The Bill Simmons Podcast - Bucks in Trouble, McGregor’s Comeback, and a Yankees Eulogy With Ben Thompson, Ariel Helwani, and JackO

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by business/tech analyst and massive Bucks fan Ben Thompson to discuss the Suns’ Game 2 Finals win and the silver linings for Game 3 in Milwaukee (1:45). Then Bill talks to MMA journalist Ariel Helwani about covering the UFC, the excitement of the pre-fight weigh-in, UFC competitors, the upcoming McGregor-Poirier fight at UFC 264, and more (32:35). Finally Bill talks to his old friend JackO about the Yankees and whether they missed their “title window” (1:31:50). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ariel Helwani, JackO, and Ben Thompson Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, I'm Shea Serrano. And I'm Brandon Jinks Jenkins. We have a new show called No Skips with Jinks and Shea. In it, we discuss the most unskippable albums in hip-hop history. New episodes drop on Thursdays, only on Spotify. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest-rated sportsbook is the best place to bet at all. We've been doing

pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way, if you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff, it's crazy.

The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS to download America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit

RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-Help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite,

man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite

is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com as well as The Ringer Podcast Network. We have new rewatchables coming on Monday next week. I'm not going to tell you the movie. It's a lighter fare.

It might be a rom-com. Had to mix it up a tiny bit. Hope you're checking out Ringer NBA show and the Rosillo show and all the great sports podcasts we have, as well as Flying Coach, which has been really, really good. And then this week, they Sean McVay,

Peter Schrager, they had Kyle Shanahan on, and he was really candid about his two big Superbowl losses. I would highly recommend that podcast. Coming up, Ben Thompson from the Stratechery blog, huge Bucs fan. I corralled him into doing this post-game Bucs Sons podcast with me. Ariel Hawani, who is joining us on Green Room all weekend for this UFC event. We're going to talk about that, his relationship with UFC, Conor McGregor, a whole bunch of things.

And then my buddy Jacko. I basically forced him to come on because the Yankee season is falling apart. So he is on at the tail end. This is an action-packed one. First, our friends from Pearl Jib. All right. Taping this a little before 845 Pacific time on Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night.

It's Thursday night. I don't even know what day it is anymore. There's been so many basketball games. Ben Thompson is here from the Stratechery blog. He's been on here before. He's a diehard Bucs fan. He was supposed to come on two weeks ago, and then Giannis got hurt. So we gave him a break.

Now he's back. I thought Bucs win. And then you told everyone So we gave him a break. Now he's back. I thought this was going to be a Bucs win. And then you told everyone that you gave him a break. You're supposed to just let it slide under the table. I thought this was going to be a Bucs win. I thought you would be in a great mood and instead it was a bittersweet game because Giannis played one of the best games of his life and unfortunately for him,

nobody else in the Bucs showed up. You are now down 0-2 in the finals. I'm going to try to cheer you up in a second, but what's your mood? How weak is it? I'm not too bad. I mean, it's obviously, it's very bad that we're down 2-0. That's a big problem. You would prefer not to be in that situation. That said, I mean, one, Giannis was amazing. His amazingness felt sustainable. Like there wasn't really anything Phoenix could do with him. And I thought the Bucs

actually played a good game. Phoenix made a lot of shots. They made 20 out of 43s. The Bucs didn't make any. Drew and Middleton were awful. And frankly, the fact that they only lost by 10 is kind of a bit of a miracle

when you look at these shooting numbers. So I felt actually that this game felt more sustainable as far as how the Bucs can win this series than the first one was. And I didn't think the first one was as bad as a lot of people said either. I think there's a few adjustments that do need to be made. I think actually we need more Lopez.

I think most of the conversation around him is totally backwards. We need less PJ Tucker. You see the Bucs small lineup just gets killed on the boards. It's not, and Tucker doesn't space the floor, so you don't even get many benefits on offense either. I think, but I think the Bucs can win this. I mean, obviously the odds are stacked against them. They're going to have to win four out of five,

but I thought they showed something sustainable tonight. And if anyone had shown up, I mean, I think this game goes in a different direction. Yeah, it's interesting. I agree with you because you did have the foundation for something. But at the same time, Giannis was the only guy on the team who played well.

Yeah. No, I mean, there's obviously peering very intently to find the silver lining in a bad loss. I mean, we can, I'm, I'm happy to give the worst elements of Buck's Twitter what they want and just trash the supporting cast. Cause it was, it was horrible. Like especially that second quarter. And that was the difference in the game.

I liked that. I liked some of the shots you had in there. It seemed like, I don't know. Sometimes these basketball games come down to like eight or nine shots, right? Chris Paul had at least three dagger threes over the course of the game where every time it felt like you were coming back, you were going to cut it to three, cut it to five.

All of a sudden he would make another shot off and off. It's a rebound. Yeah. Yeah. And then on the flip side, you missed a couple momentum threes. Like Connaughton had two plays in the fourth and Connaughton wasn't awful in this game, but 34 minutes, he had four threes, but he had a couple

of bad plays at the worst possible times, like wide open threes. When you really needed one, there was one that could have cut it to three in the final six minutes. He missed it. A bad pass by him that got picked off. So, you know, if I'm Giannis, I'm looking around going, alright, well, I just played my heart out. I did everything I possibly could. I'm not even 100% healthy. I would say Giannis is like 85-90% healthy. It looked like he was dragging

his leg around. Have you noticed he hasn't done a single Euro step since he came back? He doesn't have any side-to-side movement at all right now. And then the other thing is, even when he's jumping out on shooters, like off switches and stuff, normally he has that superhuman jump he can do from like he can go left to right,

but somehow contest a shot. And you can just tell he's not 100%, but I thought he was amazing. I mean, he played 40 minutes. He carried them in that third quarter when it felt like the game was slipping away. 20 points, it felt like he game was slipping away at 20 points. It felt like he could add 30.

And, you know, I look around like holiday. That was like Sixers drew holiday. Where it's like, what is this guy? Where is he? He's just jacking up bad shots.

Balls are hitting the side of the backboard. I don't know what was going on with him. That, that might've been the worst shot I've seen in my entire fandom. It was brutal. It was like 20 seconds on the shot clock, too. I have no idea what he was doing out there. Yeah, I mean, the loss from the Bucs perspective, again, leaving aside the Phoenix three-point shooting.

I think the Bucs got better shots all game. Phoenix just made, they did have some open threes, but they made a lot of contested ones, too. And it has to fall on Middleton and Holiday. Five out of 16 for Middleton, seven out of 20 for Holiday. It's just not good enough. And if they make their normal percentage of shots, I think the Bucs are winning this going away. And so, again, that's why I started the silver lining,

because if you play this game, I think exactly as it went out a hundred times, I think the bucks do win a solid majority of them. And they didn't this game. Unfortunately, there's only seven games in a, in a series. And, and so they're,

they're in a hole, but I do think there's something here. I mean, I, and I think they got to lean into bully ball. Like they're bigger and stronger than Phoenix. They spent that first quarter, just beating the absolute crap out of them.

And I think a big mistake that Bud is making is this small lineup. I just don't think it's a good idea. It's like he's being bullied by NBA Twitter, which the first thing you do as soon as you... Lopez looks so bad on these switches, and you don't see him not being there on those offensive rebounds. Those Paul threes came after kickouts after we didn't get the ball. You don't see him at the rim.

Aiton did absolutely nothing in this game, except for when the Bucs went small, and then suddenly those roles are open. And I think the Bucs need to lean into just bully ball. And if Phoenix wants to hit a million contested twos, then they deserve to win the title. That's the way I would approach it. Well, the flaw of this Bucs team,

I said this after game one, is I do think you can beat the Suns with smaller lineups. And the Suns have been really fortunate. Not this Bucs team, though. They don't have enough players. Well, but that's the thing. The Suns have been fortunate

for four straight rounds, never kind of playing the perfect type of team to play them. If Kawhi had been on the Clippers, that would have been the team. And the Bucs just don't have the right lineup to do it. And you mentioned Tucker.

Tucker played 35 minutes and this is not the series for Tucker. He was here for one series. He was here to play Durant. He was here to play in the last series. Honestly, I think that series doesn't even go six if Tucker doesn't play as much as he does. The Bucs starting lineup got slaughtered in that Atlanta series game after game after game

because you would have Tucker in the corner and they would hide Trae Young on him. I was like, why don't they attack Trae Young? Well, because Tucker's standing in the corner, not doing anything. And so he's really mucking up the offense on one end. And then on defense, like he's just like, he doesn't have a guy to guard he needs to guard a ball dominant forward and there aren't any ball dominant forwards in this game and so he's just kind of doing his best on booker but i you know it's like we're not getting enough to justify what we're giving up on the other end yeah they had him they had him on booker they had him on paul i didn't feel like he really made either of those guys

think that much about where they were going, what they were doing. I do think they need Forbes in this series. I mean, he only played six minutes today, but Teague playing 12 minutes was kind of shocking and alarming to me. I'm with you. I thought the same thing with Lopez.

I thought they tapped into something during that Hawk series when Giannis went out with Lopez, who is this really skilled big guy and is good around the rim and is a good offensive rebounder and brings this skill set that, for whatever reason, playing next to Giannis, they bring him far away

from the hoop. He doesn't get to do that stuff, but in this series, you need it. Here's a couple of reasons why. Aiton played 42 minutes tonight. He only had four fouls. They haven't been able to get in foul trouble yet. They don't have a backup for him. Kaminsky played one minute.

There was a moment at the end of the third quarter where it was basically like Kaminsky and Cam Johnson were the bigs. And it's like, how do you not go to Lopez right now? Lopez, this is like a junior college team that he could go against. And I'm with you. I think there is a bully ball scenario that they can very carefully pick when they do it and when they attack it and, you know, in specific points of the game. And I didn't feel like they had a feel for that tonight.

Yeah. I mean, well, the Bucs fundamental flaw, and we talked about this when I was on, you know, during the Miami series is Bud is not good at making in-game adjustments or adjustments in general, and they don't really have a point guard. I mean, like, you know, there's a reason why I think the Pelicans, at least in retrospect, brought in Rondo because Drew Holiday, like he's a phenomenal defender. He gets to the rim. Finishing is another question, but he doesn't make very smart

basketball plays as far as guiding a team and putting it in the right position right and i've i know it's been the story of his career yeah and i noticed the end of the third quarter thing as well like it was baffling that we the suns had that lineup on the floor and yeah the bucks should have immediately taken advantage of it but there's no one there with sort of the presence to do it. And, you know, it's one of those things where I'm at the point where I see it and I just sort of shrug my shoulders because I don't expect any better. Like if the Bucks are going to win, they're going to win just by sheer force of will. That's the way they do it.

And what you can say about this team is they don't give up. Like you saw it in game one, you saw it in game two. They don't get knocked out. And that's why, frankly, going back to game two, Brooklyn, that's why it was such a surprise. That's the only time it's really happened in this playoffs. And I think they'll respond well in game three. I actually think there's a very good chance to go back to Phoenix 2-2.

And the Phoenix crowd, all credit to them, was phenomenal. And I think it's going to be the same thing in Milwaukee. And it just can well overcome sort of IQ. And you have Chris Paul on the other side. That's exactly what you're getting from Phoenix. And that's going to be the challenge for the Bucs. The one thing I don't like is the job that Bridges did on Middleton. Yeah. And I didn't think Middleton seemed comfortable in this game

because there were moments when they tried to get him going. Oh, and that's the game right there. Bridges dominated Middleton on both ends of the floor. Yes. That's the huge swing. So I wonder, going forward, and maybe Bridges is better at home in this series. Maybe this is one of those series where the home team

has a significant advantage. You've seen the of those series where the home team is just has a significant advantage. Just you've seen the home road splits with the bucks. Like maybe this is one of those series where we go back to Milwaukee and all of a sudden Bridges is uncomfortable. Middleton is comfortable. But the fact that he killed Middleton tonight was the biggest reason other than the 23s.

Yeah. They won. And this is the other part about not really having a point guard. Like there are no great ball handlers on this Bucs team at all. I mean, you could make the case that Giannis is the best ball handler

on the team. I mean, Drew doesn't have a great handle. Middleton has, doesn't have a great handle. I mean, they're decent, but when you go up against a guy like Bridges,

it does show up the sort of like, you know, that fact. And the reality is, is that the Bucs don't really have anyone else to initiate offense. So, you know, I think it's going to be one of those series Bucs don't really have anyone else to initiate offense. So, you know,

I think it's going to be one of those series. And this is where I do have to take you to task. I think that you and Ryan in particular have been unbelievably unfair to Giannis' entire playoffs. The reality is... I disagree. We've done a lot of praise.

What about today? I broke out of retirement and did a tweet about how incredible Giannis was today. Come on. I did appreciate that. It's mostly Ryan, to be fair, but I'm lumping you in with him. The guy averaged, or the guy didn't average. He accumulated over 30 points on like 15 rebounds, 9 out of 10 games.

The only game he didn't was the one where they blew out the Hawks in game two. I mean, this is like absolute top of the top superstar carrying a team on his back sort of material. And you saw the same thing tonight. Like how many guys in the history of the league could have had a quarter like Giannis did in that third quarter today to keep the team in the game? Wait, hold on. Hold that point. Hold that point. That's a really important point because I thought the same thing during the third quarter when you start thinking all-time guys and the difference as you go in levels of, you know,

all right, this guy was great. This guy was really great. All right, this guy was unbelievable. The quarter Giannis had, that's pretty rare territory. You're talking like 20, 22 guys ever who could have done what he did in that quarter especially when everyone else sucked on his team and he was all by himself and he knew it he understood the stakes and it was basically one on five and he was he was holding his own and i thought it was great about it was he was doing it in such a methodical patient way

right like like earlier in his career he would have been much more out of control, really pressing. But he was just, I mean, yes, he sprinkled a couple threes in there, but by and large, he wasn't like a bull in a china shop. He was just working, guys. Do you feel like that started

in the Brooklyn series a little bit? Because I felt like there was a wherewithal that he gained during that series that I hadn't totally seen from him before. Like a flow of the game thing that it seems like things have slowed down for him a tiny bit when he has the ball on his own. I do think so. I do think so.

And this is what was missing from his game. If you go back previous playoff series, particularly against Toronto, is they would send these doubles at him and he would dribble out every single time. He didn't have a sense of presence, of timing, of how to sort of control a defense and manipulate a defense. And that's what you're seeing much more from him. And look, I've gone to the mat a million times defending Middleton, but I think we've reached... But the reality is this Bucs team isn't that good.

