The Bill Simmons Podcast - Saving the Rock, 'Crazy Rich Asians,' and 'SummerSlam' 2018 With Shea Serrano, Donnie Kwak, and David Shoemaker | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 403)

Episode Date: August 20, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons calls up Shea Serrano to talk summer movies, including 'Upgrade,' 'The Meg,' and 'Mile 22,' before trying to save Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson from making another big-budget flop (2:40). Then Bill is joined by The Ringer's Donnie Kwak, who gives his take on 'Crazy Rich Asians' and how to move the needle for Asian American cinema (30:28). Finally Bill calls up the Masked Man himself, David Shoemaker, and the two share their thoughts on WWE 'SummerSlam,' Roman Reigns's win, Braun Strowman's trajectory, and more (49:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, brought to you as always by ZipRecruiter, our presenting sponsor. We did not need ZipRecruiter to hire the three guests on today's podcast, but you know what? Had we used ZipRecruiter, they probably would have suggested these three people because they are that good. They're the smartest way to hire. They're powerful technology, scans thousands of resumes to find people the right experience for your job. The tech doesn't stop there.

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We have a lot of good fantasy football stuff this year. We really stepped it up. I know you don't know what's going on with fantasy football right now. Well, we're going to help you. We have that. We have articles about Ariana Grande's new album, which Lindsay Zoladz was really impressed by. Are we sure the Lakers won't trade for a star this season? John Gonzalez wrote that one. The Jay Cutler updates, week seven from Andrew Grudadaro Ben Lindbergh on the crazy A's the A's caught the Astros even though they have like

one tenth of the talent I don't understand it and then everything that mattered at SummerSlam from Kenny Herzog we're going to be talking about SummerSlam with David Shoemaker a little bit later we're also going to talk movies with Shea Serrano action this summer spotty summer for action movies but still some fun ones at least and then Donnie Kwok also going to talk movies with Shea Serrano. Action this summer. Spotty summer for action movies, but still some fun ones at least.

And then Donnie Kwok's going to come on and he's going to talk about Crazy Rich Asians and a little bit of an Asian summer movie renaissance here. He has conflicted thoughts. We're going to get into them. That's all coming up first. Pearl Jam. All right. Chase Serrano is on the line.

You can read him at The Ringer. Best-selling author. Even though he's a step slow because he's behind a desk. That's what happens, Jean-Claude. When you're behind a desk, you get lazy. You forget about the weight of a gun. We both watched Taken this weekend. Taken is on all the time.

It's just on 24-7. It should be on every channel all the time. Yeah. And I just get sucked in, even though I know every single thing that's going to happen, we're going to have to do a rewatch of us about it. So I'm going to save it for that. We want to talk about summer movies. Kind of a mixed slate of summer movies this summer

from an action standpoint. There's been no kind of John Wick 2 type of monster thing. We do not have a Fast and Furious movie this year. What's been your favorite one that you've seen this spring or this summer? I think my favorite one is still Upgrade. Yeah. It's just the most interesting.

It was like a version of a movie I'd not seen yet. It was a lot of fun to watch. However, I just watched this weekend, or Friday rather, I watched Mile 22 with Mark Wahlberg. And it's a bad movie, but it's like the good kind of bad movie. It was really exciting to watch. It was really like there were some offensive parts in it, which is always fun to have.

And there were a couple of action sequences that we had not seen anybody do before. There's a really gnarly death scene that has never been in the movie. And when you watch the movie, you're going to go like, oh, I know exactly what this is what he was talking about right there. I don't even want to say it because I don't want to ruin it. It's incredible, though. Yeah, we kind of trashed that movie on TheRinger.com. I was surprised. I sent Miles an email as soon as I read the thing.

The only thing in my email, the only thing I wrote was, I've never liked you. And then a link to his review. Yeah, Miles Suri wrote about it, did not like it. His review made me want to see the movie more. I got to be honest, because it sounded like a really far-fetched, ridiculous premise. And I am always a fan of Mark Wahlberg experimenting with the character versus just being Mark Wahlberg. Because when he experiments, it almost always goes sideways.

So that sounded great. That's exactly what happens here. Yeah, that's great. I'm in. I'm in for experimenting Mark Wahlberg. Those are my favorite Mark Wahlbergs. In Mile 22, the best version of Mark Wahlberg is when he's a dumb guy

who thinks he's smart. Like in Boogie Nights or Pain and Gain. In this version, we have a smart version of Mark Wahlberg who knows he's smart. So he does the thing

where he talks really, really fast. Yeah. He makes all these obscure references to things. And it was fun to watch him try to do that there's no big scene where he has like a big fight scene or whatever that that doesn't happen in the movie with him they leave it all to to lee like the character they're trying to rescue they let him do all this stuff because he can do all this stuff lee is incredible in the

movie his name is lee noire that's the character name. And they should have just turned him loose as much as possible because he's fantastic. So the premise is there's this 22 mile stretch they kind of have to go through and it's almost like a video game where they know they have to get through that from point A to point B. It's 22 miles and there's going to be a lot of obstacles and people coming at them. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. I feel like Wahlberg and Peter Berg, that's the director. And they've done a bunch of movies already. They did like Patriot's Day,

Deepwater Horizon. There was another one that I'm forgetting right now. No, they had the one where he gets caught in the Mideast. Oh, yeah. Lone Survivor.

That one was really good. That one's great. I like that one a lot. I think what happened here is they were sitting around. They were like, hey, you remember when we did Lone Survivor? Lone Survivor is gnarly. It's hard to watch with all of the blood and guts and everything in it. And I feel like they did that. And they were like, hey, we should do that again, but with more people.

And then they just came up with this plot. Because the plot doesn't have anything. When you get to the end of the movie, clearly they only wanted to have a stretch where a lot of people were going to die in a lot of violent ways. And you know, sometimes it works. And I think in this case, it worked. I'm all for the Berg-

Wahlberg collaborations. Whether they hit or miss, keep cranking them out. They definitely went to dinner and Wahlberg was probably like, hey man, I want to try something different with this character. And Pete Berg was like, whatever, sure. Sounds great. Let's do it. You've seen The Gambler, right?

With Mark Wahlberg. I have. Yeah, yeah. It's Chris Ryan. It's like his favorite bad movie. I feel like he's watched it way more than maybe he's let on. But it's one of those movies that you watch and you go, wow, they were really, really close to getting this one.

And then just had a couple of major, major stumbles, including some of the worst gambling scenes that we've ever seen. They took a couple of swings. Mississippi Grind is like if they had

done the gambler right. Right. I don't know if you've seen Mississippi Grind with Ryan Reynolds. No. That's a fun, that's a good movie.

I randomly watched The Sting this weekend because I watched The Godfather last week. I was in a hotel room in Oakland. And it had a Netflix thing

and The Godfather's on Netflix. I hadn't seen it in a while and I cranked it out and was reminded that it's the greatest movie of all time. So then I was thinking, I want to crank out every Best Picture Oscar movie since 1972. So I watched The Sting, which is Redford and Paul Newman. Right.

It's solid. It's really dated. It's really old. Redford's great in it. It's kind of hard to believe it won the Oscar. But then again, it was 45 years ago. But anyway, I'm going forward. So I think I forget what won in 74, but

I'm blowing through all of them and Rocky is only a couple away. So that'll be great. Once you get to the mid-70s, it gets good. Can I tell you a secret? Yeah. I'm going to tell you a secret. I had never seen The Godfather until like two months ago. Oh, wow. I watched it at the

yeah, I'd never, somehow I'd never watched them and I realized I'd never watched them, and just like you, I thought it was on Netflix, so I turned on the first one, I was at the office, and it was genuinely incredible, and then Godfather 2, which I thought was even better.

Like, the end scene, when they pull all of everything together, and you realize, like, what's about to happen, I don't know if, I don't want to say it, if somebody, listen, you can't spoil Godfather one or two. I really, I refuse to accept that.

