The Bill Simmons Podcast - Denver’s in Charge, Ant's Unbelievable, Kimmel’s Back, and UFC 299 Storylines With Rob Mahoney, Jimmy Kimmel and Ariel Helwani

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney to discuss the Nuggets win over the Celtics, the epic Anthony Edwards game and where some of the second tier contenders rank in the west (01:25). Then, Bill catches up with Jimmy Kimmel to talk Oscars, what it’s like hosting, and his best memories from the shows (54:45). Finally, he closes it out with Ariel Helwani to talk Ngannou-Joshua, UFC 299, and the future of 'WWE Raw' on Netflix (01:35:04). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Rob Mahoney, Jimmy Kimmel, and Ariel Helwani Producers: Kyle Crichton, Steve Ceruti, and Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, hoops, UFC, Jimmy Kimmel, lots going on next. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day. All the gang's here.

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for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up Roadhouse and the Rewatchables on Monday night and you can watch that if you want on youtube.com slash bill simmons we're putting up a lot of videos and clips on that channel coming up on this podcast got a lot

going on rob mahoney thursday night basketball incredible anthony edwards game what's going on with the mavericks what's going on in the west what's going on with the Mavericks? What's going on in the West? What's going on with the Heat? Celts Denver covered all of it. Then Jimmy Kimmel came on. What's it like to host the Oscars? What are we expecting in 2024? What is the arc of hosting for him over the last 25 years? And then we made fun of Babydoll. That happened. And then last but not least, Ariel Hawane is in Saudi Arabia doing Ngannou versus Joshua, which is on Friday. We talked about that. We talked about UFC 299, which is Saturday. And then Mike Tyson's going to fight in Dallas.

Mike Tyson? That Mike Tyson? Yeah, we talked about that too. So a lot going on. Let's bring in our friends from Pro Gym. All right. What a night of basketball. Holy mackerel. We're taping this.

It is 938 Pacific time. Rob Mahoney from The Ringer, from The Ringer NBA show, from the prestige TV podcast is here. Rob, I'm going to start here. The Celtics lost to the Nuggets. So Sunday, Celtics kill the Warriors. They're 48 and 12.

Everybody's like, whoa, oh my God, juggernaut. And they're up 20 against, 22 against the Cavs. They blow that down the stretch. Then Jokic makes them look like a pretender tonight. I like it. All the pressure going off the Celtics. No expectations, baby. We're back.

Good try. I mean, it's admirable what you're trying to do. Thank you. Yeah, I don't think we're quite there yet. Jokic is the best player in the world and one of the best offensive players of my lifetime and is getting to the point down the stretch of these games. You cannot out-execute him. You can really only do what Phoenix did on Sunday night, is just outscore him because he's just

getting baskets. He's either going to score. If you're just going to single cover him, he's going to score on that guy. If you're going to sag single cover him, he's going to score on that guy. If you're going to sag guys on him, he's going to find somebody. Gordon's always lurking over the baseline. It's always something. And it feels like he's 80% down the stretch of these games, Rob. Yeah. Somehow the most undercovered part of Nikola Jokic

is that he's sneakily maybe the best crunch time player in the league. And he is completely unflappable, stays completely within himself, and gets whatever shot he wants. And usually in the case of games like is completely unflappable, stays completely within himself, and gets whatever shot he wants. And usually in the case of games like this against the Celtics, that's right at the basket. And even when it looks like the shot he wants,

sometimes it's actually a lob to Aaron Gordon for one of the most impressive plays in crunch time you'll see all season. Nuggets didn't even, other than him, didn't even really play that well except for Peyton Watson. Half of the crowd was rooting for the Celtics. What a Peyton Watson game, though. Incredible.

Holy shit. When I saw them the other night, I hadn't really seen him in person playing real minutes this season yet against the Lakers. And his athleticism just kind of jumps out of the building when you're there. And then today it was the same thing. Mike Malone, they lose Bruce Brown, and they're really like Brown, who did some good stuff for them last year,

but they're counting on him more. And then Watson, they're like, look, these have to be our guys. We're going to ride this out. We're going to have some ups. We're going to have some downs. And we hope by March, by April, we can count on these guys. To me, Watson is an, I can count on this guy now. He's really starting to feel himself

athletically. And the flip side, the Celtics bench, Tillman, Horford, minus 12, minus 10. Hauser was fine. He just happened to be out there at the wrong time. And Pritchard, once again, looks super small. And the Celtics bench just couldn't really hold anything. And then there's the Tatum thing. Do you want to do that now? Yeah, where do you want to start with him? It was a rough week for Tatum because we had that crunch time last play of the game.

Cleveland, 19 dribbles, walked it up, started too late. It seemed like he got fouled but then he didn't they lose and the next day it's just his clutch numbers become the story and everybody kind of at the same time looks it up and goes oh wow he's actually one of the worst clutch players in the league out of all the stars that we have he's 35 field goal and it kind of backed up what the eye test was showing so he did take a beating there for, you know, in the basketball online community. He did take a little bit of a beating for the first time in a while. This was somebody that a week ago, people were like, why can't he be the MVP? And I was on this podcast

going, look, I love the Celtics. There's no way he's the MVP. Jokic is in the league and he's healthy and he's kicking ass. But- I can think of five or six reasons he wouldn he's the MVP. Jokic is in the league and he's healthy and he's kicking ass. I can think of five or six reasons he wouldn't be the MVP personally. Right. Well, tonight's a good example. He just can kind of disappear every once in a while. The game tonight, he has five field goals and five turnovers and he missed the biggest shot of the game when they're coming back. Cut it to two.

Jalen Brown does this big boy outdoor playground steal on Jamal Murray where he's just kind of annihilating him. Picks his pocket. They have a three-on-one, and somehow it ends up with a wide-open Tatum three in front of the bench, 40 seconds left. Misses it.

And they take the lead. That was the game. Especially a game where you get huge plays from Brown, from KP, from Drew Holiday. And then when it comes to be Tatum's turn, and this was, you know, this is the virtue of the team the Celtics have built is that he doesn't have to do everything, but he does have to deliver in those sorts of moments.

And it's unfortunate the way the magnifying glass kind of comes down on you here, or the microscope, I should say. Like, the level of scrutiny a star player is in under crunch time is never exactly fair, but this is the burden that you take on as the best player on a great team is in under crunch time is never exactly fair. But this is the burden that you take on as the best player on a great team. And it's the burden he's going to be held to all postseason long, whether he delivers or not.

And I think the reality of this Boston team is they're going to win some close, really competitive games down the stretch of playoff series. But for the most part, I think they're going to have to win, if not going away, then by keeping teams at a bit of a distance. I think what they want to avoid is less this kind of crunch time situation and more the Cleveland one. Don't let teams cut into leads that they have no business cutting into and avoid those situations.

And you're probably good enough and talented enough to just be fine. It would be nice if Joe Mazzulla had a sense of the pace of the game too. Like even today, Nuggets are in control. We go to halftime. I think they're up eight.

Celtics come out, two straight baskets. Mike Malone's like, I've seen enough. Timeout. Calls the timeout. It was like 50 seconds in. That was what was missing in that Cavs game

where you could feel something, something flipping in the game. Cavs started hitting threes. The Celts were up 22. It's like, just cut a timeout now and we're up 17. Hey, guys. Hey, let's stay focused here. I thought Mike Malone today was great.

Some of the stuff they were doing to mess with Tatum, they were throwing length at him. They were throwing kind of pseudo doubles at him. Caldwell Pope was jumping into passing lanes. Yes. I thought that was... Caldwell Pope, what into passing lanes. Yes. I thought that was... Caldwell Pope, what did he end up with? Yeah, 11 points.

I was like, ah, whatever. Caldwell Pope was disruptive defensively, and so was Gordon. I thought the length of those guys, plus Watson, really gave Tatum problems in this game. Yeah, that second level from KCP, where when you're showing on the pick and roll, you're putting your defense in a vulnerable position,

somebody from the back line has to be doing something aggressive, or else a team like Boston is just going to beat you, right? Like KP is going to roll to the elbow, get a really clean shot over the top of somebody. A cutter is going to get a look going to the rim, or Tatum's just going to go around Nikola Jokic and get a pretty good look. But when you have KCP scrambling through and mucking everything up, coming away with three steals in this game, and they were basically like pick six type steals, like the steals going the other way, huge momentum plays.

That's the kind of veteran thing that you're not getting from any work-a-day 3 and D player. It's what separates guys like KCP from the genre that they're in. They're seven deep, seven and a half with Reggie Jackson. Sure. Right, the Nuggets.

But the seven and a half really play well. And it's hard to notice when guys are in and out unless Jokic isn't out there. There's a real cohesion with them. The Celtics, I was psyched Porzingis played in this game. I really wanted to see their top six against Jokic.

But Horford was kind of the odd man out, and it was really Jomaz riding those five guys. And I wonder if this ends up being the finals, which I think from the level of play tonight, that felt like the finals, right? Both teams were treating it like it. You could even tell, if you just want to rewind, watch Denver's defenders

closing out to the Celtics shooters and you tell me this wasn't a team taking this game very seriously. And the stuff Jalen Brown was doing, that was one of the best games Jalen's played in his entire career. I know he missed a bunch of free throws, but there was a couple moments in this game when it seemed

like Denver was just going to go up like 20. And he just kept pulling them back into it. Porzingis had some good plays too. But the reason I brought up Horford is the Celts are basically five guys in this game. And when Porzingis is really playing, they lean on him like they did today. But 35 minutes today, then that becomes a weird spot for Horford, who I think they need against a team like Denver. Especially, I wonder if they end up meeting in the finals,

would they stagger the minutes a little bit, try to have him out there a little bit more against Jokic, or what they'll do. Tillman, to me, did Tillman look, does he look 100% to you, watching him run around? Looked okay. He looks a little gimpy to me.

I know he's had some some knee stuff. He has that kind of movement though to be honest with you. I say this with all due respect to Xavier Tillman but he's kind of

a clunkier mover. The one thing like even just looking at the box score but also what the eye test said I didn't feel like White was involved enough in this game.

Yeah. Because I think that's, if you look at the guys who have really given Denver trouble, it's been a lot of like those guards that can just kind of slash and kick and get in the paint and do stuff and kind of torch them. And in this case, White, in his eight shots, seven points.

But I don't know if it was a case of, it was very Brown, Porzingis heavy. But you think like the Celtics score 109 points, they were 29% from three. And you could come away from this game and say, hey man, if we just shot the ball a little better, Tatum makes that three with 40 seconds. Like our defense was pretty good. Jokic is going to, you know, he's a 30-11 or 11 guy in any big game. We're fine. If we see these guys again, we're here. But on the

other hand, Denver beat them twice. And that's it. And they've only played twice this year. It could be one of those matchups like the Lakers and the Nuggets where the games are close and competitive and yet one of the teams just seems to be a cut above in execution level, in the trust of their core guys.

And even as you're saying, and like the flow and their ability to balance and get everyone involved, I think ideally you want to get Derek White a little more involved in what you're doing, a little more central to what you're doing. But if Jalen Brown's scoring this well, and scoring this well out of isolation, right?

He was killing it. Unimpeachable creative game from Jalen Brown. I have no issues with it whatsoever. But there's going to be trade-offs to that. And some of the trade-offs for Boston often, whether it's Brown or Tatum, usually who are in that role, who are really going off one-on-one,

you lose some of the movement, you lose some of the momentum, you disconnect some of the pieces from your offense. And so then when you look at, oh, why did we miss so many three-pointers? Sometimes it's a matter of guys not being as involved in the offense as they're used to. And Boston does have that dynamic where they shift from guys going off for huge individual scoring nights. And also they're trying to work in this beautiful, elegant, balanced team game.

And those are hard things to bring about and have coexist at the same time. And pace, which they only had 81 shots today, which I think they usually want to be somewhere in the 90s. I'll say this about Jalen, who, you know, he signed that big contract. I think even the first month of the season, I remember we did a segment on the pod about it. It's like, how's this going to play out? Is he going to feel like he has to justify this contract?

Is there going to be a little weird Tatum Brown thing? Is the contract going to get in his head? The first time he sucks for a week, people are going to bring it up. How's this going to play out? I think it's played out unbelievably well. And something has shifted in his personality. I'm going to say it happened mid-December,

but even the little stuff like him wanting to go to All-Star Weekend, him wanting to be in All-Star Weekend, right? Him wanting to be in the Slam Dunk Contest. Yeah. Him wanting to win the All-Star MVP and Tatum telling Doc Rivers, like, give him my minutes. There's just like him against Golden State, like taking offense that Draymond left him and like actually talking some shit. Like there has been a little, little alpha thing kind of developing with him, which has been interesting. And he has always had the sense.

One of the reasons I love the Tatum Brown combo and I've never given up on it. They've had a sense of when to pick each other up when one of them is kind of sucking and the other one's like, Oh, I got to step it up because they're kind of attuned to each other. Today. It was a good example.

Tatum didn't have it. You could see it, you know, for the first couple of minutes and Brown's likeum didn't have it. You could see it, you know, for the first couple of minutes. And Brown's like, all right, I got this. And, you know, sometimes when he says, I got this, it's a little scary. But do you feel like he's gone up a level?

Because the stats, you know, he averaged more points a game last year. There's less shots this year. From a per 36 standpoint, it's pretty close. From a percentages, fairly close. But I think the difference with him is he's had some big games against good teams, which last year and the last couple years before,

like the good teams, the smart teams really struggle. And I don't feel like that's happening as much this year. I don't feel like that's happening. I don't know if he's gone up a level so much as I feel like he's more finely tuned on when to attack and how to attack. And maybe that's a definition of gone up a level so much as I feel like he's more finely tuned on when to attack and how to attack. And maybe that's a definition of going up a level in a sense. But he seems to fit better within the complexion of what the Celtics have.

