An NBA Playoff Preview With Doc Rivers, Plus Nick Khan on WrestleMania 42 and the Next Big WWE Stars

The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by Fandall. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. I had new rewatchables that went up on Monday with a basic instinct. Kindergarten cop is coming next Monday. We also launched a brand new narrative podcast called the Gata. First two episodes are up. Please check it out. I was involved with this one. If you like Miami Vice Scarface, the 80s cocaine shows, this has it all. So please go check it out. I have a big podcast coming up. Doc Rivers, a dramatic return and we're going to talk a lot of hoops with him. We're going to talk about the award stuff, the season, the best player he saw in person, playoff matchups, what happened with the bucks season, Yannis. We go into all of it. And normally that would have been the podcast. But Nick Conn, a very important person of WWE in boxing, bull riding, all kinds of things. And somebody had known for a long time. He came over and we did a wide ranging talk on a whole bunch of things. So this is a massive podcast. Wanted to mention the playoffs are starting this weekend. I do a fandall bet a little bit later. But I really wanted to take an upset. I love taking an upset every year. Every year there isn't an upset. And I don't see the matchup for the upset this weekend. Minnesota and Atlanta seem to be the two live ones to jump on. And I don't, I just think Denver and the Nick's are going to advance. The one I think is the most interesting for an underdog pick if you wanted to get nuts is the Lakers. Lakers in seven is 10 to one. Lakers in six is 22 to one. And the Lakers to win this series is plus 530. I just feel like we're going to get Luca back before the end of this series. And if even if it's 21 after three, the longer that series goes on, the think the worse something it is for Houston. I just think the odds are a little out of whack. I don't think Houston should be minus 750 against anybody. But we're probably going to go chalk for around one, but that's the only one I would look at. The other thing I want to mention, we got a word today that Cade and Luca are now eligible for first team on VA. Or second team on VA or MVP or whatever you want because they're a peel posh process work. So I'm just going to give you my ballot with the adjusted Luca. First team, Yokeh, Wembee, Luca, SGA, Jalen Brown. Second team, Durin, Kauai, Mitchell, Cade, Brunson. Third team, Chet, KD, Jalen Johnson, Murray, Maxi is what I'm going with for on VA. I have Luca as number four MVP, Jalen five, Wembee three. And I have not handed in my ballot yet. And I know I said on Tuesday, I was voting SGA for MVP. And we cut a social clip out of it. And I am just agonizingly talking about how I don't understand why I'm not voting for Yokeh's when he had one of the greatest offensive seasons I've ever seen in the greatest of his career. And yet also laid out the case why I think the vote has to be SGA. Believe me, NBA, not me because I should have already sent my ballot in. Disappear process dragged it out. I have not sent in my ballot yet. I don't know when the deadline is. I still don't know who I'm voting for for MVP. I've changed my mind. I've had a conscious uncoupling with my original SGA thing. I just over and over again keep thinking what in 10 years what am I going to think? Am I going to regret doing this? Because there's been a couple MVP picks I've regretted over the years. I'm just not ready to make a pick yet. I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry. I already said I was voting for SGA. I apologize to the OKC fans in SGA and his family. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I'm just going to think about it for the next two days. But it's up in the air. So that's what I got for you. All right, we're going to take a break, bring in Pearl Jam, talk basketball, dock reverse, stick around for Nikon. Really good action packed fun podcast next. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandall. The NBA postseason is here and Fandall knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. Fandall, the best place to bet the teams, players and plays during their playoff run. Build the same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip off. Don't forget with Fandall, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the Fandall Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem call 1-800-Gamber call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut. All right, late afternoon, Thursday, my friend dock reverse is here. We're back. We did it. We're back. I did a little 2 1/2 year segue. You know, I told you this, but you're just going to make your ego just humongous, Bill. But I don't know how many times I've even had guys like, "Hey, I like you on the coach, but I really like you on the podcast with Bill. You got to get back." And I'm like, "Okay, okay, I got you. I hear you." So I'm back. Yeah, I'm taking advantage of you during the playoff. So at least a couple times. Well, the best thing is getting you right out of it. You're just coaching. You went and saw these guys. You went against all these players. I want to go. We can talk about the buck stuff much later. First, I'm going to talk about Curry because you have real ties to that because your daughter married into the Curry family and you know, special emotional ties. I was there last night. I took my son who had never seen, you know, a real Steph Curry steaks game. He'd never been in the house for that. And the whole time I'm going, you know, they're down 8, they're down 6, they're down 10. I'm like, Curry's going to make a run. The Clipper's crowd is going to get really nervous and it's going to be awesome. Just wait. And then he does it. That's because you're a Clipper fan. You've seen that. Like I feel it's just saying this because I've experienced it. I can feel the anxiety through the TV from the crowd. Like you can you can literally feel it. And it was great too. Because for most of the game, you didn't hear the going to save crowd at all. And then all of a sudden Al Horford makes a couple of those 3's because he's as good as Steph was and he was amazing. Al Horford saved that game. Yes, he did. And poor Zingas kept them hanging around. He was go to, there was a little Gees Santos. Gees Santos in there. And then Curry did his stuff. And it was interesting that the way the way they into it is where they have the wall. And it's all real Clipper fans. Right. So the whole side of the arena is all Clipper fans. The other side of the arena was basically all Golden State fans because they bought in on that side. Yeah, I couldn't figure out where the North was coming from. It was it was it was to my right face in the corner. And so Curry gets going. And when he hits that shot with 50 seconds left, which you knew was coming. And the way he goes with Dream on now, it's like they have this crazy ESP thing. And he hits it. People in my section left. And they didn't leave because they wanted to be the traffic. They left because they were like, I've been doing this with the Clippers my whole life. I know how this game is going to end. I might as well leave now, so they were escaping like a horror movie house. It was rough. Is it, you know, it was such an interesting game. Because I was texting him back and forth. Callie was at the game. My daughter. Yeah. And I texted her at the beginning of the game. Well, this is the rough start for Golden State. And then in a half time, I said, oh, they're hanging around. And then my daughter's last text was in the fourth quarter of it about eight minutes left. So if they hang around long enough, the step can see the finish line. He's going to take it. Yeah. And that is exactly what happened, you know, with more than an interesting game. Because I really thought there are three or four times where Golden State was close to let go of the road. You know, like it felt like, you know, man, they're trying. And then I'm telling you that the four threes that I'll horror for me, it just changed the light. It changed the light. And once you got to five and three, you knew what was at it. Now, I will say this. And in Dremont, you know, I've gotten more like discussions about Dremont. It's amazing how many discussions I've gotten into about Dremont because I have fought for him in being a Hall of Famer for five years now, like Dremont's Hall of Famer. To me, yes. And you hear people, well, the average is it. What if he was on another team? What if he's a straight winner? Forget all the other stuff, you know. In last night's game, like he was his defense was was the next worldly. That was surprised. I thought, why would be more aggressive and all that stuff? But I actually thought at times it was, be fighting to get to ball every possession, getting bumped up to floor. I mean, it takes a toe. Quite probably very rarely fights or plays against someone that's bigger and stronger than him. for a whole game, and I thought the game took a toll on to why. And I thought it was dream minds doing. So I don't think I have to make the case anymore at the last last game, because that's all dream minds. It's just so young and important. You know, we factor in offense so much, Bill. And there's so many like, all the thing defensive role players. And dream minds the case, Dennis Robbins is one, you know, there's certain guys that can do what they do at a Hall of Fame level. And you know, dream minds deserves as far as-- Yeah, it was interesting watching it in person, because he was doing that from the first minute. And he was so intense and so crazy that I was saying to my son, like, I actually think it's 50/50. He gets thrown out of this game. Like, he's too fired up. And it was like, he was testing the reps early to see how far he could go yelling at them and timnating them. But he was really wearing down Kauai. And I thought Kauai was tired at the end of the game, because he doesn't normally play minutes like that. No, and that heart minute, it's not throughout. And if you want to be a great defender in NBA, you have to be stubborn as hell. You have to be hard-headed as hell. Because at the beginning of that game, Kauai was kicking his butt. Yeah. Kauai was scoring. And dream on it, but I'd love to buy it. It's dream on never waver. It's almost like, OK, great. You score. Keep doing it. OK, you score it again. Keep doing it. I'm going to be right here. Yeah. And by the end of the game, it was like, I guess I would be like fighting Muhammad Ali after this five-sided gap. Yeah. You're just your exhausted, and you wear it out. And that's how it felt like, dream on just to jab and away, keep jab and away, keep jab. And then by the end, Kauai was worn out. And it felt that way. Well, you know, you talk about the great defenders of all time. Dream on gets in your personal space in a really unique way. And he takes these little steps to stay with you. And Kauai was trying to almost move backward and get away with them. And dream on just follows him. And I was thinking, like, how many guys like that? And the his-- because the best two guys I've ever seen perimeter defenders are pipping and Kauai, ironically. Dream on's like just a whiff under there. But I still think for the non-centers, he's got to be one of the five or six best non-centred defenders ever, right? Ever, for sure. I do think Dennis Rodman was a good-- Rodman's the third player. Yeah, he would be the other one. Would you put it with all in there? No, because he was moving off as a player when he first started. So I would not. But I remember Dennis Rodman playing. And I actually used to say this. I'd rather have pipping Garmin and Rodman. And that's a hell of a statement. Because neither one of them-- your day's not going to go well either way. But they both were just greedy. And Dennis is more-- Dream on's more like Dennis. Because Dennis got under your skin. You could just start the hell out of you. He's probably fourth on that list. But it's a really good list, if you do it in the neighborhood. So Curry, it was watching him-- I don't think he's healthy, first of all. I think he's probably 85% I would say. And kept readjusting his knee, which is a sign. There's a couple of like hard drives he did, where you-- and I don't know if the TV was picking us up the same day, but just watching his body length. You can really pick stuff up during the fouls when their stoppages and the eyes aren't on the players. And you could just see him like kind of stepping on it and seeing what it's going to hurt. I just tell you that. That's how we got into conversation. I text Curry and I say, "Cowley." Is suffocate, because you remember that drive? He had to pull hard. And he actually left the game and went back to the world. Yeah, I was worried. Actually, he didn't come back for a while, and I'm thinking, is he coming back? And then when he came back, he missed a couple of layups. He definitely was labor. But it just tells you how these guys are built. And I always say these guys, meaning the 1% is. And the rest of the league is not. Because I don't know where he went in the third quarter. But he came out in the third quarter, and he looked different. He was playing his life. It's like the light bulb that came back on. Now maybe because the Clippers didn't put the game out of reach, and he saw that man, we can get this. But even when you see that, very few people can reach what he did. I mean, he was amazing in the second half. And there's certain guys when you watch his men, that's beautiful. How they play. He plays a beautiful game. And that last flash should be studied. Because there's a misdirection football play. He throws the ball and goes right, snaps back left. By going over the top, Brooke kind of picks off the guy guard stuff. And so if you watch it, the guy guard stuff was going under Brooke. So he couldn't get back to him. And then when he steps back and makes the shot, you knew it was going in. But to get to it, you know, listen, Bill, if I had a ball, if I was in the game, and I did that, I would surprise the team. Because they were like, everyone knew what dream on his stuff. They knew exactly. And you still couldn't stop it. It just still job radius. Well, I mean, it's stupid to say, but winning is a skill. It is. I thought that's why they won the 22 title. I don't think they necessarily had a better team than Boston. But they just kind of like, oh, you're going to leave this hanging here for us? All right, we'll take it. And Curry just took it, which I think, you know, I don't know where he's right for historically for me when I have my pyramid that I do every year. And there's like, this group of him and West and Kobe that are all next to each other. And I think they're very, they have to be in the clump together. And it's like the 9, 10, 11 range of the best players of all time. And each for their generation, they were the guy, right? And I don't, I don't even know how you calculate who was more important than who. But that the thing with Curry though, that I don't even West was like Mr. Clutch, Kobe had a bunch of great moments. There's something about what Curry does to the crowd on the road that I think is unique to him. I can't think of any other players that do it like maybe Ray Allen, who wasn't even nearly as good of a player as Steph, but something about when they're going, the crowd kind of gets kind of. Right, Reggie Miller had a little bit of that too, it's a good one. Yeah, when he got going and it's mostly the jump shooters. But Steph demoralizes the other team more than any of those guys. When Steph gets going, he can turn a visiting crowd into a home crowd, which you don't see anybody. Maybe Michael at the ability to do that. Well, Michael definitely had the ability to do that. Yeah, I was kind of leaving him over here. I was. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's over here. We're not even mentioned. No, I know it, but I've seen it like he takes the steam out of your team when he gets going. I mean, he's hopping around, you know, like you want to kill him. Like if you have the, like I always said, if I was playing against him, I'd want to kill him because he does things that you don't see and it takes the wind out of your sales. It really done. That three was a dagger. It was a killer. Well, he also had that, that dancing lefty flip layup. The flip layup. They're five. Yeah. What the fuck was that? So non-celot. Yeah. It's not. I think the most, the thing that people miss the most with Steph because he's this nice guy, right? He does all the charitable work. Everything he says is right, like he's the most coachable star. And one day we're going to have a pot about that. But I said as one over some of the other guys and because I'm a coach, I really believe a lot of it is because he allowed himself to be coached. Right. And I think that's part of it. But what we miss with him is he's a stone cold blooded killer. Just like Oby and Michael, he just doesn't come off that way. But he's exactly like them and people miss that with him. They miss forecasts him, his toughness and his grit. They really do. Do you think it's not going to be this year's team? Is there a world where he's ever on a really relevant team again or is it too late? It's never too late. You know, it takes one move. You know, you just, you know how it works and you just never know. So you still think he could be maybe not what he was in 22, but he could be almost like what you had with KG and Ray and Pierce, like every one of the three. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. But he needs help. Yeah. You know, I think the reason he's injured, been injured a lot this year, he's been carrying a heavy load. Well, he's running so much, even like yesterday watching him hurt, seeing the amount of running he's doing just to stop and start stuff. That's what I'm so surprised at that he's been able to say, you know, LeBron, his athleticism and size, you can see it, but because of the way Steph plays, I just, if you had asked me six years ago, that stuff would still be doing it now, I would have said, no way there's no way. But if you watch his workouts and I'm sure you've heard about him, then you understand why he's in the condition. But even that at some point you think even that's going to wear him down. And so far it hasn't. So who was the best player you went against this year? Who was the one like if you had to stack them? Who was the one that you were like, wow. Well, that's never been asked me. That's a good question. Wendy. So ironically, that was the best player I saw in person this year, where I was like, wow, this is like I haven't seen anything like this. Yeah, it's just so different. And he does so many things. You have to prepare for him differently than everybody else. He can't get behind you. Like he literally cannot defensively. He cannot get behind you in the pain. If he does, they throw it up. And there's nothing you can do about him. You know, you have to shoot his recovery. You can beat him off the dribble out the free throw line, but you're not going to get it to shut off. You know, the new bow of your new bow. The new bow had that kind of coverage, you know, where you thought you had him beaten and then you got to the rim and you would try to go under the rim to reverse it to guard him. And he still got it. Well, Wendy does that to shot. He's not a he's a really good three point shooter, you know, free throw shooter, too. Like a great three thought shooter. And he's finally shot now like at the end of the game, he knows that I can get to the elbow kind of like Dirk. You just got to hope like when you're guarding them, all you're doing is hoping he misses because there's nothing you're doing defensively. I do think the guard should get up under him and get into his body. The stronger lower base guys have a better chance of guarding them than the longer guys. He's just so talented. And he's another guy that has a Kobe Michael mean streak. Right. And I love that about him as well. Did you was he noticeably better this year than last year to you? Yeah. I don't know if it was, again, number one, yes, because he was more sure of what he was doing. Yeah. But I don't know where came up with this killer. Like he had it last year, but he's ramped it up. Yeah. It's almost like he's taking names, you know, like, okay, you got me last year. That's all you feel that he's playing that he remembers everything that went on last year against him and he's turning that into energy. Interesting because the other guy that jumped out when I saw them was Castle, who seemed who I voted for first team. By the way, I have to ask you about my vote later because I'm wavering on one. But I put Castle on first team all defense because I'm like, what more do you want from a perimeter guy defense than this? That's what makes us first, you know, Wimby is amazing, right? Yeah. But all their guards are guards can guard like every single one of them. I think that's what people miss with the spurs. That's how good they are defensively. Yeah. Now, Wimby has figured out how to not how to switch and stay in the paint, but out going out to corners and stuff like that. And, you know, I worry like the one team that could make them struggle. Maybe if you can get a guy that he's guarding that is really shooting the ball