We're going to spoil the hell out of it. Yeah. Yeah. I was like standing, I was literally standing up at my desk. I'm watching it at work and I get to the end and I'm like, Oh my, my God, my hand over my mouth.

I'm standing there with my headphones on looking at what's happening. I couldn't believe it. It's unbelievable. I couldn't believe it. It's unbelievable. Yeah. The great thing about the Godfather is it gets better each time. I don't know. There's not a lot of movies where like the 132nd time you watch it, you're like,

wow, this is great. I really, I really appreciate Clemenza this time. So I'm glad the Godfather's in your life. There's some holes. There's some, you know, there's some, There's some holes. There's some issues.

I still don't understand how Michael Corleone was able to get Diane Keaton's character back when he disappeared for like four years and married somebody else. Just comes back, interrupts her day at school and is like, hey, let's get married. And she just drops everything, leaves the kids behind. There's some holes. But the stuff with Brando, the scene with Pacino and Brando just gets me every time near the end. Just wasn't enough time, Pop. It's just so good. Speaking of things that were good and not good,

it's been a rough summer for The Rock. And we might need a career intervention from him from a movie standpoint. The Rock needs to learn another word other than yes, I'll do it. He needs to learn words like no, or that's a great idea. Thanks for thinking of me, but I'm going to pass.

It just seems like he's doing everything and Skyscraper, which seemed unassailable on paper, we were both excited about it. I don't know how it missed, but it seemed like it missed. Rampage wasn't great. And it's just been a rough summer. What's going on? What would your advice be for The Rock? My advice would be to go the opposite of the direction that he's headed right now. It's like every single movie, let's have him taking on a bigger and bigger thing.

And let's see him do like sort of smaller, low stakes stuff. Like, I think that was part of the reason. Did you watch Logan Lucky? Yeah. Okay. I think that's part of the reason Logan Lucky was so much fun to watch because we got used to seeing these gigantic heist movies are getting bigger and bigger bigger and then logan lucky went the other way they're like let's do a little tiny thing and everything is low stakes and here we go and they got to like roll around and that for a bit i think we need that from the

rock we need another walking tall we need him in a small town trying to clean it up and that's it and like just you know let him walk around with a two by four or four by four. You know, that's, that would be my intervention for the rock right now. It's so funny. You mentioned this. We did not talk about what our, what our advice would be for the rock. And I was thinking about what I was going to say in the 10 minutes since we decided we were going to do this.

It was the exact same conclusion I came to. He needs another walking tall. He needs something where he just be, he needs like a roadhouse. He needs a small town. He needs more than a little touch of racism. He needs some bad guys. And he needs at least two scenes

where he goes into the bar and people are looking at him sideways. And then he just cleans out 12 people. And that's it. This isn't rocket science, The Rock. Just go do your thing. Go beat up some rednecks. Do it.

Go. Let him beat up some people. That's all you need. And he's fine. So he's got, I think, one of the problems with The Rock. And by the way, it's not like he really has problems. He's the most popular celebrity we have, and he's made a kajillion dollars, so we're nitpicking. He's just made a lot of things.

That's a lot. You look at 2000, this is just since 2017. So that's last year for those of you scoring at home. The Fate of the Furious, Baywatch, Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle, Rampage, Skyscraper, and he's been on Ballers both years.

Those are, those in a year and a half, he's been in five movies and he's done 20 episodes of a TV show. It's a little too much. Settle down, The Rock. He's the first actor who, my youngest kid,

my five-year-old going on six, he's the youngest, I mean, he's the first actor that he recognized. He's like, oh, that's from the shark, I mean, that's from the building movie, that's from the gorilla movie. He recognizes The Rock now.

So yeah, maybe slow it down just a little bit. My kids absolutely love The Rock and they love the movies he makes with Kevin Hart. The feeling I get just watching his career is it seems like he feels

like it's going to end soon so he's just grabbing movies. And I'm not sure you have to do it that way. We have not talked about the Hobbs spinoff. No, that's going to be excellent. It's called Hobbs spinoff. No. That's going to be excellent. It's called Hobbs and Shaw.

Hobbs and Shaw. Just him and Jason Statham. I'm shocked. I'm also in. I'm shocked they're doing it. I'm shocked Vin Diesel allowed it. I'm shocked. I'm just kind of shocked it's happening.

I don't know why this just wouldn't have been Fast and Furious 9. Just have Vin Diesel make a cameo. Vin Diesel is getting big points on the end of that package. He's getting paid anyway? Let me cash in on this. Let me cash in on The Rock while I can. Because that relationship is falling apart. I'm assuming.

This is all just guessing. But yeah, I think that's got to be what it is. And it just makes too much sense. If you're going to do a spinoff of the series, yes, they were already trying to replace Vin Diesel with The Rock, so let's just give him his own thing. Let's see what happens when him and Jason Statham duke it out for 90 minutes. I still don't understand how Jason Statham became friends

with the Fast and the Furious team. It's unbelievable. You don't kill Han, and thenam became friends with the Fast and the Furious team. It's unbelievable. You don't kill Han and then everybody's cool with it like 30 minutes later. What's going on here? Yeah, it's tough to nitpick a series that includes a car jumping through two skyscrapers and landing safely in the third skyscraper. Okay, that's fair. At the same time, at the end of the last movie, when they invite Jason Statham to the cookout at the end, though, we all made it. It's like, ah, he killed your friends. I don't know if I

get by this. It's not, this isn't like Scottie Pippen, um, figuring out how to befriend Dennis Rodman in the mid nineties because he got shoved in a basket support once. It was like, he literally killed Han. I, uh, yeah, I have a lot of our hubs It was like, he literally killed Han. I have a lot of... Are Hobbs and Shaw together, by the way, in this movie? What's the game plan for Hobbs and Shaw? Yeah, they're teamed up now. I don't... Again, this is just me guessing.

But I feel like they're teamed up. Because here's the thing that nobody talks about when we talk about The Rock and the Fast and the Fur and the furious movies yeah he was really bad at his job like every time he was supposed to catch somebody yeah he didn't catch them and he got beat up he always had to go get help oh can vin help me oh can state them help like they always needed to pair him up with somebody i think it's the same thing here like they realize he's kind of not that great as a law enforcement officer when he needs to catch somebody.

Yeah. So let's pair him up with somebody. So I think that's what we got going on here. Yeah. They're buddies. Yeah. It's he, he's a little like a,

like a Scott Brooks, NBA coach type. It's, it seems like he's doing well. He's got a solid win loss record, but then when you start sifting through the playoff losses, you know, fast five,

not, not anticipating the ambush in Brazil. And his entire squad basically gets taken out. And then he has to rely on these outlaws. And then fast six, Statham invades the police station. There's nobody else there. He's hacking into the computer and somehow he can't take him down and then ends up falling out of a window, breaking his arm.

It's kind of a loss that or seven. Yeah. My bad. Seven. That, that's a loss that just goes as an L for the rocks. Statham gets the better out of them and breaks his arm, blows up the station, takes all the information in the station. Yeah. And in part five, he was like one decision from Vin Diesel away from getting his head caved in. Remember at the end when they get in a big fight

and he has the rock down on the ground and I think it was a wrench, like a giant wrench. Oh yeah, he was going to die. And everybody's like, oh my God. And then they show it and it's right next to him. Yeah, he could have died right there. Yeah, I had the ambush rung.

It was fast five, but then at the end, Vin Diesel does that whole safe thing. And for some reason, The Rock says, I'll give you 24 hours to get out of there and then I'm going to come find you. What is this, like hide and seek? I bet I'm just arresting him right away.

Lot of holes. You're right. Hobbs, overrated. Hobbs, it's not even an are we sure he's good? He's just flat out overrated. I have some bad news for you with, with the rock. He's not slowing down. I'm looking at his IMDb right now.

Movies coming up starting in 2019 include fighting with my family, which is completed. Let's see who's in that one. Fighting with my family. Never heard of it. It sounds like a fun movie. It's see who's in that one. Fighting with my family. Never heard of it. Solid. But it sounds like a fun movie. It's got, oh, here's the IMDb description.

