The Bill Simmons Podcast - Could China Cancel the NBA? Plus, Fox's 'Smackdown' and WWE vs. AEW With Jason Gay and David Shoemaker | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by the Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay to discuss the fallout from Daryl Morey's Hong Kong tweet, the upcoming exhibition games in China, whether or not the NBA has leverage, where ESPN fits into all this, and more (2:36). Finally, Bill talks with David Shoemaker of 'The Masked Man Show' to discuss Fox's 'Friday Night Smackdown' and this year's stacked wrestling calendar before asking, "Do we have too much wrestling?" (1:06:10). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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because he's in a whole bunch of cities over the next I think eight or nine days he's going to be in LA I think tomorrow night and he's going to be in this podcast on Thursday before we do football Thursday with Mallory and House also the rewatchables we should mention Shea was on there. We did Remember the Titans. It is now available. You can find it. Me, Shea, Rembrandt

Brown. Very proud of this one. It's a really, it's a really, especially funny one. A very flawed movie, but we love it. So you can listen to that. Coming up, we're going to talk to Jason Gay about this crazy NBA China story, which continues to keep going. And then we're going to talk to Jason Gay about this crazy NBA China story which continues to keep going and then we're going to talk at about the one hour mark to our old friend David Shoemaker about everything

that's happening with the WWE and SmackDown and everything else that's all up in a second first our friends from ProJet All right, we're taping this.

It's a little bit after 1 o'clock Pacific time, 4 o'clock Eastern time on a Tuesday. So if stuff changes at all over these next few hours, our apology, we're going to get this podcast up as fast as possible today. Jason Gay from the Wall Street Journal is on the line. I think the most fascinating NBA story since the entire Donald Sterling saga

is happening right now. It's in motion. It's going to change. They are playing two preseason games there tonight. It is an international incident all started by Rockets GM, Daryl Morey. It's extremely complicated and has a lot of sides to it. And unfortunately, Jason, we live in a world now in 2019 where everything has to be black and white on Twitter. And you're either on one side or the other. And you have to say this or that. And there's no nuance.

And in my opinion, this is a story that has a lot of nuance and is really complicated. And for people who are really like us to weigh in correctly, you have to do a lot of research. What was your first reaction as this was unfolding? I did not have Daryl Morey accidentally stumbling into a massive geopolitical crisis in my NBA preseason predictions. No, me neither. I mean, I just think it's a remarkable story from so many angles. I mean, you have a league here.

This is the NBA, the league that can do no wrong. It's now being bashed on the left, bashed on the right. It's like it's the NFL all of a sudden. And you have Adam Silver, who's barely had a drop of bad press in five years as commissioner. He's at the center of the biggest storm. And I think this is much bigger than Sterling in some ways. Sterling was a simple situation. Yeah, I think it's got pieces of different stuff.

I mean, I was in the vortex of this a little bit once upon a time when the thing that the podcast I did that was so critical of Goodell blew up and became a national story. That story wasn't one 100th as big as this story. That story was an American story that became a thing. I got thrown into the whole whatever, the national news cycle for a day and a half. And then you get spit out and you get replaced by the next thing.

This feels like it's going to get bigger. This involves probably the two most powerful countries we have. This could have so many different ramifications, not including like kind of not that important, but secretly important stuff. Like it could change the NBA salary cap. It could change. It really could.

It could change the NBA salary cap. It could completely shut down the NBA in China in a way that I don't think anybody fully realizes. Like China could decide tomorrow, we've canceled the NBA in China in a way that I don't think anybody fully realizes. Like China could decide tomorrow, we've canceled the NBA. The NBA is no longer going to be shown in China. We will not have deals with the NBA. We will not have deals with its players. The league has ceased to exist in this country.

This is actually in play. What do you think the odds of that actually happening are? You know, the other element of it, not to shift the focus here, but what kind of leverage does the NBA have? You know, this is something that people are asking now. Does the NBA have leverage in this scenario? Typically, what we've seen in these kinds of disputes is the corporation that has offended China has immediately apologized and tried to move on.

The NBA hasn't explicitly apologized here. And, you know, my colleague Ben Cohen and James Aready, who's in Shanghai, wrote this piece about how, you know, look, as valuable a market as China is to the NBA, the NBA is also an incredibly valuable entertainment resource for China. And, you know, they are their own thing. The NBA is sui generis. No one else has LeBron and Harden and Zion. And they have some cards to play here. So yes, China can pull the plug on everything, and they've already pulled the plug on, I think there was a Nets event that was supposed to happen today. The Lakers are coming tonight, and they have an event tomorrow, and they can pull the plug on the exhibition game itself.

But I think that the NBA is aware of the fact that they also have some power here. And I'm curious to see how much they push back, even if it means pulling up stakes. Well, all right. So now it's 1-11 Pacific time. I really want to make this clear. All this is going to unfold over the next 12 hours,

but I think there's a real chance that these two games get canceled and the NBA hightails it out of there today. Because here's what is in play potentially, protesters. And protesters in a foreign country that has occasionally proven that it can be pretty dangerous, where you would have protesters outside the hotels and you would have protesters outside the stadiums. And there is no guarantee that at some point that might not become a little bit unsafe. And if I was the NBA, I would get the F out right now. Just fly back, let it see if it blows over or not. But I think it's, I think it's risky to play the games there.

And I tried to read a lot about this story the last two days. I didn't really know what was going on in Hong Kong. I had a cursory understanding of it. This story is so complicated and nuanced and goes in so many different directions. And it starts with somebody who committed murder in Taiwan and fled to Hong Kong and opened up this whole extradition thing and China becoming involved. And if you go back further, like they had the great handover in 1997, where it was handed over from the British and it's supposed to operate as its own country. And I think, you know, it was interesting to see Joe Size, the Brooklyn owner, he had that whole

statement and he was talking about how the hot button issue for the Chinese here is that they're worried that there's a separatist kind of element to this, that there's a path here that's been kind of brewing for the last six to nine months that could lead to Hong Kong, this is what China thinks, potentially trying to become its own country. And that's what China doesn't want. It feels like it's their territory, much like, this is a terrible analogy, but if Hawaii was trying to say, hey, actually, we want to be our own country, screw you guys. Not that there's so many different problems with that analogy,

but it's just to try to understand from an American standpoint. China does not want this. And China, as we know, can be ruthless and brutal in a lot of different ways, which is what's been simmering this whole time with this.

And that's where it gets complicated, Jason, is that we are now tapping into hundreds, thousands of years of Chinese history and just a lot of stuff that Daryl Morey waded into with one tweet. Yeah, but I don't see it as that complicated. And the analogy that you draw, I mean, yeah, there are a lot of things that are problematic about the fact that, you know, we're not in an authoritarian state. No, thank God. But not yet. But, you know, I think this really goes back to the idea of, you know, how much is the NBA willing to stand behind the idea of free speech and individual liberty of expression? And this is something that is not for the NBA just some sort of slogan.

It is their fundamental ethos. And Silver, in the last couple of days, you know, I think that initial statement satisfied nobody. And then he gave a clarifying interview, and that kind of satisfied nobody. And then he came out with his own statement, which came out today. And we're muddying up the timeline because, you know, there are hours ahead, many hours ahead. But, you know, anytime you're issuing a statement and doing a revised statement,

you know, there's some public relations bungling that's happening. But I think it's very clear that the NBA feels caught in between an idea of themselves and what practically they have to do in this relationship with China. And that is the trade-off that you do when you have business with this country. And I don't know if you that you do when you have business with this country. And I don't know if you're going to have some sort of protest in Shanghai. I mean, the jump was in Shanghai today with the nets and things seemed a little calm there. I think things are rather quiet at the moment. But the Lakers get in and Silver gets in and who knows where it goes from there. And for the NBA, the WWE, we talked about this a little on Sunday's spot, the WWE was in a very similar situation with lower stakes in Saudi Arabia where they had committed to do all of these events there. And then the journalist got murdered or we found out how he got murdered and there was a lot of push for them to pull out of these events and there were even some wwe performers who didn't want to be involved

they were like i'm out yeah i'm not going there and the wwe i think everybody kind of thought oh well they'll pull out this is wrong and then they. And they actually, they've had two pay-per-views there and they justified it as the following. They didn't justify it. They just plowed ahead and did it and they cashed the checks. And I think everybody has a price at some point.

I think the NBA thing is so different than the WWE for 90 different reasons. But financially, the stakes are staggering. I mean, you're talking just what Tencent pays for the rights just think, the players get half of that. The owners split the other side. So that's almost, you know, 8 million a team. That allows the cap to go up. Right. And, you know,

so if Tencent was like, we're done. And Tencent's basically like kind of Amazon-esque over there. Yeah. That's just a lot of money to pass up. And these guys are all greedy billionaires, as we know. Sure.

And what's also unique about this situation is that you have a circumstance where not just the basketball itself, but the league's chief sponsors and partners and media outlets are all in business with China as well. This is not some sort of thing where it's just the NBA going at it alone. This is all integrated into television contracts that show the games, show ESPN coverage in China and how that whole relationship works.