well from the three to pull him out a little bit, you have a little bit of a shot. That's probably Denver, right? It's because that's either Gordner, Yoke, it's time to pull him away from the basketball. And they're passing, but I tell you the their guards, they put pressure on you. It's real pressure. Like they're up into you. And, you know, I had a couple of years when I was a player early in my career. We had three Rollins and Dan Brownfield. And if you're from Boston, you know who three Rollins is clearly three vice-man. You know, I felt my first couple of years, I could really be aggressive because I'm like, go, go, go in there. I dare you. I mean, that's how you feel they're playing. Like they're so up into you and they're preaching so much. It's almost like they're saying, if you want to, you can drive, but it's not going to be good for you. And they play that way. You told me we were talking before the playoffs last year. And you were telling me about Indiana. This was not on a podcast. This was just a text and about it. And you were telling me how difficult they were because of what they were doing, pressuring defensively and just people don't realize what a bitch it is to play against them. And I really started watching. And I thought Indiana was my big sleeper to make the to make the finals last year because it was like, yeah, they're doing something. I don't know if people fully realize it. And now you saw the league emulated this year. And there are all these teams trying to pick up full pressure and it feels like this new wave of what, but you must have been in the middle of coaching. You must have noticed like a difference this year, right? Oh, yeah. You knew it was coming. Like the league is pretty easy to predict like where everybody's going. Oklahoma City, very physical in the ball. They reach, they grab, they hold, they slap, they strip, they want. So every team is going to try to do their inversion of that. And so you knew it was going to go that way. Senator Antonio does it. It's easy for them to do. Indiana did it. There's a couple other teams Detroit, physical, pressuring the ball. Minnesota can do it too when they play IO and, uh, and McDaniel's an aunt all together. They can say when they're saying. Yeah, right. Minnesota can be anybody and lose anybody. That's just who they are, man. But you know, that's, I tell you, if I'm Denver, that's a rough first round. Yeah. That, that, that's just this because they beat Denver. And I'm, and that's why, you know, I look at like Boston, New York, I'm like, well, that can be a scary thing as well because Boston, New York, be Boston. I don't care what you say. Confidence is just like you were talking about winning. Yeah. When you, when you win again, someone in a series, you believe you can beat them. No matter how good they are, you, you start believing that and then it becomes hard. I tell you what ball pressure does though in a circle about our conversation. Yeah. Short is the clock. Bill, it's, all you have to think about is shortens the clock. Instead of running your offense for 20 seconds and you're getting it, you're, you're starting your offense at 14. You may not even started with the guy you want to start with. You know, you may have taken the bowl out of his hands. And so you're wasting your time trying to get it back into the right guy's hands. And now there's 10 seconds. Like if you can convince your team, if you have a team built like that, guys, if you pressure the ball, all we have is 12 seconds of defense to play every possession. It makes you a better defensive team. And that's why teams are doing it. Well, in the, the, the town pool in the league now, where you can have a team like the Celtics that have Walsh and Hugo Gonzalez and Shireman and, you know, Pritchard Way and Nick could just kind of keep going and Ron Harper Jr. They're bringing in. It just feels like everybody's so, because that we've talked about this before, but like your 2012 Celtics team, kind of the last hurrah team. Yeah. And you go back and look at the depth on that team and some of the guys that we're playing versus like the depth that teams have now. Like, Ron Harper Jr. is good. Ron Harper Jr. would, would play real minutes on playoff teams. And he can barely get out there for the Celtics. And I feel like a lot of teams have these extra guys like that. I'm sure this is one of the reasons they're thinking about expansion because the, the talent's there. I don't think they should do it. Well, the talent's there. It's, it's, uh, it's going to go away once they expand, you know. Right. True. Uh, I think about you talking to a guy that came into league with 23 teams. Right. And so each time and expanded the, uh, the talent pool in the benches got thinner and thinner and thinner. Yeah. Uh, but it also comes down to the front office building and management. Like, uh, Brad sent an amazing guy. Brad, Brad was a really, really good coach. He's a better front office guy. Like he really is. Like he's, um, all the guys he had, anybody could have taken. Right. It's not like he's taking these guys. I'm that, I'm going to talk about Jaylin. I'm talking about like Shireman and people like that. Yeah. And Richard, anybody got a chance to grab these guys, but they did. And they keep doing it. You know, and so they got cater from the King. She was like a saccharodraphic of the things and wasn't playing. He played a little bit, but they're, they're evaluating their, their spur like lately. You know, like they're evaluating the talent. They evaluate the type of guys that fit, uh, they know Joe, they know what Joe will stand for and won't stand for. And they're, they're hitting the homerun. That's a home run. Yeah. You got to give him credit. They've been amazed. So Missoula this year, who was, I thought incredible. I'm voting for him for a coach of the year, um, non-homer pick. I just can't, I don't know how they won 56 games. I don't really understand it. I'm going to go with you on that one. A little bit of that one. Yeah. They started out in three and finished 56 and 26. And I still don't understand what happened. He's done it amazing. I did tell you that I thought there would be a playoff thing. Yeah. But, but I didn't, I mean, come on. That he's had, he's done, it's, it's, it's, he's done an amazing job. Um, this I would say is the first year in a long time that there could be five guys. that if they won coach you the year, maybe even higher than you can see. I can see that. So you got bigger stack, bigger staff. Jordan, not, would you put on air? Jordan, not is one. Mitch Johnson. Mitch Johnson is one. So who's your fifth one? Joe Mozilla is one. Yeah. So that's four. And I can't think of my fifth, but I just told someone a fifth. So my point is it's, they just, it's amazing. It's been really cool to watch. And the Jordan odds and even Mitch in a way like Jordan, it's really impressive to watch because they lost salad. Right. And got better. You know, he came in and changed their weight. Charles Lee was your fifth one. Charles Lee is my fifth. Yeah, I was, I was listening to you, but I was also like, who is the, yeah, that Charlie's the fifth one. Charles Lee is the fifth one. Like, um, we played them early in the year, we beat them three out of four, right, early in the year. And I came in our coaches meeting because we played them like on a Monday and then on a Friday. And it was right doing the mid season tournament. Yeah. And when we played them the second time and beat them, Peter Fagan, who was with the box and then become a really good friend of mine. He said, man, they're going to be good. I said, they are good. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, they're here. I said, they're here now. And he's like, no, I don't see that. I said, Oh, no, they're here right now. They're coming now. I didn't know they're going to make the run that they made, but we played well that game because it was one of the tie breakers at that time. We played well, probably one of our hardest best slate games. And it took everything to be to. Wow. And you know, I thought, you know, obviously, I think Khan changed their culture. Like there are certain players that have the ability to walk in and change the culture, but out words, but with his actions. And I think Khan has kind of done that. And now Lamello and all the other guys are doing it as well. They've kind of brought in to that. I'm glad you said that because it's been a polarizing rookie of the year vote, right? And I go to Khan. And you know, but part of me is I value the winning, even though I know you're not supposed to do the rookie the year that way. But I think I personally think you should. I don't. But I thought, first of all, he played a shitload of games and a bunch of minutes for them, right? Which he played like 2,500 minutes and seven nine games. But I thought I was talking the other day about like the gravity of him out there. And he's really the only guy that moves. And his constant movement sets up everything else that they're doing combined with like he rebounds, he plays defense, he's unselfish. You have to have a guy like that. You do. And if it's one of your better players, your team is better. You know, you can make a case early in the year. Charlotte was probably thinking about moving guys, you know, moving Lamellum, moving bridges, and now you watch them. They're playing like winners. Miller should be up for one of the most improved players. I mean, but all that is from winning and playing the right way. And what's great is they didn't do it early, but they kept at it. They kept playing the right way. And then they called for fire. I thought to sneak his move to Charles May, wouldn't he about to end up starting line up? I thought he was like a glue guy defensively. And he is as good as anybody to lead officer rebounding. Like he's a tear on the glass. He gives, he won like I know, Mellon, Lamellum played great bridges, but he won that game against Miami. He kept giving them extra shots. And that's that's invaluable. This rookie class was spectacular. Great. Flag who I feel terrible not voting for a career, because I think he's going to be a possible generational guy, right? And it's not just about his team stunt. Yeah, he's, I think he's going to be fine. Dylan Harper, I was even in the preseason, like, okay, I guess, I guess we're doing this watching him. And he, I was saying a while ago, he reminds me of more of a guy like from your era, like that he's not really a three-point shooter. He can shoot him, but he really wants to get close to the basket. He wants to bang bodies. He wants to feel dudes against him before he decides what to do. Like he's like 85. Yeah. So he plays like a grown man. Like he finishes in traffic as well as anybody in our league. And he's the rookie. Yeah. Like he is going to attack. Like he's another guy. You know how we were talking about Steph, you know he's looking for this shot. You know when Dylan's coming at you, you're looking to shoot a jumper. He's trying to get to the basket. Right. And he's like stop it, because I don't think you can. The toughness of that team. Like you think about those guys, you just, you know, they've added every guy they've added is tough. It sounds like you think they're going to win the title. I think they could. I do worry about, I mean, if you watched the game last night, home state won because they had a bunch of bets. Yeah. Then just know how to win. And that's the only thing that scares me with San Antonio. And then I did only other thing is can they shoot the ball well enough when it's time to shoot the ball? Why they can shoot. They're good shooting team. But can they shoot it well enough down the stretch? That would be the two defensively, they'll be fine. I have three concerns and they're all small. One is when be holding up for 10 weeks because he's seven foot seven. And I'm always worried about him. And I think people are going to be really physical with him. So that's one. Two is the shooting, especially when they're like up 10, 12. And they don't really have that inside outside. It's really Harper, but I don't think they're going to have them out there in these situations. But that guy who could just kind of create a shot that's not a three or it's not a win-be-play. Yeah. Fox Fox can do that a little bit with the between game. So he's the third one is Fox who's used to be in the guy. But now he's on this team with all these different weapons and he's got to step back and do the 1989 Isaiah. Yeah. And I don't think he's navigated. I think he's navigated pretty well this year. Like you can see in games, he picks and chooses some games. He's aggressive. Some games he's not. Early in the year, I was worried about it. And then as the season went on, and I'm like, man, he's kind of kind of accepted. Right. Because they started winning. They put together winning streets all that side. I just wonder in the playoffs if it gets like to not crunch time. I'm just going to be because they're going to need him. He's going to have to be the guy. I was like, guys, I got this. They're going to have to be the guy. We're going to have to be in at times, but they're sending the kitchen sink. It wouldn't be. And so I I agree with that. I think it would have to be him. So so do you believe in that the old guys on the couch philosophy of you, the bright lights are really bright. And you have to have played in a few of these to really understand that because you can even feel that in a Charlotte playing game. Yeah. Oh, this is a different level of pressure, guys. These three are going in now. I mean, I didn't get back in. No. No. He's 20. And he actually did have that look like, Oh, right. But I don't. I just think there's something different about them. You know, we thought that about Oklahoma. And then they couldn't win the first year. Then they came back. So it's if you just believe in history, you would have to say, the history says, no. But I think my eyes tell me something different is about them. I wouldn't be shocked if they want. And I wouldn't be shocked if they didn't. You know what I mean by that? Because of that. So, but they're fun to watch. So they would have to basically be Denver and round two. Yeah, they have to be okay seeing round three. And then somebody good from the east and round four. That would be. Yeah. And they're going to have three physical services of Portland. Let's talk about Portland. Yeah. They're a little dangerous. Portland is dangerous because Portland has size. Yeah. They have size and they have real defenders. Like they can defend one through five. Um, so that that series, Stanton is going to win. But I'm telling you, it's not going to be an easy series where Portland most shrub was, can they score? Yeah. It's kind of genuine. Yeah. Stenier bust. You could feel that even in the playing game. He was in the mid 41. And I didn't even look at those head to head. But my guess is when he does is drive to the basketball. That's what Wimby does to defensively. He's going to have to get those same layups over Wimby. Right. So that's that's going to affect him a little bit. Yeah, because he he's one of those guys. He goes right every single time. And you're just playing him so he doesn't go right. And it's like, okay. And then he goes right again. It's like, why did you let him go right? It's like Vinny Johnson, you know, yeah, Vinny Johnson of the business went right. My foretell, oh, cuss me out 50 times. And I'm like in my brain, I'm like, coach, I swear to God, I'm trying to make him go left because he keeps going. Maybe it was like that the other way, going left. Yeah. I know you're going left. I can't stop you. But I know you're doing that. Yeah, I mean, I was I was like half of all those guys, but I was only going right. And I remember late by career, a rookie walks. said to me before you on the jump, I'll say, "Hey, Doc, you're not going right today." And you know what I told him, I said, "Well, I'm not going left." Right. And so something's going to happen, and that's what these guys think. Like, I'm going to go and laugh. You're not going to take me away from it, and he thinks I'm going to go and write. You can do all that stuff, and I'm getting there. I wish Portland wasn't playing San Antonio, because it's funny, the upset teams, to me, heading in around one were Portland and Atlanta. And then each of them ended up with a draw that you just don't want them to have, right? Portland went, he's just the Loch Ness Monster waiting for him. And then Atlanta was all set up to play Cleveland, and then F'd up the last day of the season, and now they have to play the next. Yeah, I still wouldn't want to play Atlanta. They're good. They're long. They're athletic. What they've done right before Madrid that deadline is bringing shooters in and adding shooting to that team, with the size and the length they have is unbelievable. You know, Brunson is going to put everybody on it. Right. That's going to be hard. Now Brunson has, his numbers, he's killed Atlanta, you know, in the regular season. He probably will in the playoffs, because he's that special. But he's going to get worn out, like that is not a team you want to see. And you're going to do quick work, or it's going to be a dangerous series. Yeah. I was looking at the odds for the series on Fando, and the next three to one favorites, it feels like a seven gamer to me, maybe six, but at least six, maybe seven. The problem when you play the next, this is my fear for the Celtics, too, is you feel like you have them for 44 minutes, and then it's like a three point game with four minutes left that now they're in the Brunson versus your best guy contest, and he's really good at that. Yeah. It's certain teams, like if you play the Lakers, you know, when they're healthy, what all you have to do is it's get the game to the last five minutes. Right. And then it's going to go. Yeah. And then reads like there's certain teams like that, you know, when you're playing the next, you know, if it gets to a single possession game, they got Brunson, and then they got this guy, Kat standing up at the three that will make a shot on you, they become very difficult. That's why the Celtics are tough, you know, they got two guys, you know, plus they do it all game, but they have two guys down the stretch that can take over a game. When you have multiple guys, it's tough. It really is. What were you surprised that they were able to slide Tatum back into the minutes and juggle whatever Jalen is having this, you know, one of the great late bloomer borderline MVP candidate seasons. And he's finally the guy. Now here comes Tatum. Now I got to balance that. You know, that can go great. Or that can go. That could have gone, that could have gone bad. But right. They have it. What did you think was going to happen? I did know. I did, you know, obviously I talked to Sam all the time, but I did think they had the equity of a title. And so that kind of makes them want to play right. Right. I also thought Joe did his best work there, like he made it clear. This is Jalen Brown seemed this year. And then you got to give a ton of credit to Tatum. He just wanted to play, like he just wants to play. He wants to be Tatum and he's going to be Tatum. But you know, listen, I think in Tatum's mind is I'm back. I'm healthy. I have a chance to win another title. And Jalen Brown was the MVP of the last finals. So it's not a big deal to me. Right. I just want to win. So there was a lot of things going for them, but it could have went really bad. And it has not. Now they haven't gotten into the playoffs yet. So if they get pushed, we may see something, but I don't think so. I think they are a may team. They know what I mean by that, like they understand each guy understands his role. And Joe does a great job of accountability. He really does. Well, I said this the other day on a pod that it's his team, which is how this solved itself. It's not James or Jason. It's actually Joe Azulis team. So we solved it that way. He's running the team. That's it. That's exactly right. And he makes that clear. It's, you know, it says a lot about where the NBA is in 2026 because I think those guys are best friends, but they're good. And I think they both want the same thing, but what can happen? And you, you had a lot of this happen to you the last 12 months with the bucks, but it's all the people around the guys and it's all the insider and this guy heard this and that heard that or somebody who you know as friends with one of the players and they're saying something on a show or a pod. And this stuff makes the life of its own that doesn't. And it does, you know, and like there's, if everyone wrote an article about someone having a blow up in the locker room, every team with the unblast, you know, you know what I mean? There's so people have no idea how often and how much that happens. And honestly, I've always thought it should happen. If you lose a bad game, there should be some tension. There should be some tension, like that's part of it. And the good teams get through it though. They look at it and they take growth from it. And the average and the bad teams let it hold them now. They still hold on to it. It gets out, you know, people talk about it that players said this or approach, those are the bad teams. Those are the guys who the good teams, you don't find out about it. They keep it inside. They make it part of their growth, their strength, all right? Let's fight about this. Let's take another step. And to me, you can see it, I've always said the most beautiful thing in the world is the finals because you have two teams, usually that have committed themselves completely to the team. They've literally given themselves to the team and they play that way. And that's why watching the finals is so beautiful because there's no BS, there's no fighting. This is my team. And if there is, that team's going to lose. It's so obvious. Always looked at the first Miami year with the broad way. They didn't win because they played a team this first who were completely Mavericks. You know, the Mavericks who they were so together, you know, the Sean Stevenson, I remember was a kid that was started and Rick put them on the bench and no issues. Right. There was no issues like it was about the team and winning. And so in the next year, they came back and they were like that, but they had that lesson was taught to them, you know, and so. Well, think about the flip side of that because I think a good example for this is the 2019 Warriors that third KD season and they had that thing happen with Dremon and KD in the Cooper game, which we coached in the Cooper's that year. Yeah. And you knew that was different. It felt different on the court. It felt you could see it on the bench. It was like, Oh, this is a bad one and it turned out it was a bad one. It was the first time it was real. Yeah. You know, like, you remember that game? Dremon took that shot that since the game in the overtime and they looked all the time. We went on and won the game and then I heard afterwards, you know, it's so funny. Like as a coach, you know, it is crap is going on. Right. You're coaching your team. Then in the press conference, that's all they're asking me about them like, guys, I didn't know who that was going on. I'm happy it's going on. It's the other day, you know, but that never left them. That's stuck with them. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandall NBA fans. This is your reminder to check in daily. And I mean daily because every day during the playoffs, Fandall is serving up a happy hour. Final drops you won't want to miss, profit boost, bonus bets, much more. The best part, it's every single day, including today as we head toward the playoffs. I was looking at series parlay steps. As you know, I love to pick upsets. I had Indiana last year. I love nothing more than a round one upset with a nice juicy, juicy underdog number. I don't see it this year. I really think the best series bet is a four series parlay with the spurs and Boston money lines along with the Denver money line and the New York money line. And all four of those series would have to win and it was plus one 20 on Fandall. And I think that's the one I would recommend the most at any of these. I really wanted to take Toronto again. I just don't think Toronto is going to beat the next. I think that series is going to be good and close and I think it goes six or seven, but I think the next one. Anyway, check that one out and I'm going to be tweeting picks and all kinds of stuff during the course of the playoffs and showing you your best Fandall possibilities. We've been hot lately. Just check out what's going on on the last three Wednesday slash Tuesdays. We hit including Wednesday or Tuesday Wednesday told you Portland. Take them against Phoenix parlay them with Charlotte money line and Philly money line and everything we had. So we have a little momentum right now. 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So get the coverage that's right for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Covered jobs are selected by the customer availability and eligibility vary by state. We didn't talk about Maxi and Philly. You love Maxi. I love him. He was like one of your all-time favorites from day one, you've touted his virtues done stop. He was awesome this year. I had to 13 mom NBA just because I have to put a center on each team, but he's like in a month's second. And if they're going to give the Celtics any semblance of a chance, it's going to be because of him. And Zack and I did a hot little guard's father Boston, like they struggle with the quick fast guys and Maxi, it's just not that he's just so quick and fast, he's now finishing left or right. He's an elite shooter. He's not a good shooter, he's an elite shooter. He's tough as nails. And what he's really done and I'm so proud of him, he's become a leader. He is the leader of that team. There's no doubt about who's the leader of the Sixers and it's really cool for a guy that that young and such a great high character guy, so we have taken that step this quickly. Yeah. Because that's so you mentioned they're not Celtics aren't great against guards like that. They're also because they love offensive rebound and they're crashed in the boards constantly. And you don't get the board and the teams that just go, oh, we're off. It's like hockey. It's like a two on one or three on two. I think Maxi is the best in the league at that of like, oh, I have numbers. Boom. I'm going 700 miles an hour. Yeah, he didn't even need numbers, but when you have numbers, you're in trouble. And where it's really improved is his passing by, you know, in the year, two years I had him, he can get to the basket, but he couldn't see a lot. Now, you know, he sees a lot, he's making guys better and I'm just watching him this year. There's games like when Joel and Paul George were really and, and, and, and as you go, we're playing well. He kind of takes, he's fine with taking the step back and then when they need him, he takes back over. So his growth has been unbelievable. They're not going to be easy to be, you know, and I know everyone says Joel's not coming back. I don't believe that. I think he will play in the series and I have no reason to say that. I just, I just think it's too important not to. I think we will see him at some point in the series, but probably a little later. And by the way, that might be down like three, one by the time you see him, then you made that sale. But if it's, you know, if you're silly, you're thinking, if I can get one of these first two, and then I can win one at home, it's two, two, and then we get the big fella back. Right. There's fresher at it. Well, one thing, and you've seen that crowd in various stages of either just horrified or really great. They love Maxine, they love Edgecomb and there's real energy, these home games, like you could feel it in that Orlando game like they fucking love those guys. And I don't know, I think they're going to be tough to beat and Philly Boston can't lose one of those first two, but honestly, if you lose one of those first two in this series to a Philly team without MBE, then that probably says more about Boston, like they got to take care of business. But, you know, good team, they can still win, you know what I mean by that. It's just like latest backups, and they better play well, because the long enough series goes on that allows Joel, I'm closer to getting back, and you put Joel and beat in that series. It's a tough series. I got an email from a listener, because I've been doing more mailbag stuff. Wow. I don't dare listen to my mail. You know, somebody asked if Joel is the unluckiest superstar in the history of the MBE. And I think we can make a case for Bill Walton, oh wow, that's a good answer. But I think Joel has had more injuries to different parts of his body, and just things happen in bad luck and the orbital bone and Walton just had feet issues and beats it. It's like a big year. It's a different something. Like, I mean, I remember the first, you know, I had three years there, right? Yeah. The first year, one of the game five against Washington, the closeout game. I thought he tore his knee. I mean, that looked bad. The second year, and I miss him up, another knee injury. The third year, he gets, no, the second year, just hitting the face, right. And then he also puts his hand. You remember he had the, yeah, to have surgery in his hand. He breaks his face bone. So he has to wear it mad. Then the third year, he had another, he had him in this position. I'm like, and then this year has appendix, I mean, come on, like you can't make this stuff up. And so yeah, it's really rough because I'm telling you, and I'm telling you this, he's just telling the number I've ever seen. And I really believe, like if I had him, especially the first year in the Atlanta series and he was healthy. I do believe we advance, you know, well, we talked about that before. That's one of the all time. What the hell happened in that series series? I mean, that's some of his career was never the same after that. He literally died during the series. No, it literally happened. You know, we laugh about it. I went in the financial time, I remember telling him, Sam can sell in the Washington series. So you know they have involved in it all in the series. I swear, game one Atlanta, or you're like, oh boy, you know, that was a, that was a fisherman. Yeah. He's a professional fisherman. This guy was 13 mom and B.A. he's not even in his 30s yet in that year. He had with me there. He was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. He looked like a Bronish. A couple of like and the full point stuff. It's like Bronish from Magicus. Yeah. You remember with the decision we made was we put the ball in his dance full time. Yeah. It was great until the playoffs and when they started following them, then he didn't want the ball anymore in that pressure or offense. But man, you see, I'm telling you, I say, I'm shocked that he's not playing basketball. He is so talented. We didn't talk about the trait. What made them go up 11 on your opinion? I have my thoughts, but what was different about them this year versus last year? Oh boy, that's a good question. I thought K took a huge jump number one. As good a state was last year, he's one of the top five players in the league now or in that area. Yeah. You know, there's so many guys and then Durham took a jump that I didn't see coming. I never thought he would be able to score and play with the finesse game that he has played with this year. I didn't see that coming. You forget how young he is Bill and so I think that those two things are the reason they are where they're at and then the last thing, they did something that didn't need to do. They bought into who they are. They really bought into their identity. You know, like when you hear Miami, you hear the heat culture, right? And they buy into it. Well, for it basketball, they have bought into it. And I think that that carries a lot of weight for them. Yeah. And the one of the reasons I had him second team on NBA during is I felt like the physicality and the attitude they have, it kind of starts with him like he's out of like your era. Like you could see him like getting into it with Anthony Mason in game five of a next piston series. He's a complete throwback and carries himself that way, you know? He carries himself like he's the baddest man on the floor and there's nothing you can do about it. And then they have the ultimate guy of the bench who will fight anybody, literally come off the bench. Come on. And it's like, I love the comedy he made in the one fight where he came off the bench and he said, what do you expect me to do? Right? This is who I am. And then Ron Holland, who's also ready to rumble. Yeah. There's a bunch of guys that are just they're ready to go and, you know, because he's one of my personal favorites. I'm just so happy for Tobias because it was so rough for him and Philly. And now to see him be a leader, be the bat of the team is really cool. Like I love when good things happen to good people and it's happening to Tobias and good for him. And they actually need him because there's without Cade, there's not a lot of guys who can create their own shot. And it's amazing how many times he had the ball with three minutes left, a minute 30 left where he had to basically create a 17 footer from scratch. And he was able to do it. I thought he was really good this year. He's been great. And that's the only thing that scares me is they're can they shoot well enough, even though they're high and when they're looking the offense or rating in top five or whatever, I still worry about can they play well enough offensively to win? That'll be the biggest question. So what's your finals then? Who's coming out of the east if you had to, if your life depended on it, who would you pay? Well, I bet if Larry's life depended on it. Yeah, that's easier. I'm still going Boston, but the nicks are dangerous. I know people want to want to crap on the nicks. And I'm afraid I'm just don't understand why I get they didn't maybe play great every regular season game, but they're deep. They're deep. And they can defend. They can defend wins. They can defend guards. And they can score. And I would not be surprised to make the nicks is made it to the finals at all. So those are the two teams that I would have. My fear with the nicks is there was the game. Missoula kind of threw away the last next game because I don't think he wanted to show them anything. But he did have Tatum playing and he went and Tatum needed to get over that hump of being at MSG, right? Which is the worst moment of his life. You got to get him back out there. And Anonobi was just doing the dream on thing. He was just in his personal space, the entire game and really likes guarding Tatum. And Tatum is 96% back, 94% back, but the first step stuff still isn't totally there yet. I thought it was the explosive stuff is coming back, but not 100% there. I just, you know, like that, like the Celtics destroyed the nicks all year, right? And then they beat him that last game. Like I know that doesn't mean much. And it usually doesn't. But in this case, because the nicks beat him last year in the playoff series, the nicks, the buttons this way, the nicks, when they play the Celtics, if they played the Celtics, they will not be a team they're going to like incompetence, right? They won't be. And that's where Detroit, when you look at Detroit, they haven't been to a first round yet. So in a lot of ways, and they're really people forget how young Detroit is. Yeah, like people talk about San Antonio and Oklahoma, but they don't talk about young, the pensions are and they're really young and they've never advanced. So this is going to be a big year for them to take that next step. You know what? The secret Celtic sauces that they didn't do in that next game. And I think they've been saving it is when they play Tatum at the five, which I think they're going to do. And I think Tatum Brown, a shooter in the two guards, I think it's going to be the lineup against the nicks because they were playing Cata and crunch time against the nicks. I just don't think they're going to do that. I think they're going to be smaller and try to, and just basically have shooting and just try to attack them, attack towns, try to attack them. Yeah, you know, you can put a smaller guy on town because he's the weight from the basket. Yeah. And the one of the areas town struggles is when you get up under him. Yeah, he shrugs with that. Now where I think people should give towns credit is he has learned now. He goes down low way more and he's rebounding at an unbelievable clip. And I'm telling you, they're rebounding as a factor. Right. Especially with mansion. Yeah. We didn't talk about Cleveland. Did you see posts? Did you play them post hard and trade or no? Yeah, we played them twice. We beat them once, loss them once. So defensively, they're worse offensively, they're more interesting. Is it like, you know, obviously as somebody I'm talking about me that has just lost all faith in James Hardin as a playoff guy, but maybe he doesn't have to be as much of a playoff guy in this team. Yeah, I don't know. This is what I say about James. And you know, this is what I said about him when I coached him. The one thing I loved about him is he plays. Yeah, he never misses games. And I know that's not trivial, but all the other guys, he does, he wants to play every day and he does that. What I liked about him, Bill, is I don't know. And I always talked about that one year we had with him in the first half of the year. He literally was a scoring point guard. And we were amazing. And then that second half, he wanted to start scoring again and kind of upset the rhythm with Joel and all that. If he stays in that role where he's going to be a scoring like still a planner. But man, I'm telling you his passing is so underrated. He's not just, he's one of the elite pastors in our league. And when he plays at that, where he's still aggressive scoring, but really send people up. They have two rollers by James Harden's plays well with big zip row. You know, where he struggled with Joel is Joe would grow. Yeah, Joe was like, I don't need the role. I'm Joel and they just give me the ball. But he has two big zip row. And so it's going to be interesting. I was surprised when I heard Kenny, you know, the press conference about their defense. I hadn't noticed it because we hadn't been watching him. And I still haven't seen him enough to tell you how much worse is it. I don't know that. But a bit of my defense, you're not winning. Here it. Yeah, the advanced metrics aren't great. Yeah. It's it's teams. It's an up and down team now. I think it's harder for them to get stops. They're kind of a wild card, though, because they're in the Detroit side of the bracket. Right. They looked out. They have Tarrana who didn't beat any of the top three teams at all this year. And that's pretty easy series, I think. And then hopefully Detroit gets there in the headlights and all of the sudden you're in the mix in the Celtics beat the crap out of each other. Yeah, I think one thing I'd say about Toronto is they're beginning physical. And they're going to they're going to bang you up. They're going to physically bother you. And even if it's a five gang series, it's not going to be a physically easy series for Cleveland. That can be a very physical series. What was your your quick LeBron James take age 41 still doing like did just just stop making sense to you like four years ago. Yeah, stop making sense. You were coaching T-MAC at age 41. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, right? Like what he's doing a couple of great things about LeBron. First ball just physically come on. Like he had some dumps this year that have to lead could not do now. And it's amazing. The other thing that he's done that most stars don't do. The old adage in coaching is never coach an aging superstar. Yeah, they're they're going to get you fired. I mean every coach would tell especially back in the day, don't take an aging superstar because they're going to keep thinking they can do what they could do 10 years ago and they can't. And you're going to have to be the guy that tells them. Yeah, you know, where I give LeBron credit is he did it himself. He kind of he sees what Luke is. It's not hard to see. But he sees when Austin Rees is and he gives them room. He's like, you know, when you need me, I'm over here. He plays the role. And I listen, most guys don't do that. And especially we're talking about one of the greatest players to ever play doing that. It says a lot about LeBron James. And, you know, people want to knock him in, you know, it says a lot about him as a human. It really does. So you're excited to watch him on Golden State next year with Steph. I don't think you'll be you don't think you'll be back with the Lakers. I would bet on Golden State. I think they're going to do the old guy, the Sylvester Stallone, expendables. We're getting the our generation. Here we go. We're going to get everyone together. Irony is the Warriors could have really used somebody like LeBron last night. Like he, you know, he's feels he does a lot of stuff. So I'm watching. Who was your MVP just out of curiosity? Who do you think should have won the MVP this year? Well, it's a tough one for me. Stay, we'll probably win. And that's probably who I would have voted for. But Wimby, man, I keep going back to the defensive thing. Like why we don't give a guy's enough credit for what they do defensively. And you can, you can win me one it. It would bother me. There was a moment when it seemed like he was going to. I don't think he, like for me, I really will. Well, he didn't, and he didn't have the minutes. Like it, you know, it's played like, I think 400 plus more minutes than he did. And he barely got the minimum. I didn't like that. He skipped the last game of the year when they had beaten Denver. They moved Denver down on the four seed. Like why wouldn't you want to do that? What do you want to play Denver for? Yeah, I think that was more of a team choice. That was a bad choice. Yeah, the other thing though is is the Joker. We can't voter fatigue. Yeah, because like if you just win by numbers, he wins every year. You know, like, you know, there were a couple guys that wanted in Michael's heyday. But when you go back and look at the numbers, you're like, what are the voters doing? Yeah, what were they? What were they thinking that that was like the year when Malone when Malone beat Jordan that one year. It seems like the stupidest thing that ever happened now. So I said the other day, I was going to vote for SGA. And I was agonized over it because I was like, I can't believe I'm not voting for yoga. And she, yeah, he had the best offensive season. Like, Not only his career, but one of the best I've ever seen. And now, because we don't have to turn our own ballots till this weekend, 'cause we had the appeals. I'm wavering, I might actually vote for you, kids. 