REShow: Tony Khan - Hour 1

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Rich Eisen Show, right now, now, now, n-n-now, live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles.

I think I've said it like five times. I don't see Bill Belichick, you know, uh, letting Mac Jones really control the situation. Today's guests, CEO of All Elite Wrestling, Tony Kong, NBC Sports Broadcaster, Mike Tirico, University of Colorado head coach, Deion Sanders. From ABC's Big Sky Deadly Trails, actor Rex Linn.

And now, it's Rich Eisen. Oh, man, do we have a big show for you today? That's a rhetorical question. It's a rhetorical question.

The answer's yes, I answered it anyway. Oh, good job. We got a big show for you today. Hey! Do we ever. We have a big show today? We...

It's not raining. It's not? Correct?

Can confirm? The big show's coming with Tony Kong? Oh, by the way, yes, Tony Kong's making his way here. AEW's at the Forum. Nice. Yeah. Showtime tonight.

Love it. And two things that we're gonna get out of talking to Tony Kong. Energy, that's number one. And two tickets for TJ to go to tonight's AEW affair. Hook it up. Let's go. AEW Dynamite, live tonight.

So... Because it's Wednesday and you know what that means. Light the candle. I come to you first. We're gonna get you tickets. I just lit it. We're gonna get you hooked.

What do we have here? I wanna go with TJ. We have mahogany teakwood today. Okay, very good. Are you going tonight, Mike?

I wanna go with TJ. Oh, breaking news. Oh! Breaking news.

Get Ray the Driver on, on board. TJ doesn't wanna go to the game with you, but you wanna go to AEW with that. Chris Brockman and DJ Mikey Diaz and Deez Nuts are there. I'm not going.

I'm staying home. Deion Sanders is gonna be calling in. Mike Torrico's calling in. This is great. Like last week I had Fowler.

This week I got Torrico. It's kinda like those... It's kinda funny. I think of when I... I think of Torrico and I think of Fowler. This is your life. But I also think of the answer from...

Cheers. Why am I blanking on Cliff Clavin? Who or three people have never been in my kitchen?

Who or two people have been to my wedding? Like, it's literally true. Long way to go for that joke. We got there though. We got there. Rex Lin's here. Oh, baby.

That's the baby right there. From CSI, Miami Fint. By the way, Better Call Saul fame. Big Sky Deadly Trails airing tonight every Wednesday, 10 p.m. Eastern on ABC. You can stream it on Hulu. Hulu.

Which means, by the way, you can see it here on Roku. Perfect. You know what I'm saying? I'm weaving it all together.

It's like a tapestry. Fire it up. Let's go. Got my power rankings.

Final power rankings going in the playoffs. I need some Stallone stories from Rex Lin about Cliff Hanger. Okay. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. I forgot that he was in it.

I watched it last week. I'm like, whoa. If there's one thing that Rex Lin has, it's stories.

Yes. And he's one of... He's a great talker. He's a diehard Longhorn fan. He might go arch manning for arch manning card... Trading card for trading card with you, TJ. I got him right over here.

Okay, very good. So we're all fired up, but Tony Khan is about to join us in studio. The CEO, GM, and head of creative for AEW. He's, as we all know, associated with the Jacksonville Jaguars who are hosting the Los Angeles Chargers this weekend.

He's busy. One of, by the way, two super wild card games that are going to be quarterbacked by quarterbacks playing in their first postseason games. We got Trevor Lawrence v. Justin Herbert, and then you got Brock Purdy v. Geno Smith in the first game of Super Wild Card Weekend.

Mike Del Tufo furiously looking for the Wile E. Coyote drop that we had him cut many years ago. That's what she said. So Wild Card Weekend coming up.

Wow. So there's another potentially two new first time starting quarterbacks. One for sure.

Another one, we'll see. Mike McDaniel just announced moments ago before going on the air, Tua Tungovailoa will not start. He has been ruled out of this playoff game. And if Tua can't go three weeks after suffering his third concussion of the year, or second serious concussion of the year, or second concussion of the year in which he finished the game concussed, and he finished the game against the Packers on Christmas Day. And after the game, and the day after the game started showing symptoms of a concussion, you got to wonder if Tua is going to be playing anytime soon. And by soon I mean 2023. I know there's a long time to go between now and then, but this is some serious business with Tua.

Skyler Thompson is going to go for the Miami Dolphins against the Buffalo Bills. And I proffer to say this, you never say never. You can never say never in this league. As I mentioned, Brock Purdy has a chance to win the Super Bowl, to go from the last pick in the draft to the Super Bowl.

And I know circumstances are completely different. Teams, coaches, what have you. Experience, Brock Purdy is more experienced than Skyler Thompson. That's a fact.