The apparel companies, Nike and Adidas, enormous investment in China for many, many years. And this is not unfamiliar turf to NBA superstars. I mean, it has now become sort of part of the NBA superstar summer now to do a tour of Asia and especially to hit China. And, you know, we haven't even touched on one of the other elements of this is that how surreal it is for the Rockets to kind of be the genesis of this crisis because it is the Rockets with Yao Ming who kind of just took the NBA in China to a whole different level. And here's Yao Ming. I mean, Adam Silver talking today saying Yao Ming is really bad, really hot right now. I mean, there's just remarkable dynamics here playing out in real time. Yeah, the two official, I would say, NBA teams in China would be the Rockets and now the Nets

because of Joe Tsai, who's Taiwanese, but still. The biggest carrot, it seems like they had to dangle to Kyrie and KD when they were trying to lure them, other than that, we're not the Knicks and we're not owned by James Dolan, was that, you know, this is going to open up doors for you in China. You just have no idea. Just trust us. You come in here. The relationships we have, there's so much money over there. All of it's legal from a salary cap standpoint.

You know, if they can, whatever marketing deals they get from China, that doesn't count against salary cap. And you have these two characters involved. Daryl Morey, who was with Yao for most of his career, who knows firsthand how important the Chinese business is for the Rockets. And Yao Ming, the most famous Chinese partner we've ever had in the NBA, who is now a real figure there. And then Joe Tsai, the first Taiwanese-American owner we've ever had, but the first owner with any real connections to that side of the world and who is going to be this really, really crucial, important owner going forward for the league. This guy, one of the reasons they really wanted him by the team is he was opening up all these avenues for them in the Far East. Sure. I mean, look at the fact that they're actually

having this exhibition. This exhibition was scheduled many, many, many, many months, if not years ago, and they're involved like three super marquee NBA teams, all right, coming over. I mean, four, you know, there are two are playing in Japan, but the Lakers and the Nets are two very exciting 2019-2020 teams. They're there for a reason. They consider this to be an extremely important launchpad for an NBA season. So this is nothing new. I mean, this has gone back decades now, their interest in expansion there. And as you said, the implications now are beyond simply what happens in the next couple of days, because yes, if there were some sort of divestment from China, it does have economic implications for the league going forward. Well, and I think going back

to what we were talking about earlier, the dynamics of, you know, what's happening in Hong Kong and the extradition bill and all that stuff. I think there's, I think it's hard for us to realize how people in China are receiving this story on a couple of different levels. One, they're only getting certain information about the story, right? They're only getting the information that is being given to them. They also see this a little differently. You know, I had some, I had asked on Sunday's podcast, I was like, this story is really confusing.

I want to spend some time researching it and heard from a lot of different people and some smart people and some readers and some people in my life and things like that. And I think one of the key points here is that however this extradition thing plays out, the fear is that this would lead to Hong Kong seceding from China, which is a real thing to people in China. Whereas we see it as like pro-democracy because that's how we see things because we live here. They see it as something different.

And they see something like what Daryl did and him not apologizing as like an affront, especially if it's being fed to them a certain way. You have to remember, it's going through this whole kind of juice blender of information that's going from however the whole Chinese media operations and even the government down to the people.

And they're seeing this and they're basically saying, why is this guy from our favorite NBA team wading into this? Who asked you for your opinion? Why are we hearing from you? Why are you making this worse? This is like pouring gasoline on a fire. And I think that's a big part of this. And I think that's why the NBA,

they've been very careful what they said publicly about Daryl, but I think privately, they're absolutely out of their mind, furious about this. Because it was, comes down to like, it's one tweet.

You know, is it worth it? I've been in that situation a few times. You're in that situation. Every time we tweet, it could be the end of our careers in a lot of different ways. This is way worse than that because this actually started an international incident. I mean, do you think in the moment he was aware

of the potential implications here or do you think it was just kind of a toss away tweet? I think he knew the backstory, but I also think we've created this climb and this goes back to the points you were making about the NBA, where the NBA is the woke league. The NBA is the league that does tweets like this. And you see the positive affirmation that people like Popovich and Steve Kerr have gotten from wading into different political arguments and trying to stand for things that I think you and I stand for in a lot of cases. And they've gotten praise and it's become a big part of their identity. And people really respect

them for having the quote unquote courage to stand up for stuff that they believe in. This is a whole other animal because if you're wading into this and you're anti-China, which is how his tweet was perceived, you know, there's real fallout, not just for the league, but maybe for somebody personally, you know, maybe the social media, there's bots that can get unleashed on you and all that stuff. And it's just a different level of, you know, I think there's a fear factor with this. And to go back to something you said at the top about just, you know, this story having, you know, levels of nuance to it, you know, I don't think there is many nuances perhaps as the NBA, you know, has put out there.

But I think that the environment that we are in now lends itself to sort of stark declarations one way or the other, right? Yeah. And so when the league is out there with these statements that are, you know, kind of having it both ways, neutralism, where you're defending the League's tradition of free speech while also acknowledging, you know, China's offense here, you know, that kind of language, that kind of hedging doesn't really play anymore. You know, it's not the kind of language that kind of hedging doesn't really play anymore. It's not the kind of language that speaks or connects with people or satisfies people anymore.

So that's why I think this story continues to have legs. And the other part of it, which is kind of amazing, is that this all happened before the NBA got there. It was like they set up the circus before the circus even showed up, right? Like Maury, the Lakers and the N before the circus even showed up. The Lakers and the Nets weren't even in China and this thing already went sideways. And the fact that they're

now coming or going to play this game theoretically on Thursday is just too much. I mean that this is just going to keep on. There's two amazing coincidences to this. Actually two and a half if you count the fact that Dararyl actually wasn't in China when he did this. He was in Japan.

But the first one is that South Park just did an episode last week that completely skewered China and was delightful and really funny. Now it's actually playing out in real life. South Park, this has happened before over the years with South Park

where they've been weirdly prescient with some sort of issue that was boiling and then would bubble up and you'd be like, oh my God, the South Park guys just did that. But they literally just did this. So that was weird. And then just the timing of not just the NBA

going there right before, you know, right after this tweet and this became a whole firestorm. But, you know, the fact that like ESPN's there too. And this was this big NBA and ESPN embracing our Chinese brethren and all the fans, the $1.5 billion fans, whatever the number is.

And this was going to be this awesome kind of victory tour for like, wow, we're really growing our game here. This is our second most important market, basically, other than America. And then it just flips. And now it's Silver who can't avoid the microphones. It's not like he can't talk about this. They have scheduled press conferences already that he has to do. And now this is what we're talking about.

We're going to take a break. I have a follow-up thought on that, but hold on one second. Let's talk about State Farm. They believe in helping people and strengthening communities. Being a good neighbor is rooted in the DNA and core values of State Farm employees and agents.

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It is funny though, this was a Stern tradition for David Stern back in the day where there would always be some sort of either not scandal, but kind of moment event controversy within two, three weeks before the season started to kind of drum up interest in the season. And I always felt like it was manufactured by him where it'd be like two weeks before, he'd be like, hey, I've decided to change the rules for how people dress on the bench if they're not playing. And people would be like, what?

And then we would talk about it for 10 days and think he's lost his mind. And it was clearly strategic. This has to be like his wet dream for some sort of before the season controversy. He's somewhere with a smoking jacket going, oh yeah, this is great. Come on ratings, here we go.

I don't know. I mean, I just feel like they're going to shout at Stern. People are talking about this in arenas that they're not typically talking about it. They're doing it on CNBC, talking about it on Wall Street. But I feel like this is a nightmare because this is not what they envisioned. As you said, this was supposed to be

this sort of very pleasant unveiling of the new Lakers and the new Nets and this thriving new market where we have new ownership. This was just going to be a very sort of well-choreographed, happy moment for the league, and it's now anything but. But I do think it's a very instructive story.

I don't think this is the kind of thing. I mean, we know, you know, NBA media and NBA fandom nowadays is so obsessive. And, like, I do feel it's weird to, like, maybe have, like, you know, 17 takes on the Sacramento Kings backcourt, but no take on this. I think that it's worth spending a little time and looking at it. You're going to learn a lot about this league.

You're going to learn a lot, especially about Adam Silver through following this topic for the next few weeks. I was surprised. This is more a reflection on how awful social media is in 2019. Steve Kerr was trending this morning because he didn't have a take yet. And people were mad at him that he was looking at the situation and going,

this is actually really complicated. I want to learn more about it before I say how I feel. And the reaction online was basically, fuck you. That's no, no, you're the woke guy. You've waited in before. You have to have an opinion now. How dare you? How dare you want more time to study a topic and research it,

talk to people about it? That's unacceptable. That was basically the reaction today online from human beings. Yeah. Yeah, I get it, though. I mean, listen, it's hard to not notice how Steve Kerr has been kind of at the forefront of a lot of social issues and unafraid to speak his mind about things that are happening

in the United States and then to sort of make the reference to his brother being a— did he say his brother's a Chinese scholar? He's a professor of Chinese studies, yeah. Right. So like, you know, and to kind of kick the can down the road when people are asking for a comment on that because he's shown himself to be, you know, a citizen of the world, Steve Kerr,

and for him to sort of not want to address this. I get why that's a tasty snack for anybody who wants to take a swing at the NBA. I get that entirely. Well, they should probably mention that Steve Kerr's father was killed by the PLO and maybe he's going to take his time before he wades into a potential really serious international incident. I have eight lessons from this incident or not this incident. What do we call this? Controversy? Yeah. Evolving controversy.