And they weren't that good last year, and they weren't that good two years ago. They were dragging Eric Bledsoe on them. I mean, you think everyone wants to get mad at Holiday. This was still 10 times better than anything Bledsoe put out in the playoffs. And when you realize the degree to which Giannis has carried this team and continues to carry this team. I think that I just think that the sort of the criticism that he gets is pretty unwarranted.

I agree. I do think there's some flaws that he has that just seem exacerbated when you're watching him closely. Like even today, I just don't think he should ever shoot a three. I know. I don't think DeAndre. I agree with you. No, but I don't think DeAndre Ayton should shoot threes. Like some guys just shouldn't shoot threes. Giannis can't make them consistently.

And if you're doing something that the other team wants you to do, and is like delighted that you're doing it, you shouldn't do it. Just like, I guarantee if I'm a Suns fan, I'm watching that game today. I'm like, man,

I hope they don't post up Brooke Lopez against Cam Johnson. I hope, oh shit, Jay Crowder's on Brooke Lopez. I hope they don't post Brooke Lopez up. Like there's little moments where if you're doing the thing that the other team is like basically delighted that you're doing, maybe don't do it. I mean, I'm not going to defend the three-point shooting. I have the exact same sort of reaction, but you've made this point and it, what pains me is that you made this point about Russell Westbrook. And I don't think Westbrook is a fair comparison to Giannis for a whole whole season. Giannis is way better than Russell is. Thank you.

But your point about that, when you have flaws that are just so glaring that it's easy to sort of latch on to them and you miss all the other stuff that's going on. And Giannis is not a 90, 10 guy. He's a 98, two guy. And the problem is those two are like free throw shooting and stupid threes. And basically everything else that he does is,

is just, it's not just so high level. It's ridiculously consistent. And he just, he just, he's just keeps coming and coming and coming and he cleans up mess after mess after mess on defense and

on offense, even if he's not in the play, he's getting offensive rebounds. It's the level of consistency that makes players great and he's reached that level where he's just there at a constant level. And honestly, probably the biggest

thing for the series is can he get his minutes up you know you get he was plus three tonight in a game they lost by 10 he played 40 minutes and it's a miracle he played 40 minutes and you feel absolutely greedy asking for anything more but that's going to be the series if he can get up to 44 minutes a game i think the bucks have a great chance. And if he can't, then it's going to be much tougher. We have to take a quick break, and then I want to do silver linings for you. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance.

Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November.

Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, come back. I have some silver linings for you. Here's silver lining number one. You're going back home. We knew this. Here's silver lining number two.

You don't play again until Sunday. Giannis even looked better with two days rest. Yep. Now he's going to get another four. I appreciated that in all previous years, the start date of the finals is set and the end date is set. Yet this year, because of the weird schedule,

they, the start day of the finals actually moved up two days and it is actually was a, and because the sun swept their second round series, they started that second one series earlier to get that Sunday game in. You remember it kind of hurt the Clippers. Yeah. And so if it had started on Thursday, tonight should have been game one.

If tonight would have been game one, I think it might make a pretty significant difference because Giannis was clearly much more effective tonight than he was two days ago. And so it is what it is. I mean, just sort of that's the way this year. It would have bought you two more ago. And so, it is what it is. I mean, just sort of, that's the way this year has been. It would have bought you two more days.

Yeah, well, plus, usually they would go Thursday game one, Sunday game two. That's right. So it's like you actually have more rest. Yep, exactly. All right, so Silverline, you're home.

Giannis has a lot of rest. That's two. Three is, Paul has played a lot of minutes. Paul played 41 minutes tonight. This is a guy who, really for the last four years of his career, has been a 30 to 31 minutes a game. Maybe in the playoffs that skews up to 34, 35. He's been in the 38 to 41 range now for a couple of weeks. And he's somebody who has a history of, he breaks down a little bit. I thought they put hard miles

on him today. He was good. He had some dumb turnovers, but for the most part, you made him work three fourths of the way up the court. He was giving up the ball. Did you notice he was giving up the ball so he didn't have to bring it up sometimes? There was little signs in there that they were wearing him down, which I thought was interesting. It was inexplicable

they didn't do that in game one. I mean, again, this is sort of like where NBA Twitter just sort of latches on to one thing and totally misses the point. The issue in game one wasn't the drop coverage or wasn't the switching or Lopez or whatever. It was the lack of pressure on the ball handler. And Seth Partnall

has this great point that every second earlier that you get into your offensive possession is worth about five points in offensive efficiency or something like that. Like it's a pretty substantial difference. And Phoenix was getting their possessions at 20 seconds on the clock because Paul was just carrying it down the court and they were running right into it. This game, they're getting into their offensive possessions

with like 14, 15 seconds on the clock because of the ball pressure that is being applied. And the other thing too, is all those amazing mid range shots that Paul was hitting in game one, get a whole lot tougher in game five game six game seven when your legs are tired and so I think the I think the Bucs should stay the course and I think they should keep Lopez in they should play big and and they should trust that honestly if Chris if Chris Paul wants to go out there in game six and shoot like he did in game one I will be the first in line to tip my hat to him and say, you deserve to win the title. And I think that I'm not sure that's going to happen. I think the Bucs should make that bet. Another silver lining. I mean, I feel bad saying this, but they, the

sons have lost two guys. They weren't exactly the deepest team to begin with. They lost Sarge. He's out for the playoffs. I thought Torrey Craig now, granted, it's nine o'clock right now, Pacific time. We'll find out what happened to Torrey Craig, but it seemed to me like he got seriously hurt on that play. His knee went sideways. And if they lose him and they lose Sarge,

now we're down to basically Kaminsky is the only backup. They have Jalen Smith that they took in the lottery last year who hasn't played really at all the entire playoffs. But you're putting a lot of pressure on Aiton. And I thought what Milwaukee was doing, especially in third quarter,

giving the ball Giannis with space and having him just attack Aiton and try to force him to maybe foul him or whatever. And I think they can put Aiton in positions where they get him in foul trouble. And if they do, I think the Suns are in trouble. They don't have any other size.

Yeah, I mean, it's a tough one. I mean, obviously injuries have been such a role in this entire playoffs. This is, by the way, the series where the Bucs probably miss Dante DiVincenzo the most because they just can't. They don't have enough wings. But yeah, I think it's definitely, you know, it sucks.

I don't know what else there is to say. I hope that Craig's okay. When he hit two out of three threes, that was one of the indicators. He knew it really wasn't the Bucks night. But yeah, they have seven guys. They are now at seven playable guys and that's it. The other one is I do think Lopez can be a factor in this series. And I think everyone overreacted to game one because there were specific things that the Suns had prepared for that worked. And then you go to game two and you kind of figure out, all right,

what are the, you know, what are the counters to those moves? I thought he was very effective tonight. I mean, he was minus one, which I think reflected his impact on the floor. Like he was, you know, he was much better than other players. And yeah, and I just think like the reality is the Bucs are down to, you know, you say the Suns are down to seven,

Bucs are down to six, unless you want to play, you know, count Jeff Teague. And the reality is you just kind of got to go with who got you here at this point. I mean, the bet the Bucs made by trading away the number of assets they did and constraining their salary cap space the way

they did in the offseason was that they did, to a certain degree, sacrifice flexibility in sort of their lineups, and I think you're seeing that now. They just don't have, especially once Devin Tensile's gone, they don't have enough players to play small, and they just got to have, especially once with, you know, Devin Tensel's gone,

they don't have enough players to play small and they just got to, they got to play big. They got to bully them and they got to dare them to make shots. I have another silver lining. Think how terrible this would be right now. If Giannis hadn't signed the extension. You would probably, you would,

I don't even know what you would look like. You would look like you just fell out of a helicopter. I mean, well, we've already been over this. I mean, I was texting you when Giannis got hurt, and I was railing on you then. I'm like, this is why you guys should have been giving Giannis more credit. This team is helpless without him. You know, I think, Of course, they did win those

two games. I think that's more a testament to how relatively weak the Hawks were. Obviously, Young was hurt as well. But yeah, Giannis deserves more credit than he deserves

or more credit than he gets. I'm glad that he's back so that the world can see that at a minimum. And I hope that it's enough to sort of carry, carry the bucks all the way. If he hadn't signed the extension, the Dallas stuff would be insufferable right now. Well, it just would be,

there'd be Luca. There would be Luca would have some tweet with eyeballs. Everybody would lose theiruka. Luka would have some tweet with eyeballs. Everybody would lose their minds. All right, here's the other silver lining. The NBA Finals is coming to Milwaukee. That hasn't happened in a long time. That's fun.

Not during my lifetime. Yeah, so there you go. You get a little Kareem highlights maybe. Is Kareem there? Did they bring Kareem back for game three? What happened? Probably they've done more and more sort of outreach to him and has been a little bit more involved. Because I saw he had a

do you see he had a Bucks t-shirt on Twitter tonight? Yeah, so I mean I would imagine he'll be at the game but yeah, I think it's going to be you know, I'd imagine the atmosphere is going to be pretty bonkers on Sunday and I mean you saw the shots of like sort of the pretty bonkers, uh, on Sunday. And I mean, you saw the shots of like sort of the outdoor area and all that sort of thing. I mean, it is,

it is great, you know, I mean, this is very cliche, but it is great seeing so many people excited about the team, you know, invested. I mean, there's been many, many years where that has definitely not been the case. So, uh, you know, Hey, I'll take it. All right. Say two nice things about the sons. I know you're in a war with them right now and you hate their guts, but give me two things. No, one great team.

I mean, honestly, it's, it's been a delight watching them. I mean that the way they pass the ball, the way they're always sort of in the right position on the court. Uh, they always have the gaps filled. Like there was, there was a play, I think in the right position on the court. They always have the gaps filled.

Like there was, there was a play, I think in the fourth quarter where this, the sons had been sort of killing them on that hammer play where they get the guy in the corner and the bucks finally cut it off. And there was a guy perfectly placed in the slot for the, like the, the,

the, I think it was campaign driving the baseline to hit them and he needed a three. And that's just, it's impressive to see. It's like when a team is sort of moves like clockwork in that way. The other thing is,

I was actually ready after game one. I mean, Aiton was incredible. He was, you know, so impressive. I thought his work on the boards was really good. I did think the Bucs really neutralized him tonight. I agree. And he seemed kind of a step off the whole game, I felt like.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if it was the Bucs or if it was him, but he was definitely not quite the same impact. But no,, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if it was the boxer, if it was him, but he, it was definitely not quite the same impact, but, um, but no, I mean, it's a great team. I mean, I think that I could certainly do without some of Paul's, you know, putting on the brakes in front of Giannis when it's not even part of the play and, and potentially hurting him. That's it's disappointing that he still does that sort of stuff, but you know, it's, it's, it's an impressive team. They've made a lot of shots.

The Suns have gone out and won both games. They hit a bunch of tough shots in game one. They've made a million threes in game two. And, you know, if they keep doing that, they will deserve to win. I don't think they will necessarily keep doing that. So I think the Bucs have a chance, but I've been very impressed by them. As the old saying goes,

the series doesn't start until the home team loses a game. Right. Some series never start. Here's my last question. Would you do the holiday trade again? If you could have a do-over of that trade, would you do the do-over or are you happy they made it? Well, I mean, this depends on how far back

you want to go in time. I mean, the real trade was re-signing Brogdon, trading Brogdon and Bledsoe for Paul, but alas. You know, yes, I think so. I mean, the reality is what I told... So I was half right and half wrong

when I talked about Holiday the last time I was on. What I was wrong about is Holiday has not been very good. What I was right about is that it's difficult to overestimate how terrible Bledsoe was in the playoffs.

And it really was like playing four on six. Yeah. And even holiday as bad as he has been, has been an undeniable positive on the defensive end. He's he was incredible tonight. I think the way he, and I think if they keep doing this, he will wear it on Paul by the end.

His finishing was just, it's, it was so bad. I mean, it's frustrating because he got a lot of good shots. Like he had, I, I, uh, retweeted someone with his shot chart at halftime and all his misses were around the rim. It was, it was just a, um, it was frustrating and you got to hope that he sort of figures it out, but it was certainly a better situation than we would have had with Bledsoe.

And the reality is the Bucs didn't have any options. So, yeah, I mean, and... But the move is to trade for Chris Pollard. Yeah, that was two years ago. I mean, we've... Could have done it last year. No, they couldn't because contract matching. This is why the Brogdon...

Failure to re-sign Brogdon was so damaging. It's not because Brogdon should have been on the team. Actually, he wasn't a huge fan of Brogdon's game and he gets injured a lot. The reason they needed it was the salary slot. And you're basically giving away a $20 million salary slot. And you never get that back. Once the salary slot is gone, it's gone. And Brogdon plus Bledsoe was $37 million

and Chris Paul's contract was $37 million and that was the mistake. All right. So are you going to game three? Game four. Game four. All right. Good luck. Yeah. Good luck. You're in better spirits than I thought

and I'm glad we found this. This is why B why bucks twitter gets mad at me sometimes i mean not to be cliche but i'm a sort of process over results and i thought the bucks had pretty good process tonight i thought you know if they make shots and phoenix shoots 40 from three the bucks win the game and that just didn't happen tonight and i don't know i'm not someone to get mad about players missing shots i mean like if i'm getting mad about players missing shots. I mean, if I get mad about coaches making dumb decisions, I'm frustrated about sort of the PGA Tuckers situation and Lopez not playing enough.

But as far as players not making shots, it's just like, I mean, what can you do? Well, and you should also be mad. Three straight series in a row, you basically threw away game one. And just were completely unprepared for what the other team did well. I was like, oh, so they do that?

I didn't realize. And then in game two, you make the adjustments. This is three seasons. This is every year with Bud. Year one, we beat Detroit in no great shakes. Series two, the Celtics blow us out and the Bucs come back and win four in a row. The Toronto series, we

won game one, but Toronto should have won. They really dominated that game. You go back the next year, they lose round one to Orlando, lose game one to Miami. This year, they should have lost game one to Miami again. The reality is they've won two game ones in Bud's years here, and both of them they should have lost. But we've already had the Bud conversation.

You've had all these conversations. Yeah, it is what it is. I mean, Bud obviously is not going anywhere now. So it's like, well, let's adjust what we can and accept what we must. Good luck. Ben Thompson, don't forget to read the Stratechery blog. There's lots of weird shit going on lately too.