'Cause I'm like, I don't wanna be 10 years from now. Like, how did I not vote for you, kids? The guy led the way he could say three times. - The years from now, people are gonna look at the numbers. It's like, didn't vote for this guy, you know, haven't said that, that the numbers aren't always the whole story. - Right. - And what Shay does every night, he's good every night. - Yeah. Well, that's the Jalen Brown phase two of like, when I know I'm getting 30 from my guy every night, my team can behave differently. - Yeah, an efficient scoring. And what Shay also does is, that was stretched. He takes the game over. - Yeah, he's the best punch time guy in the league. The stats say it, I test everything. - You know what's coming, and you can't do anything about it. - Yeah, so that's why he'll win to me because of that. - Well, it sounds like you're picking Wimby. - It's tough. I would probably pick Shay, honestly, but it really, it's tough for me not to pick Wimby because of the defense portion. And it's good to Shay is and Yoker. None of them play defense. None of them change the game defensively. Like Wimby does. - All right, we've come to the point when we have to talk about the buck season. - Oh, Laura. - It seemed horrible from afar. Didn't seem like a fun time. - But it could have been. I will say that, like, the getting off to the start, you know, it's the fourth of season. I sent something to my coaches. There's two guys that can't get hurt. Be honest, obviously, and then scoot. Because we don't have any facilities. - Yeah. - You know, we're not like, we wasn't built like all the other team where they had one and then a second star. We didn't have a second star. So for us to be a good team, we weren't gonna win anything. Bill, we're 26 is spending. - Yeah. - You know, so it probably outdid our record. If you match record for record versus teams who've gone by spending, we probably were one of the better teams in that way. But at the end of the day, when you start out like that and then the whole yon of stuff, it was just not a lot of fun. It just wasn't. - Yeah, 'cause that started in July. And it just became a running narrative. - I got a lot of podcast content out of it. I mean, that was fun. - Well, I'm sure you did. But, you know, for me, and I don't wanna go into this the long because I, it's a lot of it, like, when you're around the honest and then what you hear on the outside, it was two different worlds. And that's where, from a coaching standpoint, is very difficult because I talk to yon as every day. And you see these reports, and I'm like, I'm wondering that any of these guys have one conversation with Yonis, because I think a lot of people at the end of the day were talking for him. - Right. - I don't know if they necessarily were doing that in what he was actually saying. And it made things murky, and it made things very, very difficult. And then the end of season, with this whole thing, was rough, it was just stuff. - You talked about the Shoms piece, or? - No, the Shoms piece, I literally just tried to ignore it because it's the point that I was making, like, yeah, we had a tough meeting after a game that we blew. Like, again, if you go into any life from why is that news? - Yeah. - But it's more, like, the whole yon as to the play, and not play, it was tough. Like, and I saw it, like, as a coach, I could literally see it from both sides of it. And I really could. And when I talked to Yonis, and we talked a lot, I told him that, you know? And it's just, you know, where the human side of me, you know, is the box runoff is done in an amazing job, overall, like to win a title and to get there. They're good people. And then you have, Yonis, who I'm telling you, is a good person. - Yeah. - And they're both, you know, over all the stuff. And I don't think Yonis knows who he wants to stay in that. And I don't know, the organization knows one way or not, either. And it just, it's too bad because I just thought that part is figured out. When you want a title with someone, there's like a blood transfusion, and that transfusion shouldn't be broken. And that part is the one that I wanted to figure out. So it's tough. - Yeah, 'cause you had that embossed and when the KG Pierce Era was coming to an end and you were coming to an end there too. - Yeah. - But you had the umbilical cord of that title. And it's tough to just be like, "All right, we ran our course here." 'Cause I told you this last summer, I thought they should have traded Yonis last summer. And I didn't like the damn stretch, bringing miles in. I understand why you did it, because you were trying basically to create a situation where Yonis retired with the bucks, right? - Yeah. - You didn't want to just throw away a year when you didn't have your pick. But it was, it was almost an impossible situation. - It still didn't give us a second, like start to go to. - Right. - You know, in retrospect when you think about it. But you know, Bill, I don't know about the whole trade thing. This is where I struggle. I'm being honest with you, like. - Yeah. - What if a guy wants to say where is that? He's one of Tito and he wants to play his whole career there. Like, what's wrong with that, you know? - Well, especially when he won the title, so he doesn't have to go chase one. - Right. - Like, I'd like it like Yoke, Yoke, Yoke. Yoke never wins again. Should he leave? - Well, Currie doesn't want to go. Currie could go to Charlotte tomorrow if he wanted. - Currie, yeah. He would never do that. He wants to play in being going to state warrior. And if Yonis did decide that, and the front office decided that, okay, there's nothing wrong with that. That's the only thing that bothered me doing this season and doing the summer about it. It's like knowing that, you know, knowing that, as Yonis, what do you want? And that's where you hear one side, wants to leave, wants to leave, wants to stay. - I don't know if he's made up his mind either way yet. And that's okay. The thing that was, right, the thing that's been going around since July and the NBA circles, which sometimes can be unreliable, sometimes can be pretty reliable. It was like, Yonis wants to leave, but he doesn't want to be the one that asks for a trade. Like, that's what we, around the league, that's what's been going on since August. - Exactly, that's what you hear. - Right, but that's not exactly what's said every day. - So are you talking to him and be like, "Yo, Yonis, let's, do you want to get traded?" Or not, like, did you ask him? - No, no, never, 'cause it wasn't my place. But, yeah, we talked about a lot of stuff. And I just think that he's still in there. I think he has this thing about him that he wants to, he would love to, but like, what did he say on the trade deadline day, you know? - I'm a buck or whatever. - Yeah. - And something like that. I think he thinks that way. And so I think leaving is very difficult for him. So you may be right, maybe wants to leave, but I don't even know the answers to that. I just know it's not as set and dry as people try to make it out to be. And it's not as easy of a situation as people take it as. - Yeah, well, the problem is they traded a lot to get drew, right? So you give up, you're giving up future pay excesses, all that stuff. And it works, you win the title. Then you go all in again on the damn trade, and you give up more, basically the rest of the assets for the 2020s. - Yeah, that's the problem, yeah. And but Dame gets hurt, which is bad luck. - That was just bad luck. And that luck happens, like, you know, listen, you don't win unless you're healthy. I would fight today. If you told me that Kiki never got healthy, you never got hurt. We're winning too. - Yeah. - But that's part of it. And you know, the damn thing was unfortunate. Like once he went down and got hurt, Yanis gets hurt, you know, the whole thing about Yanis had an advance in the playoffs. Well, Yanis hadn't played in the playoffs. You know, he's been injured until last year, and then they go down. So the narrative doesn't fit what actually happened is what I guess I'm saying. And, you know, I'm sitting here today. I can't tell you what's gonna happen. I really can't. I'm at a point now where I just hope everybody's happy whatever happens. And that would make me happy. You know, it really would. - Well, let's have the Doc Rivers Exit interview. What could you have done differently? Maybe if you could go back and change shit, what would you, did you feel like you did a good job? What would you think? - I think I didn't think I did a great job this year. I really did. Now, obviously, with all the injuries, it was hard. And it's easier to second guess. I thought one of the things that I've always been known for is holding everybody accountable for everything, being on time, and I thought I was very relaxed in that this year. And there's reasons for that that I can't go into, but it bothered me that I wasn't. Other than that, you know, getting guys to buy into their roast. I've been very good throughout my career. I look at the teams that I've coached, feel like, [BLANK_AUDIO] it. Even some of the teams that went deep when you look at them on paper versus the other team, how do they get to being up in a series? But that's because everybody bought into the roles. I thought I really struggled with each guy to see who they really are, understand that, and then play that way. Because I think that's the key to coaching, really. I think that's when we look at Joe, and all the good coaches now in our league, if you can't get each guy to understand who they are and buy into the role for the good of the team, you're not going to win. Period. So is that that's it for coaching for you, think? What do you think? Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've met about, you know, I want to say seven weeks ago, and me and owners, we had a great meeting. That's why we're all on the same page, and they asked me what I wanted to do. One of the owners says, one plan is, if we do this, you can hang in there for a year or two, and I literally said, oh no. No, I was a matter of fact. I told my coaches, like, I'm done. I loved Coach, loved it. I had a lot of success at it. I had some way more ups than downs, you know, but at the end of the day, I've given 40 years, 47 years or whatever. I don't even know, oh, I am straight, straight bill, like with no off time. And I just wanted to break. I want to get away. The grandkids and just life in general, man, like, yeah, but the thing is, I don't trust you completely, because I remember being at dinner with you and Larry, and you were saying how great it was, not to not to be coaching, not getting the calls at three in the morning, and how relaxed you were, that all of a sudden, it was like, wait, Doc's going back to coach the bus, what happened? That doesn't mean I don't want to run a team or get in the front office. I've done that. And there's some voices that would be really fun to do. But right now, you know, I'm just going to try to sit back and have some come back coaching. I'm going to look at it. But right now, I can tell you, Bill, I think it was time. And so I'd be surprised if I coached another game. I'll put it that way. All right, you said that last time. I don't know if I said that last time. I said, possibly this time I'm saying it, but I'm not going to be out late. Like, I'm like, I'm going to keep coming back. At least I hope not. What's how's the golf game these days? Well, I haven't golf much. So yeah, so you got to get that back. Yeah, can I say the golf scene in Milwaukee is amazing, except for January and December. It's really difficult to get a good golf game going. Yeah, February probably that great either. Not great either. All right. Well, you're going to pop back on every once in a while, right? You're going to be watching basketball. I hope so. I love basketball. Yeah, somebody I was at dinner last night and I had the game sitting at the dinner table on my phone. And then waiter walked up to me and he's like, I don't get it. You just retired. Your team's not in it. You're watching the game, but you're prepping. And I said, I love the game. It's a great game. It's like, you know, I'm actually, I'm really planning on going to a couple arenas. Sit in the crowd and just watch the game. Not in the front. Just sit in the crowd and watch the game. I think that would be I've never done that. Think about that. I've been the lead for 40 whatever. I've never done that. So if you see me in the crowd, just sit in there and drink in a beer. I'm there because I'm having a great time and I'm going to watch the game. Wow. Yeah, you went from playing to coaching to announcing, to coaching to announcing. Yeah, I guess you never had a. Yeah. I bet it's in two games. Austin's when Austin came to play the Lakers and I was coached in the Clippers. I said like the forefront. Yeah. And I had a ball. And then we were on the road once when I was with Philly and Austin was with Minnesota and Minnesota was in the early in New Orleans. And I called New Orleans and said, I want to see like in the seventh row. I do not, because they always want to put you on the floor somewhere, said, I don't want to sit on the floor. And then they were like, well, we're worried about security. I said, I'm good. And me and Sam can sell set in like the six or seven to row. We played New Orleans the next night. And it was a ball and fans were talking crap. We remember at the very end, I turn around and say, see tomorrow, we're gonna get your ass. It guys are laughing. Like we had a ball. It was so fun. So, it was cool. All right. Well, it's good to have you back. Congrats on the Hall of Fame, by the way. Oh, that was pretty cool. That was cool. That was awesome. The calls are awesome. I think I know I'm going to ask I can't tell you yet, too. You could figure out more. I probably have a guess. But it's going to be, it's going to be a really cool thing. And when you make it as a coach, you make it become all the people who work with you and play for you. You really do like so is more of a thankful thing for me. Awesome. Well, it was great to see you. I'll see you in the West Coast Los Angeles. Very soon. Great to have you back. Missed having you on. Good to see you. Thank you. Good seeing you. And now it's time for a new segment, Embrace in the Era. It is brought to you by new era, the official cap of the NBA and they make awesome caps. You should check them out. Take a trip back three time with some of the most iconic court-defining moments with the new era NBA hardwood classics collection. Let's be honest. A little hard to top the legendary 80s logos. Some people are partial to the 90s when we started to get a little wacky, but the 80s. Oh yeah. And speaking of the 80s, that was the era that made me an NBA fan. I was an NBA fan in the 70s. I was going in the games with my dad in 1974, but the 80s when the league became the NBA. Magic and birds started riding to glory. Michael Jordan showed up. We had a Celtics Lakers robbery. We had those NBA entertainment ads that you can go find on YouTube. The NBA is fantastic. Slim dunk contest, three point contest. All that stuff started. And now you can go back in time with the new era NBA hardwood classics collection available in a wide range of silhouettes, including the iconic fitted 5950 or adjustables like the 948 frame and 970 and some great hardwood classics apparel as well, including this awesome green Celtics sweatshirt that they sent me that my daughter stole from me within a week. And now I have to get it back when she's done with college this year. Visit new era cap dot com to shop now use one time code ringer for 20% off your first order. Check it out. All right, my friend Nikon is here. Mid-level boxing promoter also works for WWE. When you become an upperclass press boxing promoter, middle of boxing executive, and then why did they know why does the promoter as you know. So mid-level boxing executive. Boxing executive who also has bull riding reporting into me. So don't think about the bull riding. Now that you're a big deal, don't think. You know, middle-level wrestling. He's just middle-level boxing also bad. We haven't had you in the studio yet. You do one interview a year. Other you did to this year before WrestleMania because you also were in the Las Vegas review journal. Yes, sir. My pleasure father. My parents still lived in Las Vegas. My mother passed in 2019. All is good. So he still lives there. Still subscribes to the hard copy of the review journal. And he was the one person when the article came out who said, it is a big article. Yes, like wow on you in the review journal today. Yeah, couldn't believe it. My dad does the same with the globe. Hey, you're in the media notes in the globe today. Do you want me to save it? Like, no, I'm good. Yeah, save and put in that plastic sheet, you know, put it in your scrap book. By the way, just in terms of the studio, last year your microphone, it was like circumference 42 inches. No, we're taking it off seriously. We've had a very good last year. Our stuff looks good. We look like discount TV shows now. It's on Netflix from 4K HD. That's it. It's all good. A lot of life seems to be pretty good since all right. So you're in the bad back club now. So welcome aboard on that. Are the old man club, the bad back club ridiculous. So I'm going to try to sit. I told you my theory, though, it's it's 95% stress. There could be like a traumatic like you get a car accident or, you know, you're on a roller coaster and something like sort of. But for the most part, it's usually sitting habits and stress, which is what I tell everybody, but here's the only thing though. So you and I have known each other for almost 20 years now. Yeah, I've never seen you externally stressed. Now, I don't know when kids are in a down, you know, family in the USA, but you've never called me with some version of stress. I just think it's part of your life. I think whatever stress you get used to stress, but you have a way more stress now because you're in charge of bull riding and WWE and your mid-level boxing executive. So this is the most stress you've had. Listen, this is a it's an easy life compared to jobs you and I may have had growing up. That's true. All right. But I would tell you my decision. So I went to public school in Las Vegas. Yeah. Bonanza high school. You're like, I've never heard of that school. This is a public. It's called Bonanza high school. Yeah, all the old Vegas high schools were all Western themed, Rancho high school, Chaparral high school, Western high school, Bonanza high school. Okay. So that's just. El Dorado High School. So that's what they all were. I was like, should I go to college? Should I not go to college? There was, you remember when you and I were younger, you look for a job in the classified ads. Yeah. It said, you know, now hiring in 1992, I believe the minimum wage was $4.25 in Las Vegas. $15.00 an hour. Come work at the Marina hotel while we transform it into the MGM. It's no problem. I went down there. It was kind of a construction job. They said, "Hey, you signed up, okay." I said, "What do I need to do?" They're like, "You see that huge pile of rocks?" I said, "Yeah." It's like you and the other guys need to move that pile like a mile away. And I was like, nah, left, and enrolled at UNLV. I was like, I was a bus boy in high school and all this stuff. That was all fine. The movie in the rock saying, "I'm like, this is too much for me." I have a similar experience. My buddy Jim Graydy and I, we went and worked at some tent company the beginning of the summer, one summer, and I was one day it out. I was driving home. I'm like, I am not going back. That's a one done. I'm not doing that again. I had a job in high school with a bus boy at the old Gold Coast Hotel in Las Vegas, which is an off-strip, you know, casino. First day, it's like, at that time, when we were younger, the manager's role is kind of assholes. Yeah. Right? Kid, you know, you're two minutes late. It's going to be a big reflection on, you know, your future. And I was like, all right, I'll just quit. I'll just quit. You can have someone else plus your table. See how many stories like that? I don't remember if we talked about this on the pod, but I don't even remember how you became an agent. Did you do the mail room thing or did you back into it another way? I was a lawyer, sort of, six or seven years. That's what it was. That Freddie Roach, Manny Pacquiao story. I remember now. I just have the amnesia. Yeah, because of Freddie and Manny started going to a lot of the boxing matches, met Jim Lampley, met Max Kellerman, who's in business with you now. Yeah. And started representing those Joe Tessetour, met those boxing announcers, started representing them as a lawyer, and then went to become an agent in the sports media space. Those are usually the best agents that didn't start because they wanted to be an agent. Yeah, I have this thing also, and by the way, it would apply to Ben and to my children, Sonny and Natalie. When I was an agent, if there were young people, assistants who I liked, I don't say, you know, where you're from. Anyone who answered, I'm from LA, I'd be like, yeah, but where? And it was Resita, Sherman Oaks, you know, Huntington. It was never Hancock Park, Brentwood. It's just different. Like, you know, perhaps your son goes to run a hedge fund or run a team or something like that, but most of the agents come from a little more working class. Yeah, it's true. The good agents are waste. I have a bunch of, normally I don't have the iPad with questions, but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. I see you're on your holiday hour. Your Ollie sweatshirt. I wore the Ollie sweatshirt for you to get the boxing. All the good Tasha and boxing books. We'll start with the wrestling. I want to move into the whole Armada that you guys have created with the combat sports, basically, but the wrestling in WrestleMania 42. Yes, sir. Just seen the 42 makes me feel super old. It's just kind of like fuck 42. I like, I remember every aspect of that week leading up to the first one and now we're at 42. It's kind of jarring. Just also like it. I compare it to WrestleMania one, which I watched from the LA Sports Arena on closed circuit. We were in Los Angeles that weekend. But I also compare it like people talk WrestleMania 18 and I'm like, wait a second, that's now 24 years ago. Right. Right. It's those things when you read- Which one was 18? 