A former wrestler and his family make a living performing at small venues around the country while his kids dream of joining the World Wrestling Entertainment, joining World Wrestling Entertainment. I'll just tell you, my son's going to watch that movie 20 times. So congrats to The Rock on that one.

All right, next one. Jungle Cruise. That is based on Disneyland's theme park ride where a small riverboat takes a group of travelers through a jungle filled with dangerous animals and reptiles, but with a supernatural element.

He's in that one with Emily Blunt and Jesse Plemons. Oh, that's a kid movie for sure. That's like Journey to the Center. That's like, okay. But is it based on a Disney ride? That's where we are right now with The Rock. We should write a script and just send it to him

and get this done. That's what we should do. I don't think it would be that hard. We should be encouraging him to describe everything. He can't say no. So he's doing Hobbs and Shaw. So there's three. And Jumanji 2 is in pre-production.

All of those movies are coming out in 2019. He has four movies in 2019. And then starting in 2020, Red Notice, Black Adam. Maybe Black Adam is our Walking Tall movie. Let's see what that's about. That's a superhero movie. Oh, yeah,, Black Adam. Maybe Black Adam is our Walking Tall movie. Let's see what that's about. That's a superhero movie. Oh, yeah, you're right. A spinoff from Shazam centering on the film's antihero, Black Adam.

All right, so superhero movie. That's smart. And then let's see what Red Notice is. What's Red Notice? I feel like that's got to be good. Oh, you're going to like this one, Shay. First of all, Gal Gadot is in got to be good. Oh, you're going to like this one, Shay. First of all, Gail, Gail Godot is in it or Gal Gadot. Sorry. This is the, this is the 10 sentence

description for Red Notice. An Interpol agent tracks the world's most wanted art thief. Boom. That's I don't need to hear anymore. I don't need to hear anymore. He's a, he's a law enforcement officer and he's chasing somebody or he's just somebody who's being chased. Sign me up. He's also in, this is rumored, Suicide Squad 2. I'll take it. Announced. Oh, man.

I hope you're sitting down. San Andreas 2. Yes. San Andreas 2 is going to be good. San Andreas 1 was great. There's only one scene in San Andreas where they expose The Rock. He's not that great of an actor yet.

And when he's given the monologue with his ex-wife about their daughter who passed away and he couldn't save her. Yeah. That part, you're watching it and you're like, oh, I wish Will Smith was giving this monologue right now because I'll be in tears if it was him.

Incredible mother-daughter combo in that movie. The greatest mother-daughter combo movie in any action movie. That's Carla, right? What's her name? Carla Gugino or something like that? Carla Gugino and Alexandria Daddario. And they're probably like seven years apart in real life. But it's fine. Carla, Carla has like a sneaky,

good, like, like side hustle career. As I was just watching the one with Jet Li, which came out in 2001. Yeah. And she's in, she's in that one with him as well.

Like, I feel like she's put together a pretty solid roster here. She needs her own thing. Give her one big movie where she can run with it. Cause she's good. Yeah. She's one of those. She never a hundred% made it, but

everybody liked her. It's just she never met the right movie at the right time. She's like one of those, not like a, I don't want to compare to Carmelo Anthony, but that kind of thing where she was clearly an all-star, but it never really happened. I don't know if her shot selection was worse than Carmelo's. The Rock is also

making a movie called Doc Savage, The Man of bronze raised from childhood by a team of scientists to become the original superhero of the 1930s. A man of great mental and physical strength, he ran around the world battling larger than life villains.

So unfortunately for us, The Rock did not take up our suggestion to be a sheriff in a small town, but I do like the Interpol agent one. Sounds promising. What did you think of The Meg? I love The Meg. Did you go see it yet?

I still haven't. I'm seeing it this week. Okay. Yeah, so that's my thing now. Every time a movie comes out, I go watch it, and then I immediately text you several emojis. And I think when I sent you a text for that one,

it was just all slain. It's really good. I don't understand how somebody could not like it there's a part okay this is this is a a problem i have anytime that they pair up somebody versus like a giant thing like the like the rock and rampage this is a perfect example you want to see a in a movie i do anyway i want to see the rock versus this thing without like other parts or pieces involved i want to see him put hands on the thing he's fighting and in the meg you get that won't spoil the scene but jason statham literally fights the shark there's a part where his hands are on the shark and they're fighting and it's fantastic it's super exciting it's like the very that's like the big climax at the end of it but it's just so much fun the movie is they did a great job with shark they have several funny scenes in it

which is either a couple of jump scares we were at the movies i took my whole family to go see that's how excited i was i bought the im IMAX tickets for everybody. It was like $80 or $90. We're sitting there watching it. There's a jump scare in it, and my smallest son, who's holding popcorn, literally threw it in the air from how scared he was

and then started laughing about it. Like, he was in love with this movie. It was great. I don't know how you go watch this movie and you walk out feeling anything other than excited

about what you saw. Statham is great. Rainn Wilson is great. They do a bunch of little neat tricks and twists in there that are great. It's a wonderful movie. My whole family movie cheated on me with it. My dad was in town and they all went to see like a 1230 Friday showing when I was still at work. It really hurt my feelings.

I really genuinely felt like I had been cheated on. I got to say, I'm starting to wonder, maybe it's just because I'm old and I have more wisdom with this stuff. But remember that Gladwell book about the blink where people know in like two seconds whether something's going to, they have a feeling about it

and it's usually the right instinct. I felt that way with the Meg as soon as I saw the poster. They have, you know, in LA they have the big poster billboards. And I saw the poster and I saw the shark coming out and I saw Jason Statham's name and I saw the title and I was like, that's going to make money. I didn't know anything about the movie. It just, it all made sense.

I think people are ready for a shark movie maybe every three years. There's a reason Deep Blue Sea is still on cable all the time. And that wasn't even a great movie. I loved it. But it's just sharks. Sharks killing people. Sam Jackson getting eaten halfway through. So that one and the other one was Crazy Rich Asians. As soon

as I saw the poster and it was like, oh, this is my big fat Greek wedding for Asians. I was like, this movie's going to make $300 million. Like, Jesus, what a great idea. I knew nothing about it. I didn't know if it was a rom-com or whatever, but sometimes you just kind of know. And then other

times, other times you go, whoa, what is that? Why did they do that? That's a weird idea. The Meg is a no-brainer. It's just great. It's great. Jason Statham is 100% serious for the whole movie.

He does several ridiculous things in it, and you believe that he believes he's really fighting this shark. And those are my favorite kind of actors in those kinds of movies. Yeah, he's had a really nice career. Yeah, I love Statham. I don't know if I ever gave him the Action Hero Championship belt. I have to go through. I don't think I ever did.

He's always like kind of a fringe contender for it, but never 100,000% made it. Well, this was great. I think the last movie I'm going to pitch to you is a taken prequel where Jean-Claude just gets soft behind a desk. He was great. I think the last movie I'm going to pitch to you is a taken prequel where Jean-Claude just gets soft behind a desk. He's great. Watch him sending emails and filing papers. He's just working on assignments and HR reviews.

Just getting soft, forgetting what a gunway is like. Did we ever figure out how Liam Neeson climbs the side of the building in Paris after the daughter gets kidnapped? Basically scales the building like a mountain climber and goes in. And there's all this evidence left. The police didn't really even look through the, the evidence stuff. Didn't look under the bed. Nothing.

Didn't find the destroyed phone. A lot of holes in that movie. They did a horrible job. The police over there did. Liam Neeson knew he had to take care of it himself. There's some scenes in Taken. Yeah, we got to do the,

we got to do the rewatchables. When he shoots Jean-Claude's wife it's probably one of my five favorite moments on recurring cable I can't get enough of it relax it's a flesh wound he just shot it from four feet away alright

Shay by the way there's heavy heavy rumors over Shay Serrano podcast heavy rumors heavy rumors of taping. We've seen TMZ had photos of people coming out of recording studios. Just a lot of rumors buzzing right now. Shea Serrano podcast. Good luck with that. We'll read you on theringer.com this week and we'll talk to you soon. All right, Bob. All right, we're going to talk to Donnie Kwok, but first I'm a big fan of SimpliSafe home security. Here's why SimpliSafe is ready for anything that gets thrown at it.