Okay. And the way that he's operating the offense isn't in the same galaxy of what Skyler Thompson has shown in his starts. The Jets have a terrific defense, but that guy couldn't really put too many drives together. And it sure looks like if the Buffalo Bills and their fans are saying, well, it's too bad that we didn't have a shot at the one seed. And DeMar Hamlin, by the way, released from the hospital earlier this morning as well.

Great news there. This is Bills at home against the Dolphins team, bringing that offense in, the one that could barely beat the Jets. I proffer to say you're going to see the Buffalo Bills hosting a playoff game, divisional playoff weekend, and you could maybe print those tickets, keep in your back pocket. An unfortunate development for the Miami Dolphins.

We'll see how Skyler Thompson could do. One never knows, but that's going to be kickoff on Sunday. Now then, you know, I did my best to not bury the Dolphins, but that is some pretty bad news. But even more disturbing news about Tua Tungovailoa. Christmas Day suffers a concussion.

Don't realize it until the next day. And here we are going to be, let me get the date proper, 15 days into the new year, and he's still not cleared to play. So that'll be something to have a conversation about throughout the rest of the offseason is what happened to Tua, why couldn't he go, and should he keep playing football? Period.

End of story. And then there's the question about the Baltimore Ravens. Mike Torrico, again, top of hour number two. He's calling the Ravens at Bengals on Sunday night of super wild card weekend. And we've been waiting for Lamar. Waiting on Lamar.

That's a new play coming out of off, off, off Broadway in the haba in Baltimore. Waiting on Lamar. That's what we're doing. And the news out of Baltimore seemed to be going in the right direction. And this is all we're doing. We're just waiting on the news. But the news that came out today from my colleagues at the NFL media group, Mike Garofalo reporting along with Ian Rappaport on Good Morning Football this very morning on NFL Network, Lamar quote unquote faces an uphill battle to play Sunday night.

Ian saying the knee is still not quite right. In this day and age, when you can't explain anything, you go conspiracy. Conspiracy and craziness fills the void. We see it all over our country. We see it all over the media. We see it all over the world.

And in the sports world, we've been doing this for quite some time. Craziness, conspiracy fills the void. And when somebody doesn't sign a long-term contract with a team because they feel the team has not offered fair enough terms for them to actually sign on the dotted line and this sort of stuff happens, you think first thing he's not playing because he's pissed he didn't get a contract that he wanted back in training camp.

And I will say this to those folks. You're hearing nothing of the sort coming out of Baltimore and you can never ascribe anything that you consider conventional or typical or even conspiratorial to Lamar Jackson. He is just one of one. When we say one of one, a unicorn, he truly is a unicorn.

Not just with his play, but with his personality. I don't know. And if his knee's not right, then it's gone further south than week 15. We just talked about how things change with Tua from week 17, Christmas weekend.

We just talked about that. Or week 16, right? Week 15, I'll tell you what, guys. I was in Cleveland in a meeting room with John Harbaugh telling us that Lamar could have played that weekend if he braced it up. But he doesn't want to wear a brace.

It doesn't make sense to make him wear a brace. That's not the way he plays football. So they decided to just give him the week off and they feel really confident that they could get him back the next week. That was week 15.

It's now week 19 and he's facing an uphill battle. So something has happened in his rehab. Something has happened with his knee that the Ravens didn't suspect or were concerned about back in week 15. And I know you could sit here and say, that sounds conspiratorial because something's got to be up. I hear nothing. Nobody is saying at all about Lamar doing this because he doesn't like the contract. And that also doesn't sound like his brand. The Ravens love Lamar Jackson.

They do. Any time in this league, you hear something in a meeting or you hear something in the media, sometimes you can get that person off to the side or anybody in the organization off to the side. And anybody who has an ax to grind, and there's a lot of ax grinders in the NFL off to the side and they'll be like, yeah, you're right. Something's up with this kid. Something's up with this relationship. It's terrible.

And they'll, the knives will be out. It never happens with anybody associated with Lamar and this team with Lamar. Never. And why hasn't he signed and why isn't he playing? I don't know other than the fact that he is a unicorn and one of one and beats to his own drum and there's nobody like him. And here's a perfect example. In this meeting, Kurt Warner, who was doing the game with me asks John Harbaugh, Hey, I'm watching film of Lamar. And sometimes he will make a read. I can't believe he's seen it. Like it's insane.

Pre-snap it's covered up post snap. He's running in the other direction and you know, he makes this incredible read. He finds this guy that I don't think anybody could find.

He found him. He goes, do you sometimes sit there and wonder the same thing, John? And Harbaugh tells a story about exactly a moment like this, where he makes an incredible read, incredible play, comes off the field, potentially after a touchdown and go up to him and listen to Lamar.

