16.079 --> 00:35:20.159
the fact that the group just kind
of disbanded and that was that was the

515
00:35:20.239 --> 00:35:22.519
end of it, which is just
unbelievable to think about it really is.

516
00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:29.679
It's it's a scenario where you realize
that you have to start planning the seeds

517
00:35:29.679 --> 00:35:34.480
for the next big idea while you're
still hot. Yeah, you cannot,

518
00:35:34.599 --> 00:35:37.039
you know, sit in a meeting
and kick your feet up after a thing

519
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:39.840
the snowball started to roll downhill and
you know whatever, Brad Siegel is entitled

520
00:35:39.880 --> 00:35:43.639
to put pressure on on his people
to come up with something. I know,

521
00:35:43.719 --> 00:35:45.679
JJ Dillon and his book kind of
bristled at Siegel saying that, because

522
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:49.440
it's like, you can't have a
big idea in wrestling unless you spend a

523
00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:52.480
bunch of time being kind of cold
but setting the table for something people can

524
00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:55.239
start looking towards. I mean,
even when you think about like the idea

525
00:35:55.280 --> 00:35:59.920
of the of the you know,
quote unquote big idea regarding the end of

526
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:07.840
I mean, I've we've talked about
it before in that the nWo was such

527
00:36:07.599 --> 00:36:15.920
a product of so much backstory that
had nothing to do with the nWo.

528
00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:22.679
You know, like the only reason
the nWo worked was because people were sick

529
00:36:22.679 --> 00:36:27.440
of Hulk Hogan at that time.
And I clicked in like if you hadn't,

530
00:36:27.679 --> 00:36:31.000
like, you couldn't have done that
in nineteen eighty eight or eighty nine,

531
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:35.320
you know, you couldn't have done
it were people were still high on

532
00:36:35.320 --> 00:36:37.400
a Hulk Hogan. You know,
there was no you needed somebody of that

533
00:36:37.559 --> 00:36:42.000
stature. You needed Hulk Hogan.
You couldn't do it with anybody else,

534
00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:45.360
right. That's why it's so suspicious
to me to say that Hulk Hogan,

535
00:36:45.039 --> 00:36:47.920
to put Hulk Hogan on your list
of who killed WCW to me is very

536
00:36:49.199 --> 00:36:52.079
very questionable because I mean, without
Hulk Hogan, especially Bash to the Beach

537
00:36:52.199 --> 00:36:58.039
ninety four and the ticker tape parade
and the licensing attention, Hulk was able

538
00:36:58.079 --> 00:37:02.400
to bring to WCW. I mean, you can't lose sight of the contribution

539
00:37:02.599 --> 00:37:07.719
versus the detraction ratio. You know, Bischoff did so much that it's really

540
00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:13.000
weird to say he killed WSW when
he created the thing that got killed.

541
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:16.800
Anyway, you can sort of debate
what his ultimate legacy should be in terms

542
00:37:16.840 --> 00:37:20.480
of the creator or someone who you
know, the wheels fell off and he

543
00:37:20.519 --> 00:37:22.400
wanted to pay all kinds of money
to kiss for some reason to fix it,

544
00:37:22.519 --> 00:37:27.800
or the no limit soldiers but you
know, or give away a million

545
00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:31.519
dollars on nitro. But but you
can say all that, but you can't.

546
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:36.519
It's hard to say he's the biggest
culprit when he's also the person that

547
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:38.920
shot the angle to the moon.
Like goddamn, that's enough of a contribution

548
00:37:39.039 --> 00:37:44.360
to take his name off the list
automatically in a way. But to me,

549
00:37:44.599 --> 00:37:49.119
like you know, the idea about
Vince killing WW two is not just

550
00:37:49.159 --> 00:37:52.559
that he were grouped in ninety eight
and started winning the ratings and started putting

551
00:37:52.559 --> 00:37:57.000
together magnificent television in terms of being
sticky and drawing the audience back and exploding

552
00:37:57.039 --> 00:38:00.559
the audience. But further, it
was his savvy to say come on over,

553
00:38:00.639 --> 00:38:04.199
Chris Jericho, come on over,
the guy that should have had a

554
00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:07.159
six month program with Goldberg in a
member of nineteen ninety eight until Nash started

555
00:38:07.159 --> 00:38:10.039
sniffing the book, and then all
of a sudden, Jericho's getting punked out

556
00:38:10.079 --> 00:38:13.119
and never gets a pay per view
pay day, and all of a sudden,

557
00:38:13.159 --> 00:38:15.480
Goldberg starts to think he's been He's
above working with Jericho, according to

558
00:38:15.559 --> 00:38:21.480
jericho'sccount of things in his book,
and it's Vince taking the guys that WCW

559
00:38:22.039 --> 00:38:24.360
until they were absolutely forced to would
not push ben Wan included Eddie Guerrero.

560
00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:30.280
These are guys who went to WWE
and proved to be marketable heavyweight world title

561
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:36.199
pay per view headliners who could draw
you money in the way it was defined

562
00:38:36.199 --> 00:38:38.719
in ninety eight, ninety ninety two
thousand, two thousand and one. So

563
00:38:38.760 --> 00:38:43.280
what's that not Perry Saturn though not
Perry Saturn not fair enough. But Raymisterio

564
00:38:43.320 --> 00:38:45.519
is another example. Yes, these
are all guys WW had no excuses,

565
00:38:46.199 --> 00:38:50.519
no excuses. You did not have
the eye or the gump shin to push

566
00:38:50.599 --> 00:38:52.320
the guys who would carry the ww
for the next decade. You had them

567
00:38:52.360 --> 00:38:55.119
all just like you had Steve Austin, just like you had, you know,

568
00:38:55.400 --> 00:38:59.440
Mankind just had kid Nick Foley,
you had I guess you could say

569
00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:01.000
you had Mark call Way in a
way you had undertaker. I mean,

570
00:39:01.039 --> 00:39:05.039
should I go on? I mean
Vince had to remove with all these WCW

571
00:39:05.079 --> 00:39:08.119
cast offs. You know, you
talk about WCW stocking up with WWF cast

572
00:39:08.119 --> 00:39:12.559
offs with Hogan and Friends in ninety
four and on and onward. But i

573
00:39:12.559 --> 00:39:16.119
mean he Vince's building around Steve Austin
and Vader and Mark Merrow. I'm thinking

574
00:39:16.159 --> 00:39:21.039
ninety six here, triple H WW
had Triple H. Yeah, what's the

575
00:39:21.039 --> 00:39:25.920
problem. It's just it's just that's
what the next chapter is going to look

576
00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:30.920
at. That's a very good point
in that they they Yeah, like they

577
00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:36.960
had all these guys that they could
have built around post nWo. That's right,

578
00:39:37.079 --> 00:39:42.000
they didn't. The WCW that defeats
the nWo was there. The WCW

579
00:39:42.119 --> 00:39:45.679
that the roster that carries and defines
nw WCW makes you want to watch after

580
00:39:45.679 --> 00:39:52.159
the nWo disappears was there, and
they proved it in WW Yep. Sorry,

581
00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:55.039
so there's that. But but to
the seagull point to another thing.

582
00:39:55.079 --> 00:39:58.920
I was thinking about in terms of
like kind of I don't know. Maybe

583
00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:00.760
I'm just taken by the fact that
he sat for the documentary. It wasn't

584
00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:04.039
an easy thing from what I understand, to get him to talk about this.

585
00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:07.639
I know they approached him for Bash
at the Beach two thousand, in

586
00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:09.800
which he's a key player, gives
depositions, gives testimony in a lawsuit,

587
00:40:09.880 --> 00:40:13.840
is you know, defending WCW against
the whole kig and lawsuit and all that,

588
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:16.039
And he didn't want to talk about
that. But you know, buddies

589
00:40:16.079 --> 00:40:20.159
with Stu Snyder, who became WWF
president and who was president when the sale

590
00:40:20.159 --> 00:40:22.000
to ww F was sfectuated. And
I'm sure that's going to be the subject

591
00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:27.039
of some tasty speculation because they are
going there. There was hesitation on the

592
00:40:27.039 --> 00:40:30.679
front end necessarily go there, but
things I've heard since indicate they are definitely

593
00:40:30.679 --> 00:40:32.920
going to go there. But you
have the you know, you have a

594
00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:37.679
Brad Siegel who's out there announcing the
sale to Fusion Media in two thousand and

595
00:40:37.719 --> 00:40:39.960
one when the final deals were not
when the final details were not settled,

596
00:40:40.199 --> 00:40:45.920
when the ink was not drying the
contract, you had Brad Siegel out there

597
00:40:45.400 --> 00:40:50.199
putting Russell and Eric together when I
don't know where that idea came from,

598
00:40:50.199 --> 00:40:52.199
but it definitely wasn't one you would
do if you were looking to turn the

599
00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:57.719
page and keep give WCW a new
lease on life, as opposed to extend

600
00:40:57.760 --> 00:41:00.519
the pain. Yeah, and keep
in mind on that specific point, both

601
00:41:00.559 --> 00:41:05.320
guys being under payroll at the time, right, So again going back,

602
00:41:05.400 --> 00:41:08.199
going back to sort of the wider
if we zoom out a little bit and

603
00:41:08.239 --> 00:41:12.079
look at this in terms of you've
got a guy at that time who was

604
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:16.400
running the television networks, and he
has bosses to answer to, and they're

605
00:41:16.440 --> 00:41:22.559
paying two individuals huge sums of money
to sit at home and effectively do nothing

606
00:41:22.599 --> 00:41:24.400
in their eyes. Okay, Brad, what are you going to do with

607
00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:30.920
these people? So you know,
I don't necessarily know that in that situation

608
00:41:30.119 --> 00:41:35.079
those kind of decisions would have been
motivated by anything other than that. We

609
00:41:35.119 --> 00:41:37.840
can't just let these people sit at
home for a year and a half years

610
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:40.360
get paid to do nothing. So
why don't we try this? We haven't,

611
00:41:40.400 --> 00:41:45.480
we haven't tried this before as opposed
to you know, these guys are

612
00:41:45.519 --> 00:41:47.760
free agents on the market. They're
completely unattached this will be a great idea,

613
00:41:47.800 --> 00:41:50.840
and I'm going to bring them in
with new contracts. I mean,

614
00:41:51.119 --> 00:41:52.559
I think that was kind of the
thinking at that time. Well he did,

615
00:41:52.599 --> 00:41:58.440
though, sort of coax Eric back
under a newly constituted deal. Eric

616
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:00.599
Eric was, you know, pretty
much've done in September of ninety nine when

617
00:42:00.639 --> 00:42:04.599
he got ousted and then Bill Bush
came in and Russo came in. But

618
00:42:05.280 --> 00:42:08.679
Siegel made the decision to lean back
into Eric. He did, and in

619
00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:13.719
the book you'll see actually all of
the details of that contract down to exactly

620
00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:17.000
right, the exact dollar of what
he was making and what he made under

621
00:42:17.039 --> 00:42:22.119
the new agreement. But yeah,
so that wasn't someone just sitting on payroll

622
00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:24.639
looking to be used, so we're
not losing money. That was someone Siegel

623
00:42:24.760 --> 00:42:28.760
chose. And why you would choose
him, if you know, there is

624
00:42:28.800 --> 00:42:32.000
a lot of folks making the case
that he was an author of the difficult

625
00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:37.000
answer to the you know, the
downslide. I think it's something worth pondering.