You've been covering all of it, including the super tweets and Instagram posts that are potential subscriptions. All the stuff we were talking about five years ago is actually starting to happen. Yeah. Maybe your Giannis tweet was a warmup for your super tweet career. Yeah. I can't wait. All right. Good to see you. All right. Talk to see you. All right. Talk to you later. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit.

More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. And the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right, Ariel Hawani is here. He is part of the Spotify Ringer family now.

He's going to be doing a really fun, creative, ambitious thing that we're going to be doing on Green Room, where we pick basically the 12 biggest cards of the year for UFC, plus maybe another 10. And you're going to do Friday right after the weigh-in. You're going to go live on Green Room with your crew. And then we're going to do it again right after the fights on Saturday nights. And it's basically a live pregame, postgame show. I was excited to work with you. I'm excited that we get to do this with you. What's missing from MMA coverage right now? And what void are we filling with this?

Okay, well, first of all, before I answer that, please allow me to say massive honor to be on for the first time. And what void are we filling with this? Okay, well, first of all, before I answer that, please allow me to say massive honor to be on for the first time. It really is. It's somewhat surreal as someone who has been watching and reading you. I remember being an intern at HBO Sports in 2003 and printing out your page two column

and reading it during the lunch break. Yeah, back when I used to, my fingers were. Right. We have mutual friends. Jason Hare was one of the first people I met there and whatnot. I don't need to get into all that, but it is an honor. And even when we spoke for the first time, because I never really had a relationship with you other than back in 2010,

when I interviewed The Undertaker while he was cage side for the Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez fight. And he said to Brock, you want to do it? You tweeted out the video the next day. And so many people hit me up that the great, the legend, the inimitable Bill Simmons had tweeted out a video of mine. No one knew who I was at the time. I think that video has like 9 million views at this point. It's kind of like the big turning point of my career. So that was the only interaction we ever had. And then we started talking in this process.

And I kept feeling like I was on your podcast because I've listened to you for so long in my years and watched you that it was surreal. So now to actually be on the podcast is equally surreal. It's a huge, huge deal for me. And I just want to thank you. It's really great to be a part of the family. Well, that's very nice of you. I appreciate it. And I'm glad we finally get to work together on stuff. And in general, we're making a bigger commitment to MMA just because we felt like there was some possible voids for us to hit. But like always with this stuff, I think when you get in on stuff, you want the best possible people. And you've been the lead, best guy in the space for a while now. You just left ESPN. Yes. And I think we have some similar stuff with that too, which we didn't need to go into, but some similar frustrations over the years.

Yeah. You stayed there a lot longer than I did. I only lasted three years, but no regrets. You know, it was a dream. I'm from Montreal, a kid who dreamed of working for ESPN, not TSN, which is our version of ESPN in Canada. I wanted to be there. I got dream. I'm from Montreal, a kid who dreamed of working for ESPN, not TSN, which is our version of ESPN in Canada. I wanted to be there. I got there. I got to do NBA sidelines for about 12 games, which was also a dream of a massive basketball fan.

And then I kind of looked around and this actually ties into the question you asked me about the void, about what's missing in MMA media. Look, as you know, when you are working for the rights holder and they are in bed, and I don't say that in a disparaging way, but they have a business deal with the entity that you are supposed to cover. And that entity just so happens to be the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which has for a very long time, led by Dana White, had a contentious relationship with the media and has always felt that the media coverage should be a certain way. It leads to some issues for someone like me, who's all into journalism and telling the truth and all this stuff. I would argue that 95% of my coverage is positive and helps the sport

grow and whatnot, but there are obviously some times where we have to be critical and there's kind of a difference of opinion there. So what I'm excited about is to get back to, as we've been joking online with the fans of the sport, independent Helwani, unfiltered Helwani, to talk about the things in the sport that matter. Of course, the fights matter. Of course, the fighters matter, but also things like fighter pay matter, things like collective bargaining and revenue sharing and the fact that they don't get a seat at the table and all that stuff, in addition to everything that goes on in the actual case. Just to be able to say what I want to say unions lack thereof is huge for me. And what I loved so much about the Green Room opportunity was... so we're actually going to be,

look, I don't know how much your audience knows this. No, I want to, we're telling everybody right now, they don't totally know what we're doing. Okay. So, and I'm sorry for going long winded, but what's, what's so much fun about this is this is such a crazy sport. Could you imagine before game three of the NBA finals, 24 hours before Giannis has to step on a scale in his underwear, deprive himself of food and water, be dehydrated, and then go play in the biggest game of his life the next day. That's what we deal with in our crazy sport. And so every Friday morning before a massive fight, Connor, Dustin, any fighter, Jon Jones, has to step on a scale. There's a two-hour window. I actually have said this is the most fascinating part of fight week. To me, this is theater at its finest because these guys step

there and you get to finally see what kind of shape they're in. Are they dehydrated? Are they going to miss weight? Do they look good? Do they have a potbelly, et cetera? And so there's that two-hour block where fighters can show up to make weight. And you could show up at 9.01 a.m. Pacific or 10.59 a.m. Pacific. Myself, Pete C. Carroll, who is the best journalist covering the sport in Europe, he's in Ireland, and Chuck Mendenhall, who I think is the best writer in MMA, the best columnist in MMA. We are going to come together and we'll be there for every major weigh-in, live on Green Room, taking calls, talking about everyone. So people can watch these online.

UFC has a stream, whatever. I would suggest turn down the volume, listen to us, wherever you may be on a walk, on a run, in your car. If you miss it, we'll post it later on, on Spotify as a podcast. So that will serve as an actual play-by-play of a live event that's happening, guys stepping on the scale and seeing how they look.

It will also be a preview, making pics, talking about the lines, whatever. And then what I'm most excited about, of course, the moment that last interview airs in the cage. Let's say Conor wins on Saturday. He's talking to Joe Rogan. He's walking out. Before the UFC post-fight show starts on ESPN+, before any post-fight show, Chuck Pizzi and I, live on Green Room, taking calls, reacting.

And then of course, if you go to bed Sunday morning, there's a pod in your feed. I mean, this is something I've never done. I've done the Monday show. I've done the reaction show. I've never had something that was so immediate. And I grew up listening to sports talk radio. And then in addition, again, sorry for being long-winded,

breaking news happens. Jon Jones versus Francis Ngannou gets signed on a Friday night. Boom, we're there. There's a pod in your feed afterwards. We're live. We're taking calls. I couldn't be more excited about all this. Yeah, so for this weekend, we're going to just run

the pre-fight green room that we're doing and then the post card. We're going to run that on the Masked Man feed, which was our wrestling feed, just for this time. And that we're doing and then the post card um we're gonna run that on the mass man feed which was our wrestling feed just for this time and then we're gonna launch a different feed next month that will be the go-to kind of like a soft launch if you yeah this is a soft launch we want to test that out i'm honestly hopefully green room we've i think there's going to be a lot of people there and you know we're still working out some of the kinks of the bug so we'll see we'll see how all that goes too it's going to be a very interesting uh soft launch i like the word

soft launch is good one of the things i like about the friday thing you know i have to look at this my interest in mma because i'm not i'm not as huge of a fan i'm a cat i'm a casual guy but i love betting on it and you're not going to be giving like picks and stuff like that. But with the weigh-ins, especially on Friday, some real shit goes down where you're like, wait a second, this is not good for whatever reason. Like the odds are a little off or, you know, and the perception of what the odds should be versus what comes out of that weigh-in sometimes it can take five, six hours before it shifts, right? Absolutely. I mean, perfect example, the last pay-per-view in June, Glendale, co-main event was UFC flyweight title fight. Davidson Figueredo was the champion going into the fight. My fighter

of the year for 2020. This is his first fight of 2021. We all feel like this is going to be the Davidson era. He's about to go on this long run. He's fighting a guy who he fought to a draw, but some could say he won the fight back in December, a guy named Brandon Moreno. And Figueiredo showed up on the scale. I mean, he talked like, I was freaking out. We were doing a live show on YouTube and I'm like freaking out like it's game seven of the NBA finals. There's 40 seconds left. If he doesn't show up with 40 seconds left, the fight's off. So he had to get there 40 seconds.

He's looking extremely thin, frail. 125 makes the weight on the dot, 125.0. You can't even be a 0.1 over. And then what happens? All of a sudden people are like, this is no good. He showed up late. He was struggling.

Line changes. And then what happens Saturday? He loses. He gets admitted, gets totally dominated. So that's stuff like, this is no good. He showed up late. He was struggling. Line changes. And then what happens Saturday? He loses. He gets admitted. Gets totally dominated. So that's stuff like, if you are an MMA fan, the official weigh-ins in the morning are like the most important.

And if you're a betting fan as well, most important part of the whole time, like forget the press conference, forget media day. You literally get to see these guys in their underwear, how they look, their demeanor, they're shaking, they're sweating. And that's when you make picks. So anytime someone asks me for picks, I always say, I need to wait for the weigh-ins because you really don't know. Even

with Connor, like I spoke to him on Wednesday, intense, whatever. I want to see how he looks on Friday morning because then you can really gauge what kind of shape these guys are in. The only time I remember a last second weigh-in where the guy barely made it, where it worked out for the guy was Loud was Loud and Swaying and Vision Quest. I don't know if you saw that movie, but I mean, you haven't seen Vision Quest. All right.

I'm assigned. Now that you're part of our, our family, I'm assigning you. Is that a bad look? Greatest high school wrestling movie ever made, but he got there last, last second,

but he made it. He made it. And then he wins. Spoiler alert, but usually MMA, MMA, what? Four to five and then he wins. Spoiler alert. But usually MMA, what? Four out of five times? Terrible sign for the guy? Terrible.

Terrible. Absolutely terrible. I mean, I can't think of any time off the top of my head. Well, first of all, historically, if you miss weight, actually, just so you know, you actually end up winning the fight. And this is a big controversy because if you miss weight, yeah, because if you miss weight, all right, some guy will say, all right, you can have 20% of my purse. You could have 30% of my purse, but really like how much did you take your foot off the gas leading up to that? Okay. So you, you, you miss weight by three pounds.

The other dude was sweating in the sauna and he's killing himself. Maybe the 20% was worth it for you because you end up winning, you get a win bonus and all this other stuff. So that's interesting. But if you show up and you're looking like, you know, death and you're shaking and you make the weight, but you look horrendous, I would say, look at the other guy.

And that's what happened with Figueredo. And this was one of the things. So, you know, the stuff with you and Dana over the years, Dana, fellow massel. Yeah. I've always gotten along with him, but I've also never really crossed him. But it seems like he's just very protective

of the perception of different things, right? Like, no, no, we do take care of our fighters. No, no, we do care about the way and stuff. And, you know, you had the biggest platform and you called him out on this. And at some point things turned and it became adversarial. When did it become adversarial officially? So I will say the first time I met Dana White was 2009. Between 2009 and 2016. No joke, Bill. I mean, no one could have been

nicer to a journalist than he was to me. I mean, the access, the scoops, all that stuff, tremendous. And unfortunately, what ended up happening was I started to work for Fox Sports, which was at the time the broadcast partner of the UFC. And again, going back to my previous statement about working for the broadcast partner, as that relationship gets closer and closer, as you fly closer to the sun, I guess there are expectations and there are theories as to how the media should cover the sport and what they should or shouldn't say. At the same time, while... How league friendly they should be. Exactly. While I'm working for Fox, I'm also working for Vox Media,

doing a show for them. And on that show, I'm talking about benign things. The same type of stuff that you would hear any beat writer or any guy covering a sport talk about, you know, revenue sharing, collective bargaining, free agency, you know, unions.

We're still in the infancy of the sport. I always say we're in the leather helmet days of MMA. In 20, 30, 40 years, the sport is going to look completely different. And so they would get increasingly mad. And it was really Lorenzo Fertitta, who was one of the co-owners of the UFC, along with his brother, Frank, who is a very smart guy and would read and watch everything. And he would get increasingly annoyed that I would talk so much about the business of the sport. The business means a lot to me. It's a very important part of the fight game. They would get annoyed. They would get annoyed. And then in 2016, basically, they called my bosses at Fox and said, get rid of them. One phone call, I was out. And then

everything kind of deteriorated. And then the final sort of nail in the coffin, if you will, was when I broke the news that Brock Lesnar was coming back at UFC 200. I just so happened to be in the media room at the forum in Inglewood when I broke that story. It was a massive story. And then they requested that I went to the back to see Dana White. And he banned me for life from covering the sport. They escorted me out of the building in the middle of the card. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for me, it turned out to be a huge story. And 48 hours later, they had to relent and give me my credentials back. But as a result of that, Dana doesn't like to lose. Dana doesn't like to be told he's wrong or look bad. He has been unwilling to bury the hatchet or whatever

the case is. And everyone has asks me, what's the problem? What's the beef here? Where's the smoking? There is no story. I think he just doesn't like that I talk about these things and that he banned me. And then I was brought back really only because of the fans. The fans, I mean, the uprising was incredible.

So the big mistake he made was the Lesnar thing because that was irrational, hotheaded, just bizarre. Like, why should you be banned? Because you're breaking the story. Yeah, and I was right. I didn't understand that. I know nothing following that story just from afar. I'm like, what the fuck is going on here?

I thought there was some secret conspiracy piece beyond it, but there just wasn't. He was just mad that you scooped him on something. He said, I ruined the surprise, is what he said to me. He said, I ruined the surprise. I was being selfish. And I remember saying to him, because really, I'll never forget, they took me to the back. He's standing there. He's wearing all black. He said, you're out. You're done. He said, and this is something I'll never forget. He said, we just put a bullet in your head. Your career is over. And I remember thinking to myself, that's a weird analogy for a guy from Vegas

to say to someone, but all right. And I said, Dana and his PR guy, who actually works for the 76ers now, was standing right next to him. I said, what did I do that Woj doesn't do? What did I do that Schefter doesn't do? I just broke a story which ended up being right, which they announced an hour later. What did I do that was wrong? If I was inaccurate, if I got this through

some sort of unethical way, you could be mad. But what did I do wrong? He's like, you were selfish. You ruined the surprise. But that's my... I mean, I'm not ruining the surprise. I'm reporting it. It's my job. And so I have tried to... And really, I would make a strong case that it shouldn't be on me because he has cost me a lot of money. The following year, I was supposed to work for Showtime on Mayweather McGregor, and he got me taken off that broadcast. So he has made it personal. But even despite that, I have reached out. I've sent texts.