How did you see that? And he says, just playing ball coach. And then Harbaugh says, another day, another play, could be same game, could be another day, another week, two weeks later, three weeks later, Lamar will make a play kind of the opposite of it, where he makes a throw he shouldn't have. And he asks him like, why'd you do it? And he says to him, just playing ball coach.

Same answer. He's just playing ball. He's just being Lamar and they adore him, but deep down you've got to wonder if his lack of availability will rankle if he doesn't answer the bell this weekend. And Tyler Huntley adds his name to the list of, as it appears, seven quarterbacks about to make their first career start on this super wildcard weekend and goes into the jungle with Joe Barrow, trying to officially begin, not trying to, he will officially begin his AFC title defense this very weekend on Sunday night from the whole country. And if they win, they're going to Buffalo. Oh boy. And so, um, I mean, both of those games could get ugly.

I mean, not Georgia TCU ugly, but I don't think anybody can get that ugly, but yes, certainly when you're dealing with Allen and Burrow and Skyler Thompson and Tyler Huntley making their first career starts. So all I'm saying is this, I hope Lamar starts because it, like I said, a few weeks ago, it's a different team, a different story, a different game, a different sense, but this is something that despite hearing, when I say they love him, they love him and we'll always lace their comments with how much they love him. But if he's not available this weekend, what does that mean for the conversations this spring? And in that regard, I will just offer this. I would like to think that NFL network and management there and three 45 park Avenue appreciates my work and would say the same thing about me.

If a microphone was in front of them, they love me. Um, but this weekend, super wild card weekend and the following weekends or the combine of the draft, if I'm not consistently available, if I don't finish the season two years in a row for them because of something that happens to me or I couldn't get through or couldn't get past, even though it's no fault of my own, but it could be based on my way of doing my job or way of putting myself on the line that I might, might be more dangerous than other people who could do my job. I'm trying to, as you could see, make the analogy here. Then contract times come up. Do you think my agent would hear about it?

The only difference between me and Lamar, a couple of them, he's definitely more physically gifted than me. And I definitely would not have my mother represent me. Could you imagine Evelyn Eisen in a, in a, in a, um, stop.

I'm trying to at the right now. Let's take a break. Tony con's coming out here on the rich eyes and show. We'll talk about the Jaguars making the playoffs.

We'll talk about AEW, full MFCs and Fuego to use a phrase of art. Dan Patrick, Mike Torrico and Dion Sanders also still to come. Welcome to talk the ultimate small rewatch podcast where each week we watch every episode of small Ville, a show that changed our lives forever and perhaps your lives too. I'm Michael Rosenbaum. Hello.

I am Tom willing. What was the sign off now? Always remembers talk Ville. That's it always hold on to smallville folks.

We love you can do without you. We've got a great season two coming up. Catch up with season one or start season two on YouTube or wherever you listen. Back here on the rich eyes and show radio network powered by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

Call click Grainger.com or just stop by a big night. What a, what a, what a week it's been in Inglewood. We had the national championship game on Monday night and so far and right next door live tonight from the Kia forum in Los Angeles at eight Eastern time on TBS is AEW dynamite and here to talk about that and so much more is in fact the CEO GM and head of creative of AEW as well as the chief football strategy officer of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Wait a minute. The general manager is sporting director of Fulham FC, which is on fire. Joining us here on the rich eyes and show is Tony Khan. Good to see you, Tony.

Great to see you rich. Thanks for having me. It's awesome to see you whenever I can, but this is the first time I've been able to see you in front of cameras and I love your show and it's an honor to be able to talk about AEW and the Jags and Fulham, but we have this huge show tonight on TBS so I appreciate you having me on before I go to the forum for the big night. So let's, before we dive in about tonight specific, let's talk about AEW in particular because I interviewed your dad in London as a matter of fact on NFL network a few years ago and asked him about AEW and I got the sense that you had to twist his arm a little bit that he wasn't like, why are we taking on WWE?

Like why are we doing like, is it possible to do that? What, what, what gave you this light bulb over your head to go ahead and create AEW? Well, there were a number of factors. I thought for years there should be competition in pro wrestling and I felt like there was an opportunity with the TV space that given what was happening with TV rights to launch a new wrestling company, there would be a lot of interest and frankly there were a lot of wrestlers in 2019 that were going to be available to launch a wrestling company with. Chris Jericho is a huge name and he was a free agent and so in 2018 I started having really serious conversations with Chris Jericho and there was this great group of wrestlers wrestling for Ring of Honor that I began speaking to at the time, Yom Bucks, Cody Rhodes, Hangman Page, a number of others and together we got a wrestling company going and in 2019 there was really as I predicted big demand for the television and we ended up with this great show Wednesday Night Dynamite on TBS every week and now we have a second show Friday Night Rampage on TNT which is great and it's amazing how quickly it's grown but my dad actually, you're correct, he was not a believer in it at first. My sense was I picked up what he was putting down, huh? Yeah, you did. Pretty much. Now, did you ever get a message from Stamford, Connecticut, home of the World Wrestling Entertainment and Federation, whatever you want to call them, did you ever get a message from them, don't try this, think twice?