And by that, I mean some games he's gunning for it in the first quarter, knowing that the offense is going to go elsewhere later. Or some games he's gunning it in transition and getting a lot of easy buckets at the rim for a team that desperately needs them or cranking it up defensively like we saw him do at stretches of this game. So I like that he has all those things in his arsenal. I like that he is that kind of balanced player and that, yeah, there is a teetering on the rails effect when he decides it's Jalen Brown time.

I think that's natural. I kind of like it. I've given into it. Absolutely. Look, if you're going to be a ballsy scorer, if you're going to be a secondary guy who can stretch and explode and go off for 42 points in a game against the defending champs, you're always going to be teetering on the edge of something. You can't expect that player to be perfectly well-mannered all the time. And to the extent you could, I think Jalen's done a really good job of that this season. Can I read you some texts from my dad starting about halfway through the game?

Are you going to do it in your dad's voice or in your voice? No, I'll just read them. 8.38 p.m. So this is start of the second half. Another no-show by Tatum. I respond, Jalen has been great. Too bad he can't make free throws, my dad's response. A little bit later. Really tired of these no-show games by Tatum has been great. Too bad he can't make free throws, my dad's response.

A little bit later, really tired of these no-show games by Tatum against elite teams. So I texted him back, Joe Maz putting Alan Tillman out there together with no yoga, just brutal. That was tough. He texted back, Joe Maz getting exposed by all the top coaches. He belongs in the second row. Alright.

And then just a little bit later, this is the Tatum from the Golden State Series, afraid to be aggressive. And then his final thoughts were, again, Tatum sucked the whole game. Really disappointing. No show. That's my dad. I mean, granted, he's 76 years old and it's like past

midnight. He's coastline, but very grumpy. He has like a real fear about Tatum in some of these big games. He just feels like there's some hurdle that he hasn't hurdled yet, where the game hasn't calmed down for him. He's like, okay, this is what I do. I'm just going to do this tonight, like the way Jokic did. Jokic is like, all right, they're doing this.

I'll do this tonight. Like the way Jokic did. Jokic's like, all right, they're doing this. I'll do this. And Tatum, every time I feel like he's gotten there, a game like tonight happens. He's so confounding in that way. Like when he's good, he's not good because he makes the game look super easy. It's just that he hits really hard shots. Right.

And he manufactures really hard shots and he hits them at a high rate. Like those are the good scoring Jason Tatum games. And he hasures really hard shots and he hits them at a high rate. Those are the good scoring Jason Tatum games. And he has lots of great other kinds of games. Playmaking games, defensive games, games where he's operational and focal to what they're running, all those things. But Jokic is a great

counterpoint because he does make everything look so easy. He does make splitting two defenders, spinning into a third, and still making the perfect read look like everyone should be able to do it. And the fact that Denver can always fall back on that, if nothing else, and that's just Jokic,

because I think you could make the argument that Murray does some of those similar things, although he has a similar Jalen Brown teetering on the edge of something going on in his game too that's exciting. But when you have Jokic, all of that makes sense. A player like Aaron Gordon

makes so much more sense. A cutter who is as strong and as good a finisher and oh my god, the putback dunk Aaron Gordon had, not to mention the lob,

might be the dunk of the year. On top of everything else. So they just have everyone so perfectly placed around him. And when your core guy can be trusted to make offense and really make NBA

basketball look so easy, this is where you get. You beat historically great regular season teams, you go on long playoff runs, you win finals, you win finals MVPs. It's really looking like Denver's angling in that direction again. Yeah. I said on Sunday's pod, I just feel like the road goes through them. If they're going to be healthy, I don't see how a team beats them four times in seven games. I think they could beat them like Phoenix did on Sunday night where it's like, oh yeah, we got their number

and we beat them in OT. But to beat them four times when they can execute at the level they can execute at is pretty nuts. Is Jokic climbing the ladder for you? That's a great question because I wouldn't say he's doing a lot this year that is over and beyond who he's already been. It's three straight years of it now.

That's the thing. I mean, really like three and a half years of it. The team around him is better, but he's, you know, that's, I think the thing that's impressive to me is you're talking like an entire presidential term now of him at this level. Yeah.

You know? I mean, it's so discouraging. U.S. democracy could die before Nikola Jokic stops being a dominant NBA player. It's so discouraging when you've bet against it or you're rooting against it. Like today, I'm like, and I think Porzingis has been good. I thought he was actually pretty good tonight. That's about as much as you consider it. And they traded Marcus Smart and got Porzingis and two first-round picks. And then to see him today going kind of trying to go toe-to-toe with Jokic,

but Jokic just made him look silly. And Porzingis is four inches taller than him. He could just over and over again on one-on-one and get him and get the shot he wanted and made Porzingis smaller somehow. That was the craziest thing to me. He made Porzingis seem like he was like 6'8". I just... He's really climbing up

the ladder for me. I'm hard-pressed to think of a better offensive player I've ever seen. Especially given everything that's going on in the NBA right now. There's an arms race across the sport with crazy numbers and crazy offensive efficiency. Teams have cracked the code on spacing and how to use it.

And you're putting this guy who thinks the game at a level that's already in the 99th or 100th percentile we've ever seen in that sort of climate. It's really a singular thing. I mean, he had 11 assists tonight. His assists are like super assists because it's like his assists are, Aaron Gordon had four alley-oops

and Pope hit two wide-open threes and everything is like he's basically serving you the meal and giving you the fork and knife and putting the napkin in your in your neck and and feeding you the assist it's pretty crazy I to me it's Denver

and Boston I thought from a strategy point that was about as high level game I've seen we've seen a lot of entertaining games this year but this one had some real chess going on. Yes. And it felt like the finals. So who, if you had to pick one of those two teams

to not be in the finals, which one are you taking? Because Denver is in a much harder conference. That's the thing. I think if I had to pick one of them, I would pick Denver. Just because there's more people storming the gate in the West right now.

If we were feeling a little better about Milwaukee, and I think their defense is obviously much improved. They're starting to show some things they haven't shown all season. They're on the up and up, but Boston was so far ahead of them in terms of postseason equity, finals contending equity, that I think the Bucs

still have a lot to prove, versusus the Nuggets, we've seen, can get caught against the Thunder or against the Clippers. Some of these teams, they're good matchups for Denver, but I wouldn't put it entirely out of the realm of possibility, especially as you mentioned, if Denver has an injury to a key guy. If Michael Porter Jr. is out for

a series, if Contavious Colwell-Pope is out for a series, it changes what they do a lot. And it forces another young guy into an uncomfortable position they may not entirely be ready for. So I think Boston is more likely to get to the finals. But if they both get there, I would pick the Nuggets in a heartbeat over the Celtics personally. I think you have to out-offense Denver. So anybody that is not going to be able to outscore them four times, it's almost a cross-off. So to me, it's like it's Phoenix and the Clippers at this point. And we found out actually

during this game that Towns is getting the surgery. It's going to be four weeks. Brutal. They're going to reevaluate. We talk about Minnesota in the next segment because we taped it earlier, but we're going to reevaluate after four weeks. Those words have never been good. So I thought their size would have made it interesting against Denver, but now I think it's going to be a tougher task. So basically you're looking at the Clippers and then Phoenix who we talk about in the next segment. Before we go to break, another injury happened today. Curry, with like three three minutes left was driving to the basket and

pulled up and did something to his leg and limped off and did not finish the game. They lost to the Bulls. So we don't know what happened with that one, but it was like the first game the Warriors had everybody healthy and then he didn't even make it all four quarters. So that's another one to keep an eye on.

This is like injury time right around now. It always feels like mid-March is when weird stuff happens. We're barely a weekend to March and this is a cursed month. Totally. We're going to take a break, come back and talk about

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Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, we're back. We got to cover the early games. I told you to watch Miami Dallas, so I covered Edwards for us. But no Carl Anthony Towns because he has a torn meniscus. Edwards comes out. He goes full alpha.

Indiana's talking shit at halftime. There's like an Aaron Neesmith, Gobert thing. Edwards didn't like that. And he just took over and he put together one of the craziest last few minutes stretches I've seen in a while, culminating in a game winning block on Neesmith where he hit his head in the rim and then just started dropping straight down in a way that all other human beings either break their wrist, they twist their knees, something happens. He just dropped, landed, got up, and then celebrated for the next. I'm not positive he's human, Rob.

No, it must be nice to be able to react that way. But I would say not only did he hit his head on the backboard, it was like he hit his lower back on the backboard. He was almost fully horizontal trying to hunch under that thing after pinning the ball. So definitely operating on a different plane, Anthony Edwards. And that 90 seconds, that two minutes of basketball, unbelievable stuff from him, especially after all the consternation about the Wolves and Crunch time this season.

That's quite a bit of punctuation for the resume, I will say, at this point in the season. Well, the body language doctor was with me watching. It was curious that Edwards, I think he ended up with 34 shots. He was going full out for the whole game and was just going nuts after these baskets. And I was wondering,

is he just, he doesn't like Indiana? Is he fired up for tonight? Or is he trying to show the team the season's not over yet? We're actually fine. They were playing slow-mo down the stretch in the town spot, and basically everything was running through Edwards. And I got to say, they were fine. I think the stuff Towns brings them, you know, he's got that weird size.

He's got the three-point shooting. He's the second option for them to go to. Is it conceivable to you that they could be just as good without Towns? Like, where do you stand on this? The no Towns, yes Towns thing. I would be very surprised given the construction of this team as it is now

because, you know, the conversation around Cat gets reduced to his fit with this group, the weird fouls he commits sometimes, him being like kind of a corny personality, honestly, is a big part of the Carlton Towns experience. And the hoops IQ, like the terrible foul out of nowhere, getting the fifth and sixth fouls right in a row, like all the dumb things he does.

Those are all part and parcel of it. But the reality is going into this game, the Wolves offense has basically ceased to function when he's not on the floor. It's been really hard for Edwards to take over games in this kind of capacity, even for just minutes at a time, in lineups that don't include Carl.

So it works really well against the Pacers' defense. And I'm very eager to see how this goes over the next couple weeks when the schedule takes a turn, when you're on the road for a bit, when things really aren't going your way. The Anthony Edwards,

the overall Anthony Edwards creative experience can be very different on the nights where he starts out one for six, one for eight. And it gets the offense into a weird place where you're not just worried about late game execution, you're worried about like, how are we going to get through this quarter with 25 points? Like the Wolves do have those stretches in them. And I worry. I worry about how they're going to look during some of those moments because they're going to need a lot of these sorts of Anthony Edwards games to get through the regular season and certainly through the playoffs, depending on

what Towns' injury diagnosis is in one piece. We agree. They're not better off without Towns. They're going to be more fun to watch without Towns because it's going to be the Edwards show and it's basically going to be Gobert anchoring the defense, a lot of role players, people on that. And then Edwards is just doing his thing. But Towns, I watched a lot of Minnesota and I still, like Russell and I talked about them on Sunday night. You know, they look, they looked with towns, even they look really stilted at the end of games. Sometimes you're like, ah, offensively, especially in the playoffs and the defenses get better. It's hard for me to imagine them scoring baskets. But on the other hand, their defense was so good.

It's like, well, maybe in the playoffs, that's maybe you'd want that almost. And you have one creator and one shooter. Maybe that's what you need. So I just never decided on them. I wasn't sure if they were going to be first round or not. Yeah. All the way to the finals. Basically, anything seemed possible to me. They need Towns.

I'm not inventing the wheel on that one. But the thing that I really like with him is the size. He's just weird. They're weird with him. Right? What makes them weird? Well, because sometimes he can guard. They'll put him on point guards and stuff.

Or they'll put him on James Harden, which they were doing against the Clippers. Right. And they just have a little more flexibility. Now they're a more conventional team. But as you said, then Towns is making that weird face he makes or Towns is doing something dumb. You're like, oh man, they're never going to win with that guy. It's so tough without Towns because when the offense isn't going for the Wolves, one way you get over that is like this. Anthony Edwards, whatever you may think of his decision making out of the pick and roll or late in games,

sometimes he makes the decision to just be the best player on the fucking planet for minutes at a time. And he will do that. The other way they get through those tough stretches is towns to kind of your language here being weird, like being a weird in between option where he can catch at the elbow, mid late clock, hit a hit an off balance runner, hit-balance runner, post up somebody from high up and somehow get an angle to go or draw a foul. His ability to just accrue total gross offense over the course of a game is something that no one else on this roster can do.

For as much as we love Nas Reid or we like what Kyle Anderson brings to the table or the variety of role players that Minnesota's rolling out there otherwise, Jaden McDaniels is not stepping up and having 25 point games on a regular basis. It's just not going to happen. And so it's going to be ant gunning for 50 and he's going to succeed or fail.

And the wolves in some of these games are going to succeed and bail on those terms too. Yeah. Maybe Nas Reed can 10, like 10 more minutes a game of him and grab some of it. Edwards grabbed some of it, but long-term, I just like the town's flexibility series to series. I thought that was one of the things that made him special. There's still, right now, the one seed. We're taping this before the Denver

Boston game, the second segment, we're going to be reacting to that. So there's still the one seed. You think about the 7, 8, 9, 10, which I think has mattered. We've only had the plan for a couple of years, but the 10 seed feels like such a death sentence to me. You know, like this Golden State, the Lakers, now Dallas is even at the eight seed right now, though they didn't win tonight. But if you get that 10 seed, I have to win on the road against the nine seed. Then I have to win on the road again against the 7, 8 loser. And then I have to go on the road against the 9 seed. Then I have to win on the road again against the 7-8 loser. And then I have to go to the 1 seed, which could very

well be Minnesota. And I don't know. If you had to bet on who gets the 1 seed, I'd probably bet on Denver because they're the most static team I trust the most with the no-towns piece. But

it would be interesting if it was Lakers-Minnesota somehow, that 1-8. And Edwards against LeBron. And Edwards being like, finally, I get to play my rival, LeBron James. His only rival, you know? Yeah, this is it. Finally, somebody who walks on the planet that I'm from.