626
00:42:37.239 --> 00:42:40.480
I can see the conversation of you
know, Eric's on the sidelines,

627
00:42:40.519 --> 00:42:45.000
he's not doing anything. We can't
continue paying him. What's what's the idea?

628
00:42:45.159 --> 00:42:46.119
Okay, let me see if I
can talk to him, bring him

629
00:42:46.119 --> 00:42:51.679
back into the fold. And then
subsequent to that conversation, okay, here's

630
00:42:51.679 --> 00:42:53.519
an update. Eric's coming in.
But here's what we've had to do to

631
00:42:53.559 --> 00:42:57.679
make that happen. You know,
in that kind of situation, Eric has

632
00:42:57.760 --> 00:43:01.400
representation. You know, these are
things that are negotiated, and these are

633
00:43:01.440 --> 00:43:04.760
these are the details of the deal
that would have been worked out at that

634
00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:08.280
particular time. Right. So I
think, as and I'm listening to you

635
00:43:08.280 --> 00:43:13.519
guys talk, you know, I
think one of the most underrated aspects of

636
00:43:14.760 --> 00:43:19.559
or overlooked aspects of this whole story
really is just the collapse in WCW's paying

637
00:43:19.599 --> 00:43:22.559
audience. Because if we start to
get into you know, creative waters and

638
00:43:22.800 --> 00:43:25.199
all that kind of stuff, I
mean, that's that's subjective. Right,

639
00:43:25.239 --> 00:43:30.559
So there's right, there's a lot
of things that you know, anyone listening

640
00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:32.440
to this, and us three included
as well, we can all sit here

641
00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:35.280
and say they should have done that, they should have done that. Well,

642
00:43:35.280 --> 00:43:37.960
none of us were in that position
of that particular time. But it's

643
00:43:37.960 --> 00:43:39.400
a fun exercise and it's a fun
thing to think about, of course.

644
00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:45.440
But one thing that really can be
denied is just the extent of which WCW

645
00:43:45.599 --> 00:43:50.000
chased away people who are actually willing
to pay for the product. And again

646
00:43:50.039 --> 00:43:52.159
that kind of circles back to the
comment that I mentioned earlier, which is

647
00:43:52.599 --> 00:43:59.199
sometimes you'll appear too well. The
ratings were, Yeah, they weren't what

648
00:43:59.199 --> 00:44:01.239
they were at their peak. Relatively
speaking, we were still doing pretty good,

649
00:44:01.519 --> 00:44:06.400
but hardly anyone actually wanted to purchase
the pay per views and pay to

650
00:44:06.440 --> 00:44:10.000
see WCW. And that included the
life of events towards the end as well.

651
00:44:10.039 --> 00:44:15.119
And I know from conversations that I
had with Harvey Schiller, for example,

652
00:44:15.159 --> 00:44:17.800
I I specifically remember him on a
number of occasions emphasizing, like,

653
00:44:17.960 --> 00:44:21.960
man, we couldn't believe once we
went to those twelve pay per views,

654
00:44:21.960 --> 00:44:24.199
we couldn't believe the revenue that we
were bringing in from the pay per views

655
00:44:24.199 --> 00:44:28.039
alone. We would stare and look
at that number in just in disbelief.

656
00:44:28.440 --> 00:44:31.840
And so again, as the book
goes into and Dick Cheatham is an expert

657
00:44:31.880 --> 00:44:37.960
in this area, you know,
the complex and complicated nature of the accounting

658
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:43.599
system within Turner should lead you to
be very skectical about any figure as it

659
00:44:43.639 --> 00:44:47.519
relates to WCW or any division within
that corporation, whether they were being reported

660
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:51.960
to make money at the time or
losing money. But one thing that they

661
00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:54.559
were keenly aware of is how much
pay per view revenue was coming. And

662
00:44:54.599 --> 00:45:00.760
I can guarantee you of that and
so quick. Why it might be theoretically

663
00:45:01.039 --> 00:45:06.760
to the turner of corporation's advantage to
say that WCW was losing money, Well,

664
00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:13.280
there's something called taxes. So for
example, I mean, i'll give

665
00:45:13.320 --> 00:45:16.559
you a very specific example which is
easy for anyone to kind of get their

666
00:45:16.559 --> 00:45:21.039
head around. So within TBS,
of course, you know there were a

667
00:45:21.119 --> 00:45:23.679
number of properties they had at one
hundred and fifty subsidiaries at the time that

668
00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:29.599
Nitro started, and they owned the
Atlanta Braves. Well, Major League Baseball

669
00:45:29.599 --> 00:45:35.480
at the time had a surcharge on
team earnings of seven percent, so you

670
00:45:35.519 --> 00:45:37.239
know, whatever money that you're making, we're going to charge you seven percent

671
00:45:37.239 --> 00:45:40.400
on top of that that you have
to pay to the league. So what

672
00:45:40.440 --> 00:45:45.360
the people keeping the books did is
do everything in their power to make sure

673
00:45:45.400 --> 00:45:50.159
that the Braves weren't making any money. And if that meant that on their

674
00:45:50.199 --> 00:45:54.360
books, it had to show that, you know, the television rights were

675
00:45:54.400 --> 00:46:00.239
being sold for I think Dick Cheatham
uses the he says, a bus or

676
00:46:00.239 --> 00:46:01.320
a buck and a half or whatever, we had to do to make sure

677
00:46:01.360 --> 00:46:04.960
that the team wasn't showing that they
were making money. That's what we were

678
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:12.079
going to do. And so you
know, there's many there's many specific examples

679
00:46:12.119 --> 00:46:14.519
as it relates to WCW. I
mean, you could start with the fact

680
00:46:14.559 --> 00:46:17.239
that you know, it's something that's
talked about which is true, and I

681
00:46:17.280 --> 00:46:21.320
have the financial statements myself, so
I can verify this. The fact that

682
00:46:21.360 --> 00:46:24.960
they were listed in a category labeled
as other and grouped him with a number

683
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:30.159
of other entities, which obviously makes
it much easier to move money around.

684
00:46:30.119 --> 00:46:35.760
A classic sort of tactics they used
at the time would be, for example,

685
00:46:35.760 --> 00:46:39.320
you might remember Turner Home Entertainment would
produce at the time the VHS tapes

686
00:46:39.320 --> 00:46:44.960
of the WCW shows and so on. One of the things that they would

687
00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:51.159
do would be to recognize all of
the earnings for those video cassettes at the

688
00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:55.199
time under the Turner Home Entertainment umbrella, but all the expenses under WCW.

689
00:46:55.599 --> 00:47:01.679
Now, when you think about TBS
as a corporation, you know they are

690
00:47:02.639 --> 00:47:07.960
recognizing that revenue, and they're recognizing
those expenses, but exactly where they were

691
00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:10.519
being recorded, you know, was
kind of all over the place. So

692
00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:16.320
you can say, if you didn't
give WCW the credit for the revenue generated,

693
00:47:16.440 --> 00:47:21.719
but you you you deducted their budget
by the expenses to generate that revenue,

694
00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:23.280
and pretty soon you can start to
play a handy little game if you

695
00:47:23.280 --> 00:47:27.800
don't want WCW around, oh my
god, in which they lose a lot

696
00:47:27.840 --> 00:47:31.079
more. Brad Siegel did say under
deposition in the WCW bash at the Beach

697
00:47:31.559 --> 00:47:37.239
lawsuit, we pulled the documents that
WCW lost around twenty million dollars in nineteen

698
00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:39.159
ninety nine and close to eighty million
dollars in two thousand. That's not too

699
00:47:39.239 --> 00:47:42.800
much off from the numbers that have
been battered about, but it's been to

700
00:47:42.840 --> 00:47:46.199
some. It's been in the interest
of some to obfuscate that and pretend that

701
00:47:46.199 --> 00:47:50.599
that wasn't what the guy who ran
the whole division was saying. And here's

702
00:47:50.599 --> 00:47:52.440
something you may have picked up in
the book as well, which is that

703
00:47:52.719 --> 00:47:57.519
in some cases there are differing financial
statements. So I'm not sure if you

704
00:47:58.079 --> 00:48:00.719
noticed that in one of the chapters. I make that point. So I

705
00:48:00.760 --> 00:48:04.960
think if you've worked in kind of
a large organization before, a run a

706
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:08.360
business before, you kind of have
an appreciation of how things like amortization,

707
00:48:08.480 --> 00:48:14.239
depreciation, someone as so forth can
be used to kind of obscure true accounting

708
00:48:14.280 --> 00:48:16.559
of what is happening within a particular
division. Like this thing's worth a million,

709
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:19.880
but we'll just say it's worth one
hundred thousand this year, and we'll

710
00:48:19.920 --> 00:48:25.599
do that ten times, right,
amortization, So you have to you certainly

711
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:30.559
have to take I think sometimes people
talk about WCW as if it was an

712
00:48:30.599 --> 00:48:34.639
independent wrestling promotion, right, So
like if us redecided we wanted to start

713
00:48:34.679 --> 00:48:37.960
promoting shows, yeah, we could
have a very good idea. At the

714
00:48:37.039 --> 00:48:40.159
end of the month, did we
actually turn a profit this month. Let's

715
00:48:40.199 --> 00:48:43.760
look at all of the expenses it
took to run these shows, Let's look

716
00:48:43.800 --> 00:48:45.920
at how much money we made in
ticket sales, and we can evaluate very

717
00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:51.159
clearly how successful our business is.
But when you're talking about you know,

718
00:48:51.639 --> 00:48:55.159
something like Turner Broadcasting and let alone
once it merged with with Time Warner and

719
00:48:55.159 --> 00:49:00.639
then of course the AOL Time Warner
merger, that's just not the nature of

720
00:49:00.639 --> 00:49:04.320
how corporate accounting works. And that's
not to say that WCW wasn't losing money.

721
00:49:04.159 --> 00:49:07.360
They were losing, you know,
a tremendous amount of money. And

722
00:49:07.400 --> 00:49:10.480
we can kind of get into some
of the mechanisms around that as well,

723
00:49:10.519 --> 00:49:19.400
which was a turner. They sort
of had a longstanding practice that whatever your

724
00:49:19.559 --> 00:49:23.480
revenues in a particular year were,
that was going to be used as a

725
00:49:23.480 --> 00:49:27.840
baseline for the following year, which
is fairly typical. So they didn't have,

726
00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:30.599
you know, what's called a zero
based approach to budget. Soon next

727
00:49:30.679 --> 00:49:34.960
year, you're going to make as
much as you did this year exactly.