No, not like that, no. I think the competition's been really good for the sport and I think for wrestling fans we've seen there's more people watching wrestling than there were and it's great, there's a bigger audience for everybody, it's a bigger pie and I think AEW has really done some of the best shows in all of wrestling, we built these big franchises. We have pay-per-views, we've had Double or Nothing which we started in Las Vegas and it's become a great tradition, now it's at T-Mobile Arena, it started MGM Grand in 2019 and then we've got All Out around Chicago area, Labor Day weekend, Full Gear, we just had a really huge event at Prudential Center where the Devils play. You got AEW Revolution on March the 5th at Chase Center, the fourth iteration of AEW Revolution.

That's it, coming around and we have these four big quarterly events. We also launched a fifth big event on pay-per-view, Forbidden Door, which is a partnership between AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling. So we've partnered with companies a lot, so it's really interesting what's happening out there in the marketplace of wrestling right now but certainly AEW, one of the leaders in the sport.

It's really unbelievable because I remember, who do we have here at the outset of AEW's creation? Chris Jericho and Cody Rhodes. We had both of them but didn't we have, I'm forgetting, we had somebody else who, when he appeared on AEW, like WWE said, yeah you can't come here now. Was it Kevin Smith? Wasn't that him? Oh yeah, he was on the initial episode. It was Kevin Smith. Wasn't that Kevin Smith?

It was Kevin Smith, he was with Jericho, they came in and did an interview there. Yeah, they did it together. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so, I mean, you have definitely, Tony, overcome quite a bit to grow this thing.

There's no question about it. Where does it go from here? What's the future of it, do you think? It's funny, I think we can go to where, first of all, we've got something special. You know, doing a show every week, you know firsthand like what it is to do daily, weekly shows and that we built something special. Now we have this audience where it's appointment viewing for so many people around the world.

Wednesday nights for Dynamite, now on TBS here in America, but it's also on all over the world. You know, we're the worldwide leader in a number of markets. Like, for example, in England, we have the biggest TV audience by far, because AEW on ITV, we have this great audience and a great partnership. And, you know, we have a great audience in Canada on TSN and different places all over. But certainly here in America, you know, the way the opportunity, I think you'd appreciate this, because I've known socially, I ran into you first, told you I was a big fan when my dad bought the Jaguars probably almost 12 years ago.

And, you know, it's funny, I was at a party. And at the time, my friend Kevin Reilly was the president of TBS and TNT. And basically in 2018, I went up to him and said, hey, Kev, I have this idea.

I was going to ask, are you looking at TV rights right now? And he was. And he thought wrestling TV rights was really interesting. And the idea of starting a wrestling company, I pitched to him at a cocktail party in April 2018. And that's kind of how this all got started.

Very close out here in LA. I love it. So, and again, I don't want to create anything, but just to get an idea of the father-son relationship. Have you said the four words? Or are you comfortable feeling saying the four words to your dad? I told you so. Have you said those four words? Not at all.

I mean, not in so many words. Did I just say it for you? No, I think he said it for himself. What's amazing is that there'd be no need to do that because my dad actually in Forbes, no less, and in other places, multiple major media outlets has gone out and said, he sees now it was a great idea and he was wrong. And one of the outlets, he actually said, this is a great lesson in parenting. This is why sometimes you should trust your kids. And so that's great, I thought. I love that.

My kids are still not getting their iPad tonight if they don't do their homework. I'll tell them right now if they're out there watching, but I do love this story. It's amazing. And again, AEW Dynamite live tonight from the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, 8 Eastern on TBS.

Tony Kohn, the CEO, GM, and head of creative of AEW here on The Rich Eisen Show. Let's now put on the hat of the chief football strategy officer of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Tony, what was that Saturday night game like? What an amazing night. It was one of the greatest nights of my life and it was, what a special day it was. It was like the perfect day. And I was so happy for everybody associated with the Jags, the fans who waited so long to have a game like that and to have that kind of big prime time, winner take all game.

I think, you know, we've been waiting for that in Jacksonville. And so the support of the fans was unprecedented, but also everybody in the community rallied around the players who deserved it. I mean, there's people that have been with the team for a long time that have seen a lot, that have been through a lot. And I was so happy for all of them, but also really happy for the coaching staff that have come in.