But that would be fun. Anyway, the Edwards thing, it looked a little Wade, MJ, hybrid-ish. Yeah. And there's been some talk recently, especially even on this podcast, about, all right, who are the next American guys? What do we got? Curry's 35, LeBron's 39. Who's next?

Is it Tatum? The Celtics win the title? Could he be the young American face of the league? But it feels like Edwards would be the minus 150 favorite. Edwards feels like the climber, right? We're still kind of, relatively speaking, on the ground floor of this. He's still learning on the job.

He's still figuring out everything he can do, including how high he can and needs to jump to impact some of these plays. Don't hit your head on the road anymore. Yeah, learn how to not do that. We live and we learn. And that's what he has over Tatum. The baseline for Tatum is always going to be super high. It's always going to put him well into the top 10. Maybe you can make an argument top five some seasons, depending on who else is playing in the league at that point, who's healthy and who's not. But Edwards is starting from a lower place, but has the potential to be a top three guy. Has that sort of explosion in him. And it's just going to be a matter of whether

he can harness his inner Tatum in some respects. Can he equalize and find the balance of his game in addition to all these explosive qualities? There's a lot of deja vu with some of the great two guards that we've had with him. I was feeling it tonight. It was just so reminiscent of those late 80s MJ games, something like that. Miami and Dallas, which we wanted to really dive into because Dallas seemed like... I felt like if they lost this game, it's probably about as late as you could go where you could fire your coach and get another coach in and still

be okay for the playoffs. Their defense was so bad the last two weeks. I think they were 30th. 30th net rating on defense. Which is like, this is a league with Washington and Detroit and San Antonio in it. Honestly, 30th feels better than it looked.

Somehow it was worse than that. Ugh. And they just looked like... I thought the Sunday game was alarming. The game the other night was alarming against Indiana. I just like... I really felt like something was broken.

So they end up winning tonight. Kyrie hits the big three in the corner down the stretch. This team doesn't feel special to me. It feels like two really good guys and a bunch of... And part of it for me goes back to that

weird P.J. Washington trade they made, which I didn't really like at the time. Oh, you're not into that? I'm not. I think I see the nerd cases for him. I'm here to make it Well, what is he really good at? Right? Is he an excellent defender? Not really. Is he a really good rebounder?

No. Is he an awesome three-point shooter? No, not really. Is he like a lighted-up scorer? No He's like kind of pretty good at everything and I just feel like you're giving up your number one pick, unprotected in 27, and Grant Williams, you've just signed, you're giving up your number one pick unprotected in 27 and Grant Williams. You've just signed who you're giving up in 50 games, who by the way, has been

good with the Hornets. And then Seth Curry, I just don't think it's an, I wouldn't say that's an upgrade. It's like, oh yeah, we're slightly better, but I don't want to give up my first round pick unless it's like, yeah, man, let's go. Like when Miami gave up a pick for Rozier, it's like, all right, that makes sense to me. Rozier is a considerable upgrade. Make the case for P.J. Washington for me. Well, I think you can quibble at the price, right? What you give up and how much and whether it's worth that,

I think is a conversation unto itself. Whether P.J. Washington, a player who, as you said, is just kind of pretty good across the board, is useful to the Dallas Mavericks, a team that I would remind you, in the Luka Luka Doncic era has not had a lot of players who were just across the board pretty good. It's a lot of specialists. It's a lot of one-dimensional guys. It's a lot of guys who are going to turn up six points in a game of cardio and call it

pretty good. And they've needed some pretty good in their rotation. They've needed this sort of can we just get 20 to 30 reliable forward center minutes where we don't have to go ultra small. That's been a huge thing for them too, is being able to play whether it's Maxi Kleba at the floor four, PJ Washington at the four, and you get to keep Gafford and Lively

on the floor at the same time. This is a team that's gotten crushed on the boards all season. And so any effort to put more rebounding and more size on the floor for season. And so any effort to put more rebounding and more size on the floor for them, I think is a good thing. The issue with them is they rotate so much on defense. They are just like flying around in a bad way,

over-rotating, over-compensating, to the point that if you just know how to pass, if you just kind of keep your head on as an opposing team, you're going to get wide open threes, if not wide open threes, if not wide open layups against the Mavs. And they have to fix that. And maybe some of it is trusting that the combination of Washington and Gafford

or Washington and Lively or Maxie and either of those bigs, that that's going to be enough interior defense. We don't have to overcompensate all the time. Well, it's tough when your two best players are below average defensive players. It certainly does. That's the foundation of their team. And you can only play five players.

So when two of them are negative defensive players, that's a problem. It's a weird team for Kyrie. And I think he's been good. I think if you were going into the season saying what's the best case scenario for a Kyrie season, we've probably hit it. He said no drama.

He's, I think, had one semi-long injury, but not too bad. He seems healthy right now. Other than the total games missed, that might be the only kind of bugaboo in an ideal Kyrie season. But you're right. It's only been one kind of significant stretch

that he's missed. From a chemistry standpoint, Luka has the ball an incredible amount. Kyrie seems okay with it. He can kind of pick his spots like tonight where he made a couple shots and then made the biggest three of the game. I just don't know if it's the right team for him.

Like if we were saying, what would the most fun Kyrie Irving team be? I don't know if this is the one I would have picked because of how much Luka has the ball. And I don't really know what the perfect team would have been. Like I was thinking about how he would have been a good rocket

if they had taken that Van Vliet money and just said, fuck it, and given it to Kyrie instead. And it could have been him and Shang-Goon. It's like, all right, that might have been really fun. But I don't know if him as a Luka sidekick is the best use of him at this point of his career because he can't defend.

What makes him special is some of the crunch time stuff and the last four minutes of the game stuff. And they don't really need that stuff from him because Luka has the ball all the time. Well, sometimes they do. I don't know. In this game, he got to pay off in crunch time. He got to have his moments.

And there's been occasion for that. I think ultimately the Mavs need Kyrie more than Kyrie needs the Mavs, to be fair. That's a good point. He can fit in a lot of different circumstances. He can make sense for a lot of different teams. Basketball-wise, a guy who can create with the faculty he does.

Incredibly valuable. And what makes him valuable as a Maverick is the fact that as you said, Luka's going to have the ball and when he catches on the second side, he can make hay out of almost anything. Even if a defender is right on top of him, that ability to generate and manufacture offense is really

really vital. It's what Dallas needs in a second star and honestly, it's harder to find than you might think. That ability with five seconds on the shot clock, get a good shot. Kyrie Irving can do that in a way that almost no other plausible Luka running mate could. So for that reason, he's valuable. But defensively, they had to figure out a way to make it work.

So they plug Derek Jones Jr. into the lineup now. They're trying to see if that can work at the three. Dante Exum's giving them good minutes. It's an uphill battle finding the balance for a team like that. It would have been more fun if he was on Orlando. You're really just... The Rockets example

is that really is the Murray-Jokic two-man game on acid. Shang-Goon and Kyrie. Just fully psychedelic. Yeah. One thing with Dallas is Hardaway has sucked for like two months. It's been tough. He was okay tonight, but they

probably... I wonder if you would have put him in that P.J. Washington trade instead of Grant Williams. It seems like they just had to get rid of Grant Williams. God only knows what was going on in the locker room. You could kind of read between the lines on some of that stuff. All right, so if I give you teams in tiers where the top four, Minnesota, OKC, Denver, and the Clippers, and then we drop a notch and you go into those next six, which is New Orleans, Phoenix, Sacramento, Dallas, Golden State, Lakers,

would you lump those six together or would you have a 2A, 2B type of tier? Do you feel like there's a difference between the Pelicans and those other five teams or Phoenix? Because Beal has gotten going for Phoenix a little and I still don't trust that team and for them to stay healthy. But if you're giving me those six teams, I think I at least like the upside of Phoenix the most. Where do you stand? I think so. And I've been skeptical of their ability to stay healthy, among other things.

And some of the parts of the rotation, I don't fully trust. But relative to these teams, Dallas has these games in them like they had tonight. And the high end for Dallas is super high, but they're really inconsistent. Sacramento has been a mess for a minute now. And by a minute, I mean probably months. So I really don't trust where they are at this stage in the season. I would love to be able to bet on the Warriors based on what they've been able to recapture. By the way, you can bet on them

because it was, I think, minus 128 for them to make the playoffs. And then one last night and it jumped to like minus 145. This is with them as the ninth seed minus 128 for them to make the playoffs. And then one last night and it jumped to minus 145. This is with them as the ninth seed. They would have to win two games just to get into the playoffs. I think someone must be really liking their chances to beat Sacramento in a potential second play-in game. I can understand

that. But I think Phoenix is a cut above the rest of this group to be honest with you. It feels like their ceiling is the highest of those six, right? It's the highest, but also their median is probably higher than these other teams. And maybe that's being a little disrespectful

to New Orleans, who they've been able to cobble together a really impressive season. But I don't know. Does anyone really think the Pelicans can win two playoff rounds? I think that would be pretty aspirational, even for a deep, talented team

that's had as successful a run as they've had. So I think Phoenix is probably in a 2A, or I guess, yeah, tier 2A all to itself. And then the rest is kind of a kitchen sink group led by New Orleans, but also punctuated by whatever the Mavs can put together, maybe the best version of the Lakers you can conceive of. And I think the Warriors are right there too. I think the Lakers and the Mavericks and the Kings all have the same thing in common, which is if you catch them on the wrong night, you're like, oh my God, this team's defense is awful. They have no chance in a playoff series.

I'm watching them give up 140 points right now. What's happening? All three of them have that in common. New Orleans is different because New Orleans just looks like a bunch of guys that have only been playing together for like a week and a half.

And they just were like thrown together. They don't have plays yet. I just can't get a feel for them at all. Like some of the deficiencies that like Russell and I talked about on Sunday Night or Zion just doesn't rebound anymore. No. Just throwing that away. Did he ever?

He would get like seven or eight. Now it's like, throw that away. Herb Jones, they're running more offense through, which is... God bless. Obviously, he's my guy. Incredible. They're at that point of the season where they're like, I wonder what else we can get from Herb Jones offensively

it's like really but it just feels that team is just crying for a point guard when I watch them I just like just somebody who can

just take care of everybody in the court and look out for them and think about them now there's not a lot of those guys left I guess would be the counter to that

but that's a team that like a Derek White would be like the ultimate perfect guy. Yeah, a caretaker. Just a caretaker. A curator, maybe. You really do need somebody who has that sort of high emotional intelligence in addition to the day-to-day possession of possession,

just like operation of an offense. And that's where Point Zion is a fascinating idea. I love watching it. Is it the kind of thing that you trust to keep a team afloat through difficult stretches, to keep them afloat through long playoff series or long playoff runs? And that's why you experiment with Herb Jones.

And that's why you give Ingram touches running offense. That's why you have this kind of balanced attack. And I think CJ's done a credible job there as well within the role he's asked to play. But I think he would be the first to tell you he's not a tried and true caretaker type point guard like we're talking about. It's so funny.

These teams are just so erratic. Like I saw some tweet today. Dallas has stretches this year where they went three and six, two and five, two and six, and one and five. Good Lord. We're just like, for two weeks, they just suck. And then they're like, no, we figured it out again. We're good. But I

feel like the Lakers are like that too. I saw the Lakers on Monday night against OKC and they just big boy bully balled them and looked great. And then you watch last night and it's like Sacramento had 190 points against them. LeBron's limping off in the fourth quarter and you're going, oh, this doesn't look good. To me, Phoenix is the two-way.

And I think the Warriors have two-way potential. They could be. I want to see what happens with, what are they going to get from Chris Paul? It's because he looks old. Like since he came back, he just looks like old guy. But what are they going to get from Chris Paul? It's because he looks old. Since he came back, he just looks like an old guy. But what are they going to get from him? What happens with Wiggins when he's back? When Brando Pods is back in the lineup? How do you figure out the minutes for the 10 guys?

And then can Draymond stay normal for two months? Is that possible? Can we get two months of normal Draymond? The for two months. Is that possible? Can we get two months of normal Draymond? Theoretically. But anyway, I would say Phoenix 2A, everyone else 2B, but Golden State kind of holding

on the cliff, trying to pull themselves up to the 2A. We'll see what happens. All right, quickly on the Miami Heat, who lost to Dallas tonight, but and we'll see what happens. All right, quickly on the Miami Heat who lost to Dallas tonight but have started to look heatish. And even as you know, I'm the most afraid

of Miami every season. Yeah, do you hear like the Halloween theme starting to play just like following you around in day-to-day life? It's like, man, it's awfully quiet here in this summer house. It's kind of eerie. Wait, is that a noise in the garage? Oh no, it's awfully quiet here in this summer house. It's kind of eerie. Wait, is that a noise in the garage? Oh, no, it's the Miami Heat.