Evolving controversy influx. My first lesson is just don't tweet. I think all of us should just stop tweeting. Is that realistic? What if we just stopped tweeting? You know, I think that's been great advice for the last 10 years. I, you know, I'm waiting for someone to take it. What I love is we've seen a lot of high-profile people

theatrically quit Twitter and then sort of like gradually walk back onto it. They miss it. They miss it the same way people miss heroin. I think Twitter might be worse than heroin. Twitter is basically, if you made a pro-con list of the pros and the cons, the pros would be like

the ability to promote myself. And then the cons would be like seven pages long. Just go on and on and on and on with no upside. But, you know, I thought it was funny that

Steve Kerr not just even doing a tweet, much less talking in a press conference extemporaneously about something he clearly didn't know enough about, was just a cause for people to come at him, which makes me think, like, all right, so I didn't tweet about it. Am I ducking the controversy? I talked about it on Sunday night. Now we're talking about it now. But on Sunday, I made it very clear, like, I don't know enough about this. I don't even understand what's happening. Do we have a responsibility, all of us, to at least try to learn about a story before we wade into something

that's this important? Yeah. Look, I mean, this is how the lines have moved, right? I mean, you and I are close to the same age. I know you're 50 something now, but. No, I'm 50. Don't give me the something. How dare you? But, you know, I remember when, I can't remember who it was, but the first person I saw who had a dot com address with their name in it. And it was like, you know, joeschmo.com and it had all their stories on it. And I was like, man, that is some crazy egomaniacal nuttiness. I can't believe like someone would dedicate an entire website to posting their stories. And then came the wave of people kind of emailing around their stories saying like, here's my story. You should click on it if you want to read what I have to say. And also thinking that was crazy. And when Twitter first happened, there was this initial wave of like, why should

anyone care about what I think 24 hours a day or what I think about things that have nothing to do with my area of expertise? But now that's been completely normalized. And it feels like there's kind of this cultural pressure, especially if you're in journalism or something to pop in on topics where you have no expertise or where you don't even like, you know, there's no appetite for your opinion. I just think that it's a funny thing where we've just kind of normalized that behavior now and it's not the kind of thing we look at as being strange anymore Yeah, like if I waded into Kyle's office this morning

and I was like what's your NBA China take? I need it right now and he was like, what? I was like, I want a take now, I want a short take from you now and then he stumbled and gave a take and I was like, that was a bad take and I walked out. That's basically

what Twitter has become. Yeah, or just like kind of wandering it. That's like somebody you know. It's like more like wandering into a room full of strangers and saying this is what I think about the Dolphins front office. You know, like it's just on a whole variety of topics. We can all agree

China you know, I think we're all a little afraid of the potential of China in any situation like this, given previous behavior. I also know that I'm afraid to even talk about it. You know, and I think when I think about these, not just Adam Silver, but you think about guys like LeBron and Kevin Durant. I'm trying to think what other guys have really dove into this stuff where they've talked about some of the stuff Trump's done and et cetera, et cetera. They go in the shop.

They talk about how the NCAA needs to play its players. It's all stuff that is kind of gone through a cleanser. It's okay. The repercussions are never going to be that bad, which makes it okay and you dive in, you seem like you're whatever. But this is one of those where if LeBron came out and really gave some thoughtful thing about how he feels like China's completely in the wrong with how they're

handling the Hong Kong protesters. And he spent the last two days reading about it. And he actually thinks the protesters are saying and doing all the right things. Maybe they've gone a little bit overboard, but he fundamentally believes in what they're doing. And he thinks China needs to let up and get rid of this law. People would have a fucking heart attack. No, I agree. And that's going to be fascinating to watch.

I mean, this is a guy who's, you know, been willing to put himself forward on a variety of social issues. And we saw it just last week. He's like, you know, sitting next to Gavin Newsom, who's signing legislation about the Fair Pay to Play Act. He is doing his thing. And if he gets there, yeah. By the way, he's not going near this.

And I don't think any of these players should. You think zero chance? I think so. Unless it gets worse or something happens. I just don't see the upside. Honestly, I don't know if I care about LeBron James' take on this story. Do you? Are you sitting around going, man.

Of course I'm curious. I'm curious to see. Are you curious because he's a public figure or you're curious of him as one of the premier thinkers you know and he's going to bring some insight to the situation that you haven't thought of yet? I'm curious from this perspective. This is a guy who's kind of stripped away the idea that superstar athletes are supposed to be sort of opinionless, valueless people, you know, and he has been willing to sort of get out there and put his voice out there and sort of take the heat when the heat was coming. And don't forget, you know, whether it's him or Curry, these guys have tangled with the president of the United States,

which is no small thing. And so, yeah, if you're willing to weigh into this kind of stuff, I want to hear it. So when he went after Trump that time, during the whole Kaepernick thing, I thought that was one of the coolest things any athlete's done. Where he was just like, fuck it, I'm going for it. And it was really unusual because, you know, I think we'd seen, obviously the guys from the 60s are at a whole other level of how great they were with some of this stuff. Ali and Russell and Jim Brown, all those people. And what we had seen this decade

was people kind of pretending they stood for stuff, but not really. Culminating in the Clippers instead of just boycotting that Warriors playoff game, throwing their warmup jackets at midcourt, which I still could. As the years pass, I think it's lamer and lamer as we really look at that. LeBron seemed like the one person who's like, fuck it, I'm going to, if I feel strongly about something, he did with Trayvon Martin. He did it with Trump a few times. If you feel strongly about something, you're going to hear from him. I guess my question with this is, you know, when Joe Tsai says it's definitely a third real issue for Chinese people on the mainland.

Now, he took some liberties in that. He talked about like this has made it seem like Hong Kong was trying to separate, which is not true. But when he says it's a third real issue for Chinese people, if I'm an NBA star and I hear that, I'm going, okay, good to know. Sure. Unquestionably. And I think that, you know, LeBron has heard certain things are third rail issues in the past. I mean, he's been somebody

who's been willing to get out there and talk about third rail issues. And I understand the distinction you're trying to draw between what's happening in China, where there's this enormous sort of economic investment, which directly impacts the league

and some social issues. Well, and also a history, a history that he's, none of us are familiar with. We're not from there. I had a friend of mine tell me that his parents were from China. His entire life, they never had a Japanese product in their house. And it's like, well, that's something you and I cannot understand. We don't understand the legacy and the scars of certain things. And I think for LeBron to jump off the top rope with some, you know, whatever,

I don't know if that's a great idea. Yeah, but I think that like, and to allude to the piece that Brian Phillips did for you guys, which I thought was really good, like there is, you know, this can be distilled into a rather simple thing, which is that this is about expression. And LeBron can sort of speak broadly to that idea, the idea of sort of commenting and being able to comment with liberty on things, because that is what he's tried to do. I mean, we've seen time and time again in the last number of years that LeBron has kind of made it safe for athletes to come out and speak on social issues. And he's been sort of a vanguard of that.

And not just in the NBA, across all major sports. I think people look to him that way. And on that front, like, that's a change. And that is something that, you know, leagues and sponsors and so on are trying to get comfortable with. And not everybody is comfortable with that, believe me. Well, and that leads to another lesson from this, is everyone was way too slow to react. and so on are trying to get comfortable with it. Not everybody is comfortable with that, believe me. Well, and that leads to another lesson from this is everyone was way too slow to react.

Daryl should have, whatever he was going to say, it should have been sooner. Because the longer you delete a tweet and then nothing happens and then your owner throws you under the bus. Well, I think Tillman shooting him out of a cannon was a big part of this. All of this.

But at that point, this is now on fast forward and you have to move. And if you've read anything about a crisis situation or any PR situation like this, move is the lesson. And nobody moved. And by the time he finally gave his statement, it was clear he didn't really want to apologize. If you read between the lines of what he said,

it's not an apology. Joe Sy called it an apology in his thing that he wrote. Daryl didn't apologize. He said he regretted that it led to a couple outcomes that maybe he didn't anticipate, but he didn't apologize for what he said.

And then you have the NBA, which is what Brian wrote about yesterday, and you wrote about it too for the Wall Street Journal. The NBA was just kind of flaccid coming out of the gates. And finally, Adam Silver today was a lot more forthcoming about like, look, we support our players' right for free

speech. He said that on a Tuesday. This whole thing was unfolding on a Friday and a Saturday. That was 72 hours late, in my opinion. Yeah. And how unusual also to have, you know, we talked about a minute ago, but just a circumstance where you have the controversy as kind of the appetizer to the arrival.

I mean, Adam Silver's going to China now. I mean, that is, you know, another part of what makes this story wild. But I feel like with the language and, you know, the NBA too, is pushed back on the notion that it is apologized. There was that, you know, brief belief that like their Chinese statement was more forthcoming or more apologetic than the English statement. That's something that the NBA has denied. They've pushed back on the notion that they have, you know, apologized on Maury's behalf. But yeah, they are trying to sort of work this middle rail here of not apologizing, but acknowledging China's dissatisfaction or extreme discomfort with this.

One other lesson from this. I wasn't sure there was a story anymore that could bring all the different types of people who seem to be outraged about this on one side, where you had Elizabeth Warren, Ted Cruz, Beto O'Rourke, all lined. Yeah. Outrage Christmas. Yeah. It really was. It was like, it was an outrage free-for-all. It was like one of those where everybody gets in the bar free and there's no cover charge.