I've tried to extend the olive branch, but they don't want it. And you know what, Bill? I can make a very strong case that it's actually better for me this way. Because, you know, I've been on the receiving end of a lot of his calls and texts over the years where he's unhappy that you're talking about something completely stupid

that you would be shocked that anyone would care, especially in his position, Bellator or something. I don't have to hear that anymore. And I could just cover the sport in a free and independent way and say whatever I want. but also never make it personal. Never take cheap shots. The moment I do that, the fans should stop listening to me or reading what I write because now I'm a biased journalist. I never want to go down there. So I feel confident that I haven't, and I will never do that. Well, it's funny because I grew up as a boxing kid, which is the most corrupt, awful sport

we've ever had. And the guys just get taken advantage of left and right. And all the fighters I grew up with basically were pillaged by whoever the promoter was with very, very, very few exceptions. And I do feel like what UFC has done is way better than that, but it still doesn't seem like it's good enough, you know? And, and I'm, especially when you think like the new rights deal, whatever the, they, they basically kept ESPN plus afloat. It was absolutely by far the biggest reason people got ESPN plus, they're going to get way more money from them. And at some point, I have no idea. What's

their strategy slash plan with retired stars? Somebody like Chuck Liddell. Do they do any sort of pension stuff or anything? What do they do? Zero. There is no pension plan. There is no deal for retired fighters. There's no, hey, you fought 15 years or 15 fights. You'll get this amount, 10 fights, none of that. There were a couple of guys in the old era prior to the sale to Endeavor. Chuck was one of them. Matt Hughes was another. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira was another who they put on the payroll to do PR stuff. But once Endeavor bought the company in 2016, all those guys were taken off the payroll. And those are the guys who made some money. What about the other dudes who fought 15 times, 10 years, whatever? They have

nothing. And to me, look, the UFC, without the Fertittas and without Dana White, there maybe isn't even a sport called MMA anymore on this planet. In 2000, when they took over, it was dead. It was banned from pay-per-view. It was only legal in two states. No one cared about it anymore. Human cockfighting, all that stuff. They invested a lot. They lost a lot initially. They deserve all the credit. All I have been saying for years, and I know how the sausage is made. I've talked to fighters off the record. I know what they're going through.

I know the trouble that they have paying bills and with injuries and all that stuff. I would just like to see them get a bigger piece of the pie. Right now, as you know, in the NBA, it's kind of like a 50-50 split, right? And it's sort of like that among the four major sports. In the UFC, it's somewhere in the range of 12% to 15% of the revenue that goes to fighters. For example, earlier this week, they signed a 10-year, $175 million deal with a crypto company. Big deal, massive deal, right? You know what percentage of that deal

goes to the fighters? Zero? I'm going to say zero. Absolutely zero. Nothing. And they say in their press release that the fighters can now cut their own individual deal with this company. We've heard this before. The UFC, if they don't like you, will say, no, no, no. You're not going to do a deal with Mr. X. You're going to do a deal with this guy. And I can assure you, it's not going to be anything to break the bank with. And so they took all the sponsors away. They said they wanted to make it clean. They didn't want it to be NASCAR anymore. Meanwhile, there's more sponsors on the mat now than there ever been before. Meanwhile, now they've got a sponsor deal here. They've got a crypto deal here. The fighters can't go out and make their own money. And then what they said to me in the past was, well, in the NBA, the uniforms are clean. Of course, now they have the one logo here.

The fighters, the players don't get to make money there. And my response to that was, yeah, but LeBron James can sign a billion-dollar deal with Nike and wear those shoes on ABC, and everyone knows about his shoes, and it's a whole industry. It's a whole culture. Conor McGregor can't sign a deal with a shoe company and wear them to the fight on Saturday. He can't sign a deal with a glove company. Where does he make his money? I mean, Conor's the 1%. But where does Chris Weidman make his money? Okay, you could pay him for an Instagram post, but that's it. But where he's most visible, he can't sign a cleats deal, a batting gloves deal, or whatever deal. And so I just want to see them get a piece of the pie.

I want to see them make more because these are fascinating people. I know you haven't had a lot of MMA fighters on your show, but as a journalist, the most fascinating subjects that you could come across, true, genuine, interesting, good people. And I feel bad for them when they put in all this time and then they're 10 years into their career and they don't have a lot to show for it. Well, the NBA is a good example, right? They really care about this stuff, belatedly, but they care and I think they do make a real effort

to take care of the older players. They're always like at All-Star weekend finals. They're always on little things. Even the current players have changed some of the CBA to take care of older people and stuff like that. To me, I just, I know nothing. It's because they haven't really been challenged yet that things haven't changed. Like if you go back and look at the NBA, it wasn't until the ABA was created that the league really had to change how they did business. That's when salaries went up. That's when free agency eventually came in because they had the merger and all this stuff and the league became what the NBA is now.

It didn't happen until they had a true competitor that pushed them to have to do all of these different things. And to me, UFC just hasn't... They've had people out there, right? It's not like Bellator is like a disaster. No, they're owned by Viacom. Yeah, but they haven't had that one place that's like, oh shit, we have

to change our business or else. And it just hasn't happened. And honestly, I don't know if it's ever going to happen because their fan base is so passionate and so loyal that they might not have to change. So I agree with that. I will say in the early to mid-2000s,

there was an organization in Japan called Pride, and they were actually doing better than the UFC. Eventually, due to some issues with the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia and finances, they went under and the Fertittas actually bought them. But at that point, they were pretty much dead. They took some of their biggest names. And that was actually kind of great for the sport because a lot of these fantasy matchups actually came. It was sort of

like when... It was actually very reminiscent of when WWF at the time bought WCW. WCW was pretty much on its deathbed. They took them over and the stars came over. In the early 2010s, like 11, 10, 11, there was a promotion called Strike Force, which was this little engine that could, based in the Bay Area, run by this guy named Scott Coker. And they started doing really well in developing stars. And a lot of big names came from them. And they had names like Gina Carano. They had names like Luke Rockhold, Jacare. So it was like, you know, some really great fighters, Fedor Emelianenko. They were on Showtime. They got a Showtime deal and it got to the point, they were part owned by the San Jose Sharks owners, got to the point where they were getting like a million viewers on Showtime. I used to watch those. I used to like

those. They were great. And the thing that they had that the UFC didn't have was the women's division. That was what differentiated them. There were no women in the UFC at that point. And that made them change it. Well, so what happened was Fertitta was very smart, bought Strikeforce, so took them over $40 million, one of the greatest deals in the history of fighting. Because what he did was bought them,

killed the competition. Shortly thereafter, they were phased out. And as a result of that, the names he got, Ronda Rousey, Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem, Luke Rockhold. I mean, just those names alone made it worth it. And then some, but what he did was he stopped them in their tracks. So that left a massive void

because they were really climbing. Not to say that they were going to take over the UFC, but there were people jumping ship. Dan Henderson jumped ship. It was really starting to get interesting. And now there's Bellator. They've had some ups and downs. Actually, Scott Coker was hired by Bellator later on to help them run their organization.

The one thing that I would love to see in this sport, and we're obviously not quite there. And of course, if you're a casual fan, you don't know a lot about MMA. I would say MMA is a lot, as far as its structure, it's structured a lot more like pro wrestling as opposed to boxing, where there's like one dominant league and there's a couple of other upstarts. But in reality, there's one dominant league. I would just love to see proper free agency. I would love to see a fighter fight out his contract. And by the way, they always try to

stop you from fighting out your contract. So if you have like one fight left, they'll be like, hey, we're going to tack on five or six fights if you take this. We'll give you this big time fight, but we got to tack on five or six. So it's very hard for like a Nate Diaz or Conor McGregor to ever truly test free agency. I would love that ability for the fighters to be able to go out into the free market and see what is out there. Tyron Woodley, Bill, is 39 years old and is going to make more money way past his prime. He's a former welterweight champion to fight Jake Paul in a one-off boxing match

in late August than he ever did as UFC champion in his prime, welterweight champion. That doesn't, that's not right. That shouldn't be. Which is a fight we'll be getting in the Simmons house because we buy all of the Paul content. I have more thoughts on this. We're going to take a quick break though.

How can you be sure your child is making the right decision when choosing the university? The smart approach is to look at the facts, like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare students for a meaningful career and long-term success.

Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. Come back, we're talking about upstarts and what could nudge UFC to go up a level. To me, it's like somebody's going to do this correctly. And it's going to be a bunch of rich people who look at this, who look at the meteorites landscape, who look at where everything is going with sports, where it's one of the only safe bets we have left, right?

Even like hockey, jump back to ESPN. I was watching the NBC telecast last night. They were in NBC for 15 and a half years. I was like, wow, I can't believe that. It didn't seem like it was that long. But I think NBC was important for hockey. What else was important was that ratings for everything else dropped down. So it became more tenable to have a sport.

You know, the NHL playoffs on NBC 20 years ago would have been nonsensical. Um, it seems to me, somebody is going to at least try to compete with UFC directly. And I'm here for it because I think there's this whole generation of fighters that grew up with MMA. And I just feel like the next generation, we're going to have like five, six times as many bodies that are potentially good as we had, you know, no different than the NBA and like, I don't know, the seventies and eighties, where just more people are playing basketball. Do you feel like there's a generation coming of people that were weaned on all of these cards growing up that just want to do this, that just didn't exist 15 years ago? Or am I overthinking this?

No, no, no, you're not. It's just the problem in the past has been, like there was a company called Affliction and they tried to go up against the UFC. But what they did was they overspent for their first two shows. Like they paid way over, and I know you're going to have to overpay

to get guys to come over, but it was just ridiculous. Plus, you know, they did some of the things that this, uh, this new promotion triller is doing in boxing where they're bringing like, you know, musical acts and all that. And I, I don't feel like a fight fan. Like if I'm buying a pay-per-view as a fight fan, I don't want to see mega death. I don't need to see that. Save that money.

Yeah. It's stupid. Like save that, save that for the fighters. The fighters deserve that money. Just make the best show possible and build it up. So Bellator has a shot because they just moved to Showtime. For some reason, they really haven't been able to connect with the fans, but they have some great young fighters. There's a guy named AJ McKee who's fighting in late July against Patricio Pitbull, probably the best fight that Bellator has ever put on. But the UFC has such a stranglehold on the marketplace because of the brand recognition, because they have this 28-year headstart. And also, there's no room for anyone to try to sneak in there. They do 43 events a year. Last week, there was an off week. And it felt like a six-month off season just to have one Saturday night off. It's constant. It

never stops. And even after this Conor fight, there's a fight on the 17th and the 24th and the 30th. It just never, ever stops. There's no off season. So you never give someone a chance to wedge in there. Bellator tries to go on Friday. They try to go on Thursday. But in reality, everyone wants to be on Saturday night and the UFC just has that brand recognition and there's still always these guys. That's not how to beat them though. It can't be Saturday night. I think what AEW has done to compete with WWE, and I don't think they're on the same level as WWE yet, but they made some inroads. And one of the ways was to try to establish their own night. And they tried to grab a couple of established people, but not too many. And they really tried to triple down on younger wrestlers

and bet on up-and-coming talent. And I think for the most part, they've done a pretty good job. To me, that would be the model for whoever could compete with UFC. 1000%. And Bellator primarily goes on Friday nights. Here's what I think the problem is.

The problem is a UFC card, which most hardcore fans and even casual fans like to watch almost in its entirety, you know, because of gambling and daily fantasy and all this stuff. Those cards generally last around six to seven hours long. I mean, they're like two football games and then some, right?

And so if you're an 18 to 34 year old male, the prime demo, are you going to devote six to seven hours on Friday and Saturday to watching MMA? No, you're going to pick one night, right? You're going to pick one night to hang out with your buds. So it's so hard to get those other guys to watch you on Friday as well. It's not like, okay, the NFL stops and here comes the XFL on, you know, February 1st to try to, you know, make their own little thing. So it's really tough. There will always be competition. You know, there's promotions in Japan, there's promotions in Europe, Poland, whatever, that they will develop stars and

do all their stuff. But especially now with the UFC on ESPN, that was the big thing. It really took the sport to a whole new level. Dana always was obsessed with getting on ESPN, even when he was at Fox. He wanted that. And I saw it firsthand. All of of a sudden ESPN never talked about UFC now it's leading SportsCenter you know as a guy who watched the sport for all those years

I mean I never would have dreamed of SportsCenter ever talking about UFC let alone leading with it and now you're starting to see with hockey right you're starting to see the coverage expand

would you see the hyperlink is on the ESPN.com main page again it was crazy it was gone for 15 years I was obviously, I knew a lot of the decision makers,

even in the mid 2000s, late 2000s. And they were just like, no, could never do it here. Right. Could never, could never have UFC.

No, no way. Well, John Skipper. Human cockfighting. Yeah. Skipper, I mean,

was very open about the fact that he never was a fan and never really got it. He wasn't. John Walsh was the baby. My mentor, John Walsh, he just hated it. He thought it was barbaric. And, you know, he carried a lot of weight for a lot of years. And, you know, I got to say like that,

that early 2000, mid 2000s, like it was pretty rough. Like I remember going to a fight in Boston and I wrote about it for page two and like 01 or 02. And some guy just got, it seemed like he was dead. And it was like, there was a Paul over the crowd for 20 minutes. We just weren't used to it. I don't think people are educated enough back then to know if a guy got knocked out, he'll actually be okay. Mohegan sun, right? Yeah. I remember, I remember where I was like, I'm going to, you know, expose myself here. I remember where I was. I'm going to expose myself here. I remember where I was when I read that article. Because you have to understand, it was such a big deal that Bill Simmons, that page two, that ESPN.com was writing about the UFC. It was such an underground thing that I had to go to forums to read about it. And now you were doing a live blog, a diary of your experience there. I took my buddy Jaybug. He just had like seven drinks and I just wrote down notes.

It was fun, except the one guy who almost died. It was awful. Luckily for the UFC, they've never had a death. They have had some crazy injuries, but they've been able to dodge some bullets, especially with the weigh-ins.