I do feel like the Celtics match up with them unbelievably well if we have Porzingis. I just think it's too much size for them. But you watch, especially the fact that Robinson is back. But just the, I'm guessing in the playoffs, they would go Bam, Butler, Robinson, probably Hero and Rozier, and then Jaquez, Martin, Jovich, Bryant,

maybe Patty Mills if he gets there, but they're deep. Patty Mills fits that Kyle Lowry, I'm going to take an annoying charge at the worst possible time spot. Rogier is such a massive upgrade over what they had with Lowry the last two years. And in some ways I like Hawkeyes for them more than Struis last

year who's hit or miss but always scared the hell out of me. But Hawkeyes, he can handle the ball. They can run some offense through him. This team's lurking. And I think they know they can beat Boston. They know they can beat Milwaukee. They're going to be in that four or five spot. And whether they pass Orlando or not, I'm not even sure home court advantage matters in that series. But it means the Celtics

will be staring at them in round two. And I think this is what Miami wants. Is it what you want? You're talking a big game about the Porzingis matchup, but does anyone want to walk into that against the Heat? Even if you are the deepest, like the most talented top six in the league? Well, even tonight, Butler was like, I'm going to guard Luka now.

And Luka still got some shots, but there was no space with him and Butler. Any shot he made was a really nice shot. The Porzingis thing is still the X factor for the Celts that they just didn't have last year. They can't hide a small on him. I just feel like they can put him at the foul line and try to shoot over people. On the flip side, the Rozier revenge factor with the Celts combined with the Butler, I'm tired of hearing about Jason Tatum, that piece.

Of course. And then the fact that every time Jalen Brown dribbles, they're just going to be diving at his knees trying to get the ball and all that. It's just there's so much like deja vu DNA that I think worries me about that. But do you like, the Heat is heading into tonight.

They're sixth in net rating for the last 15 games. And the eye test backed it up. They just looked Heat-ish. Do you like what you're seeing from them? For sure. I mean, I love them as a potential challenger. I think it's much because the Heat have been good as everyone else has been kind of hurt or dinged up or sliding a bit in the standings. Like that next tier after

Boston but especially after Boston Milwaukee really anybody's game if you want to talk yourself into the heat relative to the Cavs I'm here for it and I think they've made that case for themselves I think the defense has picked up significantly over the last month or so I think you're starting to see some of the new additions like Rozier payoff but also DeLon Wright when he's been healthy it's been a nice piece for them. I think he could be a playoff impact player, certainly. I should have mentioned him when I was listing all their dudes. The Celtics wanted

him, by the way, and Miami promised them playing time. Well, he should be in a position to get it. That cohesive upgrade of their point guard position between those two guys is pretty huge for them. And then Robinson playing better all season. He's been a really good playmaker. He's really expanded his game. But overall, when they work now, when their offense is hitting,

there's just a pace to it and a cleanliness to it in terms of how it's ordered that makes sense. When the ball is pinging around from driving kick to another guy who's going to drive and kick, everything just works a little better than it did earlier in the season. And some of that is just like the guys who are in there are healthier or the guys who were out before are now actually in the lineup.

And so the players are better. But some of it is just rhythmic too. I think they've started working out of the post a little bit more where that's to Jaime Jaquez's and Jimmy's advantage. Guys like that are going to have an easier time creating an initial advantage off the block versus trying to beat a defender one-on-one from the three-point line. So I think they're just getting a better sense of how to use this group. But what's most frustrating about them is that it

really does just seem like the primary difference from the beginning of the season to now is they just started playing better, as the Heat often do. And I don't know how to diagnose that in the games where they don't play great at this point in the season. It looks like Bam, I don't know what was going on with him offensively the first couple months, but it looks like he's more Bam-ish than he used to be. And then Butler's just playing more now.

I mean, Butler's somehow missed, I think, 19 games, and I can't remember a single semi-major injury he had. They've just been really careful with sitting him down and resting him. You'd think that Dame trade, though. So that would have been Jaquez and Hero. Yeah. Plus all their picks. Maybe Jovic.

And whatever. Any pick, they wouldn't have been able to get Rozier. their picks, maybe Jovic, and whatever would, any pick they wouldn't have been able to get Rozier. So it's basically Doré is Dame, Dorby is Hero, Rozier, Jovic, and Jaquez. And one more first-round pick. Yeah, and I think there were some

constructions where Robinson was in it too, for salary reasons. Oh, you're right. There's that potential, which if that's the cost now, the aggregate cost of all those guys, that might be kind of tough. Miami's been really reliant on them. Yeah. Well, I didn't like the Dame trade

when they were talking about it, so I feel kind of vindicated. If I was a GM, I would have tried to steal Robinson from them. Yeah. I just thought he had a bad year, and I think Struess was playing well, and his minutes got yanked around, but shooting doesn't

go south. Joe Harris went south, but Joe Harris had some real injuries, and it seems like physically he broke down. Robinson was still like, what, 27, 28? And we'd seen him do it on these stages, so I don't know. It just felt like he was sitting there for somebody.

It was like 16 million, which was a lot for Miami, but not a lot in the big scheme of things. No. I think what scares you is, you know, all the stuff that he's added to his game, like working off the dribble and driving, creating a little bit, all that's predicated on the shot.

And so when the shot doesn't go, the whole floor falls out. And we've seen that, especially in the playoffs, with guys like Davis Bertans, for example, look really good in the regular season for certain teams. You get in the playoffs, the shots don't fall, or teams change how they're guarding them, and then it's just zero

value. And that's a tough bet to make with a player who's at his salary level. Do you think that'll happen to Dean Wade, the best player in the league this year or now? You can't take Dean Wade out of it. Celtic murderer Dean Wade, the best player in the league this year or no. You can't take Dean Wade out of it. Celtic murderer, Dean Wade. Fucking killed that. It's from 21 with nine minutes left in this.

All right, Rob, thanks for staying up late with me. We can listen to you on Ringer MBA show and group chat. Of course. We can read you on ringer.com. And we can hear you most importantly with the queen, Joanne Robinson on the Prestige TV podcast,

Breaking Down Shogun, a show I still have not watched, but I promise to watch at some point over the next two weeks. Make some time for it. I think you'll really enjoy yourself. Subtitles psych me out, and I really have to be in the right mood

and know I'm going to put my phone away. I need to concentrate. I need to read. There's a lot of new characters. I need to devote the right time. Yeah, it's not a great show to watch while you also have Blazer's thunder up on a second screen. So definitely turn off the other monitors

for this particular occasion. But so far, Shogun's made it more than worth it. That's all we can really ask for. All right. Good to see you, Rob. Thanks, Bill. TD and your small business go together like TD small business account managers have in-depth business banking expertise

so they can give you the advice and resources you need to make your day-to-day easier so if you're ready to meet your small business match, we're ready for you. Visit td.com slash smallbusinessmatch to book an appointment with one of our advisors. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks.

Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Mail Boss Jimmy Kimmel is here. He's hosting the Oscars for the fourth time on sunday night you are now moved into fourth place by yourself in the career oscars host standings jimmy congratulations bob hope 19 billy crystal 9 johnny carson 5 you're one away from the king johnny carson i think i'm tied with Whoopi though, right?

Yeah, but she did a co-host thing once. I count that as a half. I don't count that as a full one. Okay. Well, I'll go with that. I'll go with that. To me, if there's tiebreakers, you were four by yourself. Plus, if you go

through the first one, that was the envelope Oscars. The next year was the Me Too Trump Oscars in 2018. And then last year was the, can the Oscars just please be normal again Oscars? So this has a chance to be your most normal Oscars. Yeah, I guess. Would that be a win or would that be a loss? And it's funny because I'm like the Olympic athlete who does okay, but doesn't get a medal.

Being in fourth place is not a great spot. I think it might be the worst spot. I'd rather be, I think I'd rather be in last than fourth. Well, you just need one more to be, to at least tie Carson. I think you got to do one more after this. You have to. Yeah, I don't know. All right, let's go backwards.

2017, first don't know. Let's go backwards. 2017. First one you hosted. It's moving like a whirlwind. And then all of a sudden, the craziest moment in the history of the Oscars happens. Then it was the craziest moment. It was going really, really well. Everything was working.

The show felt brisk people seemed happy was getting a lot of laughs it seemed like a grand slam and then I had one more bit to do just one more little bit where I talked to Matt Damon at the

end of the show and I'm sitting next to him and something's happening they announced the best picture winner and I said what's going on? He goes, I think they messed up. I said, I think you better go up there. And I was like, why would I go? And I was like, oh yeah, right.

I'm the host. I'm the only one with a microphone on. And went up there and wound up tap dancing for about 15 minutes. And now looking back, I don't even, it's funny, like it's seven years now, I don't even remember who ended up winning and losing. It is confusing. I sometimes have to really

think it through, but the wrong winner was La La Land and the actual winner was Moonlight. And they've just kind of merged together into one giant envelope mess. And we've never really gotten the full story from Warren Beatty.

What the hell happened? Hold on. I heard, uh, I heard more of the story that I did know, but I think I might've forgotten about, and I'm going to share it with you now because, uh,

I heard this from, uh, some of the people at the Oscars. So this is a little detail for those who don't remember. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty presented the Oscar for Best Picture. They I don't know that they are close friends. Let's put it that way. So there were some some, I think, disagreement about who would who would read the name of the Best Picture winner.

And Warren Beatty was the guy who was going to read the name. And Faye, I don't think, was thrilled with that. She wanted to read the name. And there was some kind of a discussion between camps or something like that. Ultimately, the decision was made that Warren would read the name. But this was kind of like a little drama that went on behind the scenes the week leading

up to the Oscars. This sounds fun. When Warren opens the envelope and looks at it and then kind of hands it to Faye Dunaway, the producers in the booth went, oh, wow, that's nice. He is going to let her read the winner. But I think the reason

that he was passing it off to her was because he wasn't entirely sure that it was correct. And he figured it would be better to let her screw it up. So she screwed it up. But then she didn't. No, he actually that she I think she declined to read the name and he read the name and the rest is history. But then he kept the envelope, right? Like they were trying to get it from him and he wouldn't give back. The guy who was at fault tried to get the envelope from Warren under some kind of like,

if Warren had handed that envelope to that guy, we still wouldn't know what happened. Probably most people would think it was Warren's fault. And that guy, I think that was his hope, that people would think it was Warren's fault because he knew he had a disaster on his hands. But Warren quite wisely said, no, no, I'm not giving anybody this envelope. I have an envelope right here that says Emma Stone La La Land on it, which is obviously confusing. So it was the best actress winner that got mixed up with the best picture envelope. And that guy, I think, is retired now. He might not be alive.

So where's the envelope now? Where's the second envelope? That feels like that should be in a museum or something, right? You mean the correct envelope? No, the mistake envelope, because there were two envelopes, right? They were open. Warren still has it. Yeah, It's in Warren's house. Oh, that's amazing. That's got, I mean, can you imagine just going through his house,

all the crazy shit he must have from the sixties, seventies, eighties. Holy shit. What a life this man had. I mean, really ridiculous. All right. So that was your 2017. That was your inaugural experience. You came on the podcast. I would urge people. They can go back March, 2017. You,

me and Sal, we went to your office. You rehashed the whole thing. 2018, way more tense Oscars. Nobody was feeling for you on that one. Well, in 2017,

at the end of the show, like after that envelope deal, they asked me right there to host, host host the Oscars again the next year. Because it went well? Not just because it went well. They also felt bad that the narrative was not that it went well. The narrative was about the envelope. Everything was about the envelope afterwards.

So I think they were like, oh, man, we owe him one. You know, this Oscars went well and nobody's even talking about that. They're all talking about this mistake that our accountants made. So they asked me to come back in 2018 and I said yes pretty much right away. So I knew for the whole year that I was going to host the show. And I knew I'd have something to talk about. I knew at least we had the envelope to refer to. But in the meantime, there are so many jokes, there's so much talk about it that you have to make sure

you have a... Whatever you say about the envelope, just like the Will Smith slap, has to be a home run. It can't be anything short of that. So I had that in my head. How was I going to handle that? And I think there was a lot of anticipation for the 2018 Oscars just because of what a lot of anticipation for the 2018 Oscars

just because of what happened at the end of the 2017 Oscars. Okay. Because that was like that we were a year into Me Too, Harvey Weinstein, there were all these people and it just had a weird edge but it still ended up... I mean, the bigger problem with that awards was like the movies.

They weren't like giant movies. Wasn't that like three billboards? It was just kind of one of those like indie years not like the exact opposite of what you have this year we have giant movies that people have seen yeah it was a tough even like the best picture i think was um that movie casey affleck was in right uh you know he won i know that he won best actor by the sea yeah. Manchester by the Sea was a very grim movie. It was about children burning in a house. It was not a lot of fun there. I somehow watched that

a second time six months ago and the movie is fantastic. It's about as grim of a movie that's ever been made. He's incredible in it. The movie's great. After that Oscars little note, I went outside

and Casey was just standing there alone with his Oscar looking for his car and he couldn't find his car. And it was really a funny contrast with winning best actor, you know, triumphantly. Then just standing out there,

just another guy on the street corner. Did you say Bruce by Uber driver? So then the Oscars goes, they do the train station one, which was a disaster and the ratings are dropping like crazy. And then you come back last year because basically everybody's like, Hey, can we have a normal Oscars again with a host that tells jokes and people dressed up in a big stage? And can we just do it the way

we did it? Well, it was funny because after I hosted that second year and it went well, the show went well. It was well-received. They decided that I decided, okay, that was good. I did two. I wasn't really necessarily even planning to do two. I was planning to do the one,

but then the envelope deal kind of made it like, well, I should probably... And don't forget I hosted the Emmys in 2017. So I hosted the Emmys three months before I hosted the Oscars. And we put a lot into that too, which is funny because I thought like, oh, this would be kind of cool. Nobody's ever done this before, hosted the Emmys and then hosted the Oscars right after the Emmys. And the truth of the matter is, I'm the only person that remembers that. And even I forget sometimes. You're like Dan Sanders. He plays two sports.