And you just get to drink at the outrage bar together. Hey, Elizabeth Warren, haven't seen you in a while. And it was really crazy. I don't really remember another story like that. We might never see another story like that, considering how split everybody is these days here. Yeah. I mean, listen, you know, I get it. But where I sort of get off the bus is when people have been using this story as kind of a stalking horse to attack, you know, progressive politics. Right, right. Take on progressive politics. You know, I could understand why people's eyebrows are raised at Steve Kerr's non-answer on it. But I don't think it's correct to sort of throw out what NBA players have been saying and doing on social issues for the past bunch of years, because that's real. That's real stuff and has real implications. And as much as

people want to sort of characterize it as some sort of business pose, I don't think it entirely is at all. I liked when some of the politicians who have supported some of the terrible tactics we've done in this country are now wading in, playing the moral high horse on stuff China's doing. It's like, we have people in cages right now. I don't, you know,

we have school shootings and shootings at Walmarts and shootings basically in, there was a bar in Kansas City the other day. How many shootings are we up to this year?

And those people are taking money from gun control. I mean, the hypocrisy was kind of suffocating, I got to say, the last few days. No, and it's a real high horse rodeo, right? High horse rodeo. Just coming in, and I think this is another part.

We sort of spoke about how the rules have changed with regards to public comment and Twitter and, you know, how the boundaries have changed. I mean, I think that now it used to be you could say something and people will say, well, that's sort of factually wrong. And, you know, here's why. And you'd sort of correct the record. Now, I just think that people try to be, you know, to quote the cliche, you know, the loud voice in the room and just try to say the loudest thing and the thing that sticks, you know, the most clearly and try to win the minute. And I don't think it lends itself to any sort of nuanced conversation. Well, you know who else didn't win is ESPN. And we're going to talk about them right after this break. Let's talk about Square. They make that little white credit card reader that helps

businesses take payments. And it could be any business. I have had a lot of haircuts over the last few years where they use Square. Kyle, did you get your Square yet? I haven't gotten a Square yet. God, get your Square. I'll get my Square. Square is just so much more than just the white card reader. Let's say you're up in a retail shop. Let's say you're up in Kyle.com. Probably taken. Probably taken. You're going to want a decent looking register. You're going to want to sell your stuff online. You're going to need to stay on top of your inventory. You might even sell custom gift cards to your store for the darkroom. Square can help with all of that.

And it's not just retail. Square can help you no matter what your type of business is. See all the ways Square can take your business and Kyle's business from Square One to whatever's next at square.com slash go slash BS. You should do this for your budding music career. You're dropping tracks on Twitter? You're right, you're right. Do square.

I just can't believe that Darkroom doesn't have gift cards. That's an awesome idea. That's a great idea. Square.com slash go slash BS. Okay. This is another lesson from this controversy. Remember Forrest Gump when he's running from the kids and then he turns into

an adult and he's still running full speed as fast as possible down the dirt road? I know where this is going. That was ESPN the last three days. And now it was complicated because for two reasons. One, the NBA is one of their biggest business partners. Two, they're going to China. They have

a bunch of high-ranking executives there right now because they have the games, they have the jump there, all that stuff. And then three, we're in this new era of ESPN where they don't want any part of this. And it's not just this. They don't want any part of anything. They just want to show us games. games and the silence is maybe that's the right word or quietness, eerie quiet from our favorite ESPN personalities and NBA reporters who were clearly told not to go anywhere near this story was pretty damning because this was the biggest NBA story in five years.

What was your take on that? was pretty damning because this was the biggest NBA story in five years. What was your take on that? I mean, so you think there was a very clear directive to not touch this, you know, to talent. I am not reporting that. I am just a smart person who worked there for 14 and a half years reading the tea leaves of Dead Silence and the biggest story in five years. Yeah. And that they're using wire service reports and

nobody, like think about it, if this was any other type of NBA story, you would have the Woj tweet, like sources close to Daryl Morris says, blah, blah, blah. We've had none of that. None. Nothing. Zero. Sure. I mean, and that's also, you know,

candidly a function of like comfort level, you know, Woj knows the landscape of trades and the rosters and so on like that. And I don't know if he's willing to wade into this particular subject. He still has information though. Sure. And I think that like there was a wave of ESPN coverage of this when it initially broke out about, you know, whether it was Joe Sy's involvement or what Adam Silver was trying to do with regard to repairing this. But I do feel like I watched the first half hour of the jump today, so

if they did anything in the back half hour, they began with the Knicks and the Wizards. Marcus Morris bouncing the basketball. That was the lead story? That was the lead story, but they cut very quickly to Rachel Nichols, who is in Shanghai. And she did talk about the situation. She spoke very directly about it. And, you know, it wasn't completely measured. I mean, she did call this a PR disaster. And she did have a bit of news about the fact that

this game on Thursday might not happen, which would be a huge deal. She and Richard Jefferson went to the Nets. The Nets are in their hotel. She had DeAndre Jordan and Spencer Dimwoody. Sorry to spoil the jump for people who are watching this. Yeah, that's tough. You should have said spoiler alert. So they're getting in there.

You know, they're getting in there. I don't know. Maybe lead the show with that. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, unquestionably. No, I mean, but I'm also like, they didn't like, I mean, it's structured as a debate show and they did not like kick that nuclear fuel rod.

I mean, in their defense, the Marcus Morris touching a Wizards player on the head with a basketball was a massive international story. But I don't know. I just thought the China story might've been bigger. But I will say that I'm optimistic and hopeful. I mean, I think Rachel is, you know, she's fundamentally a reporter.

She began as a print reporter. She's probably chomping at the bit to go on a story like this. Well, she went after Goodell, and that was, I mean, not as dangerous as this story, but she was one of the ones throwing darts on him. More so than anybody else, she turned, you know, Goodell into a puddle. And, you know, so if you're a reporter like she is, this is great stuff. This story has a little bit of everything. And I'm sure that she's chomping at the bit to go at it. But hold on. Do we honestly think they're going to unleash their people on this? Because I would say this is a new era for that company where they would probably run from this? Well, this is the problem though, because what happened, you know, what the conversation was,

I guess, you know, I can't remember when the last time this sort of like intersection of sports and politics and we're not a political. It was Dan Levitard. That's right. The Levitard thing. So that wasn't the sort of parsing that happened then was, you know, we don't want people to go free range here and just talk about politics. But when politics intersects with sport, that's great. This is the definition of politics intersecting with sport. This is not just politics intersecting with sport. This is politics intersecting with the sport that ESPN has decided is the most important sport it covers.

It's deeply embedded with the league. It has a huge relationship with this sport. They've put a daily program together to do it. I'm hoping that they tackle it because they have some awfully talented people to do it. But yeah, this is sort of going to call the bluff on whether or not they truly believe that that's something that's in their coverage, though. I'm going to say it's not. I also think it's not just politics intersecting with sports. It's politics intersecting with the salary cap. This is a whole other level of politics.

This actually might cause the salary cap to go down by like $8 million. So just explain that to somebody who doesn't understand the salary cap. We talked about it earlier. It's based on revenue that they bring in. So if they lose $500 million from China, the salary cap goes down. Do you think Daryl's playing long ball here,

and this is going to help the Rockets? It's tough because obviously I'm friends with him. And I think he's in a tough spot where now if he was going to get fired, and I think he was probably way closer to getting fired last week and then people realize, they can't do that now. Because if you're Toman Fertitta, Fertitta? Fertitta? Toman Fertitta, Fertida? Fertida? Toman Fertida. I always say Fertada like he's a breakfast sandwich.

Toman Fertida. Yeah. Who, if you go back into his history and some of his... Shut Up and what's the name of the book? Well, his book's called Shut Up and Listen, which is immediately you sound like somebody who might not want to be somebody people want to work for. Hey, I got you an autographed copy of Shut Up and Listen. Can you be in at nine tomorrow?

But he's also, you know, he's kind of a little Dolany. He just is. And he's kind of a mix of all these different blowhard owners we've seen in the NBA and NFL. These rich self-made billionaires who are coming in hot. You can guess where they lean politically and economically and a lot of different stuff. And I don't think he wants to be known

as the guy who fired his GM and didn't stand up for him because that goes on your legacy. These guys ultimately care about what other people think of them. That's going to govern their decisions ultimately. I'm sure we're having different conversations than I was having over the weekend. I never thought for one second that it was viable to fire Maury. I just didn't think that that was

a possibility. I know there are people out there who thought that when I think there was a report that it was under consideration. I just didn't think it made any sense whatsoever for the Rockets, for the league, for anybody involved. It just was the worst possible message. But I mean, how fascinating I feel, like, you know, Maury in and of himself is like a whole other sort of wrinkle to this story, because this is a person who, you know, I mean, he's probably the most intriguing person who could be at the center of this. This is a guy who's built his reputation as an innovator, as a heretic, you know, somebody who's re-envisioning not just basketball, but the whole way the NBA is built, structured, played on court.