18 was- Was that a Hulk and- Hogan right? Yeah. Right. But it's those things you read and like, you know, now if you look at 2002, that would be like 1985 talking about 1962 or whatever the math was. And that makes me feel like, man, these years are flying by. The thing I really hate right now, Instagram just knows how to bring my confidence down. They do these things now where they show some- I don't know if it's AI or how they do it, but it's like an actress or an actor from the 90s. And it's them now and then it's like, here's you might remember me and then it goes backwards and montage of when they were young and then it goes back to them looking like us now. And I always get really depressed. I just got some Instagram last night. It was Andrew McCarthy. And- It was like one of those where it went backwards and forwards. Yeah. Just kind of like this. I don't want this anymore. All right. Why Vegas for the second year and around for us, man? Yeah. So number one, we had a great experience last year. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority led by a guy named Steve Hill. He was a terrific executive. I think I first noticed when the Super Bowl was there a couple of years ago. It was probably the most seamless Super Bowl I had seen. Yeah. I think a lot of people were surprised by that. Having lived there for most of my pre-adult life, it didn't surprise me at all because there's no city that can handle that quantity of people. Yeah. Better than Las Vegas can. So we set up WrestleMania last year. It was quite successful. We decided to go back to back. You know, fingers crossed. Let's see. It's kind of built for it. It's built for the everyday people. It's built for like what you guys have to do with flying executives and celebrities in and out. It's easy to million hotels. There's other stuff going. You can turn it into a get it in an out same day or turn it into a weekend. And look, even if you look at the media business, the current media business now. Yeah. The easy question, Sansa. Where's Disney primarily located? Yeah. Where's Netflix primarily located? Where's the ringer primarily located? LA. You know, I think it was New York and I get for news. It's so consider New York. Where's David? New York stuff because of the giant stadium piece. Stuff. Yeah. It's hard to get to. Stuff. I think LA works now with SoFi. I think would be okay. I'm trying to think of some other ones. Yeah. We did SoFi in 2022. It worked out phenomenally well. Yeah. I think there's three things. The West Coast. Undisputably destroys the East Coast then. For WrestleMania. No. In just in general. Okay. One of them semi-related to WrestleMania. The start time and end time of sporting events. Destroys the East Coast. Mexican food and sushi. Some food sushi. Trying to think what else. I would throw weather and the given. Yes. The sun. The sun's 75% of the year. My daughter FaceTime made it as she was walk around. We're in a t-shirt and shorts and Boston. It was like 78. It's like dad. Yeah. 78. I'm like cool. Welcome to the last couple of days of my life here. How about 78 here? You put the air conditioning on. So what are the big challenges now? They give this WrestleMania coming up where you're coming off. 24 was awesome. Right? That's like a regime with a couple of years after COVID, bring Cody Rhodes in. Just one of those great signature WWE years. And then last year was the senior year, which I thought were great. Thank you. Now you're in 26. It's really tough and wrestling because everybody either wants to say you're red hot again or you're not as hot as you were last year. And it's just one of those two extremes. And it feels like the business right now is in the yes, not like it was last year. And that's kind of what happens. The ratings are a little bit down. The attendance is a little bit down. And then people just latch on to all. So how much of it is real and how much of it are you just not concerned about? So here's the good thing. A year ago. So right after WrestleMania last year, Triple H who you know and I got together and we said, okay, let's take a look at the future. Yeah. Let's look at our top male superstars. Cena was obviously his retirement year. We have, and you tell me if you categorize these as our top men, Roman in some order, Roman, Roman definitely Cody, punk, Seth, Brock. So if you look at their ages, it's a Mac attire in there too. Yeah, put you in there. Yeah. And he adds to the narrative. Okay, they're all 40 years or older. Right. So we said, all right, we got to make sure we're preparing for the future here. We went down to our performance center to see Sean Michaels and Matt Bloom who run that on a day-to-day basis and run NXT, you know, with us. And we said, okay, let's take a look at the talent here. How come DX, for example, when it was first starting to pop? Triple H, I think, was like 26. Yeah. Why is it taking longer? And Sean said there's one thing we could really use the company's help on. We need to be able to tour NXT because doing it from the studio every week, you don't get the authentic fan response that young wrestlers need to know if their work is working or not. Yeah. You know, it's a lot of different regions. It's going to respond differently. Correct. It's different. It's sort of like Randy Orton shows up in St. Louis, he's getting all the cheers in the world. He shows up in a different city. He doesn't. You need to know how to react to that. He said, we need to be able to take NXT on the road. Great. No problem. Give us a week. We came back to Sean. Let's take it on the road starting in a month or whatever it was. And then you saw the quickest acceleration of Oba Femi. Yeah. Trick Williams, Javan Evans soon to be others coming up from NXT. And one of the matches I keep hearing people talk about is going to be the opening match Sunday, which is Oba Femi Brock Lesnar. Right. Right. So, Oba Femi is-- That's many ESPN, right? That's many ESPN. Yeah. So first night of ESPN, part of me, first night of WrestleMania, the first hour is on ESPN, two and ESPN unlimited. Second night Sunday night, first hour is on ESPN, and ESPN unlimited. So Sunday night, we open with Oba Femi Brock. It's a match when Paul and I sat together with a number of other folks that seems to have a bit of a hot hand here. Let's start big. - New versus old, a lot of good stuff, a lot of good anglos. - And I think Brock's work has been phenomenal. Oba's work has been phenomenal. If you cut the Go Home show of Rob Anychance, Oba's promo with Paul Heyman was phenomenal. So we've fingers crossed, right? But we think that's all working. So if we're a publicly traded company, part of a publicly traded company, the results are the results, you know, fingers crossed. - It's interesting what you're hitting, 'cause that's always been, whenever there's been a wrestling run of science, it's usually coming from a young group of people that maybe you weren't expecting. We didn't think we're ready yet. You know, when it happened with Triple H and those guys, the 96-97, it happened 'cause WCW was building like an all-star team of older guys and by necessity, WWE had to like pass the torch to young people and hope they were ready, right? - Think about this. I remember when they brought WWE Red Sergeant Slotter back in the late '90s, who was sort of like a GM type personality and Triple H was really going from Hunterhurst Helmsley to Triple H, it was with Sean, early DX, and they put on the sort of like construction mask, if you will, that had the windshield wipers because they would say, "Sarge would spit in their face when he would talk." And all of a sudden, you saw DX pop and then you saw stunning Steve Austin come over 'cause the ringmaster, and I remember seeing him and being like, "Is that stunning, Steve Austin?" Now he's the ringmaster, I don't know if this is gonna work and then boom, it Jake Roberts, King of the Ring. - The shield 15 years later, it was another one, right? Whatever, the 15, 16 years later. - Think about how quick those guys, they had it, they put in the wall. - They had it, you knew it immediately. - Immediately, immediately. You and I, well that's a weird, yeah, we-- - We talked about it early. - Yeah, but that's one of those things where, most of the times, you kind of have to have it right away. - I think very rarely are there the late bloomer guys, you know, like, wow. - It's kind of, this is happening now. Like LA Night was kind of like that. He was older when it happened for him, but the most part, you kind of know early. It's like basketball. - Yeah, I think even in broadcasting, even when, didn't you do a commercial early on was it with Kevin Mayne pool side? - Oh, I did Main Street with Kenny Mayne. - But it was like, "Oh, who is that?" - Yeah. - Like you were saying things that other people weren't saying. - Yeah. - And it was like, "Well, who's that?" And then you'd start reading your columns. And for me, it was like referencing the Karate Kid, like in a sports column, like I haven't seen that before. But Karate Kid is, you know, you're the one who first touted. It's one of the handful of perfect movies. It doesn't mean-- - I like to think so. - Tell me a flaw in that movie. - I think it doesn't get enough credit for being a great 80s movie. - Hamilton doesn't get enough-- - Great sports movie and a great 80s movie. And really well done. - Hamilton doesn't get enough credit. Maybe because Rocky is not perceived the way that it should be perceived. - Oh, no, it's 'cause of Karate Kid 3. I think that's what killed that once. - That can do it. - He should just take it as name off. And I'm pretended he was like-- - John X. - John Jack Jacobs. - Yeah, the guy who did, uh, what was Eddie for a long, um, American history act. - Yeah, yeah. - The director changed his name or took his name off. - Oh, yeah, he took his name off. - Yeah, 'cause Ed Norton was like in the director's thing. - Hamilton should have done that with three. - You're a big, you're a big Rocky guy. - Love. - What year, what year, one, two, three, four rankings? - So second half of two is the best Rocky of all time. But the first half of two is a little-- - First half, first, three, fourths. - I think on rewatchables, one of your guys said, the moment she says when-- - Yeah, that's it. - Until the end, it's, again-- - It's the best 30 minutes probably of all time. - Phenomenal. Every scene, the music, the score in that, we know how great the score is, but somehow it's not remembered the way it should be. - We talked about that on the pod about people cheering in the theater, which was the only time I've ever really seen that for real. Like people cheering like it was, they were at WrestleMania or something. How about also, and you have a number of phenomenal books here that then later became movies. - Yeah. - How about going to the movies and it was sold out, right? You'd go and you'd be like, okay, we wanna go see Rocky too. Sold out. Well, one's the next show, 11.30 PM. Okay, well, what else are you showing here? And you'd go see an alternative movie? - It was tough. - That's starting to come back with the IMAX, but you can still see, like LA is probably an anomaly 'cause they have so many theaters here, but you see the IMAX is sold out. You kind of have to, well, do the laser, I guess. - Totally. - But it's so, it's a little, but I do feel like the movies are a little bit back, not like it was when we were growing up. - But at least you know before you go, when we would go and you'd walk up and it's like, so on Rocky too sold out, you'd be like, "Oh my God." - We should come by tickets then. - Yeah. - At least you can buy, you know, in advance and can buy. - You just did the Nikon thing where you, you moved away from my original question. - What do you mean? - We talked about Oba Brock. - No, but where you are now, it happens. - So the ebb and flow of the business, it's a little bit of a down right now, but it's not too far down, but it's not as high as it was two years ago. So you think the key is build around the young guys, 'cause someone in the criticisms is always that you don't do as many house shows now. Guys aren't on the road as much. There's real reasons for that. It's because the way that business used to be, these guys would get run into the ground in five years. - Think about every wrestling documentary you've ever seen. - Yeah. - Usually about wrestlers in the 80s started off with I was on the road 300 days a year. - Right. - It's no way, and then you saw the results of that. Forget family life, but you saw what people would do to make sure that their bodies could perform at that level. - Yeah. - So, you know-- - That's like me right now. - What do you mean? - The things I have to do to get, you know, to do in four podcasts a week, I really have to. - Also, listen to me. - Keep it on see when I'm doing. - I understand, it's very hard. And by the way, because of our age, which we started off with, I'm sure you have a stretch man now. - Yeah, yeah. - Which is always an awkward connection to me. Some man stretching my leg. I don't know. - I don't have my own personal man stretcher, but I do find myself doing things I never thought I would have done in the past. Like watching TV, but making sure I'm sitting on the floor, just stretching out my tendance, doing this thing. - I talk to a mutual friend of ours, Pete Bavakwa, who's the AB at Notre Dame, and just a random conversation a couple months ago. He's like, "Hey, I just worked out, he was on the road." And I'm like, "How long did you stretch?" And he's like, "Dude, I was the only guy in the gym. It was all young people. I'm stretching out." You know, this and that. I'm like, "They're all looking at me," saying, "There's the old man." - You know, I haven't talked to him in a while. He was the greatest guy as a high school kid. Like, he was younger than us, but we all loved him. And I totally wasn't surprised that he's super successful now. - Love that guy. - He had great people skills when he was like 15. - Totally. - Yeah. - Love that guy, honest broker, and you know, in his dream job, which I always applaud people for. - Do you think as you get, by the way? - How rich are you now? We haven't talked yet. - I'm not the one that sells stock all the time. Like, they, like, they would see that. - Listen, I'm sold more stock. - How did we start this? A mid-level wrestling boxing executive with bull riding reporting. - Sure. - So, yeah, we, I've saved the bull riding combo for the end. - Listen, I don't know if people are gonna say that. - Part of the reason I came here today is to try to take out a personal loan from you. Not that much money for you. $30, $40 million. - That's fine. - It's no big deal. - I was there for us to invest in the TKO production. - In the TKO production, it spies them stock. I actually, I was asked to invest, I don't know, when did, when did I do the whole UFC thing? It was like 10. - 2016. Why didn't you do that? You didn't believe. - I didn't. I actually, I could have, 'cause it was, it was, baby doll was in there and they asked Jimmy and, so I actually looked at it. I really studied it. And it's hilarious why I didn't invest. 'Cause I should have. And I really believed in UFC and I thought I was gonna keep getting bigger. And the reason I didn't invest was that came to the conclusion. It was too dependent on meteorite steels. And if they didn't get the meteorite steels, the way they thought they were gonna get the meteorite steels, it wouldn't have been worth anything. So I was like, I'm not doing it, I'm out. - How that work out? - Terrible. It was a complete misread. It was actually like, the conclusion I landed on was the exact opposite of what happened. They were completely right. Meteorite deals were exploding. All these great things were about to happen. And I was like, I don't know, I don't see it. I don't see the case. - By the way, I passed on investing in sweet greens. I'm like, that's never gonna work. There's plenty of that on this end. On the UFC side, if you think about it, it's part of the opportunity we see in boxing. - Yeah. - Let's go back to 1984 for a moment. And you would know it better than I would, but this is off the top of my head. If I said to you who are the most famous athletes in the country, okay, so Jordan's still not pro. Bird, magic, Joe Montana, let's say. And then a bunch of individual sport stars. Mac and Roe, Nicholas, Mary Lou Retten, Carl Lewis, Sugar Ray Leonard, boom, boom, man, Sini, evil, can evil, and-- - Chris Everett. - Chris Everett, right? And then you fast forward a mere 10 years to 1994. And the leagues have become the leagues. NBA is going crazy. The NFL is going crazy. The individual sports outside of WWE. And subsequently outside of UFC, they all stayed the same. So the question we know this, that people would always ask is, who's the heavyweight champion of the world? You would know it. I would know it now, and who's sick? Most people don't know it. Who's the fastest band on the planet? The sanctioning bodies are ridiculous. The belts messed it up. I knew Marvin Hagler is the middleweight champion. I didn't know him as the WBC interim middleweight champion. recess. It's nonsense. It's absurd. Max and I, when Max was here, we were talking about when there was that crazy super middleweight run. When we had all those super middleweights at the same time and I figured I think it was maybe show time. Yeah. Had them all fighting each other. And that was one of the last times I felt like, oh, there's real structure of this. The super six. Yeah. It was called in the best. Which seems like what everybody's trying to do now with boxing. And I think from a boxing standpoint, I have more choices month to month than I think I've ever had before. Look, it's Turkey. All shake is certainly trying to do that and has certainly done it. And put his money up and made fights that no one was going to make. So if you look at what the promoters were doing on their own, the boxing promoters, it was, well, let's just have our guy fight another one of our guys. And then finally, you'd get Errol Spence who I give all the credit in the world to didn't have to give Terrence Crawford the opportunity. This was pre-Turkey being involved in boxing, knew that the fans wanted it, gave him the opportunity. But that's why we don't get that correct because people point to Errol Spence and like, that's the worst case scenario. You get absolutely obliterated by bud. I understand. And then you don't have the same drawing power anymore. It's no different. And this is not directed at you. And I know it's a young Patriots team, but the Patriots deserve to be in the Super Bowl. They got beat handily. So what? I'm at the point with it now where I wish we had lost in the AFC title game and never made the Super Bowl. You're hurt by the Super Bowl. Well, I just think it's setting off a chain of events. Now my coach is in a scandal. I have that going. I just feel like we're just going to be the year from hell. I'm already resigned to it. Not jinxing anything. You have the right to be. Of the right to be. Hopefully it's healthy. Not jinxing. The boxing thing though, I feel like there's more awareness. But the thing is, I might only feel that way because I have a lot of people in my life who like boxing. So we're like the zone had a fight, you know, it had a card in England last week. That's Saturday. It was early. The Tyson Fury Netflix. Yeah. Netflix. Sorry, Netflix. Sorry, whoops, employer of the ringer. I'm going to leave that in. Sorry. Yeah. I'm not going to edit that out. It's more of my old age. Netflix had it. James Spencer Bell. I don't know if you've heard of these people the zone was two weeks before. Netflix was last week. And it was starting like 11 o'clock PT and, you know, but it was just, it just feels like every week there's something. Look, think about things