Then there was the hostless Oscars, which was kind of funny that after I hosted two years in a row, they're like, you know what? We don't need a host. Yeah. And was that the first one in the subway because there was some covid stuff going on there too right yeah that's why i had it in the in the train station and um

that oscars was like kind of beautifully shot and um very boring it it just didn't have like any it looked like a movie it didn't look like a tv show and i think sometimes that's one of the problems with uh hiring movie producers to host the oscars they don't know how to produce a tv show and i think sometimes that's one of the problems with uh hiring movie producers to host the oscars they don't know how to produce a tv show and there's an arrogance they presume well i know how to produce a movie of course i could produce a television show and uh they're very different skill sets i think so um the next one uh they had then they had the well then of course they had the oscars with three hosts and the slap yeah they sure did yeah they had that and then they asked me to come back the year after the slap

which uh you know obviously was tumultuous and having three hosts i think was bad in that situation because it wasn't at all clear which of the three hosts should go up on stage and handle that. So what happened was nobody handled it. In fact, I don't know if you remember, Diddy was the person who was on stage. Oh, my God. Bleeding for calm. You needed the alpha parent. You need the dad basically to come in and be like oh hey guys here's what happened

yeah and you need a laugh there right i mean you need to break the tension because there's a huge amount of tension you need something you need to be able to move forward i think like even they i don't know if you remember they like they have a pretty strict limit as far as time goes when it comes to these speeches and they'll give a little when it comes to best actor best actress best picture but in this case they let will smith talk endlessly he gave and of course it was riveting you're watching this man have a um what appeared to be a combination nervous breakdown and um and dream moment at the same time and But there was nobody there to handle it. And I think at that point, they were like, okay, you know what?

We probably do need... These driverless cars aren't a great idea for the Oscars. So they asked me to do it again. And I was very surprised. I did not ever imagine I would be asked to do it again. The administrations change over and the people you worked with are no longer there. And sometimes it feels like,

and sometimes when they put in a new set of producers, they maybe kind of, it feels like they act like you never even did it. It's like, hey, we're here and we're going to do this and we're going to do it right, never mind what happened in the past. When the Oscars are largely about the past, I i mean it's part of the magic of the show is remembering these great moments these great movies that are still around and these you know great performances so to like separate yourself from the past can feel insulting when you're the host of the show you know right and um and so anyway i didn't think i would ever be asked back. And I didn't necessarily even...

I was planning to retire from my show. So I really didn't think I was like... Nobody thought you were retiring. Like literally not one person who knows you thought you were retiring from your show. Not one. There was the name. It was like, oh my God, Jimmy's coming back. Not one.

Well, you guys know me better. I know myself, I guess. But um yeah so then i came back and of course knowing that the slap had happened that's you know from a comedy standpoint it's enticing you want it yes well the ratings were way up and the ratings will be even better for this one i was thinking yeah i don't know how many things think it will. Well, the show started a year earlier, right? I think this hour earlier thing has potential to really screw me in particular up because not only is the show on it. I mean, everybody's used to the show starting at five o'clock in LA and eight o'clock in New York and seven o'clock in the Midwest.

But now we have a situation where not only is it on an hour earlier, not only does it start at four and seven, but it's daylight saving time, which I don't know about you, but it takes me like 10 full days to figure out daylight saving time. So I think there's going to be a lot of people who are standing around their house in their shorts and go like, oh, wait, I think the Oscars are on and they're going to tune in and it's going to be an hour and a half into the program already. Because it's three o'clock Pacific time mentally, but it's really four. Yeah, it is going to be a little weird. It'll be fine. I think a lot of people are going to care about this Oscars. I was thinking how many things you've hosted over the years. What was the first thing you've hosted?

Like the weenie roast? What was your first MC job? Oh, my first MC job actually was at a church flea market in Las Vegas. I think I was like 14 years old. And everybody brought their stuff to the parking lot and set up tables and you'd sell stuff and the church would get all the money. And our priest, Father Bill, who was a friend of mine, still is a friend of mine, said he thought it was funny thought it was funny he's like hey do you want to be we need people to read the raffle numbers and to make announcements do you want to do it and i said yeah of course i want to do it and i

got up there and i immediately started making fun of him and i really i liked it you know i got a kick out of it and people were laughing really hard and i was like oh yeah this is this is fun but then i never imagined that i would do it for a living. It just seemed like something that would be fun to do at the flea market every year. And then the first award show, I guess besides my show, like charity events. We did the roast. What was the roast we did in 2003?

Was that Pamela Anderson or Courtney Love? One of those people. You hosted that one. Hugh Hefner roast was the first big event that I hosted yeah it was right after 9-11 it was well that's the famous Gilbert Gottfried that's right the aristocrat story that's the aristocrat stroke that wasn't that was a um night that I don't think anybody who was part of that will ever forget it was it was a very emotional and very special night and a very funny night also um i actually uh i think i met sarah silverman at that uh roast and um uh

we later went on to uh you know to date and uh so it was a big you know it was a big event in my life hosting that thing and it was fun it was uh you, those roasts at that time were very, you know, it was like everybody's all dressed up, but it was like a bar fight. You know, there was no punches were pulled, especially back then. And I kind of loved that. Well, the pre-social media too.

So it was kind of whatever happened in the room for the most part stayed in the room. And I don't think it's like now where people are probably a little more self-conscious. But I remember we did 03. What was it? Was it the Courtney Love Roast or Pamela Anderson?

Courtney Love acted insane during it. It was a Pamela Anderson roast, but it might as well have been the Courtney Love Roast. I was the host of that roast and I was sitting next to Courtney Love, who is very nice, but just didn't stop talking the whole time. She didn't necessarily understand that it wasn't a panel discussion, that each person got up and spoke. She thought it was a cocktail party. Yeah. Yeah, be quiet during that. And I remember Sarah was about to get up and do her stuff, and she just said to me, keep her the fuck quiet. And I basically had her like, I was basically hugging her the whole, during the whole segment,

whispering in her ear while Sarah did her act. Oh my God. All right. So then we did the AMAs, which- The American Music Awards, five times. I wrote for you for two of those.

You can read one of the pieces. I think I did a running diary of the first time Jeff and I wrote for you. Oh, it's completely insane. Completely insane. There's probably like five jokes that shouldn't be in there, but that was when Suge Knight, we ran into

him in the stairwell and we thought he was going to, him and his guys were just going to kill all of us. He did not like that. He felt like we had come up on him a little bit. There was a weird vibe. He was smoking a cigar alone in the stairwell at the Staples Center. Is that where it was?

Or the Nokia Theater, whatever the fuck centers is that where it was or the nokia theater whatever the fuck we were moving from the um from the audience to the stage and i mean i almost bumped into sugar i think i uh as we were we were going but uh yeah that was pretty crazy and also i hosted the american music awards uh once during the writer's strike when shows were still allowed to be on the air but you couldn't have any writing so I decided that I was going to dance instead of do a monologue and I don't know if you remember

but I practiced for like a solid two weeks to learn the soldier boy dance you remember the soldier boy dance? and I just couldn't learn it it was just impossible for me. And I went into it thinking like,

there's a 30% chance I'm going to be able to pull this off. And in no way, it pulled it off. It was a complete disaster. Have you bombed as a host? Has there been one of any of these things? I think that would be the closest. I think that would be, yeah, that's probably the only time where it went poorly.

But I think overall, it was fine. I think I had be, yeah, that's probably the only time where it went poorly. But I think overall it was fine. I think I had other things to say throughout the course of the show, but there was no written material on that one, so it was a little bit different. And then you did the Emmys a bunch of times. And then I've done the Emmys three times, I think. Every fourth year, ABC has the Emmys. And they were reluctant. I don't know if you remember, they passed me over.

Oh, I remember. To let the reality hosts host the Emmys. So it was Ryan Seacrest, Jeff Probst, Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, and Howie Mandel were the hosts of the Emmys that year. It was an FU to Jimmy Kimmel. It was, but they did give me, I got, I did,

I think was the best bit of the night and it was not my idea. So I'm not taking credit for it, but I, you know what, what they had me do was I presented the Emmy to those hosts, the best reality show Emmy. And just before I read the name, I said,

and we'll find out who wins the Emmy after the break, which is something that Brian Seacrest used to do all the time on American Idol when it was huge. And those guys, I think, hated that. They didn't know what was going to happen. They were just kind of standing there waiting. But I felt like it was proper to give them a little taste of their own medicine. Yeah, it was good revenge. When did the hosting thing start slowing down for you? Because like Tom Brady always talked about when he was in a bunch of Super Bowls,

by the time he got to like the 6-7 Super Bowl, the rhythm of the event, he had figured out. And it was like, you don't want to get too hyped up before the game. And the game, the first half, and then it's like a 40 minute halftime show. And if you get too hyped up, then it's hard to rally back in the second half. And he was like, once I figured that out, the Super Bowl was way easier. And I think he won his last or four of his last five. But does that make sense to you? I feel exactly the same way about hosting an award show and i don't know that there was a moment where i figured it out i do feel like i haven't figured out now as much as you can figure it out i mean it's like a sporting event you can't figure

everything out but i do feel like i haven't figured out now but i did feel like for you know i've done a bunch of award shows but i feel the one that I'm most proud of, I think, was hosting the Emmys in front of no audience because that's something that I had agreed to do before COVID. I'd agreed to host the Emmys and I wanted to honor my commitment because

I knew nobody was going to want to be in that spot. And we knew we were going to have to have an empty theater and we had to figure a million things out. I mean, just when you think you have the formula down you it's a completely different situation so i um you know i did uh i i did a a monologue and i did the whole show just to camera and uh i think it it came out it came out surprisingly good. And it's funny because you meet other award show producers and people who pay attention to this sort of thing. And they will often mention that as something that they were very impressed by. You know why I don't remember that?

Why? Because just large patches of those two years when we were in isolation and COVID, I just don't remember stuff. Because you were drunk the whole time? It might've been. I just, like, I don't,

somebody mentioned, we were talking about rewatchables ideas and I was like, oh, we should do that one. And they said, we did that in 2020. And I was like, I have no recollection of that.

I don't know. I don't know what happened, but it's just like a fucking blur for two years re rewatch the re re rewatchables um i have uh i went through bob hope's 1971 and 1975 monologues and wrote down a couple of the jokes i actually thought the things about bob hope it's people like he hosted 19 times i was like yeah I think he put a total of 19 minutes well the last couple he had like 10 minute monologues

yeah oh 1975 1978 I thought he would have a bunch of inappropriate jokes but I'm just going to read you a couple and you can decide if you want to take any of these maybe I'll adapt them and we'll replace the names with you know know, how that goes.

Chinatown got 11 nominations. Six from column A and five from column B. You think that's a Chinese food joke? Oh, yes, probably. Yeah, like a Chinese menu. The crowd laughed. The crowd was like, great joke, Bob. Okay, it's not a terrible joke.'s a bit solid i think yeah i think godfather 2 has an excellent chance of

winning neither mr price or mr waterhouse has been heard from in four days it's not bad either crowd like good and then he said i'm wearing a tuxedo with a bulletproof Cumberbund. Crowd ate that one up. I didn't fully understand this, so I had to research it, but I'm just going to read it too. Marlon Brando won't be here this year either. The Indians are holding him for the balloon payment. Long ovation. So apparently he gave a house and there was a mortgage thing. And then he followed up.

No, he gave them a little land with a mortgage on it. Some gift. That's like getting a liver transplant from Dean Martin. Big laugh. It's a lot of those. It's actually really funny. You should watch some of these. I think you'll eat these up.

1978, he did the, I haven't seen this much expensive jewelry go by since I watched Sammy Davis Jr.'s house slide down Coldwater Canyon. Huge laugh. That's a good one. Yeah. That must have been based on a real event, right? Yeah.

He said the biggest surprise of the year is young John Travolta. And I mean young. I have wine older than he is. Big laugh. It's a lot of that. Maybe, I don't know. You can dip in there. Comedy a lot different back then.

It was way, it's like the kind of jokes we make on our text threads where we're intentionally making bad jokes. There are some jokes in there that you could tell that he'd done that.

He'd fill in the blank, John Travolta, I have wine, you know, I have socks older than, you know, like those kind of, you know,

he'd done that at a lot of Friars Club events. But there are a couple of pretty decent ones in there. I like the Sammy Davis one if it was based on a real event. If it wasn't, then it's kind of just ridiculous. The 50th Oscars, which was 1978, which I would highly encourage people to watch on YouTube. They had all the Oscar winners and they did this like crazy, crazy giant 10 minute, like Debbie Reynolds dancing, just basically everybody who was still alive,

who'd won something, this huge performance. And I was thinking like, I don't think that would happen now. I don't think they, what would the participation rate for be for that? Like 52%. Oh, I think that at the hundredth Oscars, which are not far off, I cannot imagine they won't do that very thing. So that would be 2028. Yeah. And I would imagine that, yeah, they would do that. And I can't imagine anybody who was able to be there not being there. I mean, how could you not be at some you have

to remember the oscars the oscars um you know they become less um present in our in our society over the years year after year as we are focused on more things but to the actors and the directors and the people in the industry the you know that's uh industry, that's a big deal. If they're going to put every living Oscar winner on a stage, every living Oscar winner is going to be on that stage. I'm the most pro-Oscars of all the award shows because I still think it matters the most. I think it would be fun if they had every living Oscar winner

and one dead Oscar winner on the stage. Like everyone gathered around. Yeah. Maybe someone's recently dead or an exhumation of some kind. Maybe you get like somebody like Alfred Hitchcock or like Orson Welles. They exhume Orson Welles.

