The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Siakam Game, Warriors Overreactions, a Post-'Thrones' Life, and AEW Battles WWE With Joe House, Mallory Rubin, and David Shoemaker | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: May 31, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House immediately after the Toronto Raptors beat the Warriors in Game 1 of the NBA Finals to discuss what went wrong for the Warriors, what went right for the Raptors, Game 2 speculation, and more (3:00). Then Bill sits down with Mallory Rubin a week and a half removed from the end of 'Game of Thrones' to discuss the ending of the show one final time (35:45). Finally, Bill talks with David Shoemaker about AEW as a competitor to WWE, their successful 'Double or Nothing' PPV, poaching superstars, what a new weekly wrestling show could mean for the WWE, and more (1:12:38). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Don't be driven by technology. Drive it. BMW, the ultimate driving machine. And my personal favorite car. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com and TheRinger Podcast Network, where you can find a slew of awesome pieces, features, and podcasts. Coming up, we have Joe House

and I are going to break down game one of the NBA Finals, which just happened. And then we have Mally Rubin talking about with a little distance, Game of Thrones, what the series meant. Are we going to have another prestige TV show by that? Were the people right or wrong to be so upset about some of the events of season seven, season eight, and then also what the future of Binge Mode is.

So yeah, you can hear that as well as coming up after that, David Shoemaker, the great one. We're going to talk wrestling because we had a seismic moment in the wrestling, wrestling annals this past week. The business feels like it's changing. There's been a new entrance. AEW is in, and we were both like blown away by how good of a job they've done this

month. And we're going to talk about what it means with WWE. That is all coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. We're taping this a little bit before midnight on the East Coast, a little bit before 9 o'clock on the West Coast. Game one, NBA Finals in the books.

Joe House, a longtime aficionado of the NBA Finals. He's online. You just watched this. I think we'll remember it as the Siakam game. Will we remember this as the Siakam series? What's your takeaway? I don't think we're going to remember this as the Siakam game. Will we remember this as the Siakam series? What's your takeaway? I don't think we're going to remember this as the Siakam series, but he had a great

game one against Philadelphia. And this is the thing with this Toronto team. They have established this identity of taking turns among various of their kind of role players stepping up and having big games so he had a quiet series against milwaukee he didn't

shoot great but they had other guys that filled in and were able to to you know um they were the difference in that theory they won four straight games because of their role players. Yeah. And this iteration of Toronto is tough to beat. When you get, you know, when you expect 24 points or more out of my man Kawhi, but you get double digits out of Danny Green, who's been dead all series. You get double digits out of Van Vliet. You get 20 points out of Gasol.

You know, that's a tough recipe for anybody. Well, and then you had, how many pull it out of your sphincter threes and weird chats did Toronto make every time it seemed like Golden State was going to get over the hump. My dad always calls these the hump games. Golden State just couldn't get over the hump. It would be like, they'd be down three, they'd be down two, down four, felt like that. And then all of a sudden something weird would happen. The worst one was probably McCaw. I don't even know why he was out there. I was shocked to

see him. And then he made like a dagger three. And I think it was the only three he made the whole game. But that one really hurt. Yeah, that was the only three he made all game. And then that one, the game was probably decided at that point. But the Van Vliet shot at the end, the circus double pump off the bat, when that stuff starts going in, it's not your night. This is one of those nights where it was all going in for Toronto. And I got to say, I was surprised because I thought

I went into this thinking, you know, their guys are a little, those roll guys are a little hit or miss. I thought the pressure of the finals, um, just, just how different it is having gone to the finals where you have those, you know, two hours for the game, you're warming up and there's 200 people on the court and it's just different. It feels different. There's a different energy to it. I thought it would affect them.

And it was the opposite. I actually thought that, that that was the best I've seen them play in a couple of weeks. What was interesting, Kawhi wasn't good and he got to the free throw line, but didn't it look like he was kind of playing one-legged half that game? Totally agree with that.

He did indeed look like he was playing one-legged. I was watching with a big group of guys, and there was a lot of questions about how hurt is he? Yeah. How hurt is Kawhi? Well. He still played 43 minutes. Yeah, and he got to the line 12 times.

They were getting more calls than the Warriors it felt like, but I thought the Warriors made a tactical mistake. They really sold out to stop Kawhi early. They were trapping him, sending two guys, and they were kind of leaving Siakam unaccounted for,

which was the opposite of what the Bucs did. I thought, I assumed they would go into this game and try to take out the roll guys and make sure that the roll guys didn't beat them. And if Kawhi was going to shoot 30 times, kind of play the math on that because he's been doing that now for two straight rounds. And at some point it felt like he was going to wear down from that. He looked worn down tonight. I thought they made a mistake selling out the way they did in the first half to try to shut him down. I would have been much more worried about Siakam and Danny Green getting going. Danny Green missed his first couple.