You know, this is a guy who's challenging every sort of mode of thinking about the sport. And for him to be the person at the middle of this is like, I mean, it's, it's real. I think this is like, you know, watching like Harden give the comment the other day, and I felt terrible for him having to get out there and, you know, say we apologize, which was, you know, just not, I mean, it feels like a Mike Nichols movie. It was a little hostage video, yeah. It was just brutal. But I mean, the whole thing, like when you consider the elements of this and the power,

especially, and the characters in it, I mean, it's almost cinematic, and it's only going to get wackier in the next 24 hours. And it's the perfect kind of exclamation point to this goofy decade we've had of player empowerment and guys continuing what Magic and MJ started in the 80s and Shaq continued in the 90s, then LeBron and everybody in the 2000s where it's brand first, then team.

And the brand actually becomes the team. And guys just go from city to city and it doesn't even really matter what team they are anymore. Their brand supersedes the uniforms, which is really a unique situation, not just for the NBA, but I think for any sport. But ultimately, when you have a brand, you start making decisions on how to protect that brand first. Sure. And that's just not athletes.

That's everybody. That could be writers. We've seen it all over the place, all this decade. And a lot of it is through Twitter. Instagram and Facebook and little interviews. So you see that James Harden little thing that he did. I would love to know the background that led to that of him being like, no, no, Daryl's a good guy. I got his back. And then his business manager being like, James, this'll cost you about 40

million here if you don't say something. And he's like, okay, can you find me a camera? Just want to talk about my friends in China for one second. I don't know who this Daryl is. Daryl who? Is that that tall guy who runs our team? I do think your point about how Daryl's kind of the greatest guy to be in this situation. I mean, I feel bad for him, obviously, but he is the one NBA GM who doesn't necessarily need to work in the NBA.

That's true. He's somebody that could really do 90 different jobs. And he could work for hedge funds. He could work for an entertainment company. He could work for a baseball team, a football team. He needs the NBA less than anybody who has ever been in this spot as an executive. Sure. And also he's the kind of person who has blossomed in this next wave of the NBA. And the NBA, if it is this sort of marketplace of expression, he's benefiting from it as much as anybody else because people like him

who may not have been listened to a generation ago are now much more valued and certainly appreciated by the media and so on. A couple more lessons quickly. I asked earlier, and I think it's worth even talking about for a minute, how it would unfold if China, who has certainly done irrational things and crazy things in the past, if they just canceled the NBA and they were like, we're done, that's it. What that means and also what that would mean to the people there who really love the NBA and could that cause potential unrest there and all that stuff.

I don't think it'll play out that way. But, you know, let's say Tencent says we're not showing the first month of the season. How does that play out? I'm not even talking from an American business standpoint. I'm just talking about how does that play in that country where they love basketball? Right. No. And this gets into like all kinds of like weirdness about like, you know, what is the

public outcry? What is the reaction? How much of it is disinformation? How much of it is propaganda, the notion of a nation being outraged? And what is the NBA reacting to? Are they reacting to real outrage? Are they reacting to a government stance? And I think this is where the sort of most live part of this story is.

What conversations are happening among NBA ownership, among Adam Silver and whoever he's talking to about what leverage the league has here? Because I agree with you, this isn't some sort of thing. And there have, again, been many businesses that have, for whatever reason, run across or run afoul of China. This isn't the kind of thing where they just apologize and reboot. This is not what the NBA is going to do here. They've made that pretty clear. And they might have an opportunity to kind of set a new tone here by saying like, look, we're going to do this and you can react the way you're going to react. But we're confident that you're either not going to yank everything or you're either not going to, you know, yank everything, or you're going to come back to us more quickly than, you know, you're saying.

Yeah, and if there's really no way to say anything that makes people in Hong Kong feel 100% great or people in China feel 100% great without offending the other side. And I'm sure that's, they've tried to look at that from every angle and have been unable to, which leads into my next lesson,

which we learned at WWE in South Africa, is how much is a business relationship worth for a sports enterprise? We saw this with ESPN, where they were really hard on the NFL. Really, really hard. I'd like to think I played a tiny part in that. And at some point, Goodell said, you know what? Fuck you guys.

I'm giving you the worst Monday Night Football schedule anyone's ever had. We've tried to make sure we've put every terrible quarterback on here at least once. Enjoy this shit souffle, you fuckers. And he did that. And now Patara comes in. And I think Patara very smartly,

first move was like, I got to rebuild my relationship with the NFL. That relationship was clearly worth more for them than having a climate where people who work for them can just spout off on whatever they thought of. I wonder what the NBA's price is with this. You know, like if this situation got worse, let's say they have one of the games

and there's really bad protesting before and after and it just escalates. What's the number that makes all of them look at each other and go, this isn't worth it anymore? I don't know, but I think the number would be 10 figures that they would have to walk away from here. 10 figures in terms of what would be the number that beats or their break point for walking away?

I'm saying they might be like, this will cost us a billion dollars over the next whatever, seven, eight years. We're okay with that. If that number is higher, if it's like $3 billion, I don't know what it is. I don't know what the math is. Yeah.

But at some point, at some point you kind of end up just going, all right, we just got to play this out. We don't want to lose that China money. And they might be in that situation. Yeah. I mean, and also the league is not just like invested in this as some sort of like, you know, entertainment thing.

They're also there as developmental. They're looking at, you know, creating, you know, the next wave of Chinese superstars. That has enormous appeal to them. They're invested in many other countries for the same exact reason. And Silver has already pointed to this in the aftermath of all this, that it's hard to look at – it's hard to find a more international league, certainly in North America, than what the NBA has put together. But I do feel like, yeah, there is probably a moment at which they, you know, assess the risk of walking away. But I just don't think that they know that right now. And I don't know that that's the sort of, you know,

very highly pitched conversation that's happening internally is trying to determine, you know, what exactly is the risk of, you know, standing up. Because they are not, like, you know, this has been characterized in certain places as being some abject apology. It has not been an explicit apology. No. And, you know, competitively, this is a league that is run by 30 dudes and Adam Silver who are all very, very motivated to try to supplant the NFL as the most successful sport in America. And the biggest advantage they have is the globalization of the league

and the ability to sell basketball all over the fucking place. Even like my podcast, we've seen the audiences grow in places I never would have expected, like my podcast, we've seen the audiences grow in places I never would have expected. Like Australia, New Zealand, like the Philippines, Brazil, people love basketball and football does, is not able to get in the, I mean, American football is just not able to break through those cities in the same way. And they, the NBA knows this. And if you're drawing

out the case where the NBA will be more popular than the NFL in 25 years, which who knows, this is definitely on the list. I mean, I would say the NBA's greatest competitive advantage is the fact that basketball is a little easier to play. It's safer. Yeah. I just think it's a hell of a lot safer as a sport.

But unquestionably, and look, the seeds of this were planted a generation and a half ago now. I mean, this is not something that's sort of come up in the Adam Silver regime. The international, the globalization of this game dates back decades now. And, you know, you could certainly point to like a seismic event like 96 Barcelona with the Dream Team. And was it 96 or 92? 92. 92, sorry. You know, those are, you know, huge things that are paying dividends now. And I don't think this is something that you can just sort of extract the league from. It is baked very much into the DNA of the team, is baked much into the valuations of franchises now. I mean, you know, both of us, I'm sure, have had conversations with people about, you know,

ownership, right? The commissioner job in virtually every league basically is ownership, franchise value, franchise value, franchise value. At the end of the day, that's what these guys are judged upon, how they improve franchise value. If people start to see them dipping, then that's trouble. Even if they see them plateauing, that's trouble. So if you're talking about, you know, withdrawing from markets that start to lead to diminishments of franchise values, well, that's a headache.

More than a headache. Existential problem. There's one last lesson in this, and then we're going to go. We haven't really mentioned his name yet. He's looming over the story like a black cloud. There's been times during the presidency, however you feel either way,

where Trump becomes kind of like your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving where everybody's had a couple glasses of wine and you're like, oh man, I hope Uncle Jason doesn't fucking bring up the divorce from two years ago or whatever. And it's just simmering, but you know he's going to bring it up because it's Uncle Jason. It's like, oh man, Uncle Jason, he's going to do it. He's going to wait till the pie comes out and then it's going to happen. And Trump is looming over this and he's been looming over it for three days. And this is the perfect Trump story because he can come barreling in late off the top

rope. He can, first of all, he's been feuding with China anyway, the last few months. And now he can pit himself on opposite corners of the NBA, a league that he's expressed his disdain for. People like LeBron who have taken shots at him. He can do all his weird dog whistle stuff that he's been doing for five years now. And really, really, really make himself seem like the only person who actually understands this.

You know, the NBA wasn't tough enough against China, but you know who's been tough against China? Me, Donald Trump. I'm right here. And you know he's going to do it. I can't believe it hasn't happened yet. He's going to absolutely 100% do this. Well, I don't know if

you know this, but he's got some other stuff happening. Some other topics involving the president of even more urgency in the nation's capital. This is perfect for him, though. That means he can use this as a distraction. He goes in and then we're talking about that.

But Trump is talking out of all sides of his mouth here, too, because in addition to talking tough on China and tariffs, this is a guy who, I guess, just barely a couple weeks ago, congratulated China on its 70th anniversary of communist rule. He was like, congrats to President Xi and the Chinese people. 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, which drew him, you know, he got in serious, he got rebukes from his own party on that. So, you know, he's not exactly on safe ground there, but that has never stopped him. So you're right that like he looms large in this topic.