728
00:49:34.960 --> 00:49:37.039
And the number that I was given
by a couple of people was something like

729
00:49:37.079 --> 00:49:44.280
seven percent, So they base.
So picture you're working within the wrestling division

730
00:49:44.280 --> 00:49:45.880
and you have a pay per view
that just goes crazy for some reason,

731
00:49:45.920 --> 00:49:50.880
right, maybe it's I don't know, although certainly this is not a highlight

732
00:49:50.920 --> 00:49:53.079
of the WCW era by any stretch
of the imagination, right, But something

733
00:49:53.159 --> 00:50:00.400
like Jay Leno appearing at the Road
Wild Show, right Obviously, for reviews

734
00:50:00.400 --> 00:50:02.559
were massive, in particular Leonard into
a big by rate. The Rodman ones

735
00:50:02.599 --> 00:50:07.800
were huge. The reason I used
Leno as an example, is just because

736
00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:10.159
it was the August pay per view, right, which traditionally was not one

737
00:50:10.159 --> 00:50:16.280
of the right marquee events for WCW. So you're looking at that and you

738
00:50:16.280 --> 00:50:19.719
would expect, Okay, there's going
to be some sort of uptick here with

739
00:50:19.800 --> 00:50:23.400
the involvement of a mainstream celebrity.
Well, then that would then be used

740
00:50:23.400 --> 00:50:28.800
as a baseline for the forecast of
Road Wild ninety nine. So we're going

741
00:50:28.840 --> 00:50:31.719
to assume that there's probably going to
be a roughly five to seven percent increase

742
00:50:32.119 --> 00:50:36.760
for next year, and so we're
going to allocate a commensurate amount of resources

743
00:50:36.760 --> 00:50:42.440
to WCW because of that. And
that's just obviously a fundamental misunderstanding of the

744
00:50:42.480 --> 00:50:45.400
wrestling business. And this cliche that's
banded about all the time about it being

745
00:50:45.519 --> 00:50:49.639
a cyclical business. We could,
you know, debate all day as to

746
00:50:49.960 --> 00:50:53.000
you know what extent that's true,
right, But obviously you can see how

747
00:50:53.639 --> 00:50:58.880
in an environment like that, how
a company like WCW would have got themselves

748
00:50:58.960 --> 00:51:02.039
in a lot a lot of trouble
very very quickly if they suffered a down

749
00:51:02.360 --> 00:51:06.800
in business. Not to mention the
fact that the amount of guys who were

750
00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:09.400
getting paid guarantee contracts with very little
wiggle room to get out of them was

751
00:51:09.480 --> 00:51:13.760
just absurd, and so it was
almost a situation in which they had to

752
00:51:13.840 --> 00:51:16.360
kind of stay. I would argue, you know, hot forever or the

753
00:51:16.440 --> 00:51:22.079
very least, you know, maintaining
their popularity in order to justify all of

754
00:51:22.079 --> 00:51:23.800
them. You land on something hot, and the corporate budgeting mindset wants to

755
00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:28.360
say you landed on that because you
discovered a new repeatable process that's going to

756
00:51:28.400 --> 00:51:30.360
generate that amount of money every time. And wrestling could not be further from

757
00:51:30.360 --> 00:51:34.960
that kind of business, not even
close. And it's funny you mentioned road

758
00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:38.039
Wild because and I mentioned Rodman July
ninety eight, July ninety seven Bash of

759
00:51:38.079 --> 00:51:42.440
the Beach, huge pay per view
numbers for WCW, Rodman teaming with Hogan

760
00:51:42.440 --> 00:51:45.880
in ninety seven, Rodman teaming with
Hogan against Karl Malone and DDP in ninety

761
00:51:45.880 --> 00:51:51.119
eight, huge numbers for the company, and year over year, who wrestled

762
00:51:51.119 --> 00:51:52.960
and rode Wild ninety nine, Dennis
Rodman against Randy Savage, who gave a

763
00:51:52.960 --> 00:51:59.440
fuck nobody nobody, And the reason
that Dennis Rodman did one point one million

764
00:51:59.440 --> 00:52:01.360
buys or well one point one by
rate. Whatever the fuck it was in

765
00:52:01.440 --> 00:52:06.039
Bash at the Beach ninety eight and
no one gave a fuck in Roade Wild

766
00:52:06.159 --> 00:52:08.519
ninety nine is why w CW one
out of business. So, Boss,

767
00:52:08.679 --> 00:52:12.199
we've talked a little bit about this
as guy's going through. This sounds like

768
00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:15.559
some of the stuff we've been talking
about Under the Cinemat and that the Patreon

769
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:19.599
specials about the movie business. Right, Yeah, it ain't no movie that's

770
00:52:19.639 --> 00:52:22.199
too successful to not show a loss. Well that that's I mean, you

771
00:52:22.199 --> 00:52:27.760
know you're talking about that immediately,
and and it just I immediately started thinking

772
00:52:27.800 --> 00:52:36.559
of the contracts we've talked about under
the Cinemat and even more recently net percentage,

773
00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:40.440
net profit percentage. Yeah, not
grid net here cod in that net.

774
00:52:40.480 --> 00:52:45.199
You better believe it. And that
it's that bullshit. You know.

775
00:52:45.239 --> 00:52:47.000
I don't know if you if you
knew this guy, but so you know,

776
00:52:47.039 --> 00:52:54.159
the original Batman with Michael Keaton back
in eighty nine, the the the

777
00:52:54.280 --> 00:53:00.960
two people who originally conceived or had
written a ripped before it was passed off

778
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:07.079
to Peter Goober and John Peters.
They they they were given you know,

779
00:53:07.280 --> 00:53:13.400
in their buyout, they were given
a percentage of net profits and they never

780
00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:17.760
saw dime. Never saw dime.
Doesn't surprise me, right exactly, you

781
00:53:17.760 --> 00:53:21.639
know, right exactly. We may
have made a billion dollars ball, but

782
00:53:21.840 --> 00:53:25.000
we spent six hundred billion to make
that. Just think about how much we're

783
00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.480
still spending money on on on all
these things. You know, it's just

784
00:53:29.519 --> 00:53:32.079
not to say he ever played this
game. It's just not economically feasible to

785
00:53:32.400 --> 00:53:36.440
continue to offer, you know,
again when we get there. Look,

786
00:53:37.320 --> 00:53:39.800
you know, if nothing else,
he was mister Hollywood. He was the

787
00:53:39.800 --> 00:53:44.920
guy bringing l a sophistication to all
this ship. And keep in mind,

788
00:53:44.960 --> 00:53:47.920
you know, Brad Siegel was not
the head of finance, right, so

789
00:53:49.719 --> 00:53:52.480
I think he I mean, I
mean, I'm maybe jumping ahead a little

790
00:53:52.480 --> 00:53:57.760
bit here. There's a quote that
he makes in a later episode in regards

791
00:53:57.840 --> 00:54:01.960
to ww's profitability, which I know
for a factor is not accurate, which

792
00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:05.800
may you know, look, let's
be charitable. Maybe it's the passage of

793
00:54:05.920 --> 00:54:07.800
time. Maybe it's the fact that, as I think he says in the

794
00:54:07.840 --> 00:54:10.519
first episode, out of all the
things he was responsible for, wrestling was

795
00:54:10.559 --> 00:54:15.239
the bottom of the list. So
it caused everybody to business a pathological liar

796
00:54:15.239 --> 00:54:16.440
by the way. Meanwhile, I
think he just caught him in wait,

797
00:54:16.760 --> 00:54:22.840
fine was Wasn't that an incredible sign
when he says that, I just oh,

798
00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:27.440
it blew my mind. It blew
my mind. I loved it.

799
00:54:27.559 --> 00:54:30.440
More. Please more of that,
I mean, talk about fodder for you

800
00:54:30.480 --> 00:54:34.960
guys. Oh pretty much? Yeah, man, pretty much. So that's

801
00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:37.719
great. That's great, color guy. That's interesting. And I had had

802
00:54:37.719 --> 00:54:43.519
some conversations with him around twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, and we actually had

803
00:54:44.519 --> 00:54:46.519
something in the books to do an
interview for the book, and at the

804
00:54:46.639 --> 00:54:52.480
very last second he pulled out.
And the one thing that I distinctly remember

805
00:54:52.519 --> 00:54:55.159
him saying when we spoke on the
phone is we were talking about different things

806
00:54:55.239 --> 00:54:59.880
and he said, he paused,
and he kind of says, he said,

807
00:55:00.119 --> 00:55:02.320
so many things went wrong. He
just said so, And it was

808
00:55:02.320 --> 00:55:06.840
almost like I brought him back to
that moment. Wow, he just I

809
00:55:06.920 --> 00:55:10.159
specifically remember him saying that just so
much, so many things or so much

810
00:55:10.199 --> 00:55:13.920
went wrong. He's like, especially, you know, especially towards the end.

811
00:55:14.159 --> 00:55:16.880
And it was almost like I've opened
the door here, which this person

812
00:55:16.960 --> 00:55:22.960
did not open. And so it
was no surprise that shortly after that he

813
00:55:22.320 --> 00:55:25.119
decided he didn't want to go on
the record. So wow, very that's

814
00:55:25.159 --> 00:55:30.079
really interesting. That's that's wild.
So he gets the you mentioned Harvey Shiller.

815
00:55:30.159 --> 00:55:31.960
He made an appearance on Nitro and
early ninety seven. People remember him.

816
00:55:32.400 --> 00:55:36.840
He was he was an ally.
He was someone that Bischoff could rely

817
00:55:36.960 --> 00:55:38.960
on as sort of a filter between
him and Ted Turner. So the Bischoff

818
00:55:39.039 --> 00:55:43.039
wasn't flying off the hinges and trying
to think he had more leverage with Ted,

819
00:55:43.039 --> 00:55:45.880
that he could get his way,
and that that ended up costing him,

820
00:55:45.880 --> 00:55:47.880
according to his account of things,
sort of being a maverick and calling

821
00:55:47.880 --> 00:55:52.320
out the executive committee and things.
But with Harvey Shiller, he was a

822
00:55:52.320 --> 00:55:54.679
guy that he could vent to and
Shiller would water the message down as it

823
00:55:54.719 --> 00:55:58.519
went up. The chain. Before
Schiller was a guy named Bill Shaw,

824
00:55:58.519 --> 00:56:00.800
who's a very important character in this
store in terms of someone who took the

825
00:56:00.840 --> 00:56:04.639
reins of WCW under the Turner corporate
structure and said, all right, well,

826
00:56:04.719 --> 00:56:08.000
let's actually let's actually brush up here, let's actually upgrade the production.