Like there have been times, Hennon Burrell, UFC 177 champion, 135, is cutting weight, slips and hits his head on the bathroom sink. Could you imagine? I mean, like, oh, my God, like they have had some times where it's been like, oh, my gosh, thank God nothing serious happened here. And he's OK. But, you know, I've always said, you know, could you imagine, God forbid, if something really tragic happens, everyone would have piled on and they've been lucky enough to, and they, you know, they try their best and it's all in the up and up. And I certainly don't want to come across like I'm a bitter, like I'm the biggest fan of you. I've devoted my life to this. Well, that's why, that's why we like each other. Like you, you legitimately care about this shit

and you know, that's, that's why you're good at it. I care. And I feel like Chris Weidman, I don't know if you saw that a couple of months ago, snapped his leg in that fight. I mean, man, he's a former middleweight champion. He beat Anderson Silva twice. He snapped his leg. Who knows if he'll ever be able to fight again. He told me he thought they were going to have to amputate his leg. And what does he have to show for it? You know, I'm sure he has some bucks in the, uh, you know, in the bank account, but like truly, what does he have to show for all of this? And so when you are getting so close to it and you see how the sausage is made and have so much respect and admiration for the

fighters, like, you know, there's a part of me that feels like I almost have this obligation to speak up on their behalf because they can't. And, uh, you know, I I've studied and read so much about Howard Cosell. Um, you know, When I first wanted to do this, I remember telling my parents, there is no Howard Cosell of MMA. Why can't I be that guy? I want to be that guy. And I will never be one-tenth as good as him or as legendary as him. But I do know that towards the end of his life, he actually turned on boxing

because he saw what he did to his friends. I watched the fight. It was the Tex Cobb-Larry Holmes fight. I hope that doesn't happen. But when I see, you know, like when I see BJ Penn, you know, dealing with issues, who was a legend,

when I see Chuck Liddell dealing with issues, when I see these guys dealing with dementia and stuff like that, like it breaks your heart. So I just want them to be protected as much as possible. They know what they're doing. We all know this is a very crazy, violent sport,

but I just, you know, I would just love to see them get a little bit more. So Conor's fighting this weekend. Who's the biggest star in the sport? By far. I texted you my theory. And I don't think he's at this point yet, but it's my favorite betting theory

for MMA and boxing. Where the guy who's the massive name, who's passed this prime, and for about four extra fights, the odds are way swayed toward him because he's who he is. And nobody kind of totally realizes yet that he's not the same guy. And you have this great betting opportunity for, I don't know, three fights, four fights before the odds finally shift. You don't think he's at that point yet, right? You still feel like he's maybe not in his prime,

but at maybe the tail end, like where is he? Yeah, I think the latter statement is more accurate. Look, he's 32 turning 33 next month, excuse me, next week. He's taken some damage. He got knocked out in his last fight. But overall, he hasn't taken a ton of damage. He hasn't been in a ton of wars.

A lot of those early fights were relatively quick. The biggest concern with Conor is twofold. Number one, it's the famous Marvin Hagler line. It's hard to pound the pavement at 5 a.m. when you're waking up in sand sheets. This happens to fighters all the time, right? It's very hard to feel that motivation, to feel that desire, to prove the world wrong, to have this chip on your shoulder when you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It's just

natural, right? It's the human in all of us. And so that's a big question. Did he just make all this money? Is he rich beyond his wildest dreams to where he doesn't have that edge anymore, that desire anymore to really truly push himself? And that's a theory that people have. The other theory is, and I got some insight into this actually on Wednesday night when I had the opportunity to speak to him, for his last couple of fights, it has almost been like, Conor's bigger than the sport. He's the biggest star in the history of the sport. He's a bigger brand than the UFC and very few fighters have ever been bigger than the UFC. Dare I say, none of them have ever been bigger than the UFC brand. And for his last couple of fights, it's almost been like he has been bestowing the honor of fighting him upon his opponent.

He shows up there like a dignitary, hello, what an honor. We're exchanging gifts. This is all nice. This isn't the Conor that we all fell in love with. This isn't the Connor that actually became this success. The Connor that we fell in love with was the Connor who wanted to literally take you out, take your head off, take your family out. He just wanted to kill everyone. He was as intense as can be. And he had this intense motivation and desire to prove everyone wrong, to become famous. The first time I met him, Bill, 2013, he was on welfare. And he said he was going to do all this stuff, but he literally said, I don't have a pot to piss in. I don't have a car. I don't have any nice clothes, but I'm going to change all of this very soon. And so he had these dreams that he wanted to realize.

I spoke to him yesterday and I know a lot is made in the pre-fight. It felt like the old Connor. He was fidgety. He was looking around. It was not like, you know, the last time I spoke to him in January prior to this, he was sitting there with his slippers on, like lean back, totally chill, zen. It was bizarre. It was like, he was just happy. He had kids. They were running around.

This time he hasn't seen his kids in two months. They're back in Ireland. So intense. It didn't, you know, usually he gives me like 40 minutes before the months. They're back in Ireland. So intense. Usually, he gives me like 40 minutes before the fights. I'm very, very lucky. He's always been good to me. This time, it was like 17.

And you can kind of tell when someone wants to wrap it up. So it's like last 45 minutes of Rocky III kind of vibe with him? Yes, yes. He's back to the basics. So, you know, look, I don't know. We'll see what happens on Saturday, but even let's take it a step further. The big knock on him in the last fight. He relied too much on his boxing.

He trained too much boxing. His stance had changed. He had a more traditional boxing stance. And what happened? He got his leg, his front leg chopped off. This time, no boxing coach. This time, he has his two old MMA coaches by his side. And that's pretty much

he's gone back to MMA training. So it's all the right thing. If you're a Conor fan, I presume you are eating this all up. He's back. It's 2016 Conor and all that. We'll find out how much he's pushed himself, how much he actually cares on Saturday night, because we'll get to see if all this actually means something and if he's really pushing himself like he did back in the day. But I like the Conor that I saw on Wednesday night. I like what I'm hearing out of him. It has become personal.

Also, just to get more in the weeds, before the last fight between these two guys, Conor said that he would donate $500,000 to Dustin Poirier's charity. Dustin's a great guy. He's very charitable. He has this foundation in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he helps out the unfortunate and the kids and stuff like that. And the less

fortunate, I should say. And I guess Conor was after the fight a little late to set it up. I don't ever believe that Conor didn't want to do this or wasn't going to go through with it. But Dustin actually put it out there that he hasn't heard from him and he never went through with the donation. As a result of that, Connor got really, really mad and actually went to a boys and girls club in Lafayette, another charity, and gave them $500,000 for a summer camp and made a whole thing about it. And in the end, Dustin handled it great. The kids win and all that stuff. But what Connor told me yesterday was like, yeah, he jumped the gun. He tried to assassinate my character.

So it's a little personal now. And so before the last fight, they were hugging, they were exchanging gifts. The press conference is Thursday. We're not going to see that anymore. And I think Conor fans want that. They don't want to see him hugging. They don't want to see him being buddy-buddy. They want to see him take off his opponent's head.

And his prediction was Dustin's leaving in a stretcher. And everyone loves to hear that. So we'll see. Saturday night. They want to see him be an Irish guy. The, the, you think you're better than me. That's right. They want that back.

That's right. That's like the Boston side needed to come out. Does he have a better defense for leg kicks this time or, or maybe not? He says he does. And look, his, his old stance, he has a very sort of traditional karate stance, but he's very quick on his feet. He's very bouncy. You know, like you look at the Aldo fight, you look at his fight against Eddie Alvarez, which I think was his best performance ever. I mean, it was as flawless of a performance as you can ever see UFC 205 in November of 2016. Um, you look at that guy, guy, that's the guy that needs to show up against

Dustin Poirier. If it's the guy who's heavy on the front foot, who is not going to move, who is going to take those leg kicks and not check them the proper way, it's going to be the same kind of fight as we saw in January. Now, my good friend Shael Sonnen seems to think that Dustin's going to use more wrestling in this fight.

I think Conor's wrestling is actually very underrated. People like to say that's his Achilles heel. I think he's actually gotten pretty good with his wrestling. In fact, Khabib actually had some trouble taking him down and we know how good Khabib is on the ground. So I don't think that's smart for Dustin. I really think it's going to be two guys in the center of the cage, toe to toe,

you know, slinging leather and may the best man win. And I think we'll know in the first round, who's the better man because the first fight ended in the first round. Second fight ended in the second round. These guys, they hit really hard. And I think you'll see who will be able to exert his will in the first five minutes. Well, you know, my MMA theory is that everybody should just do leg kicks. It just seems unstoppable. It just seems like throwing every down in football. It's like, so hard to fend it off after a while.

I'm pro leg kicks. Yeah, but Chris Weidman just kicked someone's leg. Right, that's why you don't do leg kicks. Yeah, that's right. It snapped, yeah. What's your favorite fight in this card be other than the Conor fight? Okay, well, Conor by far.

And you know, historically, I will say they don't really load up the Conor fights, which I think is a shame because you have so many new fans watching, but he costs a lot. Yeah, that's weird. Usually you know, historically, I will say they don't really load up the Conor fights, which I think is a shame because you have so many new fans watching, but he costs a lot. Yeah, that's weird. Usually you have like the second you want to move somebody into the high profile spot like drafting off the fumes of the main guy. Yes. And Dana,

by the way, always said he would never do that. That's the boxing model, right? Put De La Hoya Mayweather at the top and leave the rest of the card pretty bare. I would suggest you'd want to put a lot of young up and comers on the card so that you can get the rub. Now there are a couple of those. There's a guy named sugar,

Sean O'Malley, who's very, very popular, very flashy as crazy hair. I like that guy. He's great on that guy. Here's the, the issue with this particular fight.

He was supposed to fight a really tough guy named Luis Smolka. Smolka got a staff infection, a gnarly infection on his elbow. And they brought in this guy who no one knows, including myself, named Chris Moutinho. No knock on him, but out of the UFC. And it just sort of feels like they're trying to give him a victory. Crazy things happen. I'm not trying to discount him. So it feels like the rub on that particular fight kind of went away. The biggest fight outside of the main event is this co-main event fight between Steven

Wonderboy Thompson and Gilbert Burns. Gilbert Burns just fought for the welterweight title against Kamaru Usman in February, actually rocked Usman, who's never lost in the UFC in the first round, but ended up losing. And Wonderboy, in addition to being one of the nicest human beings I've ever come across in my life, I mean, truly, I don't know what makes this guy upset. He's just a phenomenal soul, is one of the best strikers guy upset. He's just a phenomenal soul, is one of the best strikers in UFC history, comes from a karate background, but has turned into a great mixed martial artist as well. I wouldn't say the winner of this fight is fighting for the welterweight title next, but certainly puts himself in a really solid spot. So that's the

highest level, most intriguing fight. Will Burns be able to take Wonderboy down, use his jiu-jitsu? Does Wonderboy keep the fight standing? That, to me, is the most intriguing one outside of the main event. Alright, I'm throwing this at you. Let's go. We're crossing NBA and MMA. Oh, yeah. Who's LeBron in the UFC?

Well, like, from a skill standpoint... It has to be a quick answer. You can't overthink it. But is it Star? Who's LeBron just yeah Connor who's Connor okay

who's Giannis this is great I finally I finally flustered you Israel Adesanya okay who's Luca who's Luca

man Luca is Charles Oliveira. Who's James Harden? The guy who's good in the regular season, but never wins the big one. Yeah, and who might gain 20 pounds at any point. That's right. Man, that's a good one.

That's a good one. That's got to be heavyweight. There's got to be some heavyweight. Well, I want to... You know what? I'll say Derek Lewis. Derek Lewis hasn't won the big one, likes to eat.

So I'll go with Derek Lewis. That's a good one. Who's Chris Paul? Who's the media darling who hasn't gotten over the hump yet and everybody's rooting for it and it's a complete legacy changer if he wins this title.

Michael Chandler, who never won the UFC title, just lost and has been in the game for over 10 years. And everyone loves him because he's just like this squeaky clean guy. A little bit different than Paul, who, you know, the referees hate because he complains all the time. But yeah, Michael Chandler. Michael Chandler is that guy. Who is Curry, the guy who changed the game and what we've seen in the octagon?

Who took it to a different direction and then had everybody follow him? Okay, so it's different in the sense that he's not flashy like him, but it has to be Khabib because Khabib really changed and it was so dominant. So I would say, yeah,

I would say Khabib Nurmagomedov, undefeated. And just the style of grappling that he brought was unlike anything that we ever saw much like, you know, Curry's shooting. Who's Jokic, the guy who, um, who brings off this weird shit to the table that nobody else in the sport has and the diehards loved him, but then eventually the general public realized that he was really good. Yeah, like a Swiss army knife, if you will.

Man, that's a good one. That's a good one. I will go with... Am I allowed to say the same guy twice? That's kind of whack, right? I mean, Adesanya, because Adesanya,

I don't know how much you know of him, but like is flashy, but also has great fundamentals and, um, and is really turning into like a, a well-rounded MMA fighter. So I'll go with Israel Adesanya as well.

Do you think the UFC should borrow from WWE and have evil managers or like, well, by the way, they got them. No, I know. But do you think they should be playing that up more and there should be like what I grew up with in the 80s? We could have a couple of those

because some of these guys can play the villain card pretty well. Well, of course, we know about Mr. Fuji and Jimmy Hart. We could do a whole separate pod on just wrestling history, but here's the thing. The roots of the UFC are firmly entrenched in the world of pro wrestling. And I love talking about pro wrestling,

whether on my shows or tweeting about it, because MMA fans have this inferiority complex and they get so hot into the call. Like, how dare you talk about the fake stuff? Meanwhile, you know,

ignoring the fact that this whole thing is pro wrestling. But it's a WrestleMania model. Yeah, every month. One thousand percent is pro wrestling, but it's a WrestleMania model. Yeah. Every month, 1000%. The only difference is it's unpredictable.

And you know, the, the, the fights aren't scripted. Um, starting with Dana White, Vince McMahon, like it's all the same thing,

the show, the blitz, the glamor, the entrances, every characters, it's all great. And that's why I have been such a loud proponent against the uniforms. Could you imagine Roman Reigns? Could you imagine Lashley and the Uso brothers and Seth Rollins all walking out every Monday and Friday wearing the same thing?

Could you imagine that? Literally wearing a uniform. It's absolutely absurd. How did we fall in love with boxing back in with boxing back in the day Tyson wore all black he wore the black boots with no socks he wore the towel over his head how did we fall in love with UFC back in the day

Liddell with the ice on his shorts Tito Ortiz with the fire on his shorts now they all wear the same thing why would you want all these guys

to look the same how much money is at stake here oh millions hundreds of millions hundreds of millions yeah they had a Reebok deal that was for seven years. And I think it was like 20 million a year or something like that.

And now they switched over to this company called Venom, which is an MMA specific brand. But in any event, to get back to your thing, there are actually a couple of sort of questionable characters in the manager world. There's one guy. But there's no Paul Heyman though, right? There's no guy who could come out, who grabs the interview after the fight from his guy, does his stand and all that. I would enjoy that. Do me a favor, if you can,

look up a guy named Walid Ismail. W-A-L-L-I-D Ismail. I-S-M-A-I-L. Brazilian guy. Has actually dabbled in pro wrestling legend from the Brazilian MMA days from 25 years ago. He cuts the best promos. He's Davidson Figueiredo's manager, the former flyweight champion who just lost last month.