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On the line right now, Ringer, East Coast Bureau Chief on the website right now wrote about Crazy Rich Asians, which is really, it's a really hard title to say fast, Crazy Rich Asians. I have to like slow down. It's just hard. There's some tough R's and S's in there for me. You were both glad this movie happened and glad it succeeded, but you didn't totally like the movie. So walk us through your thoughts. Well, first of all, did you see the movie?

Did not see the movie, but the Simmons family, the Meg and Crazy Rich Asians, they had to see the Meg with me again, but I think we're double featuring probably tomorrow night. I'm curious. I'm curious to hear your with me again, but I think we're double featuring probably tomorrow night. I'm curious. I'm curious to hear your opinion.

I mean, I think the movie, it's not terrible. It's not abject. I mean, I was telling a colleague earlier today, it's like, you can't really be mad at cotton candy. It's like,

it's hard to sustain ire against something that's so fluffy. But, the thing is, before I saw the movie, there was so much hype around it and kind of this idea that it was a movement and that this was going to be represented or this was like Asia America's breakthrough. And it was a bummer that it wasn't good. So I felt a little uncomfortable, I guess, with the marketing. And I know you have to separate

the marketing from the movie. But overall, I felt it it just wasn't a good movie and it's a bummer because I want to support it, but critically, I just thought it was bad. So it, it, is it a bad thing that the movie wasn't great? Cause there's a lot of bad movies that do well, not that this was bad, but there's a lot of movies that are, their ambition was basically to be like a well-liked movie that doesn't win the Oscar. First of all, I should say that it has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Amanda Dobbins loved it. Sean Fennessey loved it. So I acknowledge that people like the movie, I guess because it was supposed to have this extra significance for me as an Asian American, that's why I was disappointed that I didn't like it.

Yeah. But I do see, like, I have friends that, Asian American friends that work in Hollywood or in the industry and are trying to make it. And I, you know, you have to respect the fact that it is moving the needle and that is no easy task. I mean, I kind of like liken it to, or a friend likened it to me,

to like a flawed political candidate. You want them to win for the greater good, even though, you know, they don't represent everything about you. So. Right. I can see it for that.

It seems we have a lot of Asian Americans in our ringer circles and all of them seemed both skeptical and concerned as this movie started to move toward the release date. And it was the same thing each time. Actively kind of being mad that this movie was being made, but at the same time feeling like it was important. Yeah. I mean, it's part of it. It's kind of a buzzkill, to be honest, like cultural criticism because you know there's like the cynical side of you when you see everybody that's just gobsmacked by all this optimism and and and like

positivity to kind of like question that like are we what are we really talking about here so i think for for myself and some of my asian american colleagues at the ring i think it was kind of let's see what this is all about before we go, you know, Mr. Wolfing each other. Yeah. Well, the reality is there's not a lot of movies and TV shows that have really dipped into this world. There really aren't. And I would say even, it's considerably less

than what we've seen with African-American movies over the last 20 years. And when we had like the Oscar, so wait, hashtag a few years ago and all that stuff. What's interesting, I was having this debate with a friend of mine because to me it was like, if you use the example of like black Americans

or African-Americans in film, it feels like we got our Tyler Perry before we got our Spike Lee. Yeah. Which is like going from mediocre or like using the mediocre as the building block to something great. But then she told me, she used a different example, I guess it's television, that like you need family matters before you get to Atlanta. So I can see it can work both ways where this just opens the door and then hopefully like it inspires kind of deeper, better creatives to make better work. So Eddie Huang was on the show two weeks ago and he had sold that Fresh Off the Boat show to ABC and then basically disowned it.

And that was another example of like trying to market, I don't know, some sort of an Asian push that was more mainstream than trying to be good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I speak from kind of a little bit of a detached perspective because I'm not trying to sell a show right now or make a movie. So I know that there's tons of concessions that have to be made and there's blood, sweat, and tears. I mean, the movie that came out on Netflix, which I'm sure your daughter will like, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, that was like a four-year process to get that made, and it wasn't easy.

They wanted to cast a white girl as the lead. Yeah, so I can't be too hard on the creators. I don't blame them for not making something that's representative of all of us. I kind of blame Asian America to some degree for propping this up, giving it a burden that it can't really hold or it can't really bear the weight of. First of all, you underestimate me and my daughter.

Why did you watch it? You act like we didn't watch this on Friday night. And my entire Friday night wasn't built around seeing this movie. Was it good? Did you like it? I actually did like it. I didn't think the lead actress was very good. I thought she was the best part of the whole thing.

I just thought she was a little bland. Like I wanted better acting from her. She just had like kind of a blank look on her face the whole time. I thought everybody else in it was really good. Wait, did Zoe like it? Not only did she like it, she did a dance around the living room after it was over and declared she was going to watch it 20 more times. She loved it. Yeah. She, you know, she's been on this podcast talking about what she needs from a Netflix rom-com and this hit a lot of the

check marks. She, she likes people that shouldn't be dating. She likes when, when something gets out. It did. It was very smart how it was executed. But yeah, I thought, I thought the lead, so you liked the lead actress. I thought the lead actress was bland. I thought she was the best part, really. I actually liked the movie a lot better than Crazy Rich Asians. It looks, it's more, it's better made. And I thought the pacing was a little bit slow, but it's, you know, it's not for me. So I thought, uh, I thought the Netflix movie was legitimately solid and my wife and my daughter absolutely loved it. Like they will watch it multiple times.

Yeah. Everyone likes it. So, you know, I think it's going to be a hit at least for like the YA crowd. Well, my question is, cause we saw this happen with, with black movies and TV shows in Hollywood recently, you have these successes, and then all these idiot Hollywood people look around and go, whoa, we should kind of get into this. And Black-ish was a big success, and Get Out was a big success, and Black Klansman just now has been a big success. Not that Spike Lee needed a push recently, but you've seen Hollywood

kind of move into that territory because they've been able to figure out a way to have an impact to make money. And the reality is there's a huge audience out there that's underserved. And you would think that's the same thing for the Asian American audience. And I'm sure the light bulb is starting to go off right now for it. Totally. You know, I think for blacks though, they're probably like 30 years ahead of us, uh, as far as, you know, like the breadth and of what and the range of black entertainment. So I was actually talking to a friend of mine, too, who said the next Asian-American movie is kind of fucked because are we all going to support it the way we did this one. I mean, it's like, it's kind of like, there's now a lot of pressure on the next Asian American film. And if it's going to be a movement and not a movie and all of the jargon that we've

been using. Well, it seemed like the move is to make either a movie or a TV show that people would at least have to go, did you see it? Right. Did you see it? You didn't see it? What'd you think? And as long as you can get into the, what'd you think mode of, uh, of whatever you're doing, it's going to work. So my guess would be especially, so the, the one to watch here is Netflix, right? Because Netflix has the algorithm and if something works, they will beat it into the ground and do 10 more ideas just like it. And it's not an accident. Like when you watch the horror movies that they do, that there's a specific type of horror movie that they realize works and people cook on it. So they make more of them and they either produce their own or they buy them or they promote them or whatever. But I always joke about how it's the, there's something wrong in the house, something wrong with the house or don't go in the attic or our little girl is acting weird, what's wrong?

And it's just like these different types of things that clearly people watch and now they just crank out more of them. So with this, if that movie that came out on Friday hits, they're just going to make more. And we're seeing them go into the teen rom-com market already because they know there's people like my daughter who go on Netflix every day or every week

and are just going to watch any movie that there's some girl that they can identify with who's in some romantic entanglement. And that's it. It'll work. So isn't this then less a win for representation in asian america and more a win for rom-coms hmm yeah you're probably right although you could flip that around and say it's a win for representation too because the character although i didn't understand that the why the dad had to be the guy Aiden from Sex and the City.