827
00:56:08.119 --> 00:56:13.559
Let's lean into making this a television
show instead of just seeking, you know,

828
00:56:13.599 --> 00:56:15.480
more wrestling minds to plug in to
try to fix this thing. But

829
00:56:15.599 --> 00:56:20.079
as for you know, when Harvey
Shechler leaves sort of abruptly to go work

830
00:56:20.119 --> 00:56:23.679
for George Steinbrenner and Brad Siegel takes
over responsibility for WCW, that's when you

831
00:56:23.719 --> 00:56:29.000
start to see like we were sort
of alluding to the transformative initiatives kind of

832
00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:30.880
stop a bit and you're sort of, you know, just just kind of

833
00:56:31.199 --> 00:56:36.159
rearranging deck chair as it feels like
he signed that huge Goldberg contract under with

834
00:56:36.239 --> 00:56:38.760
Barry Bloom negotiating for Goldberg, and
they turned him heel and just pissed all

835
00:56:38.760 --> 00:56:43.320
that money away. No chance Goldberg
was going to draw after that to the

836
00:56:43.360 --> 00:56:47.079
degree that he used to. We
mentioned Eric being kept around. You got

837
00:56:47.119 --> 00:56:51.679
a thing for for Brad, it
pisses him off that wrestling is still kind

838
00:56:51.719 --> 00:56:54.719
of his highest rated stuff on a
network that he saw he saw himself bringing

839
00:56:54.719 --> 00:56:58.960
prestige to of course, whatever that
means in case of course, come on,

840
00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:04.559
Yes, Jamie Kellner canceled WCW Television
and the deal wasn't worth anything to

841
00:57:04.599 --> 00:57:07.639
sell the bishoff after that. But
you have to ask yourself who was in

842
00:57:07.679 --> 00:57:13.760
a better position to influence whether the
wrestling show needed to be on TNT in

843
00:57:13.840 --> 00:57:16.920
TBS before Jamie Kellner made that call. Kellner who had nothing to do with

844
00:57:16.920 --> 00:57:20.599
it until he made the decision and
just had come in. Or Brad Siegel,

845
00:57:21.039 --> 00:57:27.000
who oversaw the gradual bleeding away of
this audience to the point that Jamie

846
00:57:27.079 --> 00:57:30.079
Kellner had, you know, no
problem just just axing it. Nobody's saying,

847
00:57:30.079 --> 00:57:37.239
well, that's a lot of audience
to lose. So let me make

848
00:57:37.280 --> 00:57:38.960
a couple of points that if I
could, yeah, please, you know,

849
00:57:39.039 --> 00:57:43.800
you mentioned a few names that one
of the things that I found interesting

850
00:57:44.119 --> 00:57:47.480
in speaking to the people I did
about the difference between Bill Shore and Harvey

851
00:57:47.519 --> 00:57:52.800
Schiller. People seem to describe Bill
Store as more of a hands on sort

852
00:57:52.840 --> 00:57:58.800
of figure when it came to his
relationship with with Eric, someone who I

853
00:57:58.840 --> 00:58:00.719
know. There's a quote in the
book from Dick Cheetam actually where he recalls,

854
00:58:00.760 --> 00:58:06.320
you know, Bill kind of tearing
into Eric after one particular show and

855
00:58:06.360 --> 00:58:07.719
saying we've got to do better,
and that was something that was never going

856
00:58:07.800 --> 00:58:12.599
to come from from Harvey Schiller.
I think, you know, one of

857
00:58:12.599 --> 00:58:15.519
the things that's interesting about Brad Siegel, as you mentioned at the top,

858
00:58:15.239 --> 00:58:19.119
David Pedzer and David Penzer and I
just put out a new book. And

859
00:58:20.480 --> 00:58:23.440
David was actually on the booking team
at the end of PCW. And that's

860
00:58:23.519 --> 00:58:27.079
kind of a fact that's got lost
to history, right because we all think,

861
00:58:27.159 --> 00:58:29.840
of course he was a ring announcer, but as time goes on,

862
00:58:29.880 --> 00:58:34.360
he was given more and more responsibility. And when we got on the topic

863
00:58:34.400 --> 00:58:37.400
of talking about Brad Siegel, he
said, you know, he was almost

864
00:58:37.400 --> 00:58:42.119
like this mythical guy that you would
hear the name, but it was impossible

865
00:58:42.159 --> 00:58:44.599
to get to And he said there
were so many times in the booking meeting

866
00:58:44.719 --> 00:58:46.719
someone would say, well, we're
going to need to check with Brad if

867
00:58:46.760 --> 00:58:50.800
we can do that, and it's
like, well, does anyone know how

868
00:58:50.800 --> 00:58:52.239
to get in touch with him?
Can we place the call to someone else?

869
00:58:52.239 --> 00:58:55.559
And and may I suggest he made
himself scarce because he had no intention

870
00:58:55.639 --> 00:59:02.159
of turning around him. That's right. Well, but and David text me

871
00:59:02.239 --> 00:59:06.079
because I you know, I'm sure
a lot of people, well everyone by

872
00:59:06.119 --> 00:59:07.920
now has seen the episode, but
there was a preview that was put up

873
00:59:08.199 --> 00:59:12.840
at the end of last week,
the first fifteen minutes, and Dave I

874
00:59:12.880 --> 00:59:15.320
sent him that preview and he texted
me back and he said, so that's

875
00:59:15.320 --> 00:59:21.920
what Brad Segel looks like. This
was a guy who was with WCW for

876
00:59:22.079 --> 00:59:24.119
for ten years, and you know, like I say, he was just

877
00:59:24.480 --> 00:59:29.440
someone that was in communicado, mi
ia, whatever you want to say towards

878
00:59:29.480 --> 00:59:32.960
the end of w CW, which
under you know, you can say what

879
00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:37.960
you want. And again there's there's
no defense of just the absolute calamitous nature

880
00:59:38.159 --> 00:59:44.679
of those programming decisions and just as
I said, the sheer insanity really of

881
00:59:44.920 --> 00:59:46.679
especially the year two thousand, which
is kind of you know, infamous,

882
00:59:46.719 --> 00:59:51.679
and rightfully so. But to work
under that kind of environment where the person

883
00:59:51.679 --> 00:59:54.920
who's supposedly the figurehead is completely you
know, you're not able to get into

884
00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:58.639
touch with him. I mean,
that's just a very bizarre work situation.

885
01:00:00.639 --> 01:00:14.159
He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with
Jack and Carneo and JP Sorrow. He's

886
01:00:14.239 --> 01:00:17.719
a lapsed fan wrestling podcast. And
you interviewed Lenita Erickson, who is someone

887
01:00:17.719 --> 01:00:22.320
who was working with Jerry Jarrett and
JJ Niellen to put together a competing bid

888
01:00:22.360 --> 01:00:25.400
for WCW, and brilliantly in your
book you talk about how Lenita Erickson,

889
01:00:25.400 --> 01:00:30.360
who actually had a brief on screen
role at w CW as an interviewer and

890
01:00:30.480 --> 01:00:32.480
was I believe the girlfriend of Gene
Simmons, isn't that right? Yes,

891
01:00:32.559 --> 01:00:37.119
that's right. She wants to talk. She has a way into Brad Siegel

892
01:00:37.159 --> 01:00:40.239
that the others don't because she knows
him from prior life and entertainment. And

893
01:00:40.559 --> 01:00:45.280
he didn't, you know, he
was almost entrapped into listening to her pitch

894
01:00:45.519 --> 01:00:49.360
this guy. In my personal assessment
of things, he just didn't want to

895
01:00:49.440 --> 01:00:52.760
hear anything. But we're gonna we're
gonna offload this thing, and the rest

896
01:00:52.800 --> 01:00:57.480
is treading water. Honestly, Well, I mean, listen, Jack,

897
01:00:57.519 --> 01:01:00.119
by the time we get to that
hypes up earlier, but I'm telling you

898
01:01:00.119 --> 01:01:04.880
that final episode. I'll just say, when I first got the cuts for

899
01:01:04.920 --> 01:01:07.599
this and we got to the end
of episode three, I was actually thinking,

900
01:01:07.639 --> 01:01:13.639
this fourth episode must be like an
extended show or something. It must

901
01:01:13.639 --> 01:01:16.280
be like ninety minutes, because there's
still a lot to get to here,

902
01:01:16.280 --> 01:01:20.280
and I wonder how they're going to
tie this all up. They did it

903
01:01:20.400 --> 01:01:24.599
masterfully. I mean, the finale
is so well done, and specifically some

904
01:01:24.639 --> 01:01:29.920
of the comments made by Brad Siegel. Let's just say, they'll give us

905
01:01:29.920 --> 01:01:34.719
a lot to talk about maybe you
might want to fucking go you might want

906
01:01:34.760 --> 01:01:37.119
to rewind the tape and play your
comments that some of the comments that you

907
01:01:37.239 --> 01:01:40.159
just made a few weeks from now, when we talk about episode four,

908
01:01:40.199 --> 01:01:43.199
I'll just leave it at the thank
you very much much for him, thank

909
01:01:43.280 --> 01:01:46.119
you very much. So so a
huge part of this episode is getting us

910
01:01:46.119 --> 01:01:50.840
acquainted with the story. You know, I remember in talking with the guys

911
01:01:50.840 --> 01:01:53.320
at the beginning of this, like, how do you where do you start?

912
01:01:53.480 --> 01:01:57.639
And the first thought was you start
with Goldberg beating Hogan at Georgia,

913
01:01:57.679 --> 01:02:01.639
Dawm sold out Georgia, nome the
new Messiah, WCW ready to lead a

914
01:02:01.679 --> 01:02:07.559
new era in WCW all the Turner
executives in Atlanta on hand to witness this

915
01:02:07.679 --> 01:02:12.840
massive success. And that was the
end. That was that was That turned

916
01:02:12.840 --> 01:02:15.079
out to be the apex, not
the beginning of a new era, right,

917
01:02:15.079 --> 01:02:17.079
And then you can get into how
if you start, and if you

918
01:02:17.079 --> 01:02:21.559
start in July ninety eight, you
really can then you know, reverse the

919
01:02:21.559 --> 01:02:24.840
timeline last dance style of the Michael
Jordan documentary and just draw back like the

920
01:02:24.840 --> 01:02:29.480
people who start, you know,
dealing with the holes in the leaky ship,

921
01:02:29.519 --> 01:02:31.960
through ninety eight ninety nine. But
you know, you can't ever escape

922
01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:36.159
the need to just lay the foundation
of what the fuck WCW was in the

923
01:02:36.159 --> 01:02:38.280
first place, because you can't assume
everybody knows that. You definitely cannot assume

924
01:02:38.320 --> 01:02:43.159
that. And so you know,
it's built largely around Eric describing how he

925
01:02:43.199 --> 01:02:45.880
made the transition from the AWA to
WCW. But one thing I thought we

926
01:02:45.920 --> 01:02:51.280
could do here on this episode of
this show and this podcast is sort of

927
01:02:51.400 --> 01:02:54.239
color in you know, some of
the some of the leaps that they have

928
01:02:54.320 --> 01:02:58.119
to make to get to where they
need to be in the story. But

929
01:02:58.119 --> 01:03:00.920
but WCW was you put your finger
on it, boss. I mean,

930
01:03:00.920 --> 01:03:06.519
you know, Crockett selling to Turner
is just sort of where WW begins.

931
01:03:06.679 --> 01:03:08.639
It doesn't begin with Eric Bischoff taking
and taking the realms, you know,

932
01:03:09.039 --> 01:03:13.480
and all the power to them,
allowing Bischoff to categorize, characterize, I

933
01:03:13.480 --> 01:03:16.639
should say, the regimes that came
before him, that that's that's all fair

934
01:03:16.679 --> 01:03:23.199
game. But what we do know
is that all of Eric's predecessors, they

935
01:03:23.199 --> 01:03:29.760
didn't get a guaranteed rights fee for
the programming from Turner like Eric did.

936
01:03:30.039 --> 01:03:32.480
We were lamenting, you know,
the rights fee era we're in right now.

937
01:03:32.519 --> 01:03:36.599
The guaranteed money thing, it's been
bad at about. I'm not sure.

938
01:03:37.079 --> 01:03:39.199
I'm not sure precisely where it comes
from. I know Bill Watts has

939
01:03:39.239 --> 01:03:43.920
talked a lot about it. He
talks about it in his book, Jr.