Some people that have been here and been here through a lot, but also Doug Peterson and what he's done. I just think Doug Peterson has performed a miracle. He's come in and done an amazing job and rallied the locker room. And from where we were at two and six, three and seven, his confidence never wavered. I was there every step of the way, every game with him before he addressed the team. And he never stopped believing. He said when we were two and six, three and seven, and I never stopped believing. And in part because Doug never stopped believing.

We were two and six, three and seven. Doug always said, this is going to come down to the last week. He said it's going to come down to week 18. He always said it's going to come down to week 18.

He never wavered. And that's what happened. It's what it did.

And it came down that way. And again, I know it's definitely a turning point everybody keeps pointing to was the London game, the game in London. And I know that's also significant for your family as well in London, in Wembley, and that he threw those interceptions and took it upon himself to say, I don't want to feel that way again.

And damn, was he really putting his money where his mouth is right there. You got a good Trevor Lawrence story where you realize you got this whole thing right. I mean, you probably knew it from Jump Street, but you got a good Trevor Lawrence story? Trevor Lawrence is amazing. I mean, I think Trevor Lawrence, a great story about Trevor Lawrence. I mean, first of all, there were games this season earlier when we were two and six, three and seven along the way where Trevor Lawrence really, for the first time I saw like coming up in the locker room and telling people that wasn't acceptable.

And I would say those words. There was one time he did and I think that helped. And I think it was a very positive thing because you've seen the way the team's gone and he's taken it upon himself and he's performed, he's led, but also everybody stepped up. It's been a team effort and these have been team wins and from Doug, the whole coaching staff, everybody stepped up and at some point everybody's been accountable and really worked really hard. And this is my 11th season working at the Jaguars and I've never seen a leader like Doug.

And we have great things. It's so great to have a quarterback people can believe in, somebody reliable like Trevor who's been so great. And I'm a statistician and when you look at the level of statistical improvement that Trevor's had, it's unprecedented.

It really is. Are you a walking next gen stat? Is that what you're saying? I am on some of the NFL committees where we do analyze the next gen stats. I also own True Media Networks. I'm sorry if I mentioned a competitor. No, I'm part of this is we actually work together. So True Media Networks actually, we work with the NFL, we work with a number of the major media outlets and also 25 out of the 30 major league baseball clubs get their analytics engineering support from True Media Networks.

So okay, so let's get into this then. So many people think analytics is taking over sports too much. Too much. I mean, baseball is the one that it's always a third rail subject when it comes to baseball. Certainly when I see pitchers taken out because it's the third time through the order and gut and feel no longer are as important commodities as the numbers.

What do you say to something like that? Well, again, as an engineering and service provider, I can't speak to that because I think that's the same thing we fight in the NFL or in football in England, in the Premier League. There's a balance between analytics and decision making from the heart and I think it's great and that's the balance you have to find. And honestly, I love the coaches of the Jaguars and Fulham and I love working in the front office. I love, you know, Trent Baalke is the general manager and myself working in that sporting director general manager capacity at Fulham. I think it's great to have that in the front office when you're looking at signing players and also then the most important thing, players going out on the field in the NFL or going out in the pitch in the Premier League and performing at that level. That's human beings and statistical analysis is only a part of it, but it's an important part of it. That's why I use it for both sports and then to have coaches like Doug Peterson at the Jaguars and Marco Silva at Fulham who want to work with this and understand it and then they go out and do the human side.

Are they just telling you that, Tony? It's the best balance. Doug is known for being, just for an example, because I know you probably, I think you and the listeners probably follow the NFL a little more than the Premier League, but with the NFL, Doug is known for being a really aggressive fourth down two-point conversion guy. Every fan knows that. So do you, like give me a for instance of what you might do before this game against the Chargers.

I mean, not to have you tell anything that you, what are you willing to share I guess? That before this huge game in Duval County that you as the Jaguars financial strategy, chief financial strategy officer will tell him? Well, I do the football strategy actually.

So it's like, but the financial side would be like, I'm sorry, I said financial, I mean chief football strategy officer. So now it would be, you know, to be fair, like what I've done over the years, I started out and I would be in the football office like 80 plus hours a week. And now, because originally when I started working at Fulham, started outsourcing some of my work that I would do as far as the analytics on the weekly opponent or the team, the self-scout or free agency, some of that stuff, I'm still doing a good amount of the work in the office. And also I have a laptop I bring on the road, like it's out in the car, out in the parking lot here and I take it everywhere I go. But you know, I'm at the wrestling show and I have my NFL laptop ready to go while I'm writing the match card, laying out who's gonna wrestle who on the big match.