Why did he have to be the dad? Also, when you watch the movie in the opening scenes, it's like her older sister's there. Did you think that that was the mom originally? Yes. Everybody I know said the same thing. It was like, why did they cast a woman that looks like her mom to be her older sister? It was a joke immediately i immediately went on my ipad and looked up how old the because this was her older sister was supposed

to be going off to college right so like 17 18 yeah and she's 30 in real life which was not a shocker but uh yeah that was another thing it's like you're gonna do that movie you can't find a couple of teen actors you have to go with a 30 year old the casting directors are always going to say it's hard to cast asian people which hopefully it gets easier you know with more successes but yeah none of the sisters looked remotely like each other i don't know i know that happens in families but it was kind of jarring i think though the more i've learned about this from just talking to people on your universe the last few years there's a lot of stuff that hasn't even really been written about or talked about that I don't think most people know. Like David Cho, the artist. Right. Like the biggest pop culture

moment of his life was when the Asian guy in Walking Dead had sex with the white girl. He thought that was a seminal tipping point because as he made the case, like that doesn't happen. We never get the white girl in the movies. And I'm like, really? And he just, and he lays out the whole thing. And he's like, yeah, we don't get the white girl, period. That was the first time. And hearing stuff like that, I was like, wow,

this is really interesting and dense, but- Let's make a movie, Bill. It could be the David Cho story. His story is crazy. Well, his, I mean, that's not even a movie. That's more like, that's a 20 episode docu-series. But yeah, it does seem like, it does seem like there's ample opportunity.

And I do think like Netflix has some great stuff and some bad stuff. But one of the good things is they go to where the audience is. And if the audience is here for this, they're going to and some bad stuff. But one of the good things is they go to where the audience is. And if the audience is here for this, they're going to keep making this stuff. So is anything on the horizon or was this it? Was this the big Hollywood moment?

I think there's like a rom-com coming up with Ali Wong and Randall Park. Randall Park's from Fresh Off the Boat and Ali Wong is obviously the standup. That's it? I think that's the next major thing. Oh, there's a John Cho movie coming out, I think, very shortly, where it's like he's kind of a Liam Neeson-type role.

So I think that's kind of groundbreaking. Sounds pretty grim. Jesus. No, I mean, you know, hopefully a lot of other things come out. You know, it's funny because I actually get envious sometimes like in Slack with all my ringer colleagues when we talk about like Succession or Thrones or Atlanta or Moonlight or whatever. And like feel kind of bummed out that Crazy Rich Asians is our contribution to the conversation. So hopefully we'll get something a little bit meatier. Well, maybe it'll open the doors. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be positive. I don't want to be

a buzzkill. Like overall, I'm happy for the creators, the performers, and I want to see them thrive. Justin Lin was on Twitter last night, incinerating better luck tomorrow. There might be a sequel coming. He's going to use this opportunity to make... I actually like Better Luck Tomorrow, personally. I thought it was a pretty good movie. People don't include it when they say, 25 years since an all-Asian-American-led cast. They go right to Joy Luck Club.

Better Luck Tomorrow was in between there. Did you hear about the... I'm blanking on the title. The skateboarding documentary that came out this year? Minding the Gap? Yeah. Fantasy was just telling me about it today. I haven't seen it.

I know it was made by an Asian American filmmaker. Yeah, and that dude is, I'm going to have to look up his name because that dude is not only somebody to watch, but he's really talented. And it's a hard movie to watch. It's not the most uplifting movie, but I think it's important. And more importantly,

the guy who made it, I think is going to be somebody. So we'll see what happens to them. And Steven Yeun too is in a new movie coming out. That was like a festival darling. It's a Korean movie called Burning, but. Oh, the director's name, Bing Lu. So I had lunch with,

or I had, I'm sorry, I had dinner. I was at a dinner with Steve like three weeks ago and he was talking about after walking dead, all he was being offered was action movies and action movies, action TV shows, just things where he had to fight people.

And he went the other way. And I think is trying to have a real career, which I think is a good idea for him. I think he's talented. I actually thought he's my favorite character on The Walking Dead. He got the girls in Walking Dead. He did.

I kind of stopped watching after they killed him. I think that was it for me. I was done. I didn't really like anyone else on the show. He's my favorite one. While I have you here, quickly, Premier League started. You are the host of Ringer FC

on the Ringer Podcast Network. Give me the three Premier League storylines right now. After two games, Manchester City looks like they're going to win the league again. Jose Mourinho may be fired by Thanksgiving. Uh-oh. What's the third? And I guess Liverpool played today.

But Liverpool had a really great first week. So it's basically looking, shaping up to be a city Liverpool race. What's more interesting this year, La Liga or Premier League? I always liked the Premier League better. I mean, now that Ronaldo has left La Liga, a lot of people were buying Serie A

because ESPN Plus has the Italian League now. I saw that. And my friends were texting me that are just Ronaldo fans, like, should I buy ESPN Plus? I mean, I thought that was a good move by them. I got it a couple months ago just because I'm in the industry and I wanted to see what they were up to.

Five per month or something? Yeah, something like that. I like their strategy, though. They're just going after niche stuff that people really give a shit about. And it's like, if you love UFC, you kind of have to get it because they got that. give a shit about you know and it's like you if you love ufc you kind of have to get it because they got that and they're they're not trying to have like the giant mainstream thing but a bunch of smaller things and seeing if they add up i gotta say my daughter's soccer coach saw the uh

the manchester city amazon documentary oh i've been meaning to watch. Like the hard knocks. He said it's fantastic. He was almost angry that I hadn't watched it yet. And it just came out. But apparently that's really good too. I was as a casual soccer fan who would just jump into the big matches.

I was kind of bummed out that Ronaldo left Real Madrid. I like the I just like that battle. I like the, I like the, I just like that battle. I like the Barcelona, Real Madrid, like the, I just liked it. It doesn't feel the same anymore. It feels like, I know this happens in the NBA too, so we should be used to it, but.

Yeah, I was about to say. This one, it felt more impactful. Yeah, I mean, it's more impactful when you leave a country in a league. Yeah. Like LeBron, LeBron left the Cavs, but he went to the Lakers. He just changed conferences. Like he's actually gone from the league. It's just weird. It would be like if LeBron went to the ballers league or something. Right. Totally different competition.

Or if he went to like China and was just gone and that was it. We never saw him again. I thought Dwayne Wade should have done that by by the way. What, gone to China? Yeah. Get the check. Do it for six months, get $20 million and then come back in March and sign with the playoff team. Right. He's already leaning, right? Yeah. Why not? All right. This is good. Thank you for

coming out and giving your take. Thank you, Bill. And we'll listen to you on Ringer FC. Are you on any other pods or is that it? You pop on the music pod every once in a while. Yeah, once in a while when I have some crotchety old opinion to give. We'll talk to you soon. All right, later, Bill.

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I am really excited for NFL Daily Fantasy. I really thoroughly enjoy it. Just sign up at FanDuel.com slash BS. All right, on the line, the one, the only,

David Shoemaker, our art director, as well as the best wrestling writer in the country, even though he barely writes anymore. Also the host of The Masked Man Show on The Ringer Podcast Network. You went last night, SummerSlam.

I watched with my son. An up and down affair, pretty good. Crowd seemed really engaged. There was a moment right before the main event was about to kick off. Braun Strowman comes out, tells them he's cashing in the suitcase. No matter who wins, he wanted to do it face-to-face instead of sneak around the back door. Electric moment.

I immediately tweeted the SummerSlave main event's fire. And five minutes later, it was over. It had to do with disclaimer tweet after. I'm sorry. I thought it really did seem like this was going to be awesome. It really was a moment there for five minutes, right? It was. When the show ended, I looked at my phone

and had about 20 text messages from various friends that all just said, this is awesome. This is incredible. I can't believe this is happening. And I was like, wow, I guess the main event was more popular with people texting me than it was in the arena. Then I realized they were all from the moment that Braun came out, and none of them were from after the match actually started.