940
01:03:43.960 --> 01:03:45.079
Has talked about it. Who,
of course is Bill wats iss surrogate

941
01:03:45.079 --> 01:03:50.000
in so many ways on the WWF
the WWE version of the Rise and Fall

942
01:03:50.079 --> 01:03:53.039
of ww documentary that they did,
where Eric was able to talk Turner under

943
01:03:53.039 --> 01:03:59.280
Bill Shaw into actually putting eight million
dollars a year on WCW's books, paying

944
01:03:59.280 --> 01:04:01.800
for the television like you would an
independent producer. And that is something that

945
01:04:01.880 --> 01:04:06.679
Jim heard that Bill Watts that kept
Fry did not have the luxury of They

946
01:04:06.719 --> 01:04:12.639
had to survive on a mentality at
Turner and Dickchtum talks about this live events

947
01:04:12.639 --> 01:04:15.480
and pay per view. That's it. You're not getting paid for your own

948
01:04:15.480 --> 01:04:19.239
television and able to count that revenue. And suddenly Bischoff is within striking distance

949
01:04:19.280 --> 01:04:25.199
of profitability, being able to access
millions of dollars that his predecessors were not.

950
01:04:25.400 --> 01:04:29.360
Guy, Guy, how does that
strike you? There's no line item

951
01:04:29.800 --> 01:04:33.679
on financial statements from around that time
that I've seen that refers to eight million

952
01:04:33.719 --> 01:04:38.239
dollars. So I don't know if
that is, you know, an exaggeration

953
01:04:38.440 --> 01:04:41.320
or if that is, you know, again the passage of time. I'm

954
01:04:41.360 --> 01:04:45.719
not sure, but I can tell
you that it was on the books,

955
01:04:45.719 --> 01:04:48.159
at least on the financial statements that
I've seen, it was a very meager

956
01:04:48.360 --> 01:04:54.360
sum that WCW was being credited for
producing all of this programming. Again,

957
01:04:54.480 --> 01:05:00.239
obviously completely different environment today, but
no, no, I mean I was

958
01:05:00.360 --> 01:05:02.159
in preparation for doing this because I
knew we were doing this today. This

959
01:05:02.199 --> 01:05:04.280
morning, I was looking at a
few things, and I can tell you

960
01:05:04.280 --> 01:05:08.639
straight up that's faced on what I
have. That's not accurate, very good,

961
01:05:08.719 --> 01:05:12.079
very interesting. Yeah, it's bad
at about but you know, look,

962
01:05:12.800 --> 01:05:15.360
Bischoff fired Jr. He would say, I didn't fire him. I

963
01:05:15.440 --> 01:05:17.559
let him leave his contract because he
wanted to leave. Whatever can tell me

964
01:05:17.599 --> 01:05:23.000
the different difference for both exactly,
But you know, fuck Jr. Fuck

965
01:05:23.039 --> 01:05:26.559
Bill Watts. Bill Watts had no
respect for Bischoff. He talks so much

966
01:05:26.599 --> 01:05:29.000
shit about him in the book.
It's his book is not even funny.

967
01:05:29.800 --> 01:05:32.639
And they're gone, they're yesterday's news, you know, Bischoff gets hired by

968
01:05:32.679 --> 01:05:36.360
Bill Shaw because he's not Bill Watts
and he's not Jim Ross in terms of

969
01:05:36.880 --> 01:05:41.880
philosophy on the business. So Jr. Goes right to WWF. Bischof sniffs

970
01:05:41.920 --> 01:05:44.039
out that he wants to go,
let him go whatever. And there was

971
01:05:44.079 --> 01:05:46.239
also this thing where Bischoff wanted to
move Jr. From being involved in wrestling

972
01:05:46.239 --> 01:05:50.320
operations to being involved in syndication sales
and sales, which is what he used

973
01:05:50.360 --> 01:05:53.440
to do for Bill Watts to get
started in the business, in addition to

974
01:05:53.480 --> 01:05:56.559
refereeing in the beginning and then of
course announcing. But that's all, that's

975
01:05:56.599 --> 01:06:00.960
all, that's all necessary context when
you try to interpret the source of this

976
01:06:00.039 --> 01:06:05.519
information that you know, the rights
fee that Eric Bischoff enjoyed from from the

977
01:06:05.519 --> 01:06:11.800
Turner hierarchy was not available to predecessors. Jim Ross was also pretty close with

978
01:06:11.880 --> 01:06:14.280
Jim Hurd. He actually buddied up
to him. He's critical of him and

979
01:06:14.280 --> 01:06:15.440
remains critical of him. But you
know, there are a lot of people

980
01:06:15.480 --> 01:06:19.559
who observe Jr. You know,
nursing a few beers with with Jim Hurd

981
01:06:19.639 --> 01:06:24.559
the bar for several hours afterwards.
You know, JR. Knows how to

982
01:06:25.159 --> 01:06:29.480
how to schmooze. He knows how
to position himself. Don't don't let the

983
01:06:29.599 --> 01:06:33.599
uh, don't let the OKI gimmick
fool you in that regard. But you

984
01:06:33.639 --> 01:06:36.800
know, David Crockett has said,
you know, while people and other divisions

985
01:06:36.840 --> 01:06:40.599
didn't want us, we had to
find a person who could channel Ted Turner's

986
01:06:40.599 --> 01:06:44.639
money and Ted's wishes the right way
so that WW was actually benefiting. And

987
01:06:44.679 --> 01:06:46.599
he gives the credit to Bill Shaw
for doing that. He called Bill Shaw

988
01:06:46.679 --> 01:06:51.199
the person that used Ted's money the
right way to buy equipment that we needed,

989
01:06:51.239 --> 01:06:56.000
handheld cameras, cable and lighting,
power techniques, audio equipment. And

990
01:06:56.000 --> 01:06:59.159
of course David Crockett was VP of
production for WW to the bitter end.

991
01:06:59.360 --> 01:07:03.039
He actually aid while after his brother
Jim Crockett Junior exited the picture after the

992
01:07:03.079 --> 01:07:09.400
effect after the transition was effectuated.
But yeah, the Herd era, you

993
01:07:09.440 --> 01:07:14.320
know, was one that's that that's
quickly worthy of analysis because Herd wanted Brandy

994
01:07:14.360 --> 01:07:17.400
Savage. Heard sat with Randy Savage. Herd didn't have the money to afford

995
01:07:17.440 --> 01:07:23.639
Randy Savage. Eric Bischoff did heard
what assigned Hogan. He said he would

996
01:07:23.639 --> 01:07:26.920
assigned Hogan. He wanted Hogan,
he wanted I mean when he came in,

997
01:07:26.920 --> 01:07:29.599
the mandate was hey, w w
F seales all this ship to kids,

998
01:07:29.920 --> 01:07:31.440
how can we do it? And
so he creates Big Josh and the

999
01:07:31.440 --> 01:07:38.880
fucking ding Dongs of Railroads, racked
a man, the candy man, all

1000
01:07:39.079 --> 01:07:42.159
you know, class I would agree
with you there. I'm glad you said

1001
01:07:42.159 --> 01:07:45.079
that, because I wasn't gonna say
it. The dynamic dude see all this

1002
01:07:45.119 --> 01:07:47.119
stuff, the stuff that Cornett will
just like rail On heard till he's in

1003
01:07:47.119 --> 01:07:51.079
the grave for because he gets this
sort of edict, the sort of mandate

1004
01:07:51.599 --> 01:07:54.880
that this is how to make money
in pro wrestling. This is what we're

1005
01:07:54.920 --> 01:07:58.320
not doing. This is what the
Crockett nw A stuff that we inherited was

1006
01:07:58.320 --> 01:08:01.000
not doing that Vince is doing.
How can we reach kids? So Herd's

1007
01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:04.960
trying to do this to hilarious and
disastrous effect, And of course the way

1008
01:08:04.960 --> 01:08:10.480
he rubbed Flare the wrong way led
to just his whole regime being cast as

1009
01:08:10.559 --> 01:08:13.559
just an abject failure. And you
have to say it was. Although eighty

1010
01:08:13.599 --> 01:08:15.560
nine was a tremendous year and Jim
Hurd was all over the product then and

1011
01:08:15.600 --> 01:08:19.199
all over television as well, having
directed the Wrestling of the Chase television specials

1012
01:08:19.199 --> 01:08:23.880
out of Saint Louis, so it's
not working for him, you know,

1013
01:08:24.239 --> 01:08:27.840
just live events and whatever cut that
Turner saw fit to give them for pay

1014
01:08:27.880 --> 01:08:30.720
per view sales, which wasn't one
hundred percent, it wasn't sixty percent,

1015
01:08:30.760 --> 01:08:32.920
it wasn't even forty percent, because
when you sell a pay per view,

1016
01:08:33.079 --> 01:08:36.880
sixty percent goes to the cable or
satellite company, forty percent goes to the

1017
01:08:36.960 --> 01:08:42.079
content provider. But unlike WWF,
you then had to split your forty with

1018
01:08:42.159 --> 01:08:45.920
Turnerhome Entertainment. And so what hits
WCW's books is like, what is this?

1019
01:08:45.119 --> 01:08:47.760
Like you said, we sold this
many orders and this is how much

1020
01:08:47.760 --> 01:08:51.119
money we get for it by the
time everyone gets their fingers in the pie

1021
01:08:51.399 --> 01:08:56.760
to the accounting point earlier. So
Herd has a lot of structural disadvantages and

1022
01:08:56.880 --> 01:09:00.800
would have done what Bischoff ended up
doing in terms of sign high high price

1023
01:09:00.920 --> 01:09:05.479
WWF talent. Hi Brett Hart was
talking to them after he was you know,

1024
01:09:05.520 --> 01:09:08.560
in that period when he was in
our Continental champ but lost it to

1025
01:09:08.600 --> 01:09:11.560
the Mountie. He doesn't talk about
that anymore, and he skips over in

1026
01:09:11.560 --> 01:09:14.520
his book, but it was all
over the newsletters at the time how he

1027
01:09:14.560 --> 01:09:16.640
was talking about making the jump and
how material that would have been at a

1028
01:09:16.640 --> 01:09:19.399
time when he was just ready to
break through as a main eventor so we

1029
01:09:19.479 --> 01:09:23.800
need to say that about Jim Hurd, I think. And then we moved

1030
01:09:23.800 --> 01:09:27.039
to Kip Fry, who was basically, you know, a lawyer in WCW.

1031
01:09:27.399 --> 01:09:30.760
He was assigned to w CW,
but was actually a Turner employee and

1032
01:09:30.800 --> 01:09:33.920
he you know, he leaned into
like performance bonuses. He signed Brian Pelman

1033
01:09:33.960 --> 01:09:38.279
into a huge guaranteed contract as an
example. He really tried to lean into

1034
01:09:38.319 --> 01:09:41.920
youth and try to sign guys that
had a lot of upside and tried to

1035
01:09:42.119 --> 01:09:45.680
you know, change the way people
felt about coming to work there, and

1036
01:09:45.479 --> 01:09:47.720
and and and if effort led to
more money in your pocketbook. And that

1037
01:09:47.840 --> 01:09:49.920
was a very short lived tenure,
I mean, just a matter of months.

1038
01:09:49.920 --> 01:09:53.560
He needs one appearance of the clash
we've talked about Kip fryd boss.

1039
01:09:53.720 --> 01:09:56.880
You've laid eyes on the man.
Oh, yes, absolutely, he's trouble.

1040
01:09:57.760 --> 01:10:00.119
He's trouble. He's unsuccessful, is
what he is. And so you

1041
01:10:00.159 --> 01:10:03.199
know, when when it gets when
things get dark, and then tumbleweeds start

1042
01:10:03.239 --> 01:10:08.560
blowing. You got to call the
cowboy. You got a phone, Louisiana.