that Turkey's getting right and separately. Netflix is getting right. One of them is a selection of dates. Yeah. So it used to be if you remember like Bo Holyfield, the fan man fight was in November. Yeah. Remember when the fan man came in and they had to put like blankets and everything around. Oh, and Holyfield to stay warm. Outdoor venue, Caesars Palace, Vegas in November, very cold at night, you know, for West Coast certainly very cold. Like, why are you going so heavy during college football season? It's insane. And by the way, it's not just college football season. And that was, you know, November, but if you just look at the fall, okay, what are the foremost popular sports in the United States? If you bifurcate pro and call it, okay, NFL college football NBA college hoops, MLB having a bit of a renaissance right now, two strong world series. So you're going with postseason baseball with a stacked Dodgers team, which, you know, when you get the big teams in it, it tends to matter as, you know, yeah, October's a no fly zone now for this stuff. Why would you go so boxing? Did it consist? You talked about this the last time you were on. And I thought it was really smart. How in a TKO just in general, like UFC just like, Hey, let's rethink how we're approaching the calendar. Why is WrestleMania this weekend? Why can't UFC take advantage of this two week window here in August where nothing's happening? Why can't we put a boxing card here? I feel like we're like, it feels like the sports card. My dance card weekend to weekend is more filled than it used to be instead of just the weekends where there's too much stuff in your own guy. I guess I'm going to watch this instead of this. Totally. So a couple of examples of this. Yeah. When Dana, Ari Shapiro and company made Mayweather McGregor. Yeah. Triple G. Canelo had already been announced from middle of September of that year for Mexican Independence Day weekend. Yeah. And I remember speaking to Dana, I was not working with them at the time. Speaking to him and he said, we're going to go the last week of August, pre-labor day. And I said, hot and Vegas, he said, yeah. And he said, you know, the Vegas routine. Most people are going to come in, they're going to go to the pool, they're going to be at the pool or an air conditioning. You got it. Yeah. And that fight, I think, is the highest-grossing pay-per-view of all time or second-highest-grossing gate after Mayweather Pacquiao. And I was like, that's brilliant. When we all started together at WWE, which is now almost six years ago, coming out of COVID, we looked at our premium live events calendar. And we had one. I don't remember the month. You would probably remember the month. This is in 2021. And I asked the founder of the company, I said, why are we going up against Tom Brady's return with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New England? And he was like, I don't know. Like, what should we do? I said, let's move to Saturday night. Right. Right. I'd rather go up against Alabama, LSU, and it's prime. Then Tom Brady's return to New England with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Great. Do it. It was very easy to sort of make those changes, which we did. So even on on WrestleMania, April 18th and 19th, two years ago in Philly, it was final four weekend. That was the last deal we inherited. Why would you look at the final four this year? You had three, in my opinion, hot teams, Illinois too. So maybe four hot teams. But you had Hurley, you had who would beat them? Michigan, Arizona, Hurley and Illinois. Right. Why would we want to go up against that? I've noticed a great weekend that everybody didn't realize it was a great weekend when they went to two weeks between AFC NFC title games in the Super Bowl. So much better. There was that weekend between the two. That was basically a wide open weekend. You're just going against like basketball. Now called Royal Rumble weekend. Exactly. Yes. But Royal Rumble was not always that weekend. No. Royal Rumble would go the Sunday of the two conference championships. And then we moved it to the Saturday because it's a wide open night. Then you quickly realize where you can't book an NFL stadium because every NFL team is hopeful that their team is in one of those two games. So I don't know. Pro Bowl at the time was on at like noon, Easter or Sunday, daytime event. So 90% of the country's still cold. People are used to watching sports on Sunday. People are used to the first day of the weekend. And since late August. Correct. Yeah. So why not do it then? Which we did in rating skyrocketed. And then summer, some of the opportunities are you got to look and make sure there's not a man's or a woman's world cup to make sure there's not no Olympics. This summer is you got to avoid it. You don't want to go against the Olympics for any reason. So think about this. First weekend of May always was a big boxing weekend. Oscar De La Jolla would fight on Cinco de Mayo weekend. Right. That's a Mexican Latino kind of a made up like beer holiday if you will. But it's a good time to go to Vegas. Weather's perfect. You know, this and that. It's also Kentucky Derby Saturday. Yeah. So you have men and women sitting around a television, especially with proliferation. The basketball hockey. The playoffs like huge game six is game sevens for both sports. Huge Kentucky Derby's a three minute sporting event. Right. So if men and women are together, okay, what do we want to do? We want to watch the NBA game. If our team's not in it, there's a oh, there's a big fight on TV. Great. Let's order it. But why not do that with the preekness, which even if you read, I'm sure you did the news yesterday that hey, the preekness may move a week later. So instead of being two weeks after the Kentucky Derby three weeks, why would you not have done that years ago? Give the horses more of a chance to recover, create more of an opportunity, one horse wins both races. Then you have a triple crown contender at the Belmont. Why would you not have done that? Horse racing, much like boxing, fragmented. This track owner does this. This one doesn't like that. There's no unification to it. So with Zufa boxing, if we can replicate the version of a league, if you will, NBA, NHL, NFL, UFC, WWE with the best fight, the best, there's consistency of programming. And you know, no one's going to duck anyone. Maybe we have a chance. You stole Connor Ben. What do you mean by stole? Well, you grabbed them, brought them to your team. It had to be done one fight deal. I thought he looked good on Saturday night. There was some unintentional questions. Progress brought it, but that's part of the thing. But he had four injuries. Yeah, he basically admitted after like, yeah, it was really hurt, but I felt like I had to fight anyway. He didn't, he didn't have to fight. But yes, he's game. And look, it's part of the Zufa legislation with the Muhammad Ali Enhancement Act is that insurance for fighters will kick in when training camp starts. Because as it's set up now, fighters only have fight night insurance. So if they get hurt seven weeks before, a lot of them will just go through camp hurt because they can't necessarily afford to go to the doctor and pay for it and all of that. To get training assurance, small things like that, the minimums that someone can make per round to institute those. So people aren't fighting. You know, he hears 40 bucks. It's kind of like Rocky Balboa's spider Rico. Yeah. Okay. It's 40. - $28.23. - $28,000 in that fight. - Took some liberties. - Yeah. - And then talk shit to him after. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Didn't say so. - What a day. - Spider Rico. - So you're happy with how the boxing's going? - I'm happy with how we started it. You know, give it a couple of years. Let's see where we are. But I'm not. - You guys are feuding with Eddie Herne already. - We're not feuding with anybody. - You were lovin' some grenades at him. He's lovin' grenades back. - It's great. - Listen, I don't know what the guy's talking about. - He moved out from Tony Khan to Eddie Herne. I like it. - Oh, there's similarities between the two. - What are the similarities? - They both work for their dads. (laughs) Which, you know, by the way, I'm gonna give Ben Simmons some strong advice here. - Yeah. - Whatever he decides to do with his life, do not try to be a podcaster. - Ben Simmons does not wanna work for me. That one that happened. - Why was the Forge his own way? - Of course. - Yeah. - That's a way it should be. - Right, you do everything you can. This is father to set him up in the world, by the way. He should use your relationships. He should do whatever he can. It's a bit of a dated reference. Frank Sinatra, Jr. Should have done anything other than being prudent. - Yeah, that was the worst case there. - Correct, yeah. - He should have said, "Hey, Dad, I wanna be a music manager "can you introduce me to people?" Sure, I wanna book venues and sure, doesn't that. Ben Simmons should not be a podcaster, nor will he be. - I just read something. I think it would, I wanna say it was Bill Gates, but it was somebody like that who had their kids when they turned 21, or they're going to, they're in that range, any met them, they'd dinner, and he was like, "I'm just here to tell you, "you're not gonna inherit any of my money. "I'm gonna leave each of you $10 million "that will bring you to Forge your own way." And that's it, you're not getting anything else. - I get it by the way, I read, and then. - You don't have to worry about that, 'cause Sonny's gonna be like, "President." - Listen. - Sonny's already like a freaking mafia head. Like, you can see him at these games. He's shaking, people are coming up to him. - That's like Michael Corleone and Godfather too. - Well, I listen, I appreciate the Michael Refford especially since we named him Sonny in two, especially. He's definitely not going to come work for me, nor will our daughter Natalie. - Yeah. - They're going to, and of course I will try to help them get into this pool. - I could see Sonny running the boxing, who knows? - If he's passionate about it and he earns his way in, and by the way, there hasn't been a weekend where I've traveled for wrestling or boxing where he has not traveled with me. And you remember you and I were at WrestleMania 16. - How was it in that time? - He's 10. - Yeah. - WrestleMania 2016, we were both at AT&T Stadium for WrestleMania 2016. And you sent me a video of, so Ben's 18 now? - Yeah, Ben doing all the moves, and so was eight. - So my Instagram. - That's like peak slamming pillows, wanting to spear you, I'm sure, you know, this and that. - I told you this, eight to 10 is the peak little boyage. - It's amazing. - 8, 9, 10, home run. - It's amazing. - They're the best. - Comes with me on the weekend, can go in any meeting that I'm in, there's one rule, you can't talk. Because to me, he hasn't earned his right to voice his opinion. So he takes notes for me. - That's good, he listens. - Listen. - He absorbs it. - Correct. - Listen, absorb it, be in the room that your father has earned his way into. But don't think like you're here because of you. - Yeah. - And I found in combat sports, when you have kids whose parents are somehow associated with it in it, I haven't seen it work. It might work one day, I haven't seen it work. - Well, you being, you inherited a company that had Ben's, there's two kids working, but the daughter, Stephanie, was really good. - Why are they all like Ben's? - Phenomenal. - Son really wanted to run the business and his own and that was, some of what we did the documentary about, this really interesting dynamic of father, son. - Didn't you go to the same high school as him? - We lived in the same city when I was in high school, but we didn't go to the same high school. - Got it, got it. - But yeah, got it. - One boxing piece that developed in 2026 was obviously the big conflict in the Middle East that's still going and a lot of the money for some of the stuff you guys were doing, other things were doing, was tied up over there. You had plans to go over there like, what happened? Like is this just a wait, play it by ear? Like not a fun topic, but I have to ask. - Oh yeah, of course. - And by the way, just so all the listeners and viewers know, your guest house, bigger than my real house. - That's true. - It's true. - This room bigger than Master bedroom of my house. So I'll come stay here for a while. - You're always about it. - Thank you. Yeah, look, it's a tricky situation there. Keep in mind, I'm the child of Iranian immigrants. And you know, a little bit different than most Iranians in the United States and that my dad came in 1952 when he was five. So in essence, I'm a little more second generation than first. So I don't have family that I've ever met who's there. But obviously monitoring the situation on the business side and on simply the political side. Number one, we'd never send our wrestlers, our crew, anybody into an unsafe environment. But hopefully this thing clears up in the not too distant future and I understand hope is not a strategy. So it's a wait and see approach. And did it affect like all the plans you guys had for the next three to five years? And must have at least a little bit, right? - No, I think, you know, Turkey has, you know, had the Tyson Fury co-made event Conor Ben, Ben with us fight on Netflix, not a different carrier. This past weekend from London. - Yep. - So that fight made, or from Tottenham. So that fight made sense at Tottenham Stadium. And you know, we'll work around it and work through it. But nothing's going to affect it thus far. - So you're dealing with all these different places now, right? That for WWE, the boxing, you don't deal with the UFC as much. But everyone settled in their partners, but there's a big courting process sometimes. - Sure. - What are people better or worse at this than they were 15, 20 years ago when you had, like they're in like the John Skipper era. And now you have like, Netflix says, Bella and Gabe and all those people. And ESPN has Jimmy of Taram Burke and Paramount has all their people. And like, what's different about the whole process than the 2000s, anything? - Well, I think, look, I happen to be in a bit of a more senior seat than I was, you know, early 2000s. So in dealing with Bella, Gabe, Brandon Rieg, who lives down the street from here, by the way. That means it's a very-- - Thanks for telling everybody. - That's a very affluent neighborhood. Very affluent, great. Brandon Rieg, who by the way, I've said this many, many times, told me and Stephanie McMahon pre-COVID. I don't know the Netflix ever gets in alive, but if they do, you should line up your international media rights because Netflix is not going to do a deal with WWE that says, "Hey, great news. We have WWE in three countries." So at that time, we started putting the process in place where the international rights would all time out with the U.S. rights and boom, the Netflix deal a year and change ago, which has been a game changer for WWE. So they're phenomenal. You got new leadership at Disney with Josh Tomorrow. The time was obviously right for Bob. He chose, in essence, Bob Eiger, his timing, and left quickly. - The time was right in 2020. - Listen, it depends on the successor. - It's hard to leave. - Look, I'll tell you this. If the coach of your favorite team had decided, I'm just going to be a broadcaster and shut it down. And if the person who was the president, before the current president, it's it, I'm just going to be a one-term president. I think they both be remembered far differently than they're currently remembered. - Yeah. - So it's important that you get out of it before it gets out of you. And that's something we'll have to hold each other to in like 20 years. - It's tough, I totally see it, it's tough. Like even somebody like Lauren Michaels now, he's still producing SNL in his 80s. - It's also like when you've worked hard like you have, like what are you going to do every day? - That's what I still love what I do and I still feel like I'm good at it. I don't know, five years from now. Like the question for me is, how would you know if the signs were there that you weren't as good? Who in your life would tell you, hey, you're not as good. I don't think that conversation's ever happening with anybody, but I've noticed like, I really thought about a lot with Stern. Stern was the first one that I really felt like I had a court side seat too, no pun intended. Of just like really watching how he ran everything and then really feeling like he was starting to lose control of the narrative a little bit the last couple of years he was there and he couldn't see it. But I think it affected his legacy a little bit. To me in business there's pirates and there's armadas. Stern was a pirate. - Yeah. - Right, hey, I'm coming to Los Angeles. I'm going to kick Mark and Brian's ass or whoever it was at the time. I'm going to chew them out. - Correct. And then city motherfuckers, yeah. - You think about the stuttering John stuff at that time way ahead of the game. - Yeah. - Just crushing everybody. And the things they would talk about and the character names like way ahead. And then all of a sudden the pirate became the armada. And to me when that happens you usually see a little slippage. The pirates need to stay the pirates. - Wait, you're talking about Howard Stern. Who are you talking about? - I'm talking about David Stern. - Oh, strike that love Howard Stern. He hasn't slipped at all. You tell me is Howard Stern? Has this, I would say he's another one. - Yeah, yeah. That's an interesting one. I mean, that's a good, another good example. - So and by the way people, people who defend him and say, well, no, you know, it's a smaller universe now. I don't know, seriously. - That's hilarious that I was talking about. David Stern, you were talking about Howard Stern, but the conversation, if you did a transcript, it seemed like we both understood what the other one was saying. David, had a good time for either legacy. Listen, if there even is a legacy, by the way, Dana White and I at times, I'll say, hey, they're entering championship rounds, he thinks fifth round UFC, right now he obviously thinks, you know, 12 round boxing as well. But even if you look at the vernacular boxing and the falloff on it, you still hear it. This is like a heavyweight championship fight. Yeah. You know, he's taken an eight count. You know, you can run, but you can't hide. Then you hear the UFC come into the vernacular where everybody uses tap out, y'all gonna tap out. And other, you know, sort of lingo introduced by the UFC into the American culture, became part of the zeitgeist. It's part of the zeitgeist. Boxing, we'll see if we can get it back in. But yeah, we were talking about two different Sterns. Maybe same issue. One thing with that, I think the difference in 2026, I've really noticed with Amazon doing the NBA this year, I have no dog in this race. I don't care who wins. I just want to enjoy sports. But I think with Amazon, the most interesting piece to me was that Saturday afternoon game they had in Sacramento, Denver was one a couple weeks ago, but they would have it would be like one o'clock PT, right? So four o'clock ET, so late afternoon, but then overseas primetime basically. It's on like nine o'clock, so you have this Wembee Joker game, and now I'm in all these different countries with it. And if I'm the NBA, I'm like, this is fucking incredible. This is so whatever this is, is where we need to go if we're going to grow the game. Now the flip side is all the playing, we're taping the son of Tuesday, all the playing games are on Amazon, which is a good thing because I think they do a good job. It's a bad thing because I think there's a lot of people who, A, don't realize they're on Amazon and B, maybe don't have Amazon and are going to be like, well, wait, what about, I don't want to get Amazon. So there's a little bit of that and I want to see how that shakes out over the next couple of years. But by the way, analogous to that, when the NFL started doing the European games, I never believed it was solely for the purpose of, oh, we want to develop a European fan base. I thought it was to develop a fourth Sunday window. So if you say, on the East Coast, wow, you know, 10 a.m. Eastern, that would be really early, you live in LA, I live in LA, 10 a.m. Pacific, you're up watching football. And if you say, well, 7 a.m. Pacific, you know, on the West Coast, that would be far too early. If you look at the ratings and share in Hawaii and Alaska, they watch it just as much as the rest of the country watches it. So I always believed it was to create a fourth window, which it seems like it's heading towards in addition to establishing international fans, which I think the NFL first mover in that space. They've done phenomenal work. That's the only one you really haven't, we could probably talk about pretty freely because you're never going to cross pass with them, right, the NFL? Like just how they, I think they're, no, but I think they're fascinating because they're the only entity that sells games, matches, events, whatever that can basically do whatever they want. And people just have to take a big gulp and then put up with it, right? I don't know what they're capable, but this deal they're about to do is