And I also have my NFL laptop, I might have the coach of Fulham calling to talk about players. So you have to be ready to multitask, just like as a parent, you have multiple kids, you have multiple responsibilities and you love everything you're doing. So for me, I really do think, you know, stats are a part of the decision making process, but you want to have a balance, but it's great to have a coach that gets that. So like Doug is known for reading these reports, so it's like, you know, you don't want to spend all those hours, whether it's me doing the 80 hours or now we divvy it up. And Doug brought a great staff with him, that's part of it. Doug brought people that really have done a lot of analytics work and in Philadelphia we're doing a lot of this. And great people now that are part of the Jaguars organization that I work with, that I really like. Ryan Pagnetti is somebody that I work with and we have Zach Beislein who's been at the Jaguars and does a great job and a great department there and a great analytics department on the business side that chips in and helps under Ari Lanes-Monrooz and great people and we all work together and put together information for the coaches that they can use on the opponents, on ourselves, and then free agency, the draft. My big thing on a week like this would be putting together reports, again, on some tendencies of an opponent or on ourselves. On the Chargers tendencies.

I can help you with that. They're going to go for it on fourth down, the Chargers. Well, that's good. That's a smart thing to do sometimes. Brandon Staley is the king of that.

Doug also is some famous fourth down, sir. And I do think it's going to come down to, at the end of the day, it's going to be a great game. It's going to be lit there, man. I'm really excited.

You should be. And the other thing that's amazing is for the fans to have a home playoff game. How amazing.

I mean, truly amazing. Because the fans, we were talking about it the other day, the fans, when you might criticize the Jacksonville Jaguars or, hold on a minute, the worst thing is to go to commercial break in the draft when the Jaguars are on the clock. The disrespect that Jaguars fans, they feel they get. And it's just like, hey, we're definitely not going to do that to you the last two years when it was first on the clock.

But wherever you land, I tell, it's not my fault. I see it on Twitter later on that night. Lit up. And whenever we talk about them, though, the engagement that we get through the roof. Well, I appreciate that.

Through the roof. They're the best. And now with the teams performing well, you see the Jaguars fans when we haven't won games, when we've had the number one pick and the seasons have been hard, they've always been there and they've always rallied and they always believe in the draft. I'm a big believer in the draft process. It's some of my first time seeing you run at the Combine because I'm a regular at the Combine and a lot of my work people ask me a lot of my opinions about players and I actually use a lot of the information from the Combine because there's a lot of valuable information that can be gathered there. It's only one part of the process because the games are the most important thing by far. The games that the college football players play.

But the Combine is a big part of it. Something I'm a big believer in and actually probably the most useful thing I think I do in the offseason is I work a lot in the undrafted free agents. So there's been a lot of good players through the years that I've been able to dig up that didn't get drafted that I called up and signed. Mike Hilton is a good one. Mike Hilton doesn't play for us anymore but Mike Hilton is a good player in the NFL. Right now Trey Herndon is really doing a nice job for us. That's a player that I called up and signed at the end of the draft. Corey Grant did a great job for us and we went to the AFC Championship game. He was a big contributor on the team. Jared Wilson is a safety who played for us for a while and had a very nice career for us including making plays in the playoffs in 2017 and a number of players like that so I really do enjoy that part of it too trying to use stats to help and then also put stuff together because having a GM like Trent Balke who has experience with analytics just like Doug in Philadelphia worked with analytics a lot.

Trent's done a lot of that also in San Francisco so it's great having people that believe in it and want to use it. I got a couple more questions for you Tony Khan on the Jaguars and it may be out of your if you will title but so much conversation certainly with the success of the international series and I've called games. I've called games in Wembley. I've called games in Tottenham. I called a game in Munich. Fans go crazy. Absolutely nuts. You know it. You're also as we mentioned the general manager at Fulham. You know the sports world over there and the idea that the league might have teams there just stationed there or a division there.

Do you think that that is feasible? I don't know. It's not something I have studied as much. I mean I study what we do when the Jaguars go play but for us we're still based in Jacksonville so it's you know been a part of the season for us and it's become a big part of the Jaguars season and it's become a really great thing for the Jags I think. So you know as far as a permanent thing I don't know. I can only speak to the traveling I do you know going back to Fulham but you know it's certainly an interesting thought.

Okay and then again I'm sure this is out of your title but I'm going to ask it anyway. Who is the individual in the Jaguars organization who decided to take the pants off of Jacksonville and put a thong on him? What happened there Tony? I don't know. I don't know whose remit that is. I don't know how that happened but it's a good question.