Put him in, you know, it wouldn't be, you make it look nice. You get some of these great makeup artists. You get the guy who did Bradley Cooper's nose to fix him up. And everyone gathers around. I still care about

the Oscars the most because it's, especially doing the movie podcast we do, it's always fun to look back and say, did this person nominate? Oh, that person won? Oh. But for the most part, most part, there's some Oscar travesties and some bad decisions in retrospect. For the most part, it's a pretty good blueprint

of who mattered the most in this year. This year, Margot Robbie not getting nominated. I think people remember that. Greta Gerwig didn't get nominated for director. I think the fact that Oppenheimer got nominated for so many more than Barbie, but I actually thought that made sense

because Barbie was more of a superhero movie. I think people forget that who could have ever imagined that Barbie would have been that good? The idea that comedies don't even get nominated at the Oscars. So it was a movie

that's essentially a comedy i mean it is a comedy about a doll that is i mean like it's crazy that it's nominated the oscar so now people go like i can't believe it was like how about it i can't believe that this movie became an oscar caliber movie it's pretty yeah and it's insane that project got passed around i remember like oh my gosh schumer was in charge of it it seemed like like it seemed like leftovers by the time it got to greta gerwig and margot robbie and somehow they like came up with this invent i mean you know whatever you think about the movie it's very inventive very creative and also like hit some chords with especially um like my wife and my daughter that

um you know it is meaningful like the same it's like i think barbie in a way is like um uh the female version of hoosiers where like a lot of times you show like hoosiers to you your wife or whatever like yeah okay yeah it's true my wife and daughter loved it too and i most of the guys who were there for like yeah it was all right yeah i mean i liked it i thought it was good but it didn't make me cry you know no i'm with you all right so 2028 oscars you'll be hosting you'll have just signed another three extension baby doll probably be like like dragging around an oxygen tank at some point still negotiating three-year deals for you baby doll i know your listeners are pretty familiar with baby doll i would hope so at this point who might not be he is our manager uh i just

recently figured that out i thought he's my agent for like 11 years. I think he's back to being the agent again. Is he? Yeah, I think. It's so hard. He's a mage. It's so hard to figure out what he is, but I will tell you every year I send out this brand Christmas card and it appears to be

from Babydoll and it's insane. It's just full of crazy pictures of him smoking in places he's in smoke and showing people his abs and just doing like crazy Babydoll things. And it's in the whole card is one of those like how my what my year was like cards where we talk about and he just boasts about his his wealth and his successes and his home and his golf courses in the car. So anyway, the other day, one of my friends comes over and I haven't seen him in a while.

And he brought his new girlfriend. And I said, oh, baby doll is here. And she goes, oh, the guy from the Christmas card. And sure enough, he's one of those people who does not ever disappoint. I really the only two people I can think of who are in that category are baby doll, my aunt Chippy, who are exactly what you hope they will be when you meet them. And he's just been he's staying at my house. He has been out in the backyard. By the way, if you want to know everything that's going on in the career, in my career, in Bill's career, in John Stewart's, in Stephen Colbert's career, just kind of stand on the perimeter of my home.

And where the smoke is coming from. And you look for the smoke signals and you will find Babydoll yelling at somebody on his Bluetooth earpiece while other people are trying to live their lives and work because it's really something special. Well, one of the great things about Babydoll is, you know, you remarried and then you decided to have kids. And at that point, you think, well, Babydoll, now he won't stay with Jimmy. He'll stay at a hotel. He won't want to be there with like young kids and smoking.

No. Quite the opposite. Yes, complete opposite. And to my kids, it's like bluey shows up to the house i mean there is a lot of excitement around baby doll showing up they can't believe he smokes they're even more shocked because kids learn the smoking is terrible you know yeah and the and they even the littering is beyond their comprehension it is just like i mean he drinks you know we have

the glass bottles of coke that almost nobody ever drinks but he'll go through a dozen of them in the day and a half you know and then he just throws the bottles around our yard in our house and like and i pick one up i'm like baby what the fuck you just you know you're throwing bottles of soda on the ground and he's like i not. That did not come from me. He'll actually convince me that it didn't come from him. And then days will go by and I'll go, of course that came from him. Who else is going in and drinking these sodas?

Nobody else lives here besides our family and Babydoll. But my son is obsessed with them. I don't know if you know this, but a couple of weeks ago, he broke the record set by any agent for the most times he's been insulted by an offer. Oh, really? How many times? I think it's 223 times. Out of the 226 offers he's gotten, 223 of of them he's really insulted and doesn't even know how he's gonna counter i'm not you know what i'm not even gonna bring this to him because i know he

will fucking i can't bring that to him i can't it's too insulting i'm not gonna insult him the best part is when he recounts the story of his negotiation and he's laughing and he's so pleased with himself and you know oh i was breaking his balls baby this fucking guy and then i said you know there's a time years ago where i um this is a long time ago i think i was on the mansion at the time titleist wanted to do some commercials with me you know yeah and a new ball i'm not a golfer you know so but i think that that was kind of the hook. Right. So, um, I wrote these commercials and, um, and I remember it was like, uh, it was like $150,000 to do like three commercials. And the, and the deal was I would, um, I would talk

real seriously about, you know, golf and the ball and the ball and how important it is. And then I'd put the ball on the tee and you'd see my horrible form and I'd hit the ball. And then the tag was, it's not the ball's fault, right? Right. That's a good idea. Anyway, the guy who runs Titleist apparently had not seen the man show after the deal was made. They're like, oh, you know what? Uh, these scripts are really funny,

but we can't, uh, you know, we can't have Jimmy Kimmel, uh, speaking for Titleist. So, uh,

we're going to back out of the deal. And Dixon was like, well, fuck you. You are, you know, he's fucking in. So he squeezed them for half the money and also three sets of golf clubs.

He wanted one for himself, one for me and the golf clubs he wanted. One for himself, one for me, and one for my father, who has never played golf in his whole life. He just decided to throw that in there. I was like, well, that's nice. Why did you why my father? How did that even come to your head?

He's like, I just wanted another set there for when I come out to LA. He wanted two sets for himself. It's funny. One for my father. I was thinking yesterday, because I guess he didn't want us to mention this, but we had dinner with him last night, which is a whole other saga. But I think he's the most consistent person in my life. He's always in the same mood at all times with the same energy, no matter what time of day it is.

I was, I was walking around LA like a month and a half ago and he was here and somebody was driving by and waving at me. I'm like, who's that? And the car turns around and it's baby who was smoking in his rental car. We get out, we talk at a parking lot and he has like three Marlboro Reds in 20 minutes

and we're just in this random parking lot. As I recall, you were like 11 miles from your house, right? I was pretty far away. Somehow he recognized me and could not have been more excited. Yeah, so we had dinner with him and I guess we have to announce this. Our friend Daniel was suspended for a game.

One game suspension. You called him Draymond Kellison because Baby was mad about his last two performances and wouldn't refuse to invite him. I think it's important to mention that Baby is going to be furious that we discussed this because he doesn't want to go through a whole thing or whatever. But yes, he had to serve a one-game suspension, a one-night dinner suspension, because Dixon did not like his behavior at the last dinner.

The first ever one-dinner suspension. By the way, can you imagine him not liking someone's behavior at a dinner? Last night at the dinner, the wine guy comes in and he starts talking about, you know, some brothers who made this bottle of wine. He's like, baby. And he knows full well what the answer is. He's like, is it OK if I smoke in here? And the guy goes, it's like a private bedroom. He's the Somali.

He doesn't want to be the bad guy. He's like, well, I mean,'m i'm not gonna tell you not to smoke but i the guy's very timid and he's like so i can see so you know if i i light up in here i'm like baby you cannot smoke you can't smoke in here like i said i said baby it smells like beautiful wooden wine yeah you can't add the cigarette smoke odor to this yeah i said they're going to be very very unhappy and it's like everything's a negotiation like and then he gives up but it's like they owe him something because they didn't let him smoke in the room well the craziest thing is was we found out there was a guaranteed fee a minimum room a minimum that

we had to spend on food and drinks. And Sal couldn't go because it was his anniversary. Yeah. No, it's his wife's birthday. Or his wife's birthday. And then Daniel was on a one dinner suspension. So the two people who would have been the most excited that we had to spend enough food and drink to get to the minimum were not there. Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of missed opportunities last night but this is gonna be good in fact maybe i'll try you know what i'm gonna do okay so this is gonna be this you're gonna like this i'm going when i tell baby doll who's here somewhere at my house that we talked about the dinner on the podcast yeah i'm gonna try to tape i'm gonna unbeknownst to him tape his reaction to it and put it on it's and then you can put it at the end of this episode okay that would be great

okay we'd probably have to have some bleeps well yeah i mean but you know he i here's my prediction of how it's gonna go like baby i have bad news news. Simmons and I talked about dinner last night. No, you fucking didn't. Yeah, yeah, we did. Oh, my God. What the fuck? And then he's going to get quiet. But yeah, I'll tape it.

We'll see if I'm right. Okay. All right. And then he's going to suffer a little bit, and then he's going to relent and understand that this had to happen. And it had to happen in this specific way I think are the two important things to remember. Well, Daniel's suspension is up now.

Yeah, it's over. It's like Draymond came back. Ron Artest came back. Just tell him it's a one game suspension. That's it. He's going to understand or think he might even think it's funny. But he's like, I don't want him to feel bad. I don't want him to feel bad. I don't want him to feel bad anyway. Well,

maybe, maybe lessons needed to be learned. Uh, good luck on Sunday. Good luck with your fourth Oscars hosting. I, to me, you're in the undisputed fourth place.

I know who would be both Goldberg might have a case, but it's fine. Yeah. We need to come up with a metal below bronze and, I should be adorned with it. Maybe aluminum. It's called the fourth place medal. But you're one away now. Good luck at

7 o'clock ET on Sunday. Thank you. I'm going to go 4 p.m. on the West Coast Daylight Saving. Don't forget. And now I'm going to go try to find Baby Doll to see if he hasn't moved to his hotel yet. He stays with me until the Oscars pay for his hotel, and then he moves over to the hotel.

Interesting. That's why he's smart. All right. Good to see you. If I can catch him, look for it at the end. Thanks, Bill. Hey, you. Yeah, you.

Scrolling TikTok and avoiding your chem homework? Chegg here. Hot take. You've seen enough Bama Rush, ASMR keyboard, and viral dance videos for one day. Let's lock in and start that assignment. If you need a little help, lean on Chegg's expert-supported learning tools. I say this with love. Put on some lo-fi beats and get going with our step-by-step study support. Your weekend will thank you. Small steps today means big wins tomorrow. With Chegg. Subscribe today. You got this. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions,

two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions. And that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. Well, we had to have this guy on. He's in Saudi Arabia, R.L. Hawani. He hosts the Ringer MMA show.

There is a huge, huge, much anticipated UFC 299 event this weekend that we're going to talk about. But that's not why you're in Saudi Arabia. There's Anthony Joshua and Ngannou are going to go at it. Joshua is a big favorite. He's been my favorite guy to bet against, but he looked really good his last fight. I think I'm going to bet on Francis.

He's like almost a three-to-one dog. I know you thought he won the Fury fight. So where do you stand? What are you seeing with this fight? Okay, well, first of all, great to be back. I believe I hold the distinction of the first guest to ever join the show from Saudi Arabia. I think you do. Yes. Yeah. I think that I'm going to put that feather in my cap. It's quite the scene out here. I really thought Francis won the Tyson fight back in

October. I felt good about his chances going in. I thought a lot of people were sleeping on him. I feel like the boxing pundits are still sleeping on him. They keep talking about him as this 0-1 debutant. Like, yo, guys, he's had 20 MMA fights. He's not some TikToker. He's not some YouTuber. He's not some influencer coming over. He's been hit with kicks and knees and elbows and punches with four-ounce gloves. He knows how to fight on the biggest stages possible. So I think you're selling him a little bit short. That being said, to your point, not only did AJ look great in his last fight, December 23rd, he really had an incredible 2023. He went 3-0. This will be his fourth fight in 11 months. And if you recall, August of 2022, in this very country, Saudi Arabia, he fought Alexander Usyk for the second time and lost and

afterwards had a total mental breakdown. He took the belts. He threw them out of the ring. He was on the dais at the post-fight press conference crying. Everyone thought he was done. Here he is, reinvents himself, has a new head trainer, Ben Davison, and has looked like vintage AJ all week. Seems to be taking this very seriously. Tyson didn't take it seriously back in October. He was joking around. He was going to galas, dinners, all this stuff. AJ, I just interviewed him on the stage at the weigh-in. So I'm here for DAZN and they, I mean, like he was, he was burning a hole through my head. Like he did not want to talk to me. You know what I mean? He was so focused and in large part because the stakes are so high. This isn't just like a fun gimmick fight. They've

already said if he wins this fight, he's fighting the winner of Alexander Usyk versus Tyson Fury, which is May 18th. That's for undisputed heavyweight gold. There's never been a heavyweight undisputed champion for belt era. And so there's a lot at stake here for him. And I think he's taking it very seriously. That being said, I think it's a very winnable fight for Francis. And anyone who is just dismissing his chances is making a huge mistake. Part of this was Anthony Joshua's destiny, right?

Is to lose to some underdogs a couple times in a row to seemingly have a breakdown that's like, oh, this is it for this guy. Now he's going to end up on reality shows and then to come back and suck everybody back in and be the favorite again. I mean, he said three losses.

And I just feel, I just don't trust him. And I thought he looked good in the last fight. I thought that was the sharpest. His one-two stuff was great. And it just felt like a new Joshua. And yet I don't buy it and I don't believe it. So the first loss obviously was the shocker against Andy Ruiz at Madison Square Garden in 2019. One of the worst, one of the worst boxing losses of the century.