1043
01:10:09.199 --> 01:10:12.199
Yeah, there comes the gown.
Here come the galloping horses. You

1044
01:10:12.199 --> 01:10:15.479
can see the oil. Derek's in
the background as the cowboy answers the rotary

1045
01:10:15.520 --> 01:10:18.439
phone because he's going to come and
with this place in the shape, which

1046
01:10:18.439 --> 01:10:23.039
of course he absolutely did not.
Takes the mats off the floor, starts

1047
01:10:23.079 --> 01:10:26.840
fucking with everybody's money, like you
don't deserve anything, And yeah, does

1048
01:10:26.880 --> 01:10:30.520
he? You know, his his
big thing. You know, Bischoff talks

1049
01:10:30.520 --> 01:10:33.760
about turning a profit. I mean, and what was it uh in the

1050
01:10:33.800 --> 01:10:40.039
span of his uh, I guess
you could say his administration. He's he

1051
01:10:40.159 --> 01:10:43.239
said, Bill Watson said, I
haven't heard it disputed that they were losing

1052
01:10:43.319 --> 01:10:45.079
eight million dollars when he came in
in ninety two, and by the time

1053
01:10:45.079 --> 01:10:48.039
he was done cutting all the expenses
he cut, they were only losing four

1054
01:10:48.079 --> 01:10:53.560
hundred thousand dollars in the space of
eleven months. Wow. And that's again,

1055
01:10:53.760 --> 01:10:57.000
with all the creative accounting that's been
talked about, he's still able to

1056
01:10:57.039 --> 01:11:00.399
show a four hundred thousand dollars deficit. And that's pretty much the game bishof

1057
01:11:00.479 --> 01:11:03.880
ended up closing. Bischoff actually guy
right when he was when he was chasing

1058
01:11:03.880 --> 01:11:06.840
that bet he made with Turner executives
that he could turn a profit and if

1059
01:11:06.840 --> 01:11:11.520
I do, you have to hand
me a dollar bill and eat shit.

1060
01:11:12.000 --> 01:11:15.880
So as I proved you wrong.
He's going into Ted's office when Nitro is

1061
01:11:15.920 --> 01:11:18.960
pitched to him by Ted. Essentially
he's going to Ted's office to talk about

1062
01:11:19.520 --> 01:11:25.920
a deal with the Star Network in
China because that's some guaranteed money that would

1063
01:11:25.920 --> 01:11:28.680
put them in the black if they
could get this deal done in China.

1064
01:11:28.680 --> 01:11:31.039
He's got this big investor deck presentation
style ready to go to try to get

1065
01:11:31.079 --> 01:11:35.199
Ted to green light because there were
some some awkwardness because Rupert Murdoch owned the

1066
01:11:35.239 --> 01:11:38.640
company, so it would be like, you know, taking money from a

1067
01:11:38.640 --> 01:11:45.399
competitor. And then that's when that's
when Ted says, what faithfully, Well,

1068
01:11:46.600 --> 01:11:50.640
the interesting the interesting thing about that
is, you know the meeting that

1069
01:11:50.680 --> 01:11:55.880
happened before that, and I think
that's where the book starts, and that's

1070
01:11:55.920 --> 01:11:58.720
that's one of the things that people
took away from the books that they hadn't

1071
01:11:58.720 --> 01:12:01.199
heard about before, is the fact
that yes, you know, that that

1072
01:12:01.239 --> 01:12:05.720
meeting did take place as described,
and Ted did make the comment that has

1073
01:12:05.760 --> 01:12:12.640
been told many many times now as
to you know, Scott Sassa giving Eric

1074
01:12:13.399 --> 01:12:16.279
what would have been one hour of
programming. I think perhaps in the series

1075
01:12:16.840 --> 01:12:19.039
the you know, two hours is
mentioned, but of course that didn't come

1076
01:12:19.079 --> 01:12:24.079
until later. But they do that
a lot with something. They do that

1077
01:12:24.159 --> 01:12:28.680
a lot. I've noticed they do
that a lot where they say the narrative

1078
01:12:28.680 --> 01:12:31.199
has been two hours of prime time
when it very clearly was not. I

1079
01:12:31.239 --> 01:12:34.520
mean, you know, was even
doing two hours at the time to compete

1080
01:12:34.560 --> 01:12:40.000
with right, yeah, right,
right, right right. But that's something

1081
01:12:40.000 --> 01:12:44.199
that you know had already been privately
discussed and determined, and that was kind

1082
01:12:44.239 --> 01:12:47.840
of another layer to the story that
you know, I think was interesting to

1083
01:12:47.880 --> 01:12:54.640
people to find out at that time. And I think as the series outlines,

1084
01:12:55.720 --> 01:12:59.359
if you think about where w CW
was at the beginning of Nitro again,

1085
01:12:59.479 --> 01:13:02.960
if we look could it strictly through
the perspective of a viewer, you

1086
01:13:03.000 --> 01:13:08.239
could say, well, you know, when it comes to talent, there

1087
01:13:08.319 --> 01:13:11.119
was so much great talent in WCW, and they're having so many great matches

1088
01:13:11.159 --> 01:13:16.000
and so forth. But I would
say when you have one company earning four

1089
01:13:16.039 --> 01:13:20.079
times the revenue of another. When
you have one company that is a perennial

1090
01:13:20.520 --> 01:13:25.760
profit maker and another that has never
made any money, and you have one

1091
01:13:25.800 --> 01:13:30.359
company that is synonymous with the entire
genre of professional wrestling itself and one that

1092
01:13:30.439 --> 01:13:34.039
has never enjoyed anywhere close to that
kind of status, I would describe that

1093
01:13:34.119 --> 01:13:40.880
gap as distant. I would suggest
that you can make a very reasonable argument

1094
01:13:40.880 --> 01:13:44.800
that that could quite rightly be called
a distant number two, which I think

1095
01:13:44.880 --> 01:13:48.119
is where WCW was at that time. Given what their mandate was as a

1096
01:13:48.159 --> 01:13:53.399
Turner company. Ted Turner was not
going to be in a position. It

1097
01:13:53.439 --> 01:13:56.239
wasn't willing to be in a position
where he was owning a wrestling company that

1098
01:13:56.399 --> 01:14:00.600
was just getting by. He wanted
to be number one. That's very touristic

1099
01:14:00.960 --> 01:14:03.479
footed any business that he's in,
he wants to be on top. So

1100
01:14:04.640 --> 01:14:08.680
yeah, he takes he takes the
head of the table in the press conference

1101
01:14:08.720 --> 01:14:11.800
when they sign Hulkogan in nineteen ninety
four, it makes one of its extremely

1102
01:14:11.920 --> 01:14:15.039
rare televised wrestling appearances because he he
wants to stay in there and say we're

1103
01:14:15.119 --> 01:14:19.840
coming for the WWF. Essentially,
you know, this is us putting our

1104
01:14:19.840 --> 01:14:24.680
best foot forward. And so just
a year later, Nitro launches with that

1105
01:14:24.720 --> 01:14:27.680
same ethic. We don't we don't
want to have Raw win one week and

1106
01:14:27.720 --> 01:14:30.439
we win one week. That's that's
not the idea. Yeah, And you'll

1107
01:14:30.479 --> 01:14:34.279
often hear, you know, WCW
employees turner employees, they'll kind of make

1108
01:14:34.319 --> 01:14:38.720
a variation of the same point,
which is where they'll say, you know,

1109
01:14:38.840 --> 01:14:42.359
circa the mid nineties, if you
were to watch I don't know,

1110
01:14:42.399 --> 01:14:45.920
an NFL game or NHL maybe might
be a better example, and there's a

1111
01:14:45.960 --> 01:14:48.319
fight that breaks out or something,
and the announcers would say it looks like

1112
01:14:48.359 --> 01:14:51.920
something from the WWF, right,
And they would never at that time mention

1113
01:14:53.600 --> 01:14:56.399
WCW in that breath. And you
might say, well, great, big

1114
01:14:56.439 --> 01:14:59.159
deal, what does that matter.
I think it does matter when you put

1115
01:14:59.199 --> 01:15:03.119
yourself in a position and of trying
to generate revenue off your wrestling programming,

1116
01:15:03.199 --> 01:15:10.319
so sitting down with potential partners and
doing licensing agreements and merchandising and so so

1117
01:15:10.359 --> 01:15:14.079
on and so forth, and you
know, mentioning that yeah, we're you

1118
01:15:14.079 --> 01:15:16.439
know, a wrestling company on the
turn of networks. Oh kind of like

1119
01:15:16.720 --> 01:15:21.000
WWF right, kind of like hul
Cogan and those guys. You know that

1120
01:15:21.000 --> 01:15:26.199
that does matter, you know,
from a in terms of perception when you're

1121
01:15:26.239 --> 01:15:30.479
doing business with people outside of the
wrestling world. Right. So I just

1122
01:15:30.520 --> 01:15:33.279
kind of wanted to make that point
because I think if you look at the

1123
01:15:33.560 --> 01:15:39.000
framing in the first episode personally and
it aligns with what's in the book,

1124
01:15:39.880 --> 01:15:43.239
I would describe it as an accurate
characterization. But again, if you're looking

1125
01:15:43.279 --> 01:15:45.279
at it, it's kind of like
AW and WW today. Right, if

1126
01:15:45.279 --> 01:15:49.319
you're a hardcore AW fan and you
enjoy all of the great matches and all

1127
01:15:49.359 --> 01:15:54.520
of the great talent, then the
gap in your mind may be very slim

1128
01:15:54.520 --> 01:15:58.680
and maybe nonexistent, But if you
look at it on the level of business,

1129
01:15:58.760 --> 01:16:00.840
you know, it's it's a completely
different stratosphere where they are today in

1130
01:16:00.880 --> 01:16:04.119
twenty twenty four. And so I
just kind of wanted to throw that in

1131
01:16:04.159 --> 01:16:08.039
that to very good. Yeah,
that's it's a point worth making for sure.

1132
01:16:08.159 --> 01:16:10.520
And we talk about Bill Shaw is
sort of like Eric's patron, and

1133
01:16:10.520 --> 01:16:13.199
while he did take the plunge in
hiring and Eric Bischoff, who you know,

1134
01:16:13.279 --> 01:16:16.119
didn't come from a traditional wrestling background
or even a turner background. Bill

1135
01:16:16.159 --> 01:16:19.840
Shaw also hired Bill Watts, Let's
be clear about that. And when Bill

1136
01:16:19.840 --> 01:16:23.399
Wats came in, he had,
you know, sort of like that tail

1137
01:16:23.399 --> 01:16:26.239
when we know what happened with Bill
Watts. He he said, you know,

1138
01:16:26.359 --> 01:16:28.920
racist things to the Pro Wrestling Torch, and they were facts to ed

1139
01:16:29.000 --> 01:16:31.079
Landa Braves great handkaver or he came
to his attention, and then that was

1140
01:16:31.119 --> 01:16:33.439
that. Bill Watts says, well, in fact, you know, Bill

1141
01:16:33.479 --> 01:16:39.159
Shawn knew about those remarks that I
had made a year before they terminated me

1142
01:16:39.239 --> 01:16:41.000
for it, and so it was
just a way to get me out the

1143
01:16:41.039 --> 01:16:44.479
door. Whatever. That that's just
a proviser that needs to be added potentially

1144
01:16:44.600 --> 01:16:47.760
in fairness. But that all said. Here he is trying to write w

1145
01:16:47.920 --> 01:16:51.960
c W ship and and you think
back to the point you were making Evan

1146
01:16:54.560 --> 01:16:57.680
a guy in terms of guy Evans, Evan Husny confuses me. Sorry,

1147
01:16:58.439 --> 01:17:01.159
too many Evans. So the point
you were making about, you know that

1148
01:17:01.399 --> 01:17:06.119
sort of outside of the wrestling bubble
reputation that WCW had to seek to foster.