Do you need some analytics on that one? Well it's like I think at some point like it's like Daffy Duck you know didn't wear pants but now today would Daffy Duck be wearing pants? I don't know. Maybe he'd be wearing that that Jacksonville thong thing. Well I saw again on Saturday night Jacksonville was in full uniform but one day it just it caught a lot of people by surprise the tights the whole situation right there Tony. Jacksonville is a team player you know at one point in the pandemic we had Jacksonville in the stadium stampede.

Yes. And I did a wrestling match and put together this amazing match that took place in the Jaguars stadium in the peak of the pandemic we did an empty stadium and they fought all over the offices and it was actually pretty amazing but Jackson DeVille took a Judas fact from Chris Jericho and Chris Jericho just laid that mascot out and it's an amazing gift that gets used to this day and that was a great moment. Okay very good appreciate it.

Well just whoever is in the organization who did that just tell him I said hello in the same way that the thong did to the rest of the America and the world. AEW tonight is live from the Kia Forum in Los Angeles 8 Eastern on TBS. AEW Revolution is going to be in the home of the Warriors Chase Center on March the 5th in San Francisco that's the fourth iteration of that. TJ you want in tonight right that's the most that's the last order of business is TJ wants to be there tonight. I would love to be there. Mike Del Tufo are you in?

Can't go tonight I thought it was tomorrow so I was ready. Oh I see what you're saying okay he can't can can can you give TJ Ray the driver? He's got his own driver in Los Angeles his name is Ray if you ever need one. Great.

Well that's good for now. TJ and Ray are welcome so I'll if Ray wants to come into the show he can come in. That's great but TJ you can come and we'll give Ray a ticket too.

Appreciate you Tony. So it's like like the Curb Your Enthusiasm I don't want him to have to wait in the car we should get him a ticket too. Is he going to sit out there and read the freak book?

What are you going to do? Can't sit out there? Read a freak book?

I'd only take him to get into the pat you know. At AEW we want people to come inside we don't want the driver to sit out at the forum and read the freak book. I like it. Great reference Tony. Thank you Rich.

Great reference. At Tony Khan on Twitter at Tony R Khan on Instagram everybody check out AEW Dynamite live tonight congratulations on the raging success of Fulham FC congratulations on the Jaguars winning the AFC South and hosting a playoff game may they go on the run that you hope for and congrats on the raging success that is AEW as well All Elite Wrestling. Thank you Rich I'm excited and everybody please check out the show tonight on TBS we're on 8 p.m. Eastern 7 p.m. Central out here in LA you could watch it on TBS East at 5 p.m. or you could watch the West Coast feed at 8 p.m. and we're going to have a great show tonight Rich I'm going to get you in the ring one of these days. Okay sure what do you want me to do? Well I mean you're running the combine so I've seen the kind of athlete you are so I think you could easily run the ropes. Okay and I think we could teach you and it's a very difficult thing but I think it would make great content and wrestling has great engagement AEW has millions of fans. You don't need to sell me on that I would be all in on it. We'll get you. You know and maybe we could we could maybe we could fold the charity into it or something like that. That would be great I would love that and we could and tie it in I mean and run Rich run you know that's once a year so we could like space it out that way you only have to work out twice a year.

That's a you know it's not curved but it's a castanzo line that's a mic drop you're out that's a good way to end it. Tony Khan right here on the Rich Eisen Show. Back here on the Rich Eisen Show 844-204-RICH is the number to dial here in the program. Fun chat with Tony Khan right there. So you're going? You're in?

I believe so. And you're going? I'm not going. What are you not going? I can't go. You said earlier you're going.

You want to go? I said it. By the way great tracksuit.

This is different look for you. This is run DMC this week. Rich Eisen Show co-EP and chief booker Liz Weld came out asked you if you're part of run DMC this week.

Performing at the Forum. Well you know what this is born out of right? No. He's been getting some grief. Yeah for wearing the same stuff all the time. He's been wearing the same Dallas Stars pullover for the last like 10 days. He claims that he's got two of them and I was like okay so take a picture of them side by side and show us. Wouldn't refuse this.

I refuse anything. Comes in today Adidas tracksuit. Next tomorrow might be changed up something else. TJ says it's a good look.

It is a good look it's different. Adam said I'm clashing. The only issue is clash.

Because of clash. I'm like Adam you've nothing to say to me. You got Adidas with the Nike hat. It's like yeah I'm clashing. But look Rich you got to crawl for your walk right? You got to crawl for your walk so he's getting there.

Now we'll get to the point where we get all the brands to match. I told Tony Khan you leave your house for nothing and he was very he was very appreciative of your patronage this evening. You know it's funny because someone else asked me that they're like wait a minute you live 16 minutes from the Forum and SoFi and I'm like yeah. And they went you won't go to a football game and I'm like no. Correct.