I certainly think that he is licking his chops at the notion of going after the NBA, which has antagonized him by not showing up to his congratulatory Wendy's Fest. Yeah, they won't go to the White House. They won't go to the White House. So it's a real carrot for him. But yeah, he's not on an exactly stable ground himself. Well, right now he's conferring with Kendall and Shiv and Roman and just trying to figure out his plan. Can I say one thing?

Yeah. My one succession point, which I, you know, I'm a big fan like everybody else, but I feel like there's been tremendous love for all the supporting actors who are incredible. But I think Brian Cox is phenomenal. I think he's an incredible... I mean, I'm not saying anything newsworthy that

Brian Cox is a tremendous actor, but I just think that that performance is unbelievable. Well, if he was involved right now, he would just say to China, fuck off! Then that would be it for the story. Oh, I don't think so. No, I think he would be sending Roman over there to kowtow

no for no unquestionably Roman would never be seen again well I hope I'm wrong and I hope this story doesn't escalate

and I hope it kind of dies down it actually does concern me and for a lot of different reasons but especially because we still have

people in China and I hope it doesn't escalate definitely do we both agree craziest NBA story in five years because we still have people in China, and I hope it doesn't escalate. Definitely. Do we both agree? Craziest NBA story in five years? Oh, and about to get crazier, I think.

I think the next 24 to 36 hours are going to be as interesting as anything that's happened in a major American sports league in decades. Well, we are wrapping up this segment of the podcast. It is 5.06 Eastern time. So if anything happens, don't blame us. Jason Gay, we can read you on the Wall Street Journal. Thanks for coming on as always. Thank you. All right, we're bringing up Shoemaker in one second. First, Dunkin' is the go-to place for a delicious on-the-go breakfast. They're

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Dig into the new burrito bowls from Dunkin'. A fiesta of flavor in a bowl. All right, let's bring in Shoemaker. All right, you can hear him on the Press Box with Brian Curtis twice a week. You can hear him on the Masked Man Show, which covers wrestling as well, on the Ringer Podcast Network.

He just talked on the Press Box on the press box about uh china a little bit brian curtis that was yesterday now a whole bunch uh we've learned a lot more today david shoemaker i just want to go here quickly even though he talked about in the press box the parallels between this and wwe and saudi arabia and how that was resolved um well i mean for the wwe situation it wasn't, I mean, resolved per se. I think they managed to, um, I mean, I guess what stands out in the WWE case, or at least what stood out at the time when other, when various people were trying to make the argument that, you know, many, many major corporations do business in Saudi Arabia. How is WWE any different? Well, at the time, they were actually, I mean, I don't know if propaganda is the right term,

but in all of the promotional materials for the first pay-per-view they did, they were like exhibiting the glories of Saudi Arabia and just extolling the virtues of the country in the context of wrestling. So that was a little bit different. They managed to back off a lot of that in the subsequent events, and I can only assume they're related.

Well, when I say how they resolved it, they didn't resolve it. They just cashed the checks. No, they kept going. They just kept going. CTC, as Rasheed Wallace once said. Cut the check. I mean, listen, the hardest thing that big companies like the NBA, like WWE, have to deal with,

or one of the things they have to deal with in the, in, you know, current year and the modern age is kind of, is publicly acknowledging their reliance on, you know, nefarious foreign countries. I mean, that's, that's a lot, a lot of the money that they process comes from questionable places. And, but at the end of the day, the money's almost always going to win out. Yeah. Let's talk about SmackDown premiered on Friday on Fox. I was there with Ben Simmons, future pro wrestler. You were there with your PressBox partner, Brian Curtis, and Remember Brown, who had never been to a live wrestling event. The bonuses of the night were,

I liked going to a two-hour wrestling event. Oh, yeah. It's the same reason why NXT is so much fun. The NXT pay-per-views, which are also shorter, where you have these things where you show up, there's energy for two hours, and then it's over. That was great, considering we both went to WrestleMania, which I think is still going.

We left. Is WrestleMania still going? No, it ended. I'm sorry. So I really liked that. It was unbelievable to see The Rock again doing his thing, especially when he's been on such autopilot on Ballers the last season.

He's driving around in a car, talking sadly, doing dumb narration. And it was like he became The Rock again. He was like, oh, yeah, you're the best that's ever done this. And to see him out there with Becky Lynch and Baron Corbin and he's just so much better

than everybody they have like it's no contest that was cool and then the the ladder match was Shane McMahon

versus Kevin Owens Kevin Owens was great the ending not so great. They ended Kofi Kingston's reign in five seconds. It was abrupt, funny.

My son was cackling like he thought it was hilarious that Kofi Kingston, his title reign was done in two seconds. But then the big surprise, Cain Velasquez comes out, which played great on TV because the announcers are selling it, I'm sure. In the room, probably two-thirds of the people announcers are selling it, I'm sure. In the room, probably two-thirds of the people had no idea who it was. And it was a weird way to end the show. Ultimately, though, what were your thoughts on the show itself and what it means for the business

going forward? I mean, I thought it was a really good show. I mean, a lot of people had various nits to pick with the production, even up until the last minute. But you're right. I mean, a two-hour show is always a lot of fun. You don't get bogged down in the video packages and in-house commercials and everything like that. And it does sort of feel more like a live event because the pace keeps going. And a lot of what they showed was, I mean, a lot of the event outside of the Owens-McMahon match and the Rock setting, it was kind of just like a welcome, you know, a brief introduction to WWE for those uninitiated to the current product. You know, they threw a lot of the big stars into multi-person tag matches and just kind of let you know all the things that were going on in the status quo.

And then you're right. And a lumberjack match. They brought it back from the 80s. Just an excuse to get 40 people outside for no reason absolutely um and and it was i mean i i thought even the even the stuff that was sort of silly was was fine and and fun um and you know the the ending like you said with kofi kingston and brock lesnar i mean if you're if if if the whole show was a sort of you know greatest hits of current wrestling um they certainly went in the wheelhouse and just pulled out the old trusty what the fuck ending with where i can say

the non-cussing version wtf ending with with uh with brock lesnar which is vince mcmahon's favorite go-to move now ever since ever since lesnar beat the undertaker i think vince's favorite move is just to have brock lesnar beat somebody in a way that just beggars belief. Yeah. And I'm glad to hear Ben was laughing. I guess he's the target audience

or, you know, a future WWE executive, maybe both. He might be the next Vince McMahon. Yeah, he was cackling. He was like, I can't believe they did that.

Yeah, I mean... It was so dirty. They gave him basically the SD Jones WrestleMania 1 ending. Yeah, I mean, and we always... I mean, people like me can't believe they did that yeah i mean so dirty they gave him basically the sg sd jones wrestlemania one ending yeah i mean and we always i mean people like me will sit here and try to like imagine ways in which they can justify it in the future by giving kofi if you know a future shot in which he looks better and whatever but really i mean this was it's really hard to read this in any way other than uh a move by a calculated move by you know, WWE and by, you know, the new Fox powers that be and, you know, that are that are working with them to sort of capitalize on the real sports audience that Brock Lesnar and now Cain Velasquez can bring to WWE.

Who knows? Who knows how long? You know, I mean, it's apparently they're going to fight at this Saudi Arabia event later this month. So I don't know if Velasquez is going to stick around long term. He does seem to be very interested in being a pro wrestler. And, you know, he's trained and is pretty good, shockingly good. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, the whole thing just feels like for the diehard wrestling fans, it was a little bit disheartening, not only because Kofi Kingston was sort of a favorite of the diehard wrestling fan community, but also because anytime you bring somebody in from another sport,

it really feels like the WWE execs or whoever cares more about the potential new fan than the fans that are there night in and night out. Yeah, there's a desperation to it. I agree. And he was such a good story, but I feel like, I think you mentioned this to me first.

I've been thinking about it. I think I agree with you. I do think they're heading toward these two parallel universes where Fox is the bigger dudes and then Raw USA is more the Kofi Kingston, Ricochet-type guys. And it's the more athletic side. Would be my guess how they're going to play this?

Well, I mean, listen, Fox, if my theory is right, Fox will still have some Ricochet or Buddy Murphy or Ali-type characters on there to sort of accentuate how, how much bigger the, the bigger dudes are. I'm sure. But, but I do, but, but yeah,

I mean, I think that especially with Paul Heyman running raw and Paul Heyman being a very kind of canny adept backstage operator, uh, and also with just sort of a different, uh, you know, I mean a different playbook coming from the SmackDown Fox side of things,

I think we could see two very divergent type rosters. And this sort of thing where we're... I mean, in the past, it's kind of been the reverse. SmackDown has traditionally been the home of good old-fashioned wrestling between the two shows, and Raw has been more of the glitz and glamour. That might kind of flip to a real extreme, I think, if my theory is correct. I mean, just because, you know, these are...

I mean, Fox is a very specific, or a very different audience than the one they're used to playing to, or at least they're going to be hoping to attract a different audience. And I think what's left could be a very, you know, let's say diehard wrestling fan Eden on Raw. But we'll see. Well, you and I both thought we love the fate of the WWE on Fox for a couple different reasons, but mostly because I thought they would be able to use football to really promote it

in all of these ways that were both smart and incredibly awkward. And it lived up to what I was hoping for in week one. We had Becky Lynch cutting promos with Terry Bradshaw and Roman Reigns on the Thursday night NFL set with Michael Strahan, just awkwardly interviewing them and all standing around. You know, I love nothing more than a good awkward integration is really my wheelhouse. But Fox is obviously really, really invested in this. And they're using it as a way to promote all their other stuff. And they're basically saying, we now have a gauntlet. We have Thursday night football.