Yeah. One of the biggest upsets ever in the heavyweight division. It was, it was Hasim Rahman, Lennox Lewis. It wasn't quite Buster Douglas, Mike Tyson, but it was a pretty damn shock, especially because Andy Ruiz was relatively unknown and took that fight on short notice after Jarrell Miller got popped. He came back in Saudi Arabia, his first fight here, and won in December of 2019. Had a very measured, calculated performance. People didn't think it was spectacular, but he did what he had to do to win. And then he meets Alexander Usyk a few fights later, and Usyk is just incredible. He's one of the best fighters.

That's nothing to sneeze at. And so, yes, he lost to him back to back but he comes back in April of last year the same night as the first night of Wrestlemania I remember watching it um in the media room he beats Jermaine Franklin solid performance then he beats Robert Helanious who took the fight on short notice after Dillian White got popped and then he just smoked Otto Val valine who almost beat tyson fury because of that cut a few years back yeah um so he he to me he's not good he looked really good the last fight i was shocked because i bet against him because i'm like oh i'll bet against anthony joshua this would be fun and and let me tell you it's like oh shit he's gonna win no he he looked amazing and these two guys man um off the top of my head, I think Francis weighed in at around 271

chiseled. AJ 251. The thought that came to mind was WrestleMania 3, Pontiac Silverdome, Gorilla Monsoon, the Irresistible Force meets the Immovable Object. Them two coming together, those

two guys looking like Greek gods chisels because you know francis and tyson facing off like tyson just doesn't have the physique he has the skill but like you look at him and you're like what that's the heavyweight champion of the world the lineal heavyweight aj looks the part francis looks the part and every time they faced off yesterday and today francis has this little smirk on his face almost like he knows something that we all don't know it's fascinating he's a lot more comfortable this time. He's a lot more relaxed.

He's already gone 10 rounds, right, against Tyson. He dropped him. He almost beat him. I think he beat him. Oh, I can't wait. It's a fascinating fight because, you know, heavyweights, one-punch power, all that stuff. The Francis story is one of the greatest stories

that I've ever seen. This guy's in his second boxing match ever. And he goes from Tyson to AJ to now potentially if he wins this fight, he's fighting for the undisputed heavyweight title. It's absurd. And I thought, so I thought that first fight was a draw. And if you put a gun to my head and said, pick who won, I would have picked him because I thought he landed harder punches. You could even see their faces after. Part of the thing that was frustrating was he didn't have the ring experience to understand how to steal rounds that were

up for grabs. Fury just won a couple rounds just by hair and that I think ended up getting him. Plus, he kind of had to beat the champ and he sort of beat him, but he didn't totally take it. I bet this fight he'll probably have learned from that.

And he's not going to fuck around with this one. The other thing is the biggest knock on Francis, even dating back to his UFC career, has always been his gas tank. His first title fight against Stipe in Boston, he fizzled out. And he's gotten a lot better in that regard. And I think there was a part of him that was trying to conserve energy

because he was afraid of the idea of him gassing out in the later rounds. But now he knows he can go, you know, 10, three minute rounds. And so I don't think that will be a problem as much. I think we're going to see a very aggressive Francis. And I think we're going to see a very measured and calculated Anthony Joshua

because he knows all he has to do is win. Nothing flashy, nothing fluky, nothing crazy. Just get the W and now you're next in line for undisputed gold. So I think Francis is going to go out there and try to shock and awe him. And I think AJ is going to be very similar to the AJ that we saw in the second Andy Ruiz fight where all he wanted to do was get the win, move on, survive in advance. Did anyone ever knock out Ngannou in UFC? No. He lost to Stipe, and then he had that loss to Derek Lewis right after the Stipe fight, but he was a shot fighter. I mean, he had no confidence. It's going down, at least as of

right now, as one of the worst, if not the worst UFC fights of all time. It's Derek Lewis versus Francis Ngannou. It's in Las Vegas, July of that year, international fight. And I think like they both threw a combined 15 strikes. They just stood there. And Francis was gun shy and Derek had a bad back. And everyone thought Francis was done. Like he was just like this guy that they built up. He gets a title shot and he'll fizzle out.

And then he was able to build himself back up on route to becoming champion when he knocked out Stipe. So no, not only that, he's never really been rocked. He's never been knocked down. You can't say the same about Anthony Joshua. And I think that's important to note. What time exactly is this fight? Because we're on Saudi Arabia time. So it's very important. It's a Friday night, which is great because as you said, UFC 299 is Saturday. So you don't have to worry about them bleeding into each other. It's Friday because there's a Friday night, which is great because as you said, UFC 299 is Saturday. So you don't have to worry about them bleeding into each other. It's Friday because there's a big F1 race here, I'm told.

And then Ramadan starts on Sunday. So they wanted it on Friday. And if my math is correct, the ring walk will be at around 5 Eastern, if my math is correct. If I'm doing the math. Because it's going to be around 1 a.m. local time, 5 Eastern, if my math is correct. If I'm doing the math. Gotcha. Because it's going to be around 1 a.m. local time, 5 Eastern. Yeah, so this is why my son didn't care. He's missing the fight.

He's got a lacrosse game tomorrow. Ah, come on. You got to sit that one out. This is massive. This is massive. It is. And by the way, the card is great. They're slowly but surely starting to figure out

that you can't just have one good fight on these cards. The UFC model. Exactly. It's about time. The co-main event is Xie Lijian versus Joseph Parker. These are two top six heavyweights. It's a phenomenal fight. So yeah, very excited to be here and very curious to see what it's all about. I've never been here before, so I've never experienced a sporting event here. So I'm curious to experience that. UFC 299, which the last time you were on, we were talking about how 299 is somehow better than 300, which makes no

sense. But then you explained why it made a ton of sense. O'Malley versus Vera. I watched the COVID fight and you know, I, on the one hand, O'Malley's doing this whole thing where it's like, you never really beat me. It's like, no, he actually really did beat you. You know, it's not very far. Your leg got hurt and he did, you know, get him down and stop the fight. Like that's, that's a loss. There's no excuses for that. On the other hand, if O'Malley gets revenge, this catapults him where?

Look, the UFC is in search of a face. It's in search of a superstar they have a few and obviously Conor is always going to be that guy but you know he's a little inactive Sean is on the cusp of being that guy there's a few people that I feel like are on the cusp but not quite there so who else is on that list you know so it's like almost like different guys for different markets. Like Islam Khachev is huge with the Muslim fans. He walks down the street in America.

No one really knows who he is. Alex Pereira is starting to become a really big star as well. People love him, but like, you know,

he doesn't speak English. Can he connect with the American audience? Can we get him a nickname? He needs some sort of some sort of Poetan is his nickname, which is something in Portuguese,

but I don't want to. He needs a gimmick. Fair enough. Sean has it all, right? I mean, he has the look, he has the hair, he has the tattoos, he's buddies with the Nelk boys,

all that. Like he just has everything that I feel like every kid your son's age would like. Well, he has the quick rise, the kind of fall, and then the meteoric rise back. But can I tell you something? Chido

Vera, if he wins, he's from Ecuador, is a huge star in Latin America. And honestly, top five coolest human beings that I've ever met. Just a cool guy. He could be a star too. So this is one of those classic ones where sometimes you like to ask the promoter like, come on, are you sort of rooting for someone? I feel like the UFC is in a win-win

here. Either guy. If Sean wins, one step closer to becoming the face, the big star, et cetera. If Chito wins, that's a whole new market. And look what just happened with Ilya Teporia. He knocks out Alex Volkanovsky, and now you see him in front of 85,000 people at the Bernabeu in Real Madrid. And he's all over Spain. Spain has never been a market for the UFC. And this guy is now up there with the most famous footballers in Spain, like hugging Jude Bellingham and

Sergio Ramos. It's like, what the heck just happened? He just won his first title and now he's on the level of these guys. So UFC winning Spain and France. Unexpected. Right? The two biggest countries that they've conquered in the last couple years. It's absolutely exploding. So UFC winning Spain and France. Unexpected, right? The two biggest countries that they've conquered in the last couple of years. It's absolutely exploding.

It's crazy. Yeah. So it's really fun to see these things kind of come to fruition. France had been, you know, they didn't legalize MMA until a couple of years ago. In Spain, they never even had an event there. But all you need is that one guy to carry the flag, a la Con Connor in Dublin and all that stuff in Ireland. And then it just changes everything once there's that local guy. And so, yeah, Sean is American, obviously, and the American fans treat the fighters a little bit different. Like no one's winning, you know, no one's winning a UFC title and then is being brought

out in front of, you know, a hundred thousand people at an NFL game or a college football game, et cetera, the equivalent of whatever Real Madrid is. They just treat them a little bit differently, but this is, this is a big one. And, and by the way, I don't, I don't know if you, if you made this connection. I certainly did. What happened to Jalen Brunson on Sunday is the exact same thing that happened to Sean O'Malley in that fight. Oh, the knee contusion thing?

Well, with Sean, it was more like his lower leg ankle, but he hit this perineal nerve that all of a sudden makes you feel like your foot has just like fallen off, dropped what they call it. And that's essentially what happened to Jalen. So, I mean, I was distraught. You mean the scariest 45 minutes of the last five years for Knicks fans? Yeah. I was like in a ball. I was distraught. But it's crazy that that happened on the week of Sean's return fight against the guy who did it to him. So I'm FanDuel right now.

We're taping this Thursday, early afternoon Pacific time. O'Malley is minus 280. I'm surprised. And Vera is plus 210. And my reaction was like, man, I thought that would be like minus 140.

So Sean is like one of the most public UFC fighters now from a betting standpoint, it seems like. Yeah, I'm really curious what that opened at. I would be surprised if it opened with those kinds of odds because the gap is closer, in my opinion. And I mean, Chido won that fight fair and square. It wasn't like a fluke thing. It wasn't like he stepped the thing. It wasn't like he like stepped the wrong way and broke his ankle. It was as a result of a kick and several kicks

from Chito to Sean. So he doesn't get the credit. And you know, Chito, Sean is trying to like wind him up a little bit and get under his skin when he says that stuff. But yeah, I was surprised when I saw those a couple of days ago as well, those odds. Well, the COVID fights were pretty weird in general.

They had a weird vibe and a weird energy to them. So if you're O'Malley, you can talk yourself into seven. Oh, here's why that happened. Now I'm going to get revenge now. But if he does get the revenge, see, you said it's good for either, either win is good for UFC. I actually disagree.

I think they need O'Malley, at least in America. And they just kind of need a guy. I don't, like'Malley, like at least in America. And yeah, they, they just kind of need a guy. I don't like you said, Conor McGregor. I don't even remember the last time I watched Conor McGregor fight anyone.

It's been July, 2021, July of 2021 was his last day or definitely. Oh no, no, no. July, 2024 for this year.

June of 2024 is the return. The last fight was July of 2021. Right. Dustin, when he broke his foot. Yeah. So yeah, we're approaching three years. this year, you think? Well, no. June of 2024 is the return. The last fight was July of 2021 against Dustin when he broke his foot. Yeah, so yeah, we're approaching three years. It's just... By the way, yes,

obviously having a big star in America, especially one who's colorful with the hair and the look and all that stuff is great. Different fight, different circumstances this time. Number one,

I think Cheeto has improved a lot. Number two, they're fighting in the bigger cage. That fight was at the apex, where it's the smaller cage. Bigger cage, we'll see who it favors. And also, Chito has a tendency to start very slow and then

pour it on guys. It happened against Frankie Edgar. It happened against Dominic Cruz. He didn't show up against Corey Sanhagen. So, I think the first two rounds are really going to tell a lot about this fight if it makes it there. If I'm O'Malley, I start out hot.

I try to pour it on him because it usually takes him some time to, as they say in the fight game, download the information. Poirier against BSD. Ugh. Speaking of French MMA, BSD, Benoit Saint-Denis is from France and he wins this fight like he's on a rocket ship by the way five round

co-main a rare five round co-main usually those are reserved for title fights or main events on fight nights but Poirier asked for five rounds and BSD didn't really have a leg to stand on so he went with it minus 215 favorite and could he be the next guy at stake

1000 he is violent he's like scary violent great story too a rare violent french guy don't get a ton of those was in the french army only started training mma in 2019 uh was in some like crazy unit where he was in the hostage rescue unit. He would have to go in there. Yeah, like this dude. You look at him and you're like, you have seen some stuff. Just look at his face and you're like,

you have seen some stuff. But he's a gentleman, but you just know he's been in some places. Violent, his last KO at MSG was violent. And here's the thing. He's on this run of incredible finishes, knockouts, etc. Porya's coming

off the knockout loss to Justin Gaethje. And a bad one. Yeah, it was a bad one. So it's like, sometimes it happens where the rubber meets the road. But I will say, Porya has all the experience.

He's been there. He's done that. This is a massive step up for Benoit Saint-Denis. His last fight was against Matt Favola, who's great, but like not on the level

of Dustin Poirier. He's ranked 11th last I checked. He might have gone up a slot or two and Poirier's ranked like third. So there's a bit of a gap there between the two.

And BSD is minus 215 on FanDuel. Yeah, because I think a lot of people think that Poirier's time... Well, because I think a lot of people think that Poirier's time... Well, it reminds me of one of those March Madnesses where it's like March Madness is favored by five points.