You go to the Forum and go to wrestling. I'm like yeah it's different. It's easier to get in and out of the Forum. Getting out of SoFi is a nightmare.

It's a nightmare. Same place obviously. It's kind of it's right next door.

It's different. You go to the Forum you drive right out. Okay so you're going uh who's gonna be your plus one? Who you got where you going?

I mean it depends on how many I can get extra. You know I got a whole crew of guys that are just like texting me already like yo. Wow. Did you at least let them know?

I mean because they're you just literally had the guy who created the whole damn thing. I was told to call them and give them a final head count. Very good. And then we appreciate you for hooking that up. And then we find out you left your house last night for a red carpet of a short film that you have you appeared in as an actor?

Is that true? I do some stuff man. I do some stuff. Shout out to my boy Mikey Reva. He had his short film called Terry which is spelled P Terry like pterodactyl. Okay got it okay.

You know a great like imagine like an Edward Scissorhands meets a Gooney type vibe. You know it was Mikey's first. And you played what in this film? I played Principal Boyd so I was the principal. Did you get to name your your character?

I didn't I did not. Okay how did you prepare for Principal Boyd? I watched a lot of old 80s high school flicks just to get the principal vibe down.

Really? Was there a certain uh uh like slacker vibe from uh Back to the Future? Did you go did you go uh Breakfast Club? No it was really Janis Morgan Freeman from Stand By Me. Stand and Deliver. Stand and Deliver?

That's Edward James Olmos. Okay very good. You know I didn't really man it just went in there and it was like a cool little little script and it was you know I had to deal with a teacher who was also trying to be a TikTok star and he had left his head shots in the printer much like you left your resume in the printer's drill job. That happened.

It's amazing I got I got out of KRCRTV alive. So I had to confront him and then introduce the new student who had uh was born with ridiculously long arms. So TJ are we on the Golden Globes next year? Next year Golden Globes. TJ this guy comes in and goes oh I filmed that in July I didn't tell you guys about that? You did tell him to say something to me TJ I remember you saying something. Rich by the way I have a present for you I gotta bring.

What do you got? I'm not gonna tell you I'm gonna bring it tomorrow. That's a you've got me on pins and needles. And by the way I said.

Is it is it a Dallas Stars shirt? No. By the way did I say Stand By Me? I'm sorry. You can't lean on me. Lean on me.

I mean what was going on over there man? My hand was free. TJ you're ready for the Golden Globes next year stop. It was it was cool so shout out to those guys. That is cool TJ.

Okay very good. Great segment. Mike Torrico is about to join us on this program and then my power rankings your phone calls at 844-204-RICH number to dial.

Deon Sanders top of hour number three and then Rex Lynn in studio. What a day. What a day. Fantastic. Fantastic. Uh we and again 844-204-RICH is the number to dial right here to have a conversation we do have time for you right here on the show.

But hour two with Mike Torrico coming up. Speaking of the Golden Globes you know. Where are we going with this? Here's what we're going with this. I'm gonna win one next year?

No here's what we're going with this. Brock and I are gonna be posting it. You know House of House of the Dragon I I did like okay. I did enjoy it. I know you boy you kind of did you you were done with the way that Game of Thrones ended.

I I need I need a more I need more runway. I had every intention of watching it. I have to tell you I enjoyed Severance. Did you watch Severance?

I did. Okay I thought it was brilliant. I really liked it. And it was unique.

Yeah. And I enjoyed it and I thought the last episode of it I was truly on like one of the greatest last episodes of the first season of any show like it was up there with Lost. So good. Okay um The Crown is a tremendous show as well.

I love that. Ozark is one of the best shows I have seen. It's up it's up there with all of my favorites. Dude you know everybody but you could say that about any show and series finale never done but I thought it I actually kind of dug it. It's not easy to end a show and then we all know how I feel about Better Call Saul. Ozark to me is up there with Better Call Saul. It really is. It's up there. House of Dragon won the Golden Globe above all those four other shows and it's just like come back. Come on. Whack.

Come on. Yeah the Golden Globes are kind of. I don't know these Europeans uh you know.

I blame it on Europe. I don't get that one. Rich.

I don't get it either. I don't get that one but if anybody could beat Bob Odenkirk for the award for Best Actor Kevin Costner did for Yellowstone. I mean. And he is awesome in that.

Hour two coming up. For over 40 years Jim Ross has been the voice of wrestling. Nobody has stories like Jim Ross and he shares his tales with co-host Conrad Thompson on Grilling JR. Best Nickman was the top heel in the Attitude Era. It was a fresh character. It was new. It was material that we had not seen or heard to that date. We couldn't have created a bigger or better heel.

No. We wanted to make more heels and we tried to make more heels and we did but nothing compared to Vince.