We have Friday Smackdown. Saturday, their college football. And they had their college football crew, including my buddy Rob Stone, first row, trying to get some attention and then Sunday football games. And this is this four-day gauntlet that they feel like they're just going to promote the hell out of.

And wrestling weirdly makes sense in that group. I think it's, out of all the networks, this had to be the network, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, this is the only, I feel like in some ways this is the only network that would have, you know,

kind of the guts to do it, but also, you know, that has, I mean, it's Fox, you know? The DNA of it. It makes sense. It makes, yeah, exactly. I'm glad that they had

Rob Stone there on the front row so Michael Cole could literally be looking over his shoulder at him at the guy who might be taking his job someday. And I don't have any inside information on that, but I think that that would be something I'd keep an eye on. Well, I wrote about this in my Red Sox book. Rob Stone's wedding was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And this was 20 years ago. I think it was the same weekend Pedro struck out 17 Yankees in September 1999.

And it was during the height of the DX suck it generation with the cross chop. And we were just doing it all weekend. We were doing wrestling jokes the entire weekend. Even like when we were in the church, like there was an urn.

And I remember I picked up the urn and did like the undertaker thing. Like it was just, it was just the height of guys in their late twenties, just making wrestling jokes. Like just for, because it was like, who can top the wrestling joke? And it all led to that night after the wedding and the holiday and I think it was, um, there was this band playing and our friend camp did the suck it thing at one of our friends. And the band guy thought it was at him and jumped out of the thing and jumped

them. And we almost had like a hardcore rumble in the holiday in all based off suck it. And this is at Rob Stone's wedding. So my point is Rob Stone, real wrestling fan. This actually happened. We almost had like a real DX fueled braueled brawl at a holiday inn.

I would have, I just, my goal would have been not to get punched, just so you know. I have a, yeah, I have a fond memory of my friend's younger brother doing the crotch chop as he like crossed the graduation stage. And I just can't even remember. I mean, I can't even imagine what would happen if someone tried to do that in 2019. Oh my God. This should be a documentary of everybody's favorite crotch chop story from 1999. It was a thing. It was in 2019. Oh my god. This should be a documentary of everybody's favorite crotch chop story from 1999. It was a thing. It was in there.

It was really a thing. I mean, it's funny. It's those like Austin 316 shirts and making an X chop on your crotch were the two biggest signs of WWE's pop culture influence. It was pretty wild. So, I called you today because we had decided a couple weeks

ago that the Masked Man show should be on Friday. We felt like, alright, this new weekly wrestling cycle is going to be so different. What is the best day to have a wrestling podcast? We're like, we'll do it on Friday, leading into SmackDown. Now we just experienced

a week of this and we're like, oh, it's actually completely the wrong day. It should be on Tuesday, coming off SmackDown and the pay-per-view leading into all this other stuff. The reason I bring this up, not to tell people what we talk about on the phone, is the wrestling calendar is so goofy now

where there's just a lot of content. We're having pay-per-views now, it seems like, every four weeks, sometimes even more frequently than that. But now AEW is going're having pay-per-views now, it seems like every four weeks, sometimes even more frequently than that. But now AEW is going to have pay-per-views too. We have AEW against DX on Wednesday nights. We have Raw on Monday nights. SmackDown on Friday nights.

Are we hitting, are we passing some invisible tipping point of having too much wrestling content? Because it feels like we're there. I mean, yeah. It's a hypothetical tipping point of having too much wrestling content? Cause it feels like we're there. Uh, I mean, yeah, it's, it's,

it's a hypothetical, uh, tipping point. I do think that having weirdly having SmackDown on Fridays, um, you know, it opens up your week to, I think,

make some decisions about what you're going to give your time to, you know what I mean? These are very different, obviously different audiences that every, that every show is sort of pointing at. Wednesday night's going to be a lot of fun with NXT and AEW, I think just because the competition is going to keep us engaged, and I think the newness and freshness of AEW and the sort of, I mean, I guess the relative freshness of NXT, you know, that's a lot of

the real vital talent in pro wrestling is on those two shows, but the competition, I think, is what's going to keep us engaged. And then Friday night, you know, I mean, who knows how it's going to shake out. But it sure feels like with Fox, with Fox's backing, that SmackDown is going to be, you know, the sort of A show all of a sudden for WWE. So I don't know where exactly that leaves Raw in the pecking order. But, you know, I wouldn't mind having some some Monday nights with the family instead of sitting in front of the TV watching wrestling. And then you can kind of catch up with things.

I guess what it does is it's so much content that it's not that you're going to be forced to hunt and peck through YouTube for pieces of it, for the highlights, you know, just keep up on social media and just, you know, watch on your whatever, whichever way you watch TV now with the sort of remote control in your hand to fast forward through stuff. And it's going to be incumbent on the, on WWE and, and even on AEW to keep us from hitting the fast forward. Well, when football did this, it was kind of like, oh man, more football another day. Okay. Fantasy and gambling. Let's go. Yeah.

Wrestling. It's like, ah, you know, if I had to prioritize it, the three hour raw is probably last on my list. Mm-hmm. Um, it's interesting though, with the AEW NXT thing, my son was into AEW. I think he is the quintessential wrestling audience, right? The 11 year old who's on the trampoline attacking his six-foot panda and doing wrestling moves on it. This is who they're banking on. And once NXT went against AEW,

he was out on AEW. He's like, screw those guys. He's all in on NXT. He just loves NXT. So I'll be interested to see how that plays out i know aw killed them on the um on the ratings last week but it was also the launch of the show is the third week of nxt which is a mistake but um they the nxt has really built has really built some equity with younger fans and people in their 20s which we could feel at wrestlemania that was

a more fun pay-per-view than WrestleMania. Oh, yeah. It's been that way for a little while. I mean, the diehard fans, the kind of fans that are going to travel to go to WrestleMania

would probably, you know, or when they get there, they're more excited about the NXT show. No question. And part of that's the talent. You know,

I mean, these are, you know, sort of the indie rock wrestlers that people, you know, that the hardcore fans sort of follow, you know, event by event and fetishize in various ways.

But it's also just the booking. I mean, Triple H is running that show and books it like an old school wrestling territory. Yeah. I mean, part of the appeal was that he was able to, you know, he wasn't trying to fill up five hours a week, you know. I mean, it's a relatively small show, and you can kind of focus on the couple of feuds that really mattered and, uh, and, and build those slowly and methodically. But, but regardless, the,

the storytelling is, you know, uh, it, it, it felt a lot more fulfilling and a lot more coherent in a lot of ways. So, um, I think it's going to be tough for them to do two hours every week. Just like, I think it's going to be tough, really tough for AEW because their roster is not deep enough now. When your big reveal on your first show is like, oh my God, that's Jack Swagger. He was the 49th most important wrestler seven

years ago. That's not really making a huge splash. All due respect to Jack Swagger, who was misused. It's true. I think he'll be better as a heel with a beard with his what's his real name Jack Hager Jake Hager yeah Jake Hager I think he's better off that way but um but yeah they

need a lot more guys and even like NXT grabbing Finn Balor I thought was interesting like the return of Finn Balor who was always one of my son's favorite guys and never felt like he got his total kind of push in WWE. He got hurt, too, which didn't help him. Yeah, he got the Universal Championship and then immediately got hurt.

And that can be everything in a pro wrestling career, especially in WWE. Before AEW, there's relatively little competition, at least stateside. And so your career can feel a little bit fickle at times. But yeah, Finn Balor is over there in NXT and they were looking for I mean, they were specifically targeting like one fairly big name from the main roster to bring down. And he just sort of lined up perfectly, you know, coming back off a little bit of time off and and being able to surprise everybody. And and, you know, he spent some time in NXT, so he's got the admiration of the fans down there in Florida. That could be really cool.

Well, it remains to be seen, I guess, how meaningful he is to ratings. But it sure does make it feel like more of a real part of the fabric of the WWE universe. And I'm looking forward to see what they do. I have some guys in NXT who are men and women who are just among my

very, very favorites. I'm excited to see how that plays out too. Ben Simmons was so excited. Tommaso Ciampa's back. That was one of his favorites. They actually, if you went wrestler for wrestler, they might actually have more wrestlers that my son likes than the WWE does.

If you're going to do your top eight, I think he would probably pick the top eight. But he just likes that style of wrestling more. And I think you could even feel in the SmackDown show where the first hour of it, there was probably, what, 11 minutes of wrestling? And it was a lot more promos and bits and interviews. And he just wants to see guys flying off the rope, doing flips and all kinds of stuff.

I think the only women's wrestler, he loves Becky Lynch. I mean, that's, but I actually think he's in love with Becky Lynch, which is probably a piece of that. We walked by her on Sunday night and he almost had a stroke. But the one wrestler that is just spectacular and I think has a real case for the goat for women's wrestling, and it's probably thought that anyway, but I really think it's been cemented. Charlotte Flair just gets better and better. And she's the one women's wrestler in person that is really breathtaking. Like that backflip she does off the top rope

into multiple people is one of the most death defying moves anybody has. I'm just so impressed by her. I think she continues to improve. Yeah, she's really spectacular. I mean, I think part of, I mean, she's a little bit hamstrung just because she's so much more of a physical force than a lot of the people that she's in the ring with on a week-to-week basis.