Yeah, it was a great tease. And, you know, Kenny Herzog wrote a piece for us this morning that I co-signed it. I think that for all of the options that ended with Roman Reigns sort of cleanly winning the match and nothing happening after the fact, they put it over pretty well. They had to acknowledge Braun Strowman

because, you know, that's all everybody was talking about. The money in the bank cash-in possibility was all anyone was talking about leading up to the night. But yeah, I mean, just to tease it like that and to have it not fully pay off,

deflated, I think, most people there. So I'm not the only one to say this theory, but I actually think it's not even a theory. I think this is what they did. I think they had to get the belt on Roman Reigns. There was no way to guarantee that however they got there, the crowd wasn't going to be complete assholes about it for the entire match.

So they bring Braun Strowman out as the Dick T's swerve to get people's attention off of the fact that Roman Reigns is going to win. Now they're kind of into it because they think Strowman's coming up next. They have Lesnar take him out and then Reigns quickly win. Nobody really knows what's happening and then the match was over.

And they get out. For better or worse, this is what the entire Brock Lesnar what his most recent run in WWE has been. He disappears. He comes back. He has these relatively quick matches where there's a couple of big impactful spots.

And then before you know it, it's over and everybody's kind of left shocked. I, you know, secretly think that it's or not so secretly think that Vince was Vince McMahon was just like really impressed by how just confused everyone was after Brock Lesnar beat The Undertaker a couple of years back. Yeah, he just fell in love with the confusion. And so all of these matches end with everybody just kind of shaking their heads and they don't really understand what happened. This is obviously different because Brock Lesnar was on the losing end this time. But I think that they had clearly decided this was the moment for Roman Reigns, for better or worse. And I can't, I can't,

I don't know how much I can say, but I can say with relative confidence that the ending that we saw on Sunday was not the ending that was on paper like three hours before we saw it. What? Yeah, I mean, I think that this was Roman, this was going to be Roman's night regardless. But if you look at the clock,

they were right up against it. They moved some things around, from my understanding, pretty dramatically there at the last minute. Wow, so you think there's a possibility Braun Strowman was actually supposed to come out? I don't think Braun Strowman was going to

leave as the champion last night. But I think that just about anything else you can imagine was in play leading up to that match. It's almost like the Oscars where the biggest match of the night was this match. And if they actually had to speed stuff up because they had mismanaged some of the other time in the night when you had some fluff matches,

let's be honest. There were some fluff matches. And it's not like there were some fluff matches and you know it's it's not like there's one thing that ran over i mean when you have a when you have a card with whatever 13 14 matches on it you know this just little accumulations of time mean a lot and listen if you're if you're booking a champion like brock lesnar who's going to be wrestling matches that are 10 minutes maximum you can't leave 30 minutes you minutes. You can't really err on the safe side because then your show goes off the air 15 minutes early and everybody's wondering why.

So, you know, there are a lot of variables out there. But you're right. I mean, it's just, it's crazy that, like, this is not from reporting or from talking to anybody, but it's, you know, i can say with great confidence that everybody who's making the decisions at wwe cares about making making roman the roman reigns experiment work first and everything else after that right yeah and if that's the most important thing to them to leave anything up to chance you know i mean they could they should have just like literally turned the lights off with the exact amount of time before the match started so they could get it exactly how they wanted to get it

because they must know how important it is. This is just, you know, but this is pro wrestling. You know what I mean? It's all seat of the pants. No matter how much, you know, no matter how official the scripts look these days and, you know, how professional the whole operation is from top to bottom,

it's still going to be seat of the pants as as long as as long as it's pro wrestling. What do they see in Roman Reigns as a champ? Why have they been so enamored with this idea for the last three years? Well, for one thing, he's really good. I mean, I think that goes I think everybody that that booze Roman Reigns and complains about Roman Reigns. There's there's a real legitimacy to feeling sort of that he's been forced upon us, you know, or that it's all this sort of Vince's guiding hand. And the fans, you know, especially in the modern era,

the fans want, you can tell by the way they cheer in the booth, they are exerting their sort of influence over the whole product. And it's part of the way we watch wrestling now. And that's all fine. But I mean, I've said this a million times before but if but if you go to a house show or if you go to a even if you go to a tv show that's not in a major you know a super major city roman reigns is a big star man i mean like i went to go see i went to i went to go see a show at staples center in la but there was no cameras it was just a regular weekend show and everybody there was cheering for roman reignigns. It felt like cheering for Hulk Hogan in the 80s. We were all in it

together. And he's really, really charismatic and he's impressive. And he's not AJ Styles in the ring, although he's really, really good. And he's not his cousin The Rock on the microphone, but he gets by. I think that I don't know that I'm not here to just defend him top to bottom but I'm happy that he's champion because for you know one way or the other we'll figure out if what they see in him is there

within the next couple of weeks or months or whatever because this is his moment the thing I don't understand about this whole thing when the shield was really taken off and we've had because this is his moment. The thing I don't understand about this whole thing, when the shield was really taken off and we've had these moments, and I think you even came on this podcast and we talked about it.

You have these moments in wrestling sometimes where you just kind of know there's a path for one of the people. Or like, oh, that guy's going to be the champ. This happened with The Rock way back when. This happened, i don't know macho man savage so you go through there's been oh when uh when diesel was sean michaels bodyguard i was like oh that's something good's gonna happen that guy you just go through the usually we're

right and i feel like we were right with rains but everybody was in on it when when the shield was taken off everyone was like Reigns that guy that's the guy this is gonna be the next guy we were all excited about it and then he did like one bad promo and it felt like it was being force fed a little bit and everybody just flipped

and it was really strange I still haven't figured out I like Roman Reigns I think he's a good wrestler I think he's seems like wrestler. I think he's, seems like he could have a Cena-like run for them. I actually like him a little more than Cena. I think he's a little more interesting. And I like the fact that he went from being like really, you could tell he was like genuinely wounded as the real person by how things flipped on him. And he kind of couldn't shed that baggage of it for a while, but now he kind of embraces it.

I just kind of like him. I think he makes sense in 2018 as a champ. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't have like some fully articulated theory about this, but when guys debut and when they're coming up, there's this sort of dinosaur brain wrestling fan part that just that's still living in the 80s. And we love the big, strong, silent guy. You know, we love we love the same way we love Braun Strowman now, although he's, you know, evolved a little bit, too.

Yeah. And they get put in a position to succeed as soon as there's the perception that Vince McMahon has like stuck a gold star on their chest. Then, you know, that's I mean that's the that's the killer for today for today's crowd and then beyond that I mean once everybody starts booing or doing funny chants the Cena sucks chants from back in the day you know everybody wants to chant along you know even kids in John Cena shirts are chanting Cena sucks because it's fun you know I mean and it's it's really it's really hard to get away from it. That said, another Roman Reigns thing, just to throw it in, is there were many, many, many wrestling fans in Roman Reigns shirts last night,

mostly under the age of 15, but, like, they were selling lots of merch. So, you know, he's got something. And even if that something is just, you know, he's the main dude, because WWE said so, that's of some value now you know we gotta see we gotta see what happens tonight i think that i think that either tonight on raw or you know if they might go they might punt to hell in a cell but if we get if we get some semblance of what i thought was going to happen last night uh you know in the not too distant future it's distant future, it's going to be a fun ride. Yeah, I think women like him.