And this guy, like his eyes open like this, he gets into brawl. Sometimes I have tried to build him up as a pro wrestling, like manager, because I think that mouthpiece could actually help a lot of guys. There's a lot of guys who aren't great at promos, but it's those guys like Izzy,

Connor, the guys who could cut promos, the guys who could drum up interest, the guys who aren't all about like, I just want to fight whoever the UFC wants me to fight. The guys who could be pro wrestlers are always the most popular guys. Those are always the ones. That was Conor McGregor's blueprint.

Yes. Absolutely. And he has said it. He used to watch the Rock promos, Stone Cold's promos. There's nothing wrong with that because those guys are incredible. The main point of all this is to get people emotionally invested in your journey. And if... Look, everyone likes a nice guy, martial arts, the spirit, samurai, all that. At the end of the day, they want crap talking. They want drama. They want all this stuff. And people over the years have said to me like, oh, you just like the drama. You just...

No, I just know what the fans want. And this is what they want. It's no secret why Conor is such a big star. It's because he was able to shake up the whole game and talk some smack. That's what people want. And the proof is in the pudding. Well, it's also they have as an announcer, Rogan, who's also a gigantic star.

And I think he's really good. I've always been impressed by the telecast and especially like I just learned stuff from them. I don't know half the time what everybody's talking about, but I think he's been a huge asset. And I think MMA has been really good for him too, obviously.

Well, you know, when he joined the UFC, you know, he was the news radio guy, not even quite fear factor guy yet. And then he becomes fear factor guy. And then that's growing. He's been very loyal to Dana White and the UFC. That's growing, that's growing. Now, amazingly, he's more well known for his outside UFC stuff, his podcast, which is on Spotify, cheap plug. He is for the UFC. And now it's almost like, oh, wow, this massive celebrity guy is doing some UFC stuff on the side. So it works out for the UFC

because they get the rub from him. He talks about them on their show and he genuinely loves it. He's a mixed martial arts practitioner. But I have so much respect. You know, Daniel Cormier, you know, we did the show together on ESPN. He's become a really, really good friend of mine.

John Anik. I know he's been on Rusillo's podcast and the other guys that they have as well. I don't think people understand what these guys do. They do two plus football games a night. Every broadcast is six to seven hours. Imagine that back to back, no breaks, there's no halftime show. It literally goes one after the next, after the next. They have to peak at 1am. You can't peak at 6pm. You got to peak at the very end for the main event. That job is so incredibly tough. I have so much respect for them. And I would argue they don't get in like the media broadcasting circles. They don't get enough respect and credit.

They do for me. I think they're amazing. One thing that probably hurts them is the fact that the UFC controls the production. So those guys all work for the UFC. And I think that some of like, you know, like those hoity-toity sports media guys, you know, they- Those guys. You know, I mean, don't get me started on those dudes. They give credit to like, you know,

the CBS guys, the NBC guys, whatever. And oh, because you work for the promotion, you may not get the love, but make no mistake about it. They are supremely talented. And what they do, I would argue, is tougher than what any of these traditional sports guys can do. We had, I remember the two times I did the draft, which was

basically five hours straight, but you can't go. And then you're hooked up. You have all the electronics hooked up and the commercials, three minutes, you can sprint back, but you're also drinking water because you want to stay hydrated. You want your voice to go. There hits a point if you're doing those marathon broadcasts where it's like, I have to go to the bathroom. I'm going to pee on myself.

And you do this dead sprint into the back. I don't know how you would do it for a seven hour card. I mean, they must have like an IV hooked up to their urethra or something. There are little pockets here and there where if you're watching them closely, you'll see them run. Yeah, like six minutes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's it. Like you can't get a meal. You can't do anything like that. And again, to my previous point, no off season. So those three guys like Anik, Rogan, and DC, they're the pay-per-view guys.

They don't do all 43 cards, but you don't get five months off. You don't get six months. You'll get one show off here, one show up, but for the big ones, they're all there. And so, not to mention the time, great. But what about the prep? Usually 12 to 13 fights, that's 24 to 26 fighters. A lot of these guys are new to the UFC. They're coming from Dagestan. They're coming from Asia. Who knows? You got to know how how to say their name. You've got to know their backstory. You've got to get people emotionally invested. It's a tough gig, man. You also have to remember

17 million different techniques and moves and all this stuff. I always thought that was the hardest sport to announce of any sport. I agree. Because if you mess up one thing, the fans are so nuts. They're just like, oh, he didn't realize. And then they're holding it against you.

Here's the perfect example of that. Gus Johnson, who is revered in the sports world, right? Like all-time great NBA, all-time great football, college, whatever. In those Strikeforce days that I was telling you about, the Showtime Strikeforce days of 10 years ago, they brought him in to be the play guy. And the fan, like MMA fans, for the most part, they're not really traditional sports fans, right?

Like they like their fighting and they're in this bubble. They killed him. And it was so crazy to me as a big traditional sports fan being like, do you guys know who this is? This guy is a freaking Knicks legend, college, March Madness. And they treated him like he was some bum off the street who had no business holding the microphone for an MMA fight. His claim to fame in the world of MMA was there was a brawl on CBS,

unfortunately, after one of their shows between Mayhem Miller and the Diaz brothers and Jake Shields. And he unfortunately said, these things happen in MMA. And the fans just hated him for that. and he unfortunately said these things happen in MMA and as he tried to and the fans just hated him for that how dare you say

blah blah blah and they you know they kind of ran him out of town unfortunately and that's a legend right I mean that's a guy so you don't see a lot of the

traditional guys come over and they will they are ruthless like if they feel like you are disingenuous well WWE is like that too Adnan Virk lasted like six weeks

I know I feel horrible for him. I don't know the true story behind that, but yeah, they're tough. They are tough. Wrestling and MMA are very similar. It's like if you don't speak our language exactly, you're in trouble. We have like two minutes left. Give me your two wishlist things for the Knicks

and then we'll go. Okay. Point guard obviously. So Kyle Lowry, who are you thinking? Look, I'm a Canadian. Chris Paul? Like lingering maybe? Shame on those Knicks fans last offseason who were like,

please don't get Chris Paul. I couldn't believe it. These Knicks fans talk about Frank Nelokina like he's the greatest thing to incite. Like get rid of Frank. It's never going to work out.

He is never going to be that guy for us. Enough already with Frank. We're obviously not getting Chris Paul. You know, it seems like it's either Lonzo Ball or Lowry.

I still feel like Lowry has a couple years left. Lonzo's obviously a lot younger. I'd love to see what Tibbs could do with Lonzo. So I'll take either of those guys. They obviously need a point guard. Derek Rose coming off the bench would be great. We got to move on from Alfred Payton. The other thing they need is a shooter.

We need that guy. We need that, you know, Kevin Herter type. We need that guy who will be able to space. You know, they need is a shooter. We need that guy. We need that, you know, Kevin Herter type. We need that guy who will be able to space. You know, we need Novak. We need like that guy. You know, we don't have that guy. Reggie Bullock is not that guy.

So if they get the shooter, Randall had a horrible playoff. We have two good picks. What do you have? 17 and 21. You have to make sure you don't overpay Randall. Right.

You do staring contests with him. You're not getting 30 plus million a year. I'm sorry. He sucked in the playoffs. Those are the repercussions. I know. I feel bad because that was a tremendous season. You're not getting 30 plus million a year. I'm sorry. He sucked in the playoffs. Those are the repercussions. I know. I feel bad because that was a tremendous season.

You really, I mean, you got to give it to the guy. I don't think it was a fluke. Do you think it was a fluke? No, but I think his playoff performance was alarming. Yeah. Like you can't at that point, give him a max. I need to see another year and they have them under contract for like 25. So let me, let me see one more year and then

I'll decide. Spencer Dinwiddie is a name that's being bandied about. I wouldn't mind him. He's taking some shots at the Knicks. Yeah, coming off the ACL. So maybe the price will be a little lower. He's taking some shots at the Knicks, but I love his fire. So I would be down. I think, look, the Hawks loss aged well over time. I thought it was crazy that so many people were picking them to beat the Hawks. Hawks are really good. I believe in Tibbs. I believe in the culture.

And the biggest thing to come out of this season, as you know, is now you got everyone in their agent looking back and being like, oh, it's safe to come back to MSG. And I feel like the trickle-down effect of these good vibes is going to lead to a lot of great things over the next few years. Maybe I'm crazy.

No, you're not crazy. That was a huge win for them, rebuilding some sort of credibility where now they can actually be the Knicks again. And by the way, all the players watch playoff games and they all saw the crowd. Yep. And that stuff matters.

All right. So, Green Room, Friday. Friday. Are we after the weigh-ins or during the weigh-ins? How are we doing? We're doing it during the weigh-ins. Okay. Live during the weigh-ins.

Right. So, this is like an actual live broadcast. It's great. We're going to tag in fans, but if you miss it, it'll be on afterwards via podcast. We're going to go live at 1155 AM Eastern. The weigh-ins start at 12. So just a couple

of minutes to let everyone in. And then after the last interview, Saturday night, UFC 264, Chuck, PT and I will be live. I don't know what the record is for most listeners, most people. No, we're breaking it. We're breaking it. Tell me the record and I want to break it.

Follow Ariel on Twitter to get all the updates for it. We're going live. Here's the link and all that. I'll do the same thing. And then same thing for after on Saturday night. And then if you miss either one,

if you can't be there live, we'll be running those, the audio on the Masked Man podcast, Shoemakers wrestling podcast. But next month, we'll have a permanent home for those things. I'm glad we finally did this. This was fun. This was great. Long overdue, but thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. And great to be a part of the family. Yeah, good to see you. All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is right after the Yankees lost to the Mariners, so it's late afternoon Pacific time. My buddy Jacko is here. Just because we've had so much basketball,

you haven't even come on here to talk baseball with me. You've actually been hopping over to the New York New York podcast with our guy John Jastrzemski, who's like your new buddy. You guys have your own text thread now. I don't know what happened. I got just left out. You just complain about the Yankees back and forth. It's been a miserable season.

I was on a text thread today with two Red Sox friends wondering if we were enjoying the terrible Yankee season more than the unexpectedly delightful Red Sox season. And it was a legitimate argument in the text thread. And frankly, I don't have my answer, Johnny. I think it's 50-50 for me. I'm happy for you. That's good.

It's good to finally see you catch your break. It's good. I'm so happy. At least I have that. That's great. I think what's better than the disappointing train wreck of a season is the anger of the Yankee fans.

It seems like this year, 2021, for whatever reason, the Yankee fans got pushed over the edge. You are now, you're in a nightgown at 1030 at night holding an empty vodka bottle, whipping stuff around and just yelling at people.

Yeah, it's been good to break out the nightgown again, finally, after so many years. It's good, yes. It's me in my nightgown again, finally, after so many years. It's good. Yes, it's me and my nightgown and my vodka bottle. Subs it up nicely. Well, you know what it is? I was thinking about this.

I've had a lot of time to reflect. And this is really the straw that broke the camel's back, right? Because allegedly in 2006, well, really 2016, a window was going to be opened, right? That the Yankees had this window, a multiple championship window. They were resetting under the luxury tax. There was visions of Bryce Harper and or Manny Machado donning the pinstripes. You know, they had this miraculous season in 2017. Judge comes out of nowhere, not a really highly touted prospect.

Gary Sanchez is this, you know, power hitting catcher. They have this, they get Glaber Torres. You know, he's the number one prospect on earth. Clint Frazier with this amazing bat speed. They go to the seventh game of the ALCS and it's like, this is only going to get better. Then what happens? So then not only do they not get Harper, not only do they not get Machado, but the window is rapidly closing because all these guys, be it injuries or be it underperformance, the window is closing and nothing has happened. I mean, the closest they've come is they went to an ALCS, but nothing has happened. They haven't even been to a World Series, let alone win one.

So after five years ago where it looked like, oh, we could be looking at at least going to a World Series, competing for World Series. And now these guys are not getting younger and they're not getting better. And it's like the window is closing. And so it's like, where's the next window? It's horrific. Well, Judge is, when do you have to pay him? After next year. And he turns, I think, 30 next year, right?

Right, right. And then you're on the hook for, uh, for Stanton for a while. He's actually been okay this year, but he hasn't had a good, yeah. I can't, he hasn't torn an oblique or anything yet.

Um, but he can't, but he can't accept that he can't play the field or they won't let him play the field for fear of injury. So he's a DH and a total one dimensional player. So he's not worth the money he's being paid. And then he also clogs up the dh because they can't give anybody else a rest day there i mean they basically are a team of nine dhs

basically and he he has to play it every day because he can't play the outfield which forces them to play miguel andahar who's an infielder not a good infielder but an infielder he has to be an outfielder now it's just a disaster and it's a heavily heavily right-handed lineup which we saw today with the mariners game logan gilbert who's a good young pitcher but looked like uh brett saberhagen in the 85 world series today that's the that's the biggest dereliction of duty is how you can assemble a yankees team and have it be overwhelmingly right-handed the whole history of the yankees and and all of their now this is their third stadium. It's favorable to lefties with the short right-hand porch. So how do you have a lineup

of all righties? It's ridiculous. They have Brett Gardner, who's a switch hitter, but he can't hit with either arm, either hand. So it doesn't really matter that he can hit left-handed occasionally because he can't hit anywhere. So it's like, how do you not have a left-handed bat in this lineup? You know, the alleged, you know, gurus in the analytics department, how did they not have a computer algorithm that says you should have a

left-hander at Yankee stadium? I do not understand that. How, how do you have outs with this current roster? Cause you have Chapman who, you know, is getting up there and I don't know if he's in a bad tailspin or if this

is maybe who he's going to end up being pretty soon. You have Cole you're paying a ton of money to which he's been good this year until they got rid of the stick him. You have the judge I wish I could defend that but I can't. You have the judge Stanton Sanchez

thing which it does sound like those guys are going anywhere. And then you have the Glaber issue of like, what the hell happened? Where you have this incredible moment where you trade Chapman, he wins a World Series, comes back, but you get Glaber out of it. And it's like, oh my God, stroke of genius, unbelievable.