1149
01:17:06.279 --> 01:17:10.000
There one of the things Jim Hurdis
said he did an interview with Conrad

1150
01:17:10.039 --> 01:17:13.199
Thompson a couple of years ago,
and they put the question to him.

1151
01:17:13.239 --> 01:17:15.520
You know, I mean, if
if you were to get let's say more

1152
01:17:15.560 --> 01:17:19.399
pay per view proceeds on your books, then in Turner Home Entertainment took less.

1153
01:17:19.640 --> 01:17:23.079
You know, for example, do
you think you actually would have been

1154
01:17:23.079 --> 01:17:28.159
able to show a profit just like
any other WCW administration And it hurts credit?

1155
01:17:28.199 --> 01:17:30.199
He says, I don't know.
I mean, but what's irrefutable is

1156
01:17:30.199 --> 01:17:32.359
if you go back and look at
the numbers. The sports package that Turner

1157
01:17:32.439 --> 01:17:36.680
was selling on TBS and TNT without
wrestling was a tough sell in New York.

1158
01:17:36.960 --> 01:17:40.560
And it was a tough sell in
New York because the numbers weren't there.

1159
01:17:41.439 --> 01:17:45.439
The numbers weren't there if you didn't
include the wrestling audience and the cumulative

1160
01:17:45.479 --> 01:17:48.279
audience you could reach selling advertising.
So you can say that no one wanted

1161
01:17:48.279 --> 01:17:51.800
to advertise during the wrestling show,
and that was true, but they wanted

1162
01:17:51.840 --> 01:17:57.520
to buy the cumulative audience that TNT
and TBS sports could bring, and without

1163
01:17:57.520 --> 01:18:01.079
wrestling they ain't shit wow. And
that is always driven people in cable nuts

1164
01:18:01.319 --> 01:18:08.720
that they can't really, they can't
really present a very appetizing advertising proposition in

1165
01:18:08.800 --> 01:18:13.720
terms of cumulative audience without dishing out
big money to sports. It continues to

1166
01:18:13.760 --> 01:18:17.359
this day. We hear a gnashing
of teeth at Warner at Warner Brothers Discovery

1167
01:18:17.359 --> 01:18:20.720
about the NBA rights and David Saslov
saying we don't really need them or something

1168
01:18:20.800 --> 01:18:25.319
like that, because they can't stand
the fact that without sports they ain't shit

1169
01:18:25.399 --> 01:18:30.359
in cable. My thoughts, I
agree with that last statement in terms of

1170
01:18:30.399 --> 01:18:32.920
the framing that you described there with
Jim Hurd. That's the first I've heard

1171
01:18:32.960 --> 01:18:38.680
of that, And I'll pose that
to a couple of people tomorrow, some

1172
01:18:38.680 --> 01:18:41.840
people who worked in ads sales,
and see what their reaction is to it.

1173
01:18:42.880 --> 01:18:45.479
Yeah, we look forward to reporting
back as the sea that play out

1174
01:18:45.479 --> 01:18:48.920
as well. Yeah, that would
that would be news to me. But

1175
01:18:49.079 --> 01:18:51.520
certainly I agree with your sort of
wider point that you made at the end

1176
01:18:51.520 --> 01:18:56.079
there in terms of the importance to
and sports has only got, of course

1177
01:18:56.119 --> 01:18:59.479
more important over time. I mean
you look at of course, you look

1178
01:18:59.520 --> 01:19:03.600
at the just look at the money
that's being thrown around, you know,

1179
01:19:03.840 --> 01:19:09.159
in in rights fees and player contracts
today, even though the audience is a

1180
01:19:09.159 --> 01:19:13.319
fraction of what it was it's kind
of a an inverse relationship that's occurred for

1181
01:19:13.359 --> 01:19:15.399
obvious reasons. But I'll see what
I can find out by that. That

1182
01:19:15.520 --> 01:19:18.760
sounds that sounds incorrect to me,
but I'll see what I can find out.

1183
01:19:18.920 --> 01:19:23.600
Yeah, that was his His contention
working on the inside was that you

1184
01:19:23.600 --> 01:19:27.760
know, you needed that that audience
to be interesting to advertisers, to get

1185
01:19:27.800 --> 01:19:31.359
a cumulative audience that really attracted people. He said, at wrestling and present

1186
01:19:31.399 --> 01:19:34.319
it that way, it's an easy
sale. The numbers don't lie. I

1187
01:19:34.359 --> 01:19:39.439
mean the eyeballs. You know,
it's like poles. He's talking about p

1188
01:19:39.560 --> 01:19:41.439
o l ls. How good are
they? Well, I don't know,

1189
01:19:41.479 --> 01:19:44.800
but I know that without them you're
flying blind. And since your business side

1190
01:19:44.800 --> 01:19:46.359
of the wrestling was dependent on eyeballs
out there, you paid attention to the

1191
01:19:46.439 --> 01:19:49.680
numbers. So that was his answer. I mean, I know that the

1192
01:19:49.800 --> 01:19:57.439
general consensus of all of the ad
sales people that I spoke to was the

1193
01:19:57.520 --> 01:20:00.239
fact that they would give you a
variation of the same statement, which was,

1194
01:20:00.319 --> 01:20:03.640
look, we couldn't. We couldn't
package wrestling with anything else. It

1195
01:20:03.720 --> 01:20:08.840
wasn't like today, where you know, there may be an opportunity to package

1196
01:20:08.840 --> 01:20:14.199
it with I think that there's a
quote in the book directly where someone raises

1197
01:20:14.239 --> 01:20:17.720
the example of sort of extreme sports
programming or something like that, something that

1198
01:20:18.399 --> 01:20:23.279
may be more of a crossover,
right, And so that's, yeah,

1199
01:20:23.279 --> 01:20:28.079
that's the first I've heard of that. Who knows. I'm sure he's also

1200
01:20:28.119 --> 01:20:32.640
talking about selling ww syndicated network as
well. It's not just you know that

1201
01:20:32.640 --> 01:20:35.720
that's money that's real to them,
and you know, worldwide pro these shows

1202
01:20:35.760 --> 01:20:40.720
were on syndication, like Challenge and
Superstars were on the WWF side, and

1203
01:20:40.720 --> 01:20:43.960
that was money that was more within
their ability to control how much they got

1204
01:20:44.319 --> 01:20:46.720
in terms of like it's not from
on high people buying T and T and

1205
01:20:46.720 --> 01:20:49.399
TBS ads. Well, they weren't
even on TNT when Jim Hurd was there.

1206
01:20:49.439 --> 01:20:54.520
But suffice to say so. In
terms of Bishop, one of the

1207
01:20:54.520 --> 01:20:58.239
things he says on this episode of
Who Killed WCW Is that you know,

1208
01:20:58.760 --> 01:21:00.119
soon after he arrived, there was
kind of like this word that got to

1209
01:21:00.159 --> 01:21:03.079
him through Bill Shaw that Turner had
said basically, you know, we got

1210
01:21:03.119 --> 01:21:05.399
to do this right or I'm gonna
shut this down. It seemed like a

1211
01:21:05.439 --> 01:21:10.319
revelation. In his book, he
does say Bischoff that is that besides being

1212
01:21:10.319 --> 01:21:14.359
president w W. Bill was a
corporate vice president of administration for Turner Broadcasting.

1213
01:21:14.359 --> 01:21:17.720
This is Bill Shaw, And he
said Ted Turner had added Wcwshaw's portfolio

1214
01:21:17.800 --> 01:21:21.920
roughly a year before with the directions
sell it, shut it down, or

1215
01:21:23.000 --> 01:21:26.359
run it. He was determined to
take another go at turning it around.

1216
01:21:26.359 --> 01:21:29.520
So sell it, shut it down, or run it is not quite Ted

1217
01:21:29.560 --> 01:21:31.560
saying I'm going to shut it down
because everyone always thinks guy right that.

1218
01:21:31.600 --> 01:21:34.520
You know, Ted always said over
my dead body, will wrestling not be

1219
01:21:34.600 --> 01:21:39.319
on a network that I own because
I'm here in a large part because of

1220
01:21:39.319 --> 01:21:45.159
wrestling. Yeah, I can't speak
to that. I haven't heard that from

1221
01:21:45.800 --> 01:21:47.960
from anyone else. I can't sort
of point you to anything objective that would

1222
01:21:48.520 --> 01:21:51.880
give you an indication as to how
true that is. So I have heard

1223
01:21:53.039 --> 01:21:57.039
Eric, you know, make that
point in other venues, but not in

1224
01:21:57.119 --> 01:22:02.039
anything as high profile as this.
But but I don't have anything to necessarily

1225
01:22:02.039 --> 01:22:05.840
tell you if that's true or not. No problem to just worth worth adding

1226
01:22:05.840 --> 01:22:09.279
a little bit of context to some
of the things you know you heard on

1227
01:22:09.319 --> 01:22:12.560
this first episode of the Vice TV
series in terms of you know, how

1228
01:22:12.600 --> 01:22:15.840
they've been framed when said in the
past. Here's an article from July of

1229
01:22:15.880 --> 01:22:18.800
nineteen nineteen and Forbes headline Ted Turner
and Elgionte. I'll tell you where this

1230
01:22:18.840 --> 01:22:25.439
is going, my god. One
of Ted Turner's smallest investments is losing big

1231
01:22:25.479 --> 01:22:28.800
money relative to its size, and
nineteen eighty eight, Turner bought the privately

1232
01:22:28.840 --> 01:22:31.600
held NWA for about eight million dollars
and renamed it World Championship Wrestling. The

1233
01:22:31.720 --> 01:22:34.800
ww with matches featuring wrestlers like Rick
Flair and Lex Luger, is a distant

1234
01:22:34.800 --> 01:22:39.239
second to the WWF, who stars
include et cetera, et cetera. Trouble

1235
01:22:39.279 --> 01:22:43.199
this WW is floundering. It has
lost about five million dollars since Turner bought

1236
01:22:43.199 --> 01:22:45.560
it. This piece reports part of
the blame goes to Herd, a former

1237
01:22:45.560 --> 01:22:49.760
Saint Louis TV manager that Turner hired
last year to run the wrestling operation,

1238
01:22:50.279 --> 01:22:54.680
and Herd's first assignment was to boost
ratings my luring the pre teen viewers.