You're like, what's going on with this? Yeah. Yeah. Or 12-5, right? Yeah, yeah. It's a great fight. That's going to be an awesome one. My son, I texted my son. I said, Aro's coming out today. What do you got? Sent me two

questions. The first one was about MVP Michael Venom Page, the 36-year-old former Bellator star. Ben just texted me. He's like, I'm in class. I can't really, but is he too old? Come on. First of all, I love the fact that he asked

about MVP because that shows that he's a legit hardcore fan. MVP has been Mr. Must-See TV for the past decade. The issue is he's been fighting in Bellator, which doesn't get the same type of love's like dancing in the, in the cage and he's doing all kinds of crazy stuff and like Pokemon celebrations, Dragon Ball Z. Like he's incredible to watch. Finally, he leaves Bellator, he signs with UFC and they give him Kevin Holland, who's a tough out. And this is the type of fight that Kevin Holland always thrives in because he's just bad against wrestlers. MVP is not going to go for a takedown at all. Like he is a true blue kickboxer, if you will. Um, but I think it's a very winnable fight for MVP becauseedown at all. He is a true blue kickboxer, if you will. But I think it's a very winnable fight for MVP because here's the thing. Yes, 36, but he doesn't get hit. He's gotten one knockout loss

and then the other loss was one where he was just out-wrestled and I actually thought he won the fight. He doesn't have a lot of wear and tear on his body. So forget the age. This is big for him. And he saw what... He's a slate underdog. He's plus one Oh six.

I'm fan. I was surprised. I think a lot of that is because of Holland. Um, he's got a strong fan base, you know, at this, at this point,

so close to the fights, a lot of it comes down to popularity in my opinion. And, uh, and Holland's a great fighter too, but you know, Kevin Holland fought wonder boy Thompson around a year and a half or so ago, another kickboxer and lost that fight. And so I think there and a half or so ago, another kickboxer,

and lost that fight. And so I think there's a blueprint there for MVP. And if he can win this fight, man, a potential fight between Michael Venom Page and Leon Edwards, two Brits at 170 in England, would be gigantic for the UFC. Do you buy... We probably have enough data now to really figure this out, but these guys, once they pass 35, that was the thing, especially after Volkanovski last year or last month at 35,

it's almost like with running backs and football, when they have over 370 carries, it's like, Oh, this is bad. Do you buy that? There might be some sort of age point for UFC guys that just, once we get

past this, this is starting to get really dicey. Yeah, but I think 35 is too young, to be honest. Maybe for title fights, that's the line, but for these up-and-coming fights, I don't think 35 is that number. 37, 38,

that range. I don't, you know, that range. I don't like mid-30s coming off getting knocked out. To me, the combo of that is like, alright, now I'm out. Dustin Poirier. That's exactly Dustin Poirier, and that's why he's the underdog going into that fight. Yes, that is not a good spot,

especially he's taken a lot of damage throughout his career, even though I think he could win this fight because we have yet to see BSD on this level. I know the 35 thing is like a hot topic right now, but I feel like that's more for title fights

and this is a little different. Ben's other question. Oh, Ben also wanted to point out that MVP only fought Bellator bums. That was his thing. Ben is such a troll. By the way, I saw his video. He's 16. Oh my God. He says these things. Ben is such a troll. By the way, I saw his video. He's 16.

Oh my God. He says these things. He's like a real, he's like the guys that I block on Twitter. The lingo that he uses. Bellator Bums. What does that mean? Michael Chandler.

Was he a Bellator Bum? Look at him now. Ben will be doing his UFC 299 predictions this week on my YouTube. Love it. He says, ask about the 6'7 Taekwondo fighter who's debuting.

That's the other thing he cares about. Who's this guy? I love it. He's from Cuba. He's another guy who could be a potential... Despine is his name. Another potential huge star.

His knockouts are... And by the way, again, what a deep cut. This card is like nine deep in terms of big names, and he goes off the grid and goes for the debutante from Cuba.

Ben, man, I mean, he should just be hosting the Ringer MMA show at this point, if I'm being honest. Ten years from now, maybe. No, he's great. Must see TV as well. By the way, he'll just be added. He'll just be the fourth. It's like, uh-oh. Bill's son is in now. He's now our fourth added. He'll just be the fourth. It's like, oh, Bill's son is in now. He's now our fourth.

They're just arguing pizza. It's like when... Is that kind of like when Noah Eagle gets the Clippers gig? Or is it different? Yeah, but Noah Eagle's good. He's so good. If Ben's good...

Yeah, he's good. He's earned it. My daughter's boyfriend is really into UFC too. Maybe that'll be the show. My daughter's boyfriend, Tommy. Thatfc too maybe that'll be the show my daughter's boyfriend that is such a weird thing with ben and then and then i yeah you guys all watch together the workshop now he's in boston um okay like can i just ask you a question what's it like saying that line daughter's boyfriend i'm not great i yeah i yeah i just felt like my daughter's seven so i have a ways to go but listen in your head your daughter always stays like four to nine that's just where you are

mentally it's just seeing a guy with her arm around your daughter it's like what i don't know how you ever get sweaty yeah oh my god sounds off um blades versus almeida oh that's a great one um curtis so there's some there's some heavyweight like winner of this might be fighting for the uh for the title and two or three ufcs is this a ben question maybe like a ben question and this is ben's focused on are we gonna are we gonna actually get a heavyweight title fight at some point in 2024 okay yeah that's a good i, it's a big concern. Here's the fascinating thing. The UFC is going to Brazil on May 4th.

The headliner was supposed to be Alex Pereira against Jamal Hill. But the problem was they didn't have a headliner for UFC 300. So they took the 301 headliner, which was perfect for Rio because Pereira's from Brazil, and they moved it to 300, thus leaving them without a main event for 301, which is crazy. So there are some people who believe if Jelton Almeida wins, they might do Almeida

versus Tom Aspinall for the interim title at 301 because Almeida's from Brazil. So he would have two months recovery time. Yeah, but if he smokes him. And then he'd be fighting again. Yeah, well, look, they're going to say, you want the title fight or not? Or it's like you knocked a dude out in 90 seconds, you're fine.

Yeah. But if it's like a three-round war, then they won't be able to do that. No, we've got nothing, yeah. So we have nothing to lead 301 yet. Nothing, absolutely nothing. There's Alexandandro Pantoja who's the flyweight champion

but like I can't headline a pay-per-view. That's a tough sell. I mean I guess they could headline it but if I'm ESPN I'm like really this is the best you got?

You're doing a heavyweight title fight. That's what's happening. I mean it helps. Are they breaking up the bills before we go? What's going on there? What a weird time.

A lot of guys getting cut left left of the altar. Sort go? What a weird time. A lot of guys getting cut left of the altar. Sort of thought Hyde's time was coming to an end. Poyer a little bit, even though he just resigned. Mitch Morse was a bit of a surprise. Is Diggs next? Do you think Diggs is gone?

He's like the oldest guy in the team though. They're not rebuilding, but they're retooling. It looks to me like they're kind of throwing away a salary cap year and figuring josh allen will just take them to 10 and 7 or 11 and 6 anyway because he's josh allen but they're really using the pats did this a couple times with brady where they were like we got to reset some stuff but we still have tom we. We'll be fine. But it does feel like, and then you try to hit the draft is the other thing.

Like, they basically have to crush the draft and get four or five guys who play real minutes for them. Yeah, they got some cap space as well. I don't know, Hyde and Poyer were like the heart and soul of that defense, so it's tough to see them go.

But I still believe, as long as we have number 17, I'm feeling good. By the way, is White gone or not gone? No, yeah, I'm feeling good. By the way, is White gone or not gone? No, yeah, he's gone too. He's been so injured. Yeah, you had the secondary was like one of the, oh my god,

their secondary is so fast, it's smart, it's the eyes and ears of that defense, and now the secondary is gone. ACL and then Achilles injury, tough to come back from. True. Ask Koi Thompson. But Morris, yeah. Morris was a,

I mean, he was also heart and soul and I know Josh loves him. So, yeah, a bit of a bummer. By the way, I know you're trying to wrap me up here, but no mention whatsoever.

I actually thought, so this is funny. I thought you were calling me about two things. I thought you asked me to come on about two things. 299 didn't even cross my mind because my time zones

are all messed up. I thought you were calling about Joshua Francis. $2.99 didn't even cross my mind because my time zones are all messed up. I thought you were calling about Joshua Francis. Clearly not. And then I thought you were calling about Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. Have you seen this? Yeah.

Oh, I've seen it. This is nuts. I don't even want to pay for it. Sal said, I'll pay for you and me. I'll pay for it twice. I'm so excited. No, no, no.

No pay-per-view. No pay-per-view. What do you mean? Netflix. This is crazy. Oh, Jesus. This is Netflix's first... They're usurping the WWE thing. Obviously, they're all on board, but this will be Netflix's first

foray into combat sports. AT&T Stadium, July 20th. It's too big. They're not selling out AT&T Stadium. Jake Paul, Mike It's too big. They're not selling out AT&T Stadium. Jake Paul, Mike Tyson. What? Mike Tyson's older than I am. He's like 37. 30-year age gap. Are you in or are you in? Well, of course I'm going to watch it, but I'd like to present the front now that I'm not going to watch it. But I mean, it's a brilliant move by Jake Paul. Crazy. Right? It's like, oh my God, he's fighting Mike Tyson who hasn't been good

in 30 years. 30 year age gap. I was at his fight last week in Puerto Rico. He beat a guy named Ryan Borland, 17-2, and everyone said

he was an Uber driver. It lasted two minutes and 50 seconds. And so people said they wanted to see him fight a sexy name again. I think this qualifies, but to me,

the most interesting part about it all is Netflix. Like, as someone who loves the sports media biz and all that stuff, like is this their first you know like is this the big is netflix getting into the combat business i know wwe but are they getting into boxing too crazy well like everything netflix does this is a major test and they're gonna see what works when people came on did it juice the site you know they're in like major major major test and they're going to see what works when people came on, did it juice the site.

They're in major, major, major test mode with all the live stuff. But the wrestling part was, the Raw Day was interesting because that's 52 Mondays a year. And I think that was one of the reasons they wanted it. It's just steady. It's not like, oh, here's the season, now it's over. It's just every Monday night we have this. So the pay-per-views is a different model. That's pretty haphazard. By the way, conspicuous by its absence in the press release was the word Monday night. They have yet to confirm that Raw is going to be a Monday night show

moving forward. Is that true? Yeah. So what other night would it be? Think about it. Our friend Nick Khan is a very savvy guy. And if I'm Nick Khan, I look at Monday Night Football 17 weeks out of the year. Do we really want to keep going up against Monday Night Football, especially as the ESPN ABC deal is getting better and better?

Then you've got the national championship game. That's another Monday, the football one. Then you've got the basketball one. So now we're talking 19 Mondays out of the year, at least, you're going up against pretty heavy competition. As opposed to perhaps, I don't know, I'm just throwing out a Tuesday or a Wednesday where you'll own that. Yeah, Tuesday, you're not competing against really anything ever. There's never football. If you go back to the press release, the word Monday was never in it.

And just kind of digging around. Is this a conspiracy theory from you or have you done some kicking the tires on this? I asked and I got some like, look, could it end up Monday? Absolutely. But I do think it was not a coincidence that it wasn't in there.

Yeah, because the other thing that happened is the NFL moved in monday night playoff game there's that oh there's another one yeah there's another one yeah there's that yeah so there's probably at least 20 terrible monday night things oh that's interesting so tuesday night raw how would that work with the scheduling and all that stuff yeah because you have the pay-per-view on sunday and then the next night. But now it's Saturday. They've moved to Saturdays pretty much. So it's not even the next night thing anymore.

I mean, we're talking... Yeah, good point. We're talking the longest running show on cable, moving days, is a pretty big deal. To me, like Mondays has always been wrestling since the mid-90s. Yeah. It's going to be really interesting. Imagine they go off mondays right

imagine they say let's go tuesdays or wednesdays whatever it is and then aw goes mondays to try to steal the steal the night just to say all right we'll take this crazy what a time jesus i love it tuesday night raw that doesn't even sound right again i'm not reporting this please don't someone aggravate it. No, but I think the fact that it was in the press release is fascinating. It was in there, yeah. And some wrestling websites picked up on this too.

So it's not just me pulling it out of my back pocket. Well, one thing with Netflix and the VOD schedule in general is that Tuesday is usually the day when the new movies come out. We neither like movies you can buy or rent. Yeah, it's usually the new VOD. The schedule is basically Tuesday and Friday. Friday is when the streamers heading into the weekend are like, we've got this and we have

this. And then Tuesday is like, Barbie is now available to rent or buy on Amazon. So would you think they'd want to go away from that? Wednesday. Ah, Wednesday. Now we're going up against AEW. Wednesday feels too far away. Or maybe they think Tuesday is like one of the two big Netflix days. So let's load it and now we have

Raw on Tuesdays. Yeah, that'll be interesting. All right. Oh, sorry. Wednesday feels too far away. We get Tuesday or Monday. All right,

give us two predictions for the weekend and then we'll go. Branson Gunn is going to shock the world and MVP is going to win. Okay.

All right. BSD Poirier doesn't go the distance. I like it. All right. You're doing an MMA show after? Yes, we're doing a live show. We already have our preview up on the feed, Spotify feed.

And then Saturday night, I'll be landing right as the prelims start. 18-hour journey home. Jesus. It is rough. Just to watch the fights, and then we'll do the post-show,

and then I'll be up Sunday morning. So while you're walking your dog Sunday morning, you can listen to us half asleep talking about the fights immediately after. Good to see you. Have a great weekend. Safe travels. Thank you.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Jesse Lopez and Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti. Thanks to Jimmy Kimmel. Thanks to Errol Hermani. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. I'm going to be back on a Sunday night with Rusillo. Enjoy the weekend. I want to see them on the wayside. I don't have a few years with them. On the wayside.

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