My wife thinks he's the best looking wrestler she's ever seen. My fiance texts me jokes on a daily basis about how like he's the real father of our child. My daughter loves him. My wife loves him. My wife loves him. Kids love him. And it's like in all the president's minutes,

they follow the money. In WWE, it's follow the merch. Who's buying the merch? Guess what? They're buying Roman Reigns stuff. That's why he has to be the champion. I'm glad we got it over with. I think the way they did it,

even though it was kind of disjointed and didn't feel right and was unsatisfying, it was going to have to happen. And this was the best version of that versus like having him be booed the whole match and then win the title. And I like the fact that he's actually going to defend it. I thought the Lesnar thing went on way too long. I like having the champ defend the title. Like say what you want about Bob Backham 40 years ago, but that dude was defending the title in every city you know and took on everybody and i feel like that's what the champ should should do so i'm in on it yeah they i mean they had this idea that they would lesnar would be gone with the title but they could still elevate the intercontinental

title on raw that of course didn't work the the wwe title over in smackdown weirdly took a hit because even though it was the biggest title that was being defended, it was still like getting, you know, they were still like having other matches with Roman Reigns

headline above that title. So it, I mean, basically, everything, you know, things didn't get elevated in the absence of the Universal title.

They just all looked like less significant because the champion didn't think it was worth his time to show up. Yeah. You know, I mean, it just, it just wasn't, it just didn't work.

I think the biggest mistake they made with titles was 15 years ago when Vince bought, uh, WCW and was in such a dick swinging contest with Ted Turner and everybody that he just decided to kill the whole brand and kind of redo it. And I think they should have just kept that title because there was real lineage with it. You know, it goes back to Ric Flair and goes back to the 60s. And I just would have kept it. And then, because I don't really get the difference.

To me, the title that was yesterday is the title, the One Reigns one. I don't really care about the other ones. And if you're going to have like a WCW title and make that something, and that just makes more sense to me than wherever the hell we landed. Can we talk about Brock Lesnar had breasts last night? There's really no other way to say it. Like he has boobs now.

And I don't know whether this is a drug testing thing or what's going on but um that it was something my son and i noticed right away my son made 100 jokes about and it just likes like he is not aging that great what was it like in person um it wasn't as bad i mean i was i was, I remember making, I made some, some, some very light jokes at Brock Lesnar expense. Don't want to anger the man. Yeah. I don't either. When he was on raw,

cause he just looked like his like neck had gotten skinny, but his body had gotten less skinny. Like there was a whole lot of stuff. I don't, I don't, I don't know exactly what's going on, but come on. We don't know what's going on.

No, we both know it's okay, but I'll, I'll just say that if you, if you want to take the like the the best like the kindest read of the whole situation a lot of people use stuff a lot of people use peds that aren't entirely above board yeah a lot of things besides just putting on muscle mass yeah and uh brock lesnar is one of the few guys that actually has to cut weight to wrestle at, I mean, to compete at heavyweight for UFC. So if he's just like in a new world

of actually having to control his body mass, that could explain how one's body could change shape without it being strictly because he's just on some weird stuff to get muscular or whatever. No, I didn't because he's just on some weird stuff to get muscular. No, I didn't think he's on stuff. My takeaway, knowing nothing, is that now that he knows he's going to be fighting in the UFC,

that he has to change whatever his routine was. Yeah, I think he's probably on a different regimen. He did not look great. A year ago, he was the most scary, had the most scary physique I've ever seen in my life. Quickly, I want to run through a couple of things and then we'll go. Braun Strowman is in a great spot right now. I think he is one of the most frightening people they have ever unleashed. I think he has a possibility, a chance to have a Vader-like run, RIP Vader.

But Vader had that run before he came to WWE where for like two years it was like, wow, this is the most scary person I've ever seen in a wrestling ring. And when I watch Strowman now, my big takeaway is nobody should ever be able to beat this guy. Lesnar, they tried to get this going with, and we got 75% there.

Strowman is just more frightening to me. What is it like in the arena with somebody like that now? I mean, he's incredible. I mean, he's definitely in the class of guys that is more impressive in person somehow. I mean, and it's not just the big dudes. I've said before that you guys, like The Miz, looks like 10 times more ripped when you see him in the ring and in real life.

And Sheamus is like that. I mean, Braun is like, I mean, a lot of the big guys are like that. When you see the when you see, you know, Big Show versus Mark Henry in real life, you're like, oh, I understand why, like people would line up around the corner in 1950 to see this sort of match. You know, I mean. It's really incredible. Braun, he looks big in the ring, and I've had the honor of being in the same room

with him a couple of times, and he's even more impressive in real life. And he plays big. He plays big and vicious, and he has some catchphrases now. And the crowd's into it. It seems like he has the most heat of anybody.

Does anybody have more heat than him right now? I mean, he's got a really, he gets, he's more, he's more over than anybody else. And I think that one of the interesting things you're saying

and we'll see going forward is that I feel like WWE is losing, I mean, is learning, you know, they're still, they're going to, they obviously were trying over and over again with Roman Reigns

and that sort of culminated maybe last night. but at the same time, they won't give up with them. They're trying to apply the lesson they should have learned to Strowman because they could have made him the champion six months ago. You know, he, he was that popular then, and he's even more popular now. They could have made him champion last night. And I feel like they're sort of taking their time because for one thing, it's like, what do you do once he's the champion? I mean, it's the old what do you do once he's the champion? I mean, it's the old division killer situation. But also because I think they're really just like they want to build him up as as a fully formed monster, whatever that means, before they really push the button on him. And it's taken me a while to really get comfortable with him being like, you know, kid friendly.

And, you know, they're kind of trying to get every, you know, he's this sort of larger than life personality, but he's not just like a scary guy. Last night at the show, they were selling this T-shirt that was just him drawn basically as a comic book character. And I was like, that's it. Like that, I just like, as soon as I saw it, I was like, they figured it out. That's exactly what he is.

He is a comic book hero for for you know 2018 but he's in real life and it's and and i'm uh i'm i'm excited to see where they go i'm excited to see where they go with it you think he's a good guy not a bad guy potentially a hundred percent wow i mean everybody loves him everybody loves him i still would rather have him as a bad guy and people can still love him anyway from everything we know about wrestling yeah i mean it's be it would be much easier for him to be it'd be much easier for to play him as a villain um but i think that you know you and i might look at him and think you know vader you might think you know who all the other big guys big terrifying big big guys early undertaker i early undertaker but i think that i think that they look at him and they think all the other big guys, big, terrifying, big, big guys. Early Undertaker. Yeah, Early Undertaker.

But I think that they look at him and they think Hulk Hogan, man. I mean, I think that they think he can just do anything. You know, part of me was thinking last night, there's a little bit of the Andre the Giant stuff with him, where if they gave him the title, it would be too unrealistic for anyone to beat him. He's definitely in that class for me where you watch him and you go, nobody should beat this guy ever. Nobody, maybe, maybe Lesnar,

that's it. And maybe you're better off not having him have the title at that point. Cause if they do a program with Reigns and Strowman, it's gonna, it's unrealistic that Reigns would beat him. So they would really have to come up with some, some sort of evil manager or whatever. Yeah. I think that rain, I mean, I think Reigns they've built up to the point where like he could beat, you know, he could beat like a fleet of tanks and you know, but in WWE logic, that would be okay. But I think you're right. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if, and when Strowman is the champion, if we see a sort of Hulk Hogan trajectory or like an undertaker trajectory where he's the champ, but he's immediately just like wrestling other monsters or like wrestling his

long-lost brother or you know or this even is sort of a weird inverse version of what happened to Daniel Bryan when he was briefly the champ is that they just put him back into a program with Kane just and just sort of you know put him in this weird nether world um I think that Strowman's definitely going to get the belt it'll be It'll be interesting to see what they do. They seem to be making this decision really deliberately, though. So, you know, if we see, if they figure out a way to make us care about Stroman versus, you know, Finn Balor jumping off the top rope, then that's, I'll be really impressed. But, you know, I think it could happen.

Ronda Rousey, what was the response for her last night? Well, this will be interesting to see what happens tonight and going forward. I thought the response in the arena was fantastic. A lot of the response that I got from people who were watching TV and TVs was that it was a little bit less fantastic, mostly because, you know, I don't I'm not I thought it. I think she's great. I thought last night was great. There are some people who were, you know, hitting me up saying that she celebrated too much.