1239
01:22:54.720 --> 01:23:00.239
Like we said before, but it
says Turner is hardly panicking. It's says

1240
01:23:00.520 --> 01:23:04.239
the ww accounts for less than three
percent of turner Communications total revenues, and

1241
01:23:04.279 --> 01:23:08.720
it does keep him from having to
air a screen full of snow, but

1242
01:23:08.800 --> 01:23:12.319
Turner hates to lose. At a
press conference in May, the media billionaire

1243
01:23:12.319 --> 01:23:15.239
personally introduced the ww's newest mount of
muscle, the seven foot seven, four

1244
01:23:15.279 --> 01:23:18.840
hundred and thirty five pound Argentinian George
Gonzalez, who will wrestle under the nom

1245
01:23:18.880 --> 01:23:25.840
de guerre Elgihonte. As for Bill
Watts, as we wrap up sort of

1246
01:23:26.279 --> 01:23:30.399
you know, getting you set,
getting you contextualized for the arrival of Bischoff

1247
01:23:30.399 --> 01:23:38.119
and WSW and how it's portray here
going forward on the series, what's as

1248
01:23:38.159 --> 01:23:40.279
we said, you know, felt
like he took a lot of credit for

1249
01:23:40.319 --> 01:23:43.520
really cutting a lot of the fat
out and serving up at WCW where a

1250
01:23:43.560 --> 01:23:45.560
lot of dirty work had been done
ahead of time. Bischoff was sort of

1251
01:23:45.560 --> 01:23:48.479
critical of some of the methods that
Wats went about it, you know,

1252
01:23:48.560 --> 01:23:50.880
sort of like with a sledge hammer
instead of a scalpel kind of thing.

1253
01:23:51.720 --> 01:23:55.960
But here's the final verdict for what
it's worth from the cowboy on Bischoff.

1254
01:23:56.680 --> 01:23:59.439
He wrote in his book, Bischoff
took WCW, which everyone thought at one

1255
01:23:59.439 --> 01:24:01.600
point he had turned around and broke
it to the point where it could never

1256
01:24:01.640 --> 01:24:05.880
be fixed. His decisions led to
Turner Broadcasting canceling something it had been associated

1257
01:24:05.920 --> 01:24:11.560
with for more than twenty five years. That is his legacy. One of

1258
01:24:11.560 --> 01:24:15.520
the things Bischoff does is pitch a
game show involving wrestling to Turner, and

1259
01:24:15.560 --> 01:24:19.439
that shows a little bit of an
entrepreneurial spark. He gets involved with Jason

1260
01:24:19.439 --> 01:24:21.920
Hervey. We know Bischoff loves to
name drop Jason Hervey, and they were

1261
01:24:21.960 --> 01:24:26.600
close confidence and worked in a television
production company for years and years. It's

1262
01:24:26.640 --> 01:24:30.600
a it's a shoot, but it's
something that he kind of he kind of

1263
01:24:30.680 --> 01:24:33.560
used smartly to have him stand out
from the other candidates for the executive producer

1264
01:24:33.640 --> 01:24:36.600
role that Bill Shaw hired him for
in nineteen ninety three, which is where

1265
01:24:36.640 --> 01:24:40.439
the series kicks off. So the
game show thing, you know, from

1266
01:24:40.479 --> 01:24:43.680
selling Ninja Stars, which he it's
brilliant. He pulls out the old box,

1267
01:24:43.680 --> 01:24:46.920
doesn't he? Boss? That was
absolutely tremendous. I bet I'll tell

1268
01:24:46.920 --> 01:24:50.039
you I was. I was a
little taken aback, and I questioned the

1269
01:24:51.680 --> 01:24:57.199
legitimacy of this claim that he said. He said that that that Vern only

1270
01:24:57.239 --> 01:25:00.920
took fifty percent of a Ninja Star
I don't know thought the vern we know

1271
01:25:00.960 --> 01:25:06.039
at the last time, we let's
go by the way it's is it a

1272
01:25:06.039 --> 01:25:10.600
big deal? Like, I mean, I've never heard him actually admitted,

1273
01:25:10.640 --> 01:25:14.720
but he actually admits that he was
trying to get you know, for the

1274
01:25:14.720 --> 01:25:16.600
first time, that that he was
trying to make people think the WE was

1275
01:25:16.640 --> 01:25:19.960
invading WW. That's big, isn't
it? Guy? There was a lawsuit

1276
01:25:19.960 --> 01:25:26.880
about that. Yeah, it's interesting
that. What was the exact quote,

1277
01:25:26.960 --> 01:25:30.880
Eric said, it's it's been long
enough, long enough. Yeah, yeah,

1278
01:25:30.600 --> 01:25:33.560
yeah. I think in the past, I know Conrad has tried to

1279
01:25:33.560 --> 01:25:38.600
grill him about that, and he's
tried to make the argument that the story

1280
01:25:38.680 --> 01:25:41.920
was about something else about Old and
Nash coming back to the w's kind of

1281
01:25:41.920 --> 01:25:45.680
extract the revenge and so look,
it's been what nearly thirty years, what's

1282
01:25:45.800 --> 01:25:48.520
what's the use in holding on to
that name. Well, it's funny because

1283
01:25:48.680 --> 01:25:51.479
you know, they they were setting
it up in the way that I thought

1284
01:25:51.479 --> 01:25:56.520
they were gonna they were gonna once
again kind of go back with that with

1285
01:25:56.640 --> 01:26:00.359
that narrative, because he he talked
about Nash and Hall or he being in

1286
01:26:00.479 --> 01:26:01.920
w c W when he got there. You know, it was like these

1287
01:26:01.960 --> 01:26:04.840
things. I'm like, oh,
we're gonna we're gonna fucking do this again.

1288
01:26:05.600 --> 01:26:09.479
He's gonna go through this whole ship
again. And then he doesn't.

1289
01:26:09.560 --> 01:26:12.640
I was like, oh wow,
Like that's nuts. That is nuts.

1290
01:26:12.640 --> 01:26:15.600
I mean you look, yeah,
I mean exactly, it's not like a

1291
01:26:15.800 --> 01:26:17.399
it's not a legal point anymore.
It never was. But yeah, and

1292
01:26:17.439 --> 01:26:20.079
it's not a secret. But it
was like, you know, it's just

1293
01:26:20.239 --> 01:26:25.119
it's nice to hear him actually,
like, you know, say the truth.

1294
01:26:25.479 --> 01:26:28.560
Indeed, Well, we'll see how
much more truth is said. Unlike

1295
01:26:29.520 --> 01:26:36.319
unlike uh uh, there's something that
that that that Dwayne said that he said

1296
01:26:36.600 --> 01:26:40.800
when when when the n W happened
that he he said, oh we gonna

1297
01:26:40.840 --> 01:26:43.800
we're gonna be doing that. Yeah, he wasn't even on TV. He

1298
01:26:43.880 --> 01:26:48.199
wasn't even there. I'm sure he
was watching intention I'm sure he was down

1299
01:26:48.439 --> 01:26:54.520
training with Tom Pritchard and in the
gym there in Connecticut. But we're gonna

1300
01:26:54.520 --> 01:26:56.880
hear from everybody. We're gonna here
from Booker, We're gonna hear from Brett,

1301
01:26:56.880 --> 01:26:59.520
We're gonna hear from Brad Siegel.
We're gonna hear from Eric, We're

1302
01:26:59.520 --> 01:27:02.399
gonna hear from uh, Dick Cheatham
and and so many other people. Stu

1303
01:27:02.520 --> 01:27:06.600
Snyder. There's a lot of revelations
to come, but Boss, I think

1304
01:27:06.600 --> 01:27:10.399
you nailed it. Can't wait to
hear what Big Sexy has to say.

1305
01:27:10.720 --> 01:27:13.520
What does he have? What's one
of his key contributions in episode one,

1306
01:27:13.560 --> 01:27:16.039
as far as TLF is concerned,
hit the clip? Well, yea,

1307
01:27:17.199 --> 01:27:20.560
god damn right, when fucking when? When? When? When? When

1308
01:27:20.680 --> 01:27:26.000
Vision's talking about about Kevin Nash's physique, they cut to him? Fuck yeah,

1309
01:27:26.399 --> 01:27:29.399
oh so said that's it. I
win, I win, I'm going

1310
01:27:29.439 --> 01:27:30.600
home. I'm going to go to
bed now. I can't wait to get

1311
01:27:30.640 --> 01:27:33.000
to that part of it because when
he takes the book, man, you

1312
01:27:33.039 --> 01:27:38.279
look, I mean, he's he's
number three on my list. He's number

1313
01:27:38.279 --> 01:27:42.000
three on my list because you know, Vince Siegal him because you know,

1314
01:27:43.319 --> 01:27:46.079
while coming in he did contribute a
lot of attitude to the nWo act and

1315
01:27:46.239 --> 01:27:50.399
was a very important player and a
big draw for WCW. I'm not sure

1316
01:27:50.439 --> 01:27:55.239
you can point to anything besides star
K ninety eight. Yeah you know what

1317
01:27:55.279 --> 01:27:57.720
I mean, You can't, You
can't, you can't. It was it

1318
01:27:57.760 --> 01:28:00.239
was all Hogan and the nWo sort
of essence, which you know he helped

1319
01:28:00.279 --> 01:28:03.399
characterize. And he did throw Ray
Mysterio into a fucking trailer and that was

1320
01:28:03.439 --> 01:28:05.600
really cool. I'm not saying it
wasn't cool. He did, powered by

1321
01:28:05.760 --> 01:28:10.399
Eric Bishoff through a stage. But
when it was time for keV to deliver,

1322
01:28:10.720 --> 01:28:15.159
things started going south in terms of
n ring when he becomes world champion,

1323
01:28:15.239 --> 01:28:17.600
and of course that last two weeks, which is just a tremendous way

1324
01:28:17.600 --> 01:28:21.439
to end Goldberg's streak if you asked
me, tremendous stuff. And then you

1325
01:28:21.520 --> 01:28:25.720
have him taking the book in ninety
nine. And look, if you want

1326
01:28:25.760 --> 01:28:28.399
to look at the ratings pattern to
determine when WW fell off a cliff,

1327
01:28:28.399 --> 01:28:33.479
it's when Kevin Nash gets the book
hard stop. And when you consider that

1328
01:28:33.600 --> 01:28:40.079
that aforementioned ratio of you got to
consider the contributions to the boom in in

1329
01:28:40.079 --> 01:28:45.880
in comparison and in proportion to the
to the detraction from from things. I

1330
01:28:45.880 --> 01:28:48.960
think Kev's right there because he's there
as through Russo and doing things on television

1331
01:28:49.000 --> 01:28:53.520
that that hurt a lot of the
upside of guys that WCW may may have

1332
01:28:53.560 --> 01:28:58.359
been able to lean into a mischievous
one. Is Kevin but always a fascinating

1333
01:28:58.399 --> 01:29:01.000
guy to listen to. So can't
we to see what we hear from Big

1334
01:29:01.039 --> 01:29:03.840
sex A in the in the weeks
to come as well. Well, guy,

1335
01:29:03.920 --> 01:29:08.920
it was a real pleasure. You've
you've sufficiently wet the appetite for what's

1336
01:29:08.960 --> 01:29:13.600
to come. On Vice it is
TLF Tackles who killed WCW. I want

1337
01:29:13.600 --> 01:29:15.600
to thank you for being here and
I really look forward to connecting again as

1338
01:29:15.600 --> 01:29:19.720
this plays out on Vice. Absolutely, thank you guys, thank you everyone

1339
01:29:19.760 --> 01:29:23.600
for listening, and look forward to
doing it again next week. See you

1340
01:29:23.680 --> 01:29:29.479
next time. Folks is Persidil plays
a production on the Labs Entertainment Group.

1341
01:29:29.600 --> 01:29:32.439
It's content is intended for private use. Holy it could be a wizard,

1342
01:29:32.560 --> 01:29:35.439
which can be OUs. We want