that the paramount merger and all that stuff is allowed them to basically blow up some of their deals, reconsider them. I'm prepared for anything. Like the Friday night rule with the high schools, are they going to go after that? Are they going to add 18 games with two bi weeks and stretch the Super Bowl out and basically going to February? Yeah, probably. Are they going to have an international game every week? They might, are they going to just add four more teams out of nowhere? I don't know. Are they going to be on seven different platforms? Maybe. Like the WNBA is on seven broadcast partners. Like to me, that means the NFL could do it. So could, could it just basically be everybody gets a small piece of this and they're just like, this is the price, man. You're the painter or not. We don't want to hear it. But it seems like that's where we're headed. Everything you laid out has or could happen with the NFL. I'd also, if I was college football and you hear the conversations about executive order for NIL and this and that and second most popular sport as we just talked about in the United States, but makes the fifth most amount of money. Yeah. I'd be looking at that Saturday night and saying, we know the NFL jumps on Saturdays as soon as college football regular season winds down, you know. I was worried about being exclusive on Saturday night. They did it with the college football playoff. Yeah. We're going to go on Saturday at the NFL games. And the playoff, I think, went head to head on the college football playoff in the door for the NFL to be like, okay, guys, I guess, I guess we're battling by the think about this also. We discussed this internally. That does not mean it was our exclusive idea, just so we're clear. Myself, Shapiro, Dana, Ari, a number of other folks. Black Friday. Amazing day. Black Friday is no different than Thanksgiving day for a lot of people. Okay, some people go line up at 3 a.m. to go, you know, for the most part, people are sitting around with food and there's nothing to watch. So the NFL puts a Black Friday game on and now there's rumors that they're going to add a second Black Friday game. Well, there's a rumor of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving game. You said, we discussed internally also, and again, I'm not suggesting it was our exclusive idea. That night before Thanksgiving, there's a lot of people at home, like maybe that's a good night for boxing and, you know, for anything, anything, there's nothing on that's like Netflix. I think that was a stranger things night for them. One of those times or somebody really shows a major TV show that night. Christmas Eve. Yeah. If Christmas day, if you have five NBA games and the NFL said, oh, we're going to go take that also and put three NFL, well, I would, they're not be sports on Christmas Eve. So there's a lot of these nights. I think what happened was the traditional thinkers would say, oh, people are traveling. The reality is, you know, in my phones off to the side, given iPad there, we can watch whatever we want, wherever we want. So yeah. When you're traveling, you're actually still the audience, whereas I think in the 80s, it was a little different. If I went to like Acapoco with my family in 1988, if the hotel didn't have the channel, that was it. By the way, when Ronda Rousey fought Holly home in their rematch, it was December of whatever year that was. And I was in Mexico with my family and I looked up what bar has the UFC and we went to go watch the fight. Now that's seven, eight, nine years ago. Yeah. Now you're just on an iPad. Correct. So you're streaming into your hotel TV. So even, even fourth of July weekend, different this year, 250th anniversary, fourth of July's actually a Saturday. Yeah. So there's a lot of free, you know, entertainment out there. But that weekend, and in my prior profession, we really pushed ESPN to have a boxing match on that weekend from Australia, that weekend is wide open for viewership. So open that people watch the hotel meeting contest. There's nothing on. Yeah. What does that tell you? Yeah. It's, again, summertime for us wide open. How about last weekend of June, because the draft they even moved it up, I think even closer to the finals. For the NBA, so now it's like that last weekend as zero shockingly, you would say that. We have a PLA on June 27th. There you go. There you go. What are you the most excited about for WrestleMania? I think Roman punk is really interesting to me. I think just from a career versus career standpoint. Yeah. I think, you know, punk said it again on the go home show. This is my first one on one WrestleMania main event match. We've had Roman several. And obviously punk left for a while and came back and has done phenomenal work with us. That was a coup for you, because I would have voted no on that one. It's interesting though, you've dealt with quote unquote talent. You may be quote unquote talent. At one point, one of your employers may have said, oh, he's difficult, like I never found you difficult. Like, what's difficult? I had the last laugh on that one. Yeah. I was looking at, no, but it's just like the difficult thing. It's like, all right. So only one company thought I was difficult. And yet all these other people have also had the exact same issues with that company. Maybe it's the company agreed. So even on punk, like, okay, when he was in his 20s, he said certain things that, you know, he shouldn't have said, what ambitious guy didn't, what ambitious man or woman didn't do that? But I get, I get where you're going for here. I do think even he would admit I'm a lot more humbled from some of the stuff that's happened to me. I see things from a different perspective. If I go back, I maybe would have done some stuff differently. He's been pretty open talking about that. Sure. And look, maybe that applies to you too. Maybe it applies to me also things I did earlier in my career that I say to myself. Like, can I, could I have been a better teammate? Yeah. Like, those are a little aggressive for, you know, whatever it was. But I'd always rather have that, like, hey, let's rain it in a little bit. Then go be more aggressive because that never works. You can never get anyone to do that. Punk's at like the same stage that Justin Rose was at at the Masters just now. Justin Rose was 45. I picked him to win the Masters and he almost did. He kind of blew it in the final nine. But he's 45 and in golf years, you're kind of near the end at that point. You can, you know, maybe still make a run in a, in a major until about 50. But for the most part, you're, you're probably still a real threat until 4546 wrestling is a little similar. Like, you can still do what's seen a dead and be really. careful about how you schedule out stuff, but to be a main event, show up all the time performer. I don't know what the expiration date is, but it's probably somewhere around his age now, right? Middle, late 40s. The good thing with him and with Brock and with Cena last year is they've all been quite responsible in their life. Yeah. So the conversation of, hey, you Brock or now punk, you have to tell us when you start feeling like, I'm not going the way that I used to go. Right. Tell us and let's figure out, you know, something else for you. Again, you have to leave it before it leaves you so far. Now punk tours tricep in his first Royal Rumble back. Yeah. Okay. Came back nine months later. So far, you know, he's performed at an A plus level. Fingers crossed. That's a bad luck injury. Is this decade? Yeah. Look, Braun Breaker went down, then Seth went down. Braun Breaker went down. I mean, was it true? He was going to be in a major Saturday or Sunday? Well, it seems like there was a major push behind him. That was evident. And, you know, we hadn't finalized, you know, WrestleMania matches or order of matches at that moment, but you saw Seth come back from the fake injury, which was one of the greatest works of all time, in my opinion. It worked. He even went K-Fayblik with his young daughter. Yeah. You know, it worked. And then he came back and really got injured. And then Braun got injured. And it's something, you know, we're consistently having to deal with like any other sports franchise. And it can change the whole season. You just saw with the Lakers. Who's the, who's the biggest WWE star in 2033? I think there's a shot for a couple people. I think my Ria is in her late 20s, Ria Ripley. She's amazing. She's amazing. Yeah. She's, she's, she has a chance. She's a chance. She's already up there. She also passes that when you're in the room test, does this person feel like a major person just walked down the runway into the ring? No question. It's not a long list for that. So she's under 20s? Roman always had that. Always. And that was probably why I've been stuck with him even when the fans kind of type like you could feel it in the room like he had something. You knew it. Listen, there's certain guys who come in the room and everyone comes, certain men and women who come in the room and everyone comes to them. And then there's other people who have to go up to everybody. Yeah. So with Ria with Roman soon everyone. Yeah, when I say the room, I'm talking about an 80,000 football stadium, but it's, you can't really explain it until you see it. Hogan was the number one all time for that as soon as he would have actually Andre probably was. I think one of those two, I was feel like Andre was even though we've seen so many of his matches, he was like right when I was getting into it. Yeah. So, but if you're there in 1980 and he's walking into Shay Stadium, it's the most evident thing you've ever seen. Were you shocked and or disappointed or hurt when you then saw videos of Hogan previously slamming? No, I do about that. Shay Stadium or did you know that? Yeah, now we knew about that. Even when we did the documentary, we knew because they toured together for like a year and what was it? 80 or anyone? So we're in wrestling in Japan. Like there's a lot of evidence of that. So we're a couple years apart. Yeah. Just a couple years. But when you're 12 and someone's like 16, that's a big difference. So when I was watching, first of all, when Patera and Stud cut Andre's hair, like I couldn't sleep, that was maybe I was 8 or 7 or 8. Like that was like shocking. Tough one. And then when Bundy broke Hogan's ribs, I think so Hogan could go to Japan. I remember like sleepless like, oh my god, I can't believe you. My first one was Killer Con breaking Andre's leg, which while Andre broke his leg, but then they said Killer Con did it. They got a whole awesome angle out of it. Now is a great one. Because Andre was laid up. He did break his leg up. You never answered my 30 my 2033 question. Rhea, I'm high on Logan Paul. It's pretty good. It's good, dude. And by the way, puts in the work. So what one thing? Well, what's in it? Ultimately, like for him, that's what he wants to be is to be in this business because it seems like he's trying to do so many different things. I think it's part of what he wants to be. Yeah. But on a full-time basis, he's full-time with us now and yet he does the card, rippets and the Pokemon stuff and his podcast with us through fanatics. He's just turned 30. Okay, that's good. So high on Logan. I'm high on Braun. Yeah. We cannot rush it, though. Got to sort of let him develop at his own pace. And he's an excellent athlete who obviously grew up in the wrestling business, but let it develop at its own pace, which were all on the same page about. I think all three of those obos and obvious one. I'm high on trick. I like the fact that he's an SEC athlete. I like the fact that he sort of inherently understands media. I like the fact. I always look for people whose inner voice matches their outer voice. I look for that in wrestlers. I look for it in political people. Yeah. You know, if your inner voice matches your outer voice, you have a shot. Trick Williams is trick Williams. So I like that. How much time do you spend talking to Triple H about this about like kind of what do you think a lot? Yeah, I would imagine this is most of the conversation a lot. This is similar from some of the conversations I have in life trying to figure out different arcs or different people we have or we're interested in. But what's working on your business? I did that not work. It's like those two people together. There's something there. It's also similar to our business. You got to go your frequency is heavy. Yeah. Like if you tough to get an audience this way, but if you said, okay, I only have to do, you know, 12 podcasts a year. So you have to be in the mix. Correct. You got to go every week. The best one is that when you think it hasn't happened yet, but you're convinced it's going to happen. Because we have like not to single put up, but we have this couch football podcast called Ring or Tailgate that I just I know it's good. And I know it's going to be a bigger thing. And I feel like this season, it can be a bigger thing. And I just like we just have the right group of people and the right chemistry. And this is like a show that's going to work. They speak about college football the way that people who are real college football fans speak about football. You just want to hang out with these guys as they shoot the shit about this. And it's like it's going to happen this year. And if it doesn't happen, I'm going to feel like it's my fault. I sort of look at things the same way. I know Triple H does also. Yeah. If someone has all the tools in the ring in ring and puts in the time and manages their life outside of the ring, if it doesn't happen, it's sort of on us. Right. The creative and if they were if they fuck it up, it's different. And there's a lot of chances to fuck it up as you know. Well, and sometimes it for especially in wrestling, if the guys get the smoke blown up their butt early and they're doing pretty well, I can go to their heads. We've seen that many times. By the way, in all professions, when fame comes early 20s, you see it with athletes all the time. Or center anchors. All kinds of people. You started the media business over and over again. You catch the Lamar Odom documentary on Netflix. I didn't watch it. I've had you knew the whole story. Yeah, I know the story. By the way, I was at UNLV when he was supposed to come to UNLV. Remember, he signed there for a moment before he went to Rhode Island. Yeah. Okay. He was so good, so young that you almost wish like he wasn't that good. Right. Because the things that you can't teach, he inherently had. But the things that you had to manage, he inherently couldn't manage. And I don't mean a critique his life. But sometimes when you're so young and so good, it can mess you up. Basketball has a lot of those. A lot. I mean, one of the most famous ones ever was Marvin Baden who's barren. So I think we had probably top 25 forward talent. It was just but just off the court complete disaster. There's a couple. Yeah, there's a couple guys now that I want to mention that we worry about. One thing you guys are doing that I love that I feel like I'm responsible for this even though I can't take any credit for it. But I have mentioned it to you every time we talk. I love managers. Just feel like we've never had enough managers. I don't know why we got away from that in the 80s. So now you have McAfee as maybe a heel manager. It seems like we're headed that way. Yes. Which is weird because he's also doing a show and he has been every day where he's not a heel manager. But I fully support it. But just in general. And then Stephen A said this week that is that true? Did you talk to him about potentially being a manager? Listen, you know, love Stephen A. And by the way, he's bringing his show first take to Vegas for WrestleMania. He would be a phenomenal manager. He's and he wants to be a heel. Most people say they want to be heels. He really wants to be a heel. They want to be like the cool heels like all in Nash. They don't want to be the monster. McAfee came in as a monster heel, different than who he actually is on this show is easy. McAfee is easy going guy from my point of view, monster heel. I like you have always said, bring back more managers. It's something again, when Triple H and I went to go see Sean and Matt Blum a year ago, we said, hey, look, keep in mind also in addition to the in-ring performers accelerating their path for ones who may just not have an in-ring or who bodies may break down. If they're good on the mic, send them this way. By the way, managerial ring announcers, you know, there's plenty of work to be done. I don't think there's like a ring announcer school. Who do you think is the best manager of all time? I go Heyman and Bobby Heenan. What do you say? I have I think came in as the best one I've ever seen it actually guiding kind of owning the room. Sometimes like in a way like that some of the best wrestlers ever can really like everyone kind of shuts up when he's talking. Keenan was crazy because he could also wrestle and would get thrown around, get his ass kicked. I went, the grand wizard, like that whole era, I still don't really know what his gimmick was. Scarative him as a kid, Albano, Luah, Captain Luah Bano was great. Do you know that's Pete Bavocco's like second cousin? Not surprised. Yeah, not surprised. Luah, like legit cousin or uncle or something like that. My favorite ones as a teenager who couldn't get a date were Missy Hyde and Miss Elizabeth. Well, listen. So we haven't really brought the 90s, late 90s kind of brought her back a little. I still feel like there's some meat on that bone too. You're also starting, you know, mid 80s, you're 15, 16 years old Missy Hyde. Right. It's an important group though. Yes, I understand. Missy Hyde. Pretty attractive. By the way, did you ever catch that she did one piper's place type thing for WWE that didn't work out? Of course. It was called like the Missy. I did. Yeah. I didn't go well. They had one major thing on it. I had some questions for me. Yeah, of course. I didn't know that you did that. It was making the rounds, something happened on one of those, like there was a really eventful. I can't remember what it was, but there was some sort of major thing that happened in the storyline. And I was like, oh, yeah, I forgot you had it didn't work. A couple questions from my buddy's Gus and Sal. Yes, sir. If you could change the result of one match since you've taken over, you just go back and mulligan a match, what would the match be? I don't know that we've taken over, but since you've been involved in WWE however many years, is there one mulligan match? You're like, ah, fuck, we should've done that instead. It's a great question. As I think it through, I think Cody not beating Roman at WrestleMania 2023 was the right move at SoFi and making it wait and ripen another year and doing it in Philly was the right move. What about you? The match of you seen, jog my memory here where you're like, ah, I shouldn't have played out that way. Mine is more like, I just don't understand what happened to the World Rumble. And maybe it was just because where it was located this year. But I used to like when there were like the five or six completely random, oh my God. I haven't thought about this person for 20 years or, oh my God, that's Kevin Nash. He's here. And I don't know why we went away from that. I'll tell you, there's one inherent issue that is solvable, but not as easily solvable as it used to be. Now because as you know, athletes with science and working out in this and that, their careers go much longer than they used to. If I said to you, okay, who from the late 90s, NWO, you know, who would you like to see come back? But there's no one. So Hogan, Reston, Peace. Well, yeah, so you'd almost have to go to late 2000s or early 2010s. So the thing about Stone Cold retired when he was 38. We're just talking about punk is 47. We're trying to 38. And see these are good points. Right. So there aren't Kurt Angle, by the way, I love Kurt. Bad knees just had double knee surgery, can't, we can't clear them medically. He could come out and do something on the mic and all of that stuff. But there aren't men or women where you're like, I was just as readily available. Then we even to Tonka came back 10, 15 years ago, assumed to Tonka, how old do you think is now 65? Yoke is still left. Another question, would you ever consider doing the 80s thing using WWE to mirror things that are going on in real life, like some of the political stuff that seems like that ship sailed 20 years ago? It's too tough with the political environment now. Like to have ice officers arresting like you never do any of that stuff, like that would be crazy. Yeah, that's good. That would be awful, but could you do like, I don't know, somebody like a super left liberal wrestler as a hero who's just like constantly correcting everybody or do like a super mag. Like you just would stay away completely from all that stuff. We did it for a moment in time in NXT, when we were coming out of COVID, the guy who's in the Wyatt 6 now, Joe Gacy, was before he would, let's say, body slam, he would apologize that he had to do more, but he was like, I'm very sorry that I have to wrestle you, very sorry that you know. So like a politically correct angle, right, everything I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Something there. I mean, it is one of the great things about wrestling is it always mirrors whatever time of who was happening in. So if you think, look, go back to the 70s and 80s stuff, you can't get mad at some things that were happening because it was like everybody was cool with it. Really, the only time people weren't cool was the sergeant slaughter hook, golf or like that whole thing. That was the one time people were like, yeah, what are you guys doing? This is crazy. Think about it. Like life is wrestling, wrestling is life, both reflect one another in my opinion. The sergeant slaughter thing when he's like, I'm now a Iraqi sympathizer. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Brings in the iron sheet is general adnan brings in, no, brings in iron sheet as Colonel Mustafa brings in adnan al-Qasey as general adnan. It's insane. She's speaking farcey. I think it's the single craziest thing they ever did. I can't believe nobody stopped it. One other question for those guys, when do you become a character? Never. Never. Ever, ever, ever. I'm a behind the scenes guy. By the way, if you remember my prior profession, I never asked to do podcast, did podcast, did interviews. I believed for me as an agent, it was best for my name to appear after paid to the order of only. Now to publicly traded company with WrestleMania coming up, it's different. We obviously want to get media coverage, but Triple H will do most of that on our collective behalf in terms of a character who's also a real life executive, but never, ever, ever will that happen? What's your biggest fear for the next 18 months? Listen, I think there's a lot of concerns in the country. I think there's some concerns with the economy. I think the middle class started getting squeezed 10 years ago. So people with money are fortunate and they have a lot of disposable income. Those things can always affect any business. However, I've noticed coming out of COVID during COVID, people, there's not my original thought. So we're clear. We wanted to buy things in COVID. Now people want to have great experiences. And WWE and boxing and UFC, which I have nothing to do with on the business side, they're all great live event experiences. So if you can get it right, rarely do people go home disappointed, hopefully we get it right more than we get it wrong. Live events, movies, concerts, feels like everything people want to be around people again. I also think a big piece of that is you can just kind of, we can kind of live a month straight and not see other humans if you really wanted to. Or you've less connected tissue, people don't go to the office every day. There's a lot of places where it's like three days a week or two days a week or work remotely. I think it's one of the last places where people don't go to bars in the same way. No question. By the way, restaurants. Look at the restaurants closing in LA and the restaurant things bad. There's a number of reasons, but it used to be in LA on a Thursday night. There were 15 restaurants. If we said let's go somewhere fun for dinner, 15 spots you could go to. Now on a Thursday night, you go and everything's sleepy. It's different. People are like, they're doing food orders and they're just grocery shopping. Yeah. I have some theories on that, by the way. What? Food orders, like you said. I also think the proliferation of personal chefs where it's not just billionaires who have them. So you can have someone come cook for you or cook a bunch of things. Cook a bunch of things. I think for celebrities with the iPhone, tough to go out in public. What are you going to go? You and I are going to go get drunk and someone's going to catch you on an iPhone, acting drunk or even speaking to your wife, you know, I'm sure you've seen with people are like, maybe not in Los Angeles. And otherwise people recording you like, oh, there's Bill Simmons, there's Bill Simmons. Like why would Leonardo DiCaprio subject himself to that? And then fewer people go because of that. I think the lack of drinking is a piece of this too at the restaurants. I don't think people drink the same way, just at all. And even like, I was talking to, uh, Chang and I were talking about this recently because he has a bunch of theories on this. But, um, saying like, when people, whatever this should, the 20 something generation, you go to the bar, you get a drink, you just pay for the drink. And if you, if I bought you a drink, you would immediately Venmo me, you're sad of the drink versus like keeping the tab open. Sure. Nobody keeps the tab open. I've noticed that when I keep the tab open at a place, the bartender always seems really excited. People are keeping the tab open. Um, so some of the habits, I think are different, but I think the postmates and the food ordering stuff is really hurt. It's just way easier to stay home and eat. But think about it. When we were kids, you could really only get two things for delivery pizza and Chinese food. Yeah. Now you can get everything delivered. So to your point. Well, money standpoint, because if you're throwing it, if you're driving the restaurant, maybe there's parking or a ballet or whatever, then there's, uh, service tip, it probably is a cancel out from what you did if you did Uber Eats or whatever anyway. So, yeah, so you have its change, but I think live events feel like they're even more, I'm so happy movies came back. Movies are back, like for real, and I think comedies haven't come back, but horror movies have come back and big temple stuff, I'm act stuff, and it feels like that at least is good now. We went to see the Ryan Gosling movie, Week 3, yeah, still packed, packed at the IMAX version in the valley, what used to be the arc light, Sherman Oaks, I think is now AMC, it's great. So you still feel like from an attendance standpoint, even though you're down a little bit, the live experience still matters and it's not something you're worried about. We're down like a single digit percentage, so 1 or 2%, whatever it is now, not concerned about that at all. Get seen as retirement tour, which we planned for, assume people were going to, it was real. This is the last time you're going to see him wrestle in this city, we planned for it. Okay, we have, you know, a crop of a plus listers who can main event, okay, they're not in their 20s or 30s anymore, let's plan for that. It's all about trying to see what's around the corner and getting ready for it. No different than your business. So right, originally it was, you were the hoops guy, right, then your branch out. Correct. Now you're doing movies, right? It's like, okay, well, nobody's doing that, okay, well, I was kind of the movies guy. I referenced Karate Kid earlier, no one else was doing that. It's like, why don't I talk about the other movies that people want to talk about? Yeah. So it works. And what's ESPN brought to you? I think it's still weird to see it on Sports Center. I have no idea if I like it or not, because it's outstanding. Yeah, no, they're really covering it like a real sport, which obviously I like because I'm always like wrestling, but it's still, I don't know when I'll get used to it, I guess is my point. Why do you hurt me? No, I'm, I'm not against it or for it. I'm just like, wow, this is crazy. ESPN used to not acknowledge wrestling and now they're interviewing so and so on the 6 p.m. Sports Center. Just strange. It wasn't keep mine 20 plus years ago. WWE was on UPN and the Nashville network, which became the national network, which became TN, which became Spike, which is now paramount. Now we're on Netflix, USA, ESPN, you know, it's worked out, in my opinion, great for the consumer, great for the company, great for our athletes in terms of their potential across over like rock and Cena and the bellows and the news. You always want the good partner that actually is glad to have you and is pushing you. For sure, and I also think, I don't like when deals get inherited. So Bella was the driver of the WWE deal in Netflix. Jimmy Potaro was the driver of the WWE deal and ESPN. That's a good thing. The successor, as you know, rarely just says, I'm just going to do what the predecessor did. So I like that the people sort of in the seats with the big champions. And you know, have certainly showed up and turned out for us. Bonus question before we go, how's your back, can you make two more minutes? Yeah, we're good. I have a question for you before we go. What was your takeaway on the Netflix paramount, Warner Brothers, Love Triangle? Did you think Netflix was going to win? It certainly appeared that way, but I also thought, you know, you have a legitimate billionaire on the other side who was willing to subsidize and use your way in there. Correct. You know, different if David and Larry Ellison wanted to buy this home. When you wanted to buy this home, I would bet on them to get this home. Thank God they didn't. Thank God. This is a nice studio. It's a beautiful place. Yeah. As successful as you are. It's different. Right. Levels of wealth. You're like super, super rich. So you felt like as soon as so Netflix is ahead, seems like they're going to, and you're like, I'm not counting out the Ellison's yet. If they really want this, they're going to get it. Tough group to count out. Yeah. And I have no inside info. I've only read what's available, you know, publicly. But in my opinion, they were never really out even when Warner Brothers Discovery wasn't answering tax and this and that. Having gone through, and I get it, it was WWE and UFC merging, which seems to have worked quite well under TKO, having gone through a semi-similar transaction. Yeah. Right. Warner Brothers Discovery does not have a controlling shareholder. So it was going to be up to the shareholders at a certain price, purely up to the shareholders. At WWE, it was also purely up to the shareholders, so long as Vince McMahon was not treated any differently than any other shareholder, which he was not. So whoever presented the best offer for the shareholders was going to get the company. That's how I saw Warner Brothers Discovery in Paramount, and you had one side with unlimited capital. Paramount. What's your question for me before we go? I mentioned the term "perfect movie" earlier and said karate kids a perfect movie. It doesn't mean it has to be an all-time great movie. Perfect for what it wanted to be. Correct. Tell me off the top of your head what are other perfect movies. Perfect for what they wanted to be. Yeah. Social network. Perfect movie. Silence of the lambs. Really good. No flaws in it. I'm not saying all time, I'm not saying it's the Godfather one or two, but when I watch that movie, I'm like, they didn't mess anything up in this thing. That's what I consider. Because even heat, which is one of my favorite movies of the last 35 years, there's a whole Natalie Portman plot where I'm like, I don't know. Agreed. You can probably bump that one. Social network, I watch like probably every 18 months, and I'm always like amazed how every single decision is the right decision from start to finish. You know another one, I mentioned this when I did my most rewatchable movies in 21st century, and the number one pick was devil wears Prada. Perfect movie from beginning and for what it was trying to do. Perfect. I don't know if the sequel is going to be good. By the way, the trailer for the sequel looks amazing. Yeah, we'll see. The original trailer. I always get nervous. Look, the good thing on sequels now, as you know, and you've talked about this on the rewatchable as many times, they don't have to sort of pick up the storyline that we left off with, which is what ruined the karate kid franchise as a film, right? You could have just started a different story. It got weird with Daniel San and Miyagi and three. Well, also, Daniel San, you're like in your 20s now, you don't have any friends? Why are you still hanging out with the sky? Make some friends your age. What are you doing? Also, like in one, he's fighting for the all-valley championship in first spec, and two, he's fighting for his life. I don't know. Two, he's fighting for his life, and then three, he's fighting in the tournament. And he gets an exemption all the way to the finals, I don't know what tournament this is. What are those roles? Just goes right to fighting Mike Barnes. That's one of the worst movies ever made. Quick last, last question. What was worse, karate kid three or the new karate kid, not Cobra Kai? I didn't see the new karate kid. So that's how much you look down on it. You wouldn't even watch it. I really, I have a hard time with the money grab sequels. I still haven't seen John Wick four. I started it. I think I'm good with John Wick. I love John Wick. I love one and two. Three's fine. When did you cut out on Terminator poster behind you? After two. After two, same. Yeah. 1991, two came out. Which was great. Alien. I was good after two. I'm sure there were other good ones. I'm fine with those. Halloween, I stuck with all the way through. That's probably the only one. Just kept going the whole time. Did you get the opportunity to re-watch these movies with your children for the first time when they were younger? Yeah. And where they is into most of them as you were? Definitely some of them. Yeah. I'm sure you're going through it now. We were always three, four years too early with movies with our kids. I get it. So we just really pushed the envelope and probably damaging ways in retrospect, who knows? Dude. I just tried to show our children full metal jacket. Oh, God. I wouldn't have done that one. I'm like, you're going to love this. Oh, man. I'm hoping seen. And one minute in, two minutes in, I'm like, okay. We're going to have to wait. Yeah, it's a wrap. It was rough. Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah. Some reason I thought they would like it now. We would push the envelope with the horror movies, but usually know, oh, here's the scene of Halloween when Bob's going to have sex with PJ Souls. Like we're going to fast forward to a little ahead here. But for the most part, like we were like, they're going to find this stuff anyway. We might as well like watch it with them and kind of edit it as it goes along. So my son, Sunny, who you mentioned earlier was begging to watch eight mile. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I think we can do it. I think we do it. There's one scene in the factory we'll have to fast forward. Opening scene is Kim basing around the couch, and I was like, yeah, that's a little, yeah, wait a little bit here. We forget certain scenes. I get you can look it up, but that scene was not at the forefront of my mind. All right. The winners of this podcast was, I think, Rhea Ripley was a winner. Logan Paul also, Logan Paul, all the people that run all the streaming companies you deal with. Yes. Me, because you complimented the studio. Dude, you're a true American success story. It's you are. It's what I say about Dana White also, like you went, each of you went. You were employed by, for our generation, the brag was, I work at ESPN. I work at this agency. I wasn't in 2005, I'm going to go start my own company and sell it for however many cajolians you sold. Well, you weren't allowed to leave ESPN. It was like it was, if you left, that your career was never going to recover. That was, that was what everybody said, even though Dan Patrick, by the way, did fine. He did, but I saw you when you left the SPN, you were at a Clippers game like the Saturday after. Well, yeah, I went with my friend Ben, like a week later. And I remember seeing you and it was one of the only times I've seen you, I've seen you where I thought you looked like a little not sad, but you didn't usually, if I see you, especially at Hoops games, it's like, what's up? And I'll say, he give me your analysis of this game and you'll give it to me. I don't know who it's like, you do, and you know, we'll have a conversation. And then I was like, and I started seeing you build, right? I'm like, I'll do this guy's like building an empire over here. And at that time, when you were doing Grantland, Jalen Rose and Jacobian, all those guys would refer to you as the pod father, right? Right. And you were way, you saw around the corner where this whole thing was going. So in a way, first mover, who also happened to be great at it. And then, okay, my thing, your thing, it's working. Now I'm going to replicate and try to build an empire. You did it. Dana White did it. Are you a manual? Did it? All credit to people like that. By the way, Mark Shapiro told me, when I called him, when I took the WWE job, he said, give me a piece of advice. He said, you're going as a president of the company, just keep my founder CEOs different than regular CEOs. You got to give a little more leeway because they were the ones that went out and said, fuck this. I'm going to go start something and try to make it great. I'm going to be fired up to start something else. I'm going to have to maybe invest in something we finally do once. Yeah. See, that's how smart it was. It turned back on UFC. That's terrible. Turned back on TKO. So stupid. Can't go to WrestleMania because NBA playoff. I don't see how they're going to solve the media rights, the new media rights issue. What a worse analysis is ever. Listen, all you need is one. And this was a line I saw on CBS Sunday morning. I said, if you have two bitters on one property, you're going to like each other, then you're in business. I mean, that's Zazloff. All he needed was the essence to be like, fuck, we got to get this thing and that's what he was banking on. Their stock was like $8 at one point. Dude, people laughed at him. He always made good money. Yeah. Okay, yet 600 pound sisters laughed at him. He went and convinced what was time, Warner. Let the minnow swallow the whale. Let me take it over AT&T. Took that debt. This, oh, it's never going to work. Does that sell us the company? Big transaction. Credit to him. I have no, nothing negative to say about. Hold it off. Hold it off. Hold it off. You know, hard it is to pull it off. Think about how many people try and how many people fail. He did it. You did it. The others I mentioned did it. It's impressive. By the way, thanks for ending in a compliment. Of course. Great. Good luck this weekend I'm estimating. I'm not going this weekend. Take it in your ass. Take it in your ass. You care about it. No, it's because my son went to Coachella for three days and we can't do the two straight weekends. Is this the first Coachella on YouTube or has it always been on YouTube? No, I think they did that before. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Because our daughter Natalie is now 14. So this weekend it was a lot of let's watch Coachella on YouTube, which, you know, we watched with her, which I thought was a great platform to have that on. The quasar stage, never heard of these terms. Yeah. It feels like they every year, they've upped some sort of visibility with it. Like it feels slightly more relevant as the decade has gone along post-COVID and I don't really know why. So I think my son was excited. The band he was most excited about was the strokes. It's a 25 year old band. Yeah. He was like, they were awesome. By the way, to your point, and what we talked about earlier, people love experiences. So whatever Coachella is or was, you see the price of those tickets, you see how people are getting there. It's nuts. Right. No, by the way, I don't, I don't understand the whole burning man thing for grownups. I don't understand either. But as I said, Coachella combines a lot of things. I don't like having a pain in the ass travel trip, having to run a place, a lot of like aimless walking. I don't like concerts in general. Yeah. Just like not knowing where to be the whole time and just constantly feeling like you're going to make the right, it's not, not for me. How about the, I like just going to WrestleMania and I just, you know what's going to happen. No, I will sit here. Yeah. And if I want to go get some popcorn, I'll go get it. Maybe someone can get it for way better than where's the stage and where's the rest of it? Do you want to go there? Yeah. I don't get it. Hate, hate, hate. All right. That's our old guys on the sofa. Thanks. Good luck with the WrestleMania. Thanks, man. Let me know what you think after. Appreciate it. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Doc and Nick. Thanks to Gohan Eduardo as well. Don't forget to check out Legata over the weekend. It's awesome. You're going to love it. New narrative podcast from the ringer. Don't forget to check out on the rewatchables. If you miss base against think fine, kindergarten cops coming up and that's on Netflix as well. If you want to check that out, this podcast is on Netflix if you didn't know that. Enjoy the weekend. Enjoy the basketball hockey. I think it's starting. It's hockey starting. I'm about to jump on the Bruins bandwagon again and enjoy the baseball and enjoy the sports and try to stay married. I will see you on Sunday night with Zach Loe live on Netflix. Twenty one plus and president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and president DC Kentucky Wyoming often required rewards are not much trouble restrictions applying including bonus and token expiration leg requirements and max wage or amount C terms at sportsbook.fando.com. 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