Yes. It all seemed a little bit over the top. The celebration lasted way too long. Yeah. I was over the top. Like, get over it. And yeah, we're happy that she's here from UFC, but she was also doing UFC. Somebody who will remain nameless, when Shawn Michaels won the title,

he said it was the childhood dream come true. Someone said to me that it was the adulthood dream come true for Ronda Rousey. Yeah. But yeah, I mean. That's a good line. I think that they, I think that, I think that they, the crowd's reaction tonight is going to tell me a lot. And I think it's going to be really hard to predict. I think that she'll be okay.

If she's going to do UFC moves during a WWE matches, it doesn't have a long shelf life, in my opinion. I think the crowd will turn on her. She's getting better every match, but yeah. Listen, if you want to bag on Ronda Rousey, it's not hard. I mean, everything's right there in front of you. She's got a limited moveset. This is her second choice in careers. She's, you know, a little bit,

she is over emotive or whatever. She like, you know, kind of breaks character to celebrate. I think, you know, I think it's great. I mean, I think that, you know, that was in some ways one of the most realistic celebrations we've seen in a long time. Even if it was too much, that's a real human thing. And I just think that they have to be a little bit careful with how they position her going forward. Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessy messaged me last night to say they should just do a three-year Goldberg run with her.

And I was like, well, three years in 2018, three years of Goldberg would be about three months in 2018 but you know they have I think that the long term plan is just her versus Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania down the road or something like that and it'll be interesting to see how long

they just kind of let Ronda be you know again be a sort of like Hogan-esque figure just running on top of the women's division on Raw because, you know... I have the idea. Okay, go for it. I think she rips through the WWE the next three months

and with the eventual goal to make her a villain. I know they won't do this, by the way, but I think the way to do this is you do the Goldberg type run and she starts doing the, I didn't realize it was going to be so easy in the WWE. I'm not challenged anymore. This is, I feel like I'm slumming it and the fans get insulted and it turns into a,

well, somebody's going to have to give her comeuppance, and that's how Charlotte Flair comes in. I'm a real wrestler. I care about wrestling. It's in my lineage. Ronda thinks she's too good for us, and they just go that way. That'll work. Yeah, that could really work.

Or they could just do it like UFC where she just subtly seems overconfident and then just gets punched in the face one time and goes down, and it's all over. We got to talk about my favorite moment. Well, I had two favorite moments last night. One was the Miz getting an illegal object from his wife's cleavage, which I really miss managers. I really miss the days of people being slid objects. I thought it was brilliantly executed and I want more of it. So that's one. The other, which I just thought was brilliantly executed and I want more of it so that's one the other which I just thought was spectacular

was Samoa Joe summoning the spirit of Clubber Lang in Rocky 3 and basically making it seem like he had sex with AJ Styles' wife and that he was the real father of their child

and AJ Styles who was getting that he was the real father of their child. And AJ Styles, who was getting the shit kicked out of him, it really just hit a nerve and he went nuts. It ends up beating him up. They had people had to come out. Then he has to go over to his wife. There was some acting with the wife

and the young daughter who didn't seem like she really followed the script, which happens with three-year-old girls. I loved all of it. It was great. The samoa joe i've had sex with your wife is they cannot go with that hard enough in my opinion it is both of those things are absolutely fantastic samoa joe i said in my in my preview to summer slam samoa joe and aj styles are operating at the top of their game yes to such an extent that this is like, Samoa Joe is the best talker in the company. He's also a really great

wrestler, but he's the best talker in the company. AJ Styles is the best wrestler in the company, and at full health. And I was like, this should be, this could be Stone Cold Steve Austin versus Shawn Michaels if WWE tried to convince us that it was. I mean, these guys are so great. And Samoa Joe just goes out there and

just manages to over, like they could give him the greatest script in the world. He'd find a way to do it 50% better. And he just goes out there and it's just electric. And watching these two guys go, after they weren't employed by WME for so long, these are like two of the, literally maybe the two best guys in the company

working on SmackDown, fighting for the belt. It was incredible. Joe doing all the, I'm maybe the two best guys in the company working on SmackDown, fighting for the belt. It was incredible. Joe doing all the I'm your daddy now stuff, like you said, was just unbelievable. But the, I mean, the biggest moment of the night for me was AJ's daughter saying, daddy, you're bleeding. I mean, and just like really meaning it. Yeah. It's good stuff. To really quickly touch on the other thing, people throw around Chekhov jokes a whole lot,

but that cleavage thing, that was Chekhov's cleavage, man. If anybody has been watching Miz and Mrs. over the past several weeks, the one thing that no one will say out loud is that Maurice's cleavage is just almost hard to look at. It's so there. And that they managed to work that into the storyline was really incredible. I i mean that was just beautiful storytelling listen this is what we grew up with this is mr fuji slipping objects to everybody and captain lu and i don't know i i say this every time to you i don't know why the managers haven't had a renaissance i know vince has a

thing about them maybe they're hard to deal with, hard to manage, all that stuff. But I thought the show was too long. Oh, yeah. I did the magical, super smart idea that is actually my son's idea. Did not want to watch it right away. We started watching at six so we could fast forward through stuff. And that made it go by a lot faster. And it was really good. If you can jump through,

I mean, listen, I was there, I was there with, with, uh, with my little nine year old last night. And I actually,

for they, I'll say this for a show that long, they, they booked it incredibly well. They had, you know, they had big moments at like one memorable thing in every match. Yeah.

There was, there was like, they, they actually use the downtime pretty methodically. And then, you know, in every match yeah there was there was like they actually used the downtime pretty methodically and then you know in every match and then there you would get back up for the big finish or for the surprising swerve that happened and my little guy was like really into the video packages and that was surprising to me but he's not watching week in and week out with me so he so he would just like watch really intently and then just know exactly what was about to happen

and you know i if you if you ask me i would just say get rid of them you know the bell rings the loser walks out of the arena and the next two guys just walk right in you know that's how i would do it those are the that's like indie shows that i like going to that's it's like a real fight but you know at least there wasn't there weren't there weren't an overabundance of unnecessary matches you know say what you will about finn baller versus baron corbin um but that you know i i look on the bright side of even that overabundance of unnecessary matches. You know, say what you will about Finn Balor versus Baron Corbin. But that, you know, I look on the bright side of even that one and say they realize how important it was to have Finn Balor

in the demon makeup on SummerSlam. He's a big part of this. My son was fired up for that. Ring of Honor was Saturday night? No, NXT was Saturday night. When is Ring of Honor taking over MSG? That's happening at some point, right? Oh, yeah, that's happening is Ring of Honor taking over MSG? That's happening at some point, right? Oh yeah, that's happening

Ring of Honor and New Japan That's happening in a little while, yeah So you'll go to that one? Sure, yeah, absolutely Ring of Honor in New York is always fun Last question Was the coward Peter Rosenberg there or no? Yes Yeah, Rosenberg there or no? Yes.

Yeah, Rosenberg was working last night. He was in a beautiful blue suit. Did he suck up to you? Because you were there in person, did he suck up to you? We had a little mending of the fences, but it's never going to be like it used to be after all the things that he said. I'm not surprised, I'm not

surprised. I'm not surprised he was nice to your face because that's what those people are like. Those villains, they'll do that. I hope he's listening. I agree. I'm sure he is. He's always listening at home, taking notes, thinking of like mean things to tweet later on. That's just the way he rolls. Yeah. Yeah. We're watching you, Peter Rosenberg. We know what you're up to. All right. So you can listen to the Max Man Show. Your recap is going to be on Wednesday? Yeah, it'll be Tuesday or Wednesday for sure. Okay. Looking forward to it. Thanks, Shoemaker. We miss you in LA. Hey, I miss you too. Have a good one, man. All right. I'll talk to you. All right. Thanks to Shea Serrano. Thanks to Donny Kwok.

Thanks to the man, the myth, David Shoemaker. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to theringer.com. Don't forget to check out all of our fantasy football and football preview stuff. It's on the site right now. Thanks to SimpliSafe.

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to ever say