And he's a 240 hitter. Right, with no power, he's got two home runs. So what happened to him? I think he's got two or three home runs. I have no idea. I mean, you talk about regression. no home runs so what happened two or three home runs i have no idea i mean you talk about regression i don't know what happened i mean he you know when he came up he was he was decent you know he had a i think it was two years ago he hit like seven home runs at camden yards over the course of three games you're starting to see flashes i was always told that he was supposedly a natural shortstop but he's not a great defensive shortstop. So I don't know what like baseball prospectus was selling everybody that he was this wonderful all world prospect and he's gone backwards. He's regressed. I don't understand it. I don't know if it's the hitting coach. I don't know if it's the approach. I don't know if it is what they're teaching him, but he's gotten demonstrably worse. I don't know if it's like, you know, on Instagram and Twitter,

I hate to bring this up, but he plays a lot of video games. So I hope it's not like the Red Sox chicken and beer thing with David Price and too much Fortnite or like video games are ruining his eyesight or his coordination or something. But I have no other explanation for it. So I'm grasping at video straws like video games

because I don't know, but he's demonstrably worse. I mean, they should probably send him down because he's not great on defense. Wow. Send him down. Oh, my God. Right. Send him down. Francesco was like, Francesco was like, this kid is special. Right. This kid's got it. He's got something. I couldn't argue with him. It really seemed like he had Jeter potential.

Right. And this wasn't just the Yankees thing. You know, the Cubs had him as their number one prospect, or if not number one, he was in the top five, certainly, of prospects, you know, for a team that had been lousy for a while. I think he was a high draft pick. He came highly touted. So it's like, I don't know. Did he just forget how to hit?

I don't know what it is. I wish I could explain it because he's a key part of the offense. And without him performing there, they look as dead as they look. You loved him. Of course. It's like you're underselling this. He had moved way up the I love you rankings. Absolutely.

In the Jacko house. I did. And now he's broken my heart. I don't know what the problem is. I want him to, I would like to love him again. Glaber, come back to me. Please, Glaber. Please, Glaber, come back to me. Please, Gleyber. Please, Gleyber, come back to me.

Put the nightgown on. I know. I'm reaching for the vodka bottle and the nightgown as we speak. Well, so what are your outs? Because it seems like you're kind of stuck with this team. That's what's the most fascinating thing about this Yankee thing from afar. You could trade Torres. You could trade Luke Voigt.

These aren't major things. The core of your team is going to be really hard to change, I think. Well, that's the problem. I mean, you could live with one bad year, right? I'd be disappointed. I would still be an ass on Twitter and be unhappy. Don't get me wrong. But if I thought, well, they'll turn this around and it's fixable.

But I mean, it's not fix, but I mean, it's not fixable. I mean, what they should do to fix it is you should trade Aaron judge. You should trade him now before they give him a long-term contract, but they're not going to do that because he has the number 99 Jersey. He's the most popular player. You have the judges chamber thing out in the outfield where they, you know, sell tickets for that. He's just too marketable. So they're going to have another albatross of a contract that they're going to give to him because he's going to age poorly because he's going to, he's too big and he's too muscular and he's already injured now when he's young and that's

not going to get better when he's older and he's going to be a DH too. So you're going to have another guy that can't play a position in the outfield or any player where in the field, and they're going to have to give him, have him pay dead money. So they're never going to trade him. They gave a fortune to Garrett Cole, who now it looks like is completely a product of spider tack because his numbers are demonstrably worse since they've outlawed that and they've cracked down. You have no, the Cashman era, whenever it ends, probably never was going to end. It will be defined by his inability to have a starting pitcher, any starting pitchers beyond one.

They have one starting pitcher you can rely on. Jordan Montgomery, who pitched today, is decent, but you're not going to build a team around, you know, Garrett Cole and Jordan Montgomery are not going to put the fear of God into anybody. Severino just is coming back from Tommy John. He's never lived up to the much ballyhooed potential that he had. Hermann was great two years ago, and he had off-the great two years ago and he had off the field issues and he looks terrible

now. He can't get anybody out at his first inning. He gives up a home run every single first inning. So they have no pitching. You have an albatross of the Stanton contract that they couldn't give away. You know, that's going to live with them. That holds them back. And the bigger problem is you have a guy that owns the team that seemingly doesn't want to own the team. I mean, he wasn't supposed to be the guy that ran

the Yankees, as I've said, ad infinitum. And he was sort of pressed into it because Steinbrenner died and he was the more able son, even though he doesn't really want to be a baseball owner. And every article I read about him and interview and every time I see him, he's trying to be the opposite of his father. Now, to some degree, I get that because Steinbrenner, the boss was a lunatic. I get that. He was crazy. He did a lot of stupid things.

A lot of his firings were wrong. I grant you that. But does that mean we can never fire anybody ever again? Because daddy was mean to people sometimes. Like you're running one of the, you're running running the greatest sports franchise in North America, and you are afraid to make changes because your dad was an asshole. And I'm sure he was an asshole as a father. I'm sure that was awful for him. But you know what? You're the owner now, and changes need to be made. You're running this franchise into the ground.

And what concerns me is he doesn't really have the passion to fix it. And I don't think he has the baseball know-how to fix it. I think he relies on people like Randy Levine and Brian Cashman. It's time for Cashman to go. I mean, they haven't won a World Series since 2009. They haven't sniffed one since 2017, where they almost lucked into one against the team that was cheating. And they had this window that, like I've said at the beginning, is now closing.

So it's like, what has Cashman done? What is he doing? And Steinbrenner, allegedly, he doesn't ever want to go over the luxury tax threshold, even though the team is probably worth conservatively $3 to $4 billion. He doesn't want to spend money on the team. At least his father, as crazy as he was, he spent money on the team, and all he wanted to do was win. I have nowhere near that amount of faith that Hal has any interest in winning.

And all he cares about is all the seats are sold to corporations like Golden Sacks and all these other Wall Street types. So they have season ticket. They have a huge season ticket base. They have the Yes Network. They make money hand over fist. And it seems like, you know, people go to games. They buy jerseys.

They buy the chicken baskets at the game. So I don't know that he cares if they really are champions or not. Whereas his father, that's what you hear in the background. Great job, Murph. They had Paul Gaston, Don Gaston's son, who took over as managing partner, but lived in New York, was never around, didn't seem like he really cared about the team and had like these strict financial stuff. And it sucked. It was like being in a bad marriage or, you know, being the stepson of some family that didn't care about you. And it was just like, this sucks. This guy doesn't care about the team, which it seems like that's a piece of that here. The other thing is the media infrastructure of New York. It's so splintered now with the internet and all these different things that everybody's got like these tiny platforms, but my dog's having

some more water. You're missing like the Dick Young, the Mike and the Mad Dog in the 90s. The person who, Michael Kay, I guess, would be the person, but he's not going to rip the Yankees like that. So who is the person

with the giant platform? Who's the Lupica in the 90s? Who's the person in New York who's just killing this guy day after day after day and making him miserable, the person doesn't exist. Maybe it should be John Jastrzemski. It should be. It should be. Maybe this is his mission in life. Maybe it could be. Now, you know, I don't think there is anybody

in sports radio in New York that's as big as Mike and the Mad Dog was, certainly. Or newspapers or any sort of sports media. Dick Young, anything else, right? Lupica, there's none of that anymore. And all these reporters are not, it's such a cliche, but to be like, they're not as tough as the media used to be. And certainly New York, where they would run guys, where they would run Ray Hanley out of town, deservedly so. Or Mike and the Mad Dog pretty single-handedly got Mike Piazza traded to the Mets because

they just kept beating the drum every day. They would be,ancesca if he had a regular radio show he would be beating the drum on cashman and boone have to go they have to go and they would eventually that would wear things down because it would have some effect on either you finally star burner would hear randy levine would be like geez we're really getting killed here is bad pr we got to do something but there there is nobody like that and you know maybe part of it is a consequence of COVID where it's like still zoom press conferences. One guy, the one guy that had the, uh, has the resume to do this and did it a little bit as David Cohn on the yes network, right? Cohn has Cohn Cohn has real balls. And cause he's paid by the Yankees to be on the yes network. He's a, he's a Yankee paid guy. And he went out and said,

when they played the red Sox, one team looks like it's prepared to play. And one team does not. And the team that was prepared to play was the red Sox. They were ready to play. They were aggressive. They knew what they were doing to the Yankees look completely lost. And that's completely a factor of their non-manager and their leadership because you know, the non-manager, he doesn't do anything. He gets, he gets a, he gets a piece of paper from the, from the front office telling them what to do and who to play and who to pitch and what to do. And he doesn't do anything. And they don't, the Yankees, I mean, forget not hitting the Yankees can't do things fundamentally correct. They don't know how to run the bases. I've never seen a team

at any level of baseball run the bases as poorly as they do. I mean, how are they not prepared to know situations? Like what do they do in spring training? I understand they're all professionals, and you're not supposed to know how to play the game at this point, but could we do a little coaching, anything, and not just pat them on the back and buy them an ice cream cone? I mean... Well, did you see the end of the game today?

No, I haven't watched it in weeks. I couldn't bring myself to it. I don't have the strength. I mistakenly saw the end. They got one hit by the Mariners and the last out. The Mariners closer, LeMahieu. Oh, I did see this on Twitter. Yeah, LeMahieu got thrown out on a force or something that second. He was running back to the dugout.

And the Mariners closer is just staring, stink eyeing him for 20, for it seemed like 20 yards. So it goes to commercial and you see the Yankees. I think it was Gardner. I think Gardner's like your one guy. It was Rugnet Odor, Ruggie Odor. Oh, that's who it was. Yeah.

So somebody starts coming out, but they go to commercial and then they come back and there's everybody in the field, but nothing happened. So the Yankees saw that they weren't happy. There was some milling and then they went back, but it was like, did, did any team in recent baseball history need a bench clear more than the Yankees? Like, Oh no. Or like what else?

He said, you know, like one 70, what other function could he have on your team other than to charge the Mariners closer? And at least he has a track record because he went after Joey Batista a few years ago after the legendary bat flip. He two-pieced him yeah right right so at least rugi serves some purpose because he's like the resident shit talker and he'll back it up and like sucker punch somebody or whatever yeah which they probably needed but you know the yankees are the yankees are the kings of the fake swagger oh you know we're gonna come in we're gonna win and then they do nothing and then that was classic fake swagger. Oh, we know we're going to come in. We're going to win. And then they do nothing.

And that was classic fake swagger, too. Like, oh, they hit LeMayhew and you do nothing. You did nothing. I've joked about this on Twitter, but I've really come to believe it. Like when Nick Swisher became the face of the Yankees franchise, because Cashman loves him for some reason. And there was an old timers day a couple of years ago where the most evident former yankee was nick swisher for some reason and i think it's brian hoag's book where he wrote about the baby bombers about how he was down at scranton and what an influence he was nick swisher is the definition of fake swagger like

this is the yankees used to have you know who used to be the face of the yankees joe dimaggio mickey pandel you know in the 90s like derrick jeter they you know they mattingly was the guy that with a bridge that went from like the you know the ricky hend, like Derek Jeter, they, you know, they Mattingly was the guy that with a bridge that went from like the, you know, the Ricky Henderson, Dave Winfield years to Bernie Williams, you know, to Jeter, to Mariano, to Jorge Posada, all these guys, Pettit, you know, the core four. And now the guy that's the bridge from that to this team is Nick fucking Swisher. I mean, give me a fucking break from Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio to Nick Swisher tells you how far this franchise has fallen.

And then Aaron Judge has like the the really nice, likable superstar. Right. But not. But there's like some piece missing, even like I've had him on my my keeper team in my A.L. Keeper League forever. And he's fine. He's hitting like, I don't know, 290. He's got 20 home runs. He's got a good on base. He's you look at his stats and he's fine. He's hitting like, I don't know, two nineties, got 20 home runs. He's got a good on base. He's you look at his stats and he's fine, but day in, day out, it's it, there's just something uninspiring. And I don't, I can't even put my finger on it. He's another guy in 2018, when they played the, you know, the Red Sox and the ALCS and they, they, they won a game at Fenway and then he plays New York, New York on his radio, on his phone or whatever, outside the Red Sox clubhouse.

Yeah. It was like, oh, Yankees swagger. And then they never won another game in the series. So it's like, if you're going to have this swagger, you got to back it up. And it's no fault of his own, but he hits the most meaningless home runs I've ever seen in my life. You know, he never hits a big, you know, Jeter had every big moment where he came through. Judge never has a big moment where

he comes through in a big situation. And it's, yeah, I mean, maybe that's just a product of fate or whatever, but he never has a big moment that he follows through on and he wants to have swagger. You know, he's a big guy, but I think in his heart, he's a nice guy. He's Californian. No offense. He's laid back, you know, he's easy going naturally you know the california laid back california now i guess i have been here too long now yeah you're california um but um no um but he but you know they just don't have it they just don't have it they don't have that one guy who's like a spark plug and they and they're you would hope maybe they would get that from their manager but he is as lost as anybody on earth and honest to god i i've been thinking lately like what what is a scenario that would get him fired like if he just came out in the

games and he was naked in the dugout like would cashman fire him would he have to commit like violence against the player or something like what could he possibly do to get fired because literally i could go to the ends of the earth right now to some like indigenous tribe that has no internet no anything and if i go to see some hermit in a cave and say i'm from connecticut in america and they would say to me has boone been fired because it's obvious to everybody on the fucking planet except for the people that run the team because what this team needs is somebody to go in and maybe they don't even exist anymore and i could be living in fantasy land but you need a loop you need a loop panella my guy what about my guy cora they i well he's

the perfectly witnessed it they've completely transformed the team in a year and i read on twitter from all these analytics nerds and say well the manager doesn't matter and managers don't matter. Manager matters. Manager matters because the Red Sox were horrendous last year. When they got rid of Cora, they got him in as a manager. Who did they have before Cora? I can't remember his freaking name. The pitching coach. It was.

You can't remember his name either. Yeah. He was awful too. And then they brought in Cora and they win 140 games or whatever the hell they won in 2018, right? They rolled to the World Series. It turns out Cora's a cheater, so he gets banished briefly. And they were awful without him. And they bring him back and they're great.