But Siakam's the guy you just don't. He was really good this season and was in a funk last series and now I'd be very concerned if I was a Warriors fan what do you think well that's the reason for the concern is Lowry didn't have a great game shooting

wise he shot 2 and 9 from the field and he ended up almost fouling out. But he was a plus 11. He led the team. He and Kawhi had the best plus minus along with Van Vliet.

Took up good charges. Yeah. And he had nine assists. So he played a pretty controlled game even though he didn't shoot well. It will be his turn to have a good game at home. This is the risk. This is why you can't F around in a regular season.

I just wonder how this series would line up if Golden State was starting off the series with two home games. It's the very best scenario with Toronto starting off with, with two straight home games, um, with, with the momentum carrying over from all of the good feelings. And really what I think is like an identity for them that they developed by kicking Milwaukee's ass for a straight game, right? Those four straight games, they, they, they found themselves and they were able to just come right back home and, and, you know, uh, find that, that comfortable place they were in when they were kicking Milwaukee's ass and everybody just stepped up. Yeah. But see, we've seen the flip side of this too. Like the Oh six Mavericks,

they kind of found themselves during that Spurs series in the Western, in the Western finals. And then they win the first two games against Miami, and then they blow game three and it flips. So the find yourself thing. Oh, it can flip. Yeah, it can flip back. Yeah. I'm with you, though.

The more, when I was watching the game today, I just assumed that some of the Toronto guys, the stage would be a little big for them. But they really did get some good big game reps those last two games. And they've also had guys like Gasol has been in a million international games and stuff like that. He's been in a conference finals, Kawhi and Danny Green have obviously done a bunch of stuff. Lowry's been in some big LeBron games. It's not like they haven't been in big games, but I think those last two rounds, you're right. There was a nice seasoning. And then the other thing, which we always discount, let's file this away for next year,

the massive amounts of rest for the Warriors, where the announcers were talking about it that first half about how worried Steve Kerr was about just getting the rhythm, how it's impossible to replicate the practice. They looked way off in that first half. I thought they looked a little better in the second half, but I didn't really feel like defensively they started to look like the Warriors until the last six minutes of the game. I thought they had some really good defensive sequences down the stretch.

I guess the X factor, though, is Iggy looked like he got hurt again. Yeah, right at the very end. He got hurt. He got hurt on a layup. And then on the next play, which was really their last gasp, Kawhi shoved him out of bounds on an offensive rebound and got it. No call. Steve Kerr's

going bonkers. Steve Kerr was going crazy. The announcers missed it completely and they showed no replay. They were just like, we're good. We're going to move on. We're going to move on from this one. It's nice for ABC that Toronto's going to win this one. We're good. We're going to move on. We're going to move on from this one. It's nice for ABC that Toronto's going to win this one. We're good. We're happy.

But it just felt like one of those games, and it felt that way early on. It felt like the kind of game that Pascal Siakam was going to go 14 for 17. The line was really, really kind of fascinating. I ended up getting sucked into taking the Warriors. They were even money line. They were plus one and a half, but they were like minus 275 to win the series, which doesn't make a lot of sense

because now they got to basically win four of the next six. Wait, did you understand that? Sometimes I just don't understand gambling lines. I have no idea what was going on there. I assumed it was moving around a good bit over the course of today but it looked like it ended up with toronto at a minus 115 money line um but all throughout the day it was the warriors getting one it was even they they were they they were favored favored the day before.

It just looked like, you know, people were pushing money in. Yeah. And it never really moved a ton. I bet on the first half, I bet on Golden State and even odds to win the first half, just on that theory you outlined of some of the Toronto guys showing up and feeling finals tightness. And it was just, you know, that was the idea of it. But I was prepared to lose.

They weren't tight. They came out poised. They came out with the exact same, you know, game six mentality against the Bucs. And they just went and kicked ass. It did. I'd heard this mentioned before this series that there was a little bit of 2004 Pistons similarities. Kind of the team out of nowhere that finds itself as the playoffs go along

and then really turns it on in the finals against a team that is a little overrated. People had really, including myself, had really shook off the Durant injury as they can win without him because they basically, they won a game six against Houston against a team that, as we come to find out in the subsequent weeks,

was not getting along, it doesn't seem like. And it seems like they weren't getting along during and at halftime and after that game. So you have that. Then they sweep Portland, where Lillard was definitely wearing down and had the broken rib or whatever he had in game two. Plus Cantor was just broke down as that series went along.