You know, it would be interesting to see her in a, you know, a company full of her physical equals, although it's never going to happen. That's not happening. But, I mean, there are, there's some real, there's some bangers coming up, man. I mean, like, you know, Shayna Baszler's down there in NXT. That'd be really that'd be a really fun matchup. And then, you know, Toni Storm and Rhea Ripley. Rhea Ripley is obviously more of a, you know, closer to Charlotte's stature. But and Io Shirai is down there, too. I mean, the developmental system is loaded with women who are going to be have the potential to be giant stars. So, you know. But don't you think it's crazy that Ric Flair is one of the four best wrestlers ever and I think some people would make the case he's the best? I don't know how I feel about it.

I'd really have to look at everything. He's definitely in the conversation. And his daughter is now the best women's wrestler of all time, in my opinion. Yeah. Like, can you imagine if Michael Jordan, like his daughter, was just easily the best player in the WNBA right now? That would be like fucking crazy. Yeah, it's not even Michael Jordan because Michael Jordan was a freak.

I mean, I mean, Ric Flair was a freak in a lot of ways, but nobody would have pegged him to be like, I mean, he wasn't like Ricochet back then. True. He's more like Larry. Yeah, he's more like Larry Bird. Yeah. It would be like if Larry Bird's daughter was the greatest ever. And you'd be like, well,

I mean, I'm sure she learned a lot, but, but that would be if Larry Bird's daughter turned out to be, you know, a comp, an utter unmapped. I mean,

it's, it's crazy that Ric Flair, I mean, I could imagine Ric Flair, I guess is what I'm saying. Uh, that his daughter would be like the most brilliant wrestler of all time. It's shocking that like his daughter is like the female Brock Lesnar.

Right. Um, which is not to say she's not really smart. She's the best at facial expressions at carrying herself in the ring. I kind of own in the stadium. I think one of the issues with women's wrestling, when you go see it in person is the command of the room just isn't there. Cause they're not as physically imposing.

Like even you could feel it on Friday night, the two people that walked in and you're just like, oh yeah, they are meant to do this. We're The Rock and Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar comes out. We've talked about this before. When you're in the arena and he comes out, you feel like you're in fucking Rome in the, you know, whatever century in the gladiator. He's about to like wrestle a tiger, you know? He just doesn't seem like the other guys. And I think The Rock was like that too in his heyday. And Charlotte, out of all the women, is probably the closest to that other than maybe Nia Jax.

Because when she comes out, she's physically imposing for a bunch of different reasons. But yeah, Charlotte, there's a command of the room with her that definitely you can feel in a 17,000-seat stadium. That's no small feat. Yeah, I love that she's in the big robes and everything else. She's great. Yeah, I mean, she accentuates it. And yeah, I mean, you're definitely right.

She can fill up one of those big arenas in a way that it's really tough to although you know Becky Lynch is much smaller in stature but I mean she didn't feel out of place

standing next to The Rock not at all eight times bigger than her in the ring at the open up to show you know who's sweet on Charlotte Flair Shoemaker

who Niffy Kyle get out no you were you were when we took you to wrestling that time that was the one that jumped out definitely no you liked her you were you were when we took you to wrestling that time that was the one

that jumped out definitely no you liked her you said you'd stay with the dark room I respect her you said who's most likely

to you talk to at the dark room at 11 at night sure because she's the most likely to be at the dark room yeah but that's why you liked her she's your people

sure she's not at the top of my list wow Kyle who's at the top of your list let's get into this.

You might have to have Kyle on the Masked Man show. He can give his list. Kyle, you're welcome anytime. That'll be great. Yeah, Becky Lynch. I'll be interested to see how her next couple years go. Because ultimately, the history of wrestling would tell us that at least a chunk of the wrestling fan base will turn on her at some point because she's so popular.

That just doesn't work in wrestling for more than two years. It's name me. Anybody who's been popular from where that popular for more than two years where there's not that, ah, fuck that backlash and people turn. So when does that happen with her? Well, they turn, I mean, they turned Austin heel before that, ah, fuck that backlash, and people turn. So when does that happen with her? Well, I mean, they turned Austin Heal

before that could happen, but I'd say he was popular for more than a couple years. But you're right. I mean, I think that that's the right thing. I will say in her defense that she, by the skin of her teeth, made it through what would have turned the audience on anybody else,

which was like coming out openly in, in the storyline with her real life engagement to Seth Rollins. I mean, there's like having your two biggest baby faces, have it revealed that they are in a permanent relationship is like boom material. I mean, that's like,

there's nothing that should turn the crowd on you, you know, more than, more than that. And, and, and both of them sort of made it through and her, her in particular. So, you know, maybe she's, maybe she's them sort of made it through, and her in particular.

So, you know, maybe she's a little bit more bulletproof than some other people are. What do they do? Wrestling's never really been in a situation like this with a real-life couple that also double as two of the five biggest stars they have. Right? Has that happened before?

I mean, I don't know two of the five biggest stars. No, I mean, they're not female wrestlers. I'm trying to think if there's an example. No, there's never been anything like this. I mean, Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth, she wasn't wrestling, but Miss Elizabeth was a god of the 80s. But they came in together. Yeah, that's what I mean.

But I mean, where they became, they were able to get storylines out of them that a few storylines that, let's just say, have not aged well. Yeah, that's what I mean. But I mean, where they became, they were able to get storylines out of them that a few storylines that let's just say have not aged well. Yeah, for sure. But I think in this case, from a wrestling standpoint, there's seems like there's a lot they could do with this, but I'd be interested.

Maybe they don't want to work together. Maybe it's a church and state thing. I think it'd be wise to keep them apart, especially because it's not, I mean, I guess you can exploit it when it's I think it'd be wise to keep them apart especially because like it's not I mean I guess you can exploit it when it's necessary but like you know wrestling fans know it's no no that's happening and I get for some reason just to bring it into the I mean that it's one aspect of real life that like we're the wrestling fans just don't feel the need to see translate over into the ring I think is you know I don't know it just it just feels a little bit off for whatever reason you're

down on this relationship I can feel it I can hear it in your voice you don't like it you don't know. It just, it just feels a little bit off for whatever reason. You're down on this relationship. I can feel it. I can hear it in your voice. You don't like it. You don't like these two together. I think that you're talking about wrestling history. I think that the, I mean, this isn't a direct parallel,

but there's a, one of the really great things, especially if you're a WWE fan is that having those two in a relationship makes it makes you feel a little bit more comfortable that they'll stick around for the longterm. Right. It's like, it's like when it's like old wrestling promoters used to get, used to try to get wrestlers to marry their daughters to make before they'd make them for the long term, right? It's like when old wrestling promoters used to try to get wrestlers

to marry their daughters before they'd make them champion, you know, so that they would stay. But no, I think, you know, listen, I want my favorite wrestlers to find happiness. It's one thing that the wrestlers of my childhood, of your childhood, most of those dudes did not find happiness, and I want nothing but the best for the wrestlers of this generation, honestly. And, you know, most of these wrestlers now,

and Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch are examples of this, they grew up like big wrestling fans. You know what I mean? And they're not football players who blew their knees out and always make this point, but these are folks like us. And I want them to succeed, and I want them to be happy. Folks like Ben Simmons 10 years from now. Absolutely. It's my only chance for him

to get a job. Shoemaker, Pressbox, Tuesday, Friday. It's been on fire lately. Lord knows we were worried about twice a week with this work and there's more than enough for you to talk about twice a week, especially as we head

into 2020. And then the Masked Man show, which you're doing this week on Thursday, special guest, I won't spoil it. And then we're moving that to Tuesday

and that's going to be, it'll go up late Tuesday night heading into this weird new wrestling calendar we have. We'll see how long it lasts. We'll see what we can do. Shoemaker, you're the best. Good talking to you. Thanks, man. It's good to be here. We'll see how long it lasts. We'll see what we can do. Shoemaker, you're the best. Good talking to you.

Thanks, man. It's good to be here. All right. Thanks to Jason Gay. Thanks to David Shoemaker. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Square, the company that makes little white square credit card readers. They also make pretty much anything you need to run and grow any kind of business. Things like point of sale, payroll, online stores, invoicing, and more. See how Square can take your business from square one to whatever's next at square.com slash go slash BS.

Don't forget about the rewatchables. Remember the Titans. It's already up. And we'll be back on Thursday. One more podcast. And you said Rosillo's podcast is really good, right? It's fun. And it's weird.

You wanted it. You got it. Weird Wednesdays. Weird Wednesdays. you said Rosillo's podcast is really good, right? It's fun. And it's weird. You wanted it. You got it. Weird Wednesdays. Weird Wednesdays. Yeah, Rosillo. I've been pushing him to do Weird Wednesdays. And finally, he's started Weird Wednesdays. I predict it becomes a thing.

Hashtag Weird Wednesdays. Back on the BS on Thursday. Until then. On the seat there, on the way so I never said I don't have feelings with him On the way so I never said I don't have feelings with him