So he obviously has some, there is still some magic touch of a manager. Now, is it the fear of he's going to flip a table? He's going to go crazy. Is he like a, you know, a good rah-rah guy? Like, I want to win it for Alex Cora, whatever it is. It's more than that. It's because I've been thinking about a lot. Cause it makes no sense why this Red Sox team is so much better. I mean, they definitely, the talent is slightly better, but it's not like dramatically, unbelievably better. It's his personality and his attention to detail. I really does think, I really do think

he makes the team better. And I do think with baseball managers, they tend to take the personality of the manager for whatever reason. I mean, if you have a shitload of stars, you and I could probably manage a team to 90 wins. But I do think they take his personality. Like they're always,

they never have fuck ups or rarely. If somebody is just not doing well, the guy will go. You're not going to get like seven weeks to prove it. They'll just move to the next guy. They have guys in AAA now that we thought were going to be starting outfielders. Conversely, guys seem to get better with him. Which, I can't explain it, but it's just what we watch. And he supposedly learned at the knee.

What I've read is he learned at the knee of Carlos Beltran, who was like the most prepared player. And he was the sign stealing guy because he was like legendary at doing it above board, the baseball way of like watching the game and sitting there and knowing tendencies and everything else. And those two guys are the reason, one of the reasons the Astros won the world series, aside from the cheating, because they were so like hyper prepared and focused. And then he brought that to the Red Sox and the Yankees had a chance to hire Carlos Beltran, who could have presumably brought that to the Yankees. And they went with Aaron Boone, who brings no life to anything. And it's just, it's just, oh my God. I just, you know, and the, and you talk about like guys in the minor leagues because the Yankees are so horrendous. And I follow a lot of these different Yankee things on Twitter. Um, I've been paying more attention to minor leagues than stuff

than I do. And, and the Yankees have two guys in the minor leagues, Trey and Bergie, who I'm probably mispronouncing his name. Who's an outfielder. Who's been on base 30 times at 30 games in a row. He's an outfielder and they, on base 30 times in 30 games in a row he's an outfielder and they and he's got he gets on base they have a guy that plays shortstop hoi jun pak he's hitting 360 and he's been on base 38 straight games why are they not up with the yankees who can't hit and get can't get guys on base why why wouldn't they bring them up and why haven't you made trades? That's the other thing. What have been the big moves? Well, they brought in Tim Lacastro, who's a huge difference maker, who's hitting 190.

He's going to be the greatest. He'll fit right in with the rest of the squad. But the thing with the trades is everybody knows on Earth that Steinbrenner was like, we're not going over the luxury thing. And that was like a firm edict. And he comes out and blows smoke up everybody's ass a couple of weeks ago and says, well, we're going to be buyers at the deadline and we're not afraid to go over the luxury tax. Fuck you.

You're not afraid to go over the luxury tax. And for the last five years, you've been afraid to go over the luxury tax. And now you're telling me you're going to blow the bank at the, at the, at the all-star at the trade deadline, rather for a team that's 500 and is eight and a half games out of first place? Nobody believes that. So what trades are they going to make? Who are they going to trade? There's two.

Years ago. There's two. They should trade Chapman right now. Because do you know what the number one closer is on the trade deadline? I almost had a heart attack when I saw this. Old friend Craig Kimbrell. Wow, really?

They said he is the number one closer to get in the, in the, uh, for the deadline. I do feel like they could get something for Chapman. And I think they really have to think about trading judge. Well, I think they should trade judge. I wish they could trade Chapman. I, who I like to aside from his off the field issues, but he was lights out the first two months of the season. You just have to trade them. Yeah. Yeah. You could probably trade Zach Britain for some,

for some people to, you know, as a, as a closer, they have Lou Isaac and Chad green, who could be internal options to close. If they got rid of those guys, I have Chad green on my team.

He's lights out. He should be the closer. I don't know why he's not the cause. I mean, he basically has been the past couple of days because Chapman's imploded, but I mean, I don't know why he's not the closer. I mean, he basically is now. He has been the past couple days because Chapman's imploded. But, I mean, see, their problems are so deep. I mean, they need a capable infielder. I mean, really, you could maybe trade Voight,

but I'm not sure what his trade value is, and move LeMay, who to first base, bring up this kid from minors to play short, and move Glaber to second. Or trade Voight for a lefty bat. Or trade Voight for a lefty bat. But they desperately need an outfielder in the worst way. And they don't have any pitching beyond Cole.

And with Cole, we don't even know what we're going to get with him without the spider attack. What was that game when Judge had to play center and you were freaking out? Yeah, he played center field more than once. They have Judge who's a right f way to happen exactly exactly that's the worst possible idea but they have no other options because brett gardner is basically a corpse at this point who they run out there you have miguel andahar whose bat was hot briefly and they had to get him in somewhere so they made him a left fielder but he can't he can't handle regular balls because he's not that our left fielder used to because he's not a left fielder, but he can't, he can't handle regular balls. Cause he's not that are left fielder used to, because he's not a left fielder. And then you

had Clint Frazier, who's Mr. Swagger. I'm going to make the all-star team and I have the fastest bat speed and he's been horrendous. He's been so bad. And now he has, he got hurt and now he has vertigo, which always makes me think of Nick, Nick, a Sasky, remember Nick, a Sasky from the Red Sox. He was a vertigo guy and now he's got vertigo. So I have no faith that he'll ever do anything again because, you know, vertigo in her ear and how's he going to see or have any balance to do anything. God bless him. So I have no faith in him. They have no outfielders of any capability except for judge. And if you could put Stanton in left field, you know, maybe you could prove somebody else into

DH, but he, you know, he's, he's made out of porcelain and they're afraid he's going to break everything if he plays the outfield. So the move is, I think you try to trade Chapman for what you can get. How old is Chapman? Do we have a, do we know what his actual age is? No idea. None whatsoever. Well, I would trade him and then they're not going to trade judge, but they should, they should, but they should just, they should hire an internment. They have to get rid of Boone. They just have to. Because it's hanging over, it's like this staff infection of the team now. They just have to get rid of him. Cashman and Boone have to go. They have to go. But I don't think Cashman's going to go.

I think Hal relies on him like a crutch. Hal doesn't, is not a baseball guy and he listens to whatever Cashman tells him and Cashman and the analytics crew. I don't think they're going to go anywhere. And because they're not going anywhere, I don't think they're going to get rid of Boone because if the, you know, if they get rid of Boone, they're going to bring in some other, try to find some other, if you get rid of Boone, then you're the next move. If you're a Cashman, I fired my manager. That's my last card. Now, if the next manager doesn't work now, everybody's looking at me. Right. So they should be looking at him anyway.

I mean, he's been there too long. He's been around too long. You brought this up on a New York, New York podcast about Theo said, after 10 years, you need a different voice in the room. Or Danny Ainge said that, with the Celtics. And the Yankees are in an awful position. You know this as being a Celtics fan too, where you're with the Celtics. So, and the Yankees are in an awful position. Like, you know, this is being a Celtics fan too, where like, well, you're one of these historic franchises. You have a huge fan base of huge ticket buying base. They can never really implode

completely to like to completely rebuild and just like, like do like a, you know, Kansas city Royals where we just run scrubs out there, you know, we're just going to have scrubs and we're going to lose, you know, 90 games, a hundred games we're going You know, we're just going to have scrubs and we're going to lose, you know, 90 games, 100 games we're going to lose because we're just going to be brutal and we're going to build back up through the draft and free agency, what have you. They can't do that.

So they have to try to rebuild on the fly and it's the worst possible situation to be in. It's tough because, I mean, Kat, you almost made the World Series twice, right? So it's not like you could say, oh, this has been a complete disaster. But on the other hand, it reminds me a little... It's almost worse.

Right. But like Rick Carlisle left the Mavericks. He won in 2011 as coach. They hadn't won a playoff series in 10 years, which I didn't realize until somebody wrote that recently. And I was like, man, no matter how good of a coach you are to win the title, if you haven't won

a playoff series in a 30-team league where 16 teams make the playoffs every year and you haven't won a playoff series in a decade,

it might be time to go whether you're a good coach or not. Right. And I think he's a really good coach, but it's like, at some point,

it's time to go. And with Boone, with the advantages the Yankees have to basically not come close to a World Series since 2009, that's 12 years ago. Well, I mean, they came close

in 2017, but they haven't been in one since 2009. But yeah, I mean, to be in the World Series. Right, right, right. And they're, you know, but they have this thing this year where Steinbrenner and Cashman both said it a couple weeks ago. Oh, well, you know, the guys in the room, they have a proven track record. No, they don't. A proven track record of what? This is not like it's 1990. You know, if this happened in 1999,

you'd be like, well, you know, they won the World Series in 96. They were in the playoffs in 97, 98. They were the best team ever. They got Jeter and O'Neal and Mariano in the room. Who has won anything on this team where they're always like, oh, well, we can just, oh, we'll be good. You know, they have too much of a track record. What track record do they have? They haven't won a fucking thing. Yeah, there's 18-year-olds in New York who have no recollection

of the 09 World Series, basically, right? So before we go, I'm going to tell you what I would say if I was Cashman. You'd be Hal. Okay. So Hal's like, hey, what's going on here? Let's have an honest talk. Why aren't we succeeding more?

What's going on in the last few years? Why haven't we been better? Here's what I would say if I was Cashman. We did do better. We should have won. The Astros cheated. So if you remove the cheating Astros,

we win the World Series and then Cora goes to the Red Sox and they win. Probably should have won that one too. Hal, it's Hal, right? Not Hank? Hank is deceased, yes. Hank is no longer with us. It's Hal.

Hal, we win at least one of those two years. We're playing by the rules. I mean, if you want me to start betting the rules, I will. But I'm just telling you, we were right there. We're going to be right there again. Just have some faith. That's what I would say if I was Cashman. And that's probably what he said to us.

I think that's probably what he is saying. Right. And last year when they were mediocre and barely made it into the playoffs and then shit themselves, they're like, well, that was COVID.

It was a weird year. No fans. It was weird. No, you know, nothing happened this year. They're like, well,

this year, you know, it just didn't click, you know, guys just had an off year and let's run it back again next year. That's exactly what's going to happen. By the way, you know,

it didn't click was your all right-handed lineup and your mediocre starting rotation and your old closer. Right. I mean, as crazy, and I never loved George Steinbrenner. Like one of the, one of the funniest things ever was when they won in 2009 and Hal came out and was like, this one's for George. And everybody's like, what? Like he was like this lovable figure.

Like everybody like tears down their tears in their cheeks. Cause poor George isn't here anymore. Like the guy was like a freaking dictatorial Martinette. And he was like whims and fire, fire, like the popcorn guy. So it's like, you didn't really have a warm feeling in your heart for George, but it's like, you kind of miss him. Cause at least he wanted to win. Like you knew at least with him as crazy as he was, he was, as he may have gone about it in the wrong way, but he wanted to win. And like, you knew, at least with him as crazy as he was, he was, as he may have gone about

it in the wrong way, but he wanted to win. I don't think Hal cares one way or another. I don't think he cares. And he is like, well, Cashman and the analytics boys, they're running things. And, you know, one of these years it's going to click and we're selling tickets and everybody's happy, you know, loves it, whatever. It drives me nuts. Well, maybe you and JJ, John Jastrzemski,

maybe the two of you can be the ones, can be the media people for this next generation to force him out. Perhaps, I'll do my best. I will say this, like if you go on Twitter, Yankees Twitter, where I spend an inordinate amount of time, like Yankees Twitter is not happy with anything or anybody like is out for

blood. Like if they, and that's probably the true passion, you know, thermometer of the fan base, Yankees Twitter is not pleased in the slightest. So to the extent that the Yankees monitor social media as a pulse of the fan base, they have to get a sense that this is really the straw that broke the camel's back. Now they may say, fuck you, we're running it back. But I'm just telling you, that is not going to go over well. Well, we have Chris Sale coming back. Difference maker. That's happening.

Before we go, I just want to tell you this. The Red Sox are 6-0 against the Yankees this year. And I know you're doing the thing where you're like, I'm not really watching anymore. I know you're watching. They're too ingrained in your life. There's no way you're like, nah, not really watching anymore. I know you're watching. It's there. They're too ingrained in your life. There's no way you're like, nah,

I'm going to sit this one out. I know what's going on. You're watching her on Twitter. You're full of shit. I'm watching it on Twitter. I'm watching it on Twitter. You're monitoring and following. I'll just tell you this.

If, if we get to like 12 and O against the Yankees this year and 19 and O becomes a possibility to me, that will rival the Oh seven pads trying to go 19 and 0 becomes a possibility to me that will rival the 07 pats trying to go 19 and 0 that year without the cheating or the alleged cheating um there's no way there's no way you're gonna go 19 and 0 they'll they'll fight they'll luck into some win they'll walk into one somehow how what number would get you scared like 10 and 0 13 and 0 what number would it start to become dark and unrealistic to you?

15, I'd get worried. 15-0, I'd get worried, yeah. 15-0, but I still think, I don't think 19, I'm going to lay down a marker now and this is going to be good. I can't wait to watch this for the next 20 years. They will not go 19-0 against the Yankees. I'm going to lay down that marker. I have less faith in this Yankees team than anybody on the planet. I have

less faith in Aaron Boone than anyone on Earth, and I still will say that they will not lose all 19 games to the Red Sox. I talked to JJ last week, and I told him I was going to throw this 19-0 thing at you, and he had the same reaction you did. And then the same thing

happened with him where a minute in, it started to sink on him. Like, oh my God, that'd be the worst. It would be worse than losing game seven of the world series going. Oh, 19 against the red Sox for an entire season. Right now, 2004 is the worst thing that ever happened. Well, that's true. Ever will happen.

Not in 2004. That, yeah, it would be the worst non-2004 thing to ever happen. Yes, I will grant you that. But it's not going to happen because they will stumble into some win somehow, accidentally a wild pitch or some bullshit. They'll get to one somehow. Well, you and I always had the joke over the years about

when somebody had a hitting streak, we'd be watching SportsCenter and they'd be like, that's an 11-game hitting streak for Paul Molitor. We'd be like, oh, 45 away from DiMaggio. He's almost there. Right. DiMaggio was on his couch twitching. Oh, he's in 11 games.

Tomorrow he could get to 12. Get my Mr. Coffee. But we're 13 away from 19 and 0. Just so you know. Well, there you go. Knocking on the door. We're not at the door. Knocking on the door. We're not at the door yet, but we're kind of walking up the driveway, holding the package.

You're miles away from the door. Oh, man. If we get to 9 and 0, I'm going to be relentless. I'm going to torch you. All right, Jacko. It was great to see you as always. Good times, I guess. Thanks.

All right. That's it for I guess. Thanks. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Ben. Thanks to Ariel. And thanks to Jacka. Thanks to producer Kyle Creighton. We'll be back on Sunday night after game three with an all new BS podcast. Enjoy the weekend.

Stay safe. And we'll see you on Sunday night.