They kind of caught that Portland team at the perfect time. Maybe you and I and Sal, since I'm going to use the three of us since all of us wagered on the Warriors, maybe we overrated those five wins by the Warriors. What do you think? I don't know. A game one like this in Toronto, this is a classic kind of like feel them out and you have a bunch of colliding

narratives here. South sent around a stat amongst us about how great Golden State is on rest. Yeah. But on the other hand, historically teams with that amount of rest have done great. South also shared with us a stat about how good Golden State has been in game one. Yeah, that didn't happen.

This was a Golden State on the road for game one. And we just, it's a, the confounding thing about Toronto is, are you going to get that performance from those role players in a way that can swing the game? But I mean, game two, they might get 28 from Lowry, something like that. That part reminds me of the 0-4 Pistons. The fact that they're just, I thought they were, for the most part,

really good defensively in that game. They had a couple of breakdowns, but they really made the Warriors work for shots. The thing that reminded me of that 0-4 finals more than anything was just a lot of dudes on the Warriors side that you're like, oh, wow, that guy. Oh, he's taking a big shot right now. Quinn Cook took a really big three at one point. And I think it was to cut a lead from maybe it was like six to three, something like that. In the fourth quarter, he missed it. And then the Raptors came down and they made a shot and it was like a five point swing or six point swing. But there was a couple of moments where Jarebko made, I think one, he might've even made two.

Cousins took one, Livingston in the lane. You kept kind of reminding yourself like, Oh yeah, they're missing Durant. They're missing that one extra guy that you you'd really need here. And it really was a lot of, a lot of clay and Curry, like every play running through them. And I, you know, I, this broke perfectly for KD, right? Cause they, cause now it's like, we don't have to hear that narrative anymore. And actually they need need KD. Now he can hop on his white horse

and ride to the rescue. Well, and the thing that was missing from this game was the patented Golden State run. They never got going. They never ripped off 9 or 11 straight.

They couldn't get stops. They couldn't get consecutive stops against Toronto. They never ripped off, you know, nine or 11 straight. They couldn't get stopped. They couldn't get consecutive stops against Toronto. They could get like one stop. They got a turnover here and there. And a bunch of times they pushed it. They closed like an 11 point lead to seven, but never got it like down to three and never made Toronto seriously, you know,. There was two instances, and I don't remember when, but both in the second half where Kawhi made shots. He just took shots. He made that one three in Looney's mug.

Right in his face. Yeah, that's what I mean. It was one of those games where, what are there, like 12 shots in a game that could kind of start swinging it one way or the other? And it felt like all those went in for the Raptors in that game. There was one near the end that didn't, where Danny Green was officially starting to heat up. And he had a really nice catch and shoot from the right corner.

And it hit both parts of the room and went out. But if I'm a Raptors fan, you knew Siakam was good, right? Whether the stage was a little big for him last round, who knows? Maybe it was the way the Bucs were playing him. But you figured like from an athletic point, he was going to come around. The one part we just didn't know with them was whether Green was lost for the playoffs. You know, because he was really, it was beyond a slump. And I feel like they needed him.

Yeah. They do need him. Right. So now they have him back. I thought Gasol was great tonight, especially in the first half. I thought the stuff he was doing defensively, jumping out 30 feet from the basket,

they were just bound and determined never to let Curry shoot an open 28-footer. It's really funny. It's funny to watch. They were totally happy with him having the floaters. Drive to the basket all you want. We are not giving you open anything. So the times that he got the shots, it was an accident.

But Gasol was a big part of that. I thought his defense was really, really good. And that's somebody who's been in a lot of big games. I didn't love that trade, but it is nice to have Marc Gasol in a finals game versus Valanchunas, you know? I just feel the veteran thing is that it's really, this is where it matters right now.

And against Golden State, who has a size deficiency, his inside-outside ability is a nice advantage they can create, a nice mismatch they can create. 20 points and seven rebounds from him. What do you do? Oh, so the Quinn Cook play. 10 minutes left. 92-87.

He missed a wide open 3. Lowry rebound goes to Siakam. Siakam makes a 2. And suddenly it's 7 again. But there were moments like that strewn throughout the game when it just felt like something good was going to happen. And,

and then it didn't happen. I would have, if I, my big notes for the words where I just, I don't think I wouldn't, wouldn't play cousins. Yeah, I agree with that.

I don't think he shocked how much time he was playing in the fourth quarter. It was weird. He doesn't, he's not at the speed of the way the speed and intensity of these last couple of rounds. I just don't think he has it in him if he hasn't been playing. And, uh,

he couldn't move. He, I mean, the defensive rotations, he was out of position constantly. And there was a couple of plays offensively where he was just in the wrong spots. I would play Looney way more than he played.

Looney only played, I guess he played 28. Yeah, he was, a lot of that came in the last 20 minutes of the game, though. Because I remember looking earlier, and he hadn't played nearly as many minutes as I thought. He didn't even start. But Jordan Bell played 12. I might rethink that one. I would start Looney.

We'll see, though, if Iggy's hurt, they don't have a lot of options. You might see more Swedish Larry house. Swedish Larry might really get some legit run here. I'm ready for it. I think your stat, he had eight minutes tonight. Yeah, he ruined my stat. It didn't come out. It didn't work out tonight.

Oh, that was another ridiculous Raptors play tonight. Swedish Larry played perfect defense on Van Vliet. And Van Vliet did that double pump whip off the backboard layup that went in. You remember that? Yeah. There was a bunch of this. So this broke perfectly for Durant. And now you could probably get away to waiting until next Wednesday if he can play.

I still don't know if we see him in this series. I really think there's a chance that ship has already sailed and they're just not telling us. But you don't play him Sunday. You know you're going to get incredible refs on Sunday, right? The one thing we know for sure is they will get really good officiating on Sunday on the Warriors' behalf. There'll be no more shoving Iguodala into the camera crew with no calls. They'll be getting those calls.

But if they can somehow split and take that back to Golden State for the Wednesday game, that'd be a little bit more appealing. We got a serious house. What do we do? Do we get out of this Warriors bet? What do we do? I don't know. I'm slightly concerned on my Warriors bet right now. What'd you think

of Sal's text? Because that got in my head too. Sal was basically like, this is the 2017 Eagles all over again. This is a disaster. And I was like, oh shit. What if it is? What if this is just the 2017 Eagles all over again. This is a disaster. And I was like, oh shit. What if it is? What if this is just the 2017 Eagles again? Nah,

that 2017 Eagles was just one game with, with a bunch of, of spooky stuff. Like, you know, the, the, this next game is, is going to be,

uh, telling interesting, but also remember Milwaukee won their first two games at home. And I mean, the, the, the rest went off and won four straight. So we have to be patient with this.

It's my, it's my gut instinct. We just need to be patient. The, the, the warriors had all the rust. They shot 44%. Um, if you're looking for pluses, you were worried. I was worried about their ability to rebound. They out-rebounded the

Raptors, but the Raptors shot over 50%. They almost shot 51%. The Raptors also shot nearly 40% for three. The turnovers really hurt. The Warriors, a famously sloppy team, sometimes. Tonight they were sloppy. 16 turnovers, and it felt like the Raptors were gunning for them. They're very handsy. It's a great point. Handsy Raptors team, trying to take charges, doing a lot of inappropriate touching

and just kind of all over the place trying to make things happen. And the Warriors are blush. This is my late night strategy with my wife. I do think that in that respect especially, that's where the, the warriors rough, like them not having games, the kind of, uh,

reps. Yeah. They tried a lot of, um, pocket passes in the lane and stuff. A lot of that, that where they have cutters coming from the weak side and the Raptors got their hands on those balls over and over and over again.

Are you ready for the possibility of, we talk about the 2009 Kawhi run, like we talk about 2011 Dirk and some of the other ones? 2019 Kawhi run? The 2019 Kawhi run? Kind of. Like 10 years from now, we're like, ah, 2019 Kawhi, that was great. 2011 Dirk 03 Duncan remember that there's just these one man wrecking crew

runs where somebody just takes four straight rounds it's in play now you mentioned it earlier we need to find out really how hurt Kawhi is because Golden State made a tactical mistake in overplaying Kawhi in the first half

and trying to take him away. He was perfectly content to just swing the ball. He didn't, he didn't care about being double teamed. He wasn't looking for a shot. It didn't seem like. Yeah. He reminded me of myself before I retired from pickup basketball.

He doesn't have a full run in them, but he can pick his spots. That's where I was at the tail end house. You kind of know you have a good half hour in you, and it seems like Kawhi knows he has a good half hour. So he's like, third quarter, turn on the Jets. Here I come. But they should just throw away the first quarter with him. Also, like, if he shoots 35 times, great.

He's putting on an incredible physical and mental toll to just carry the offense like that. I'm so much worried about the other guys. I don't want any of the other guys to get going. Kawhi, if he goes 16 for 30, whatever. But Siakam, 14 for 17 and beating them in transition. He did that, what, five times tonight? Just out-sprinted them? Down the court?

That's the stuff that can't happen. Don't let those guys get going. And they got a whole bunch of opportunities from the Warriors missing shots and turning the ball over. That's what's shooting under 44% and turning the ball over 16 times. That shooting under 44% and turning the ball over 16 times,

that's what gets a guy like Siakam going. He got around the basket a bunch of times. A lot of fouls. He got a few of those layups. I mean, both teams shot over 30 free throws, which I'm never a huge fan of. Did you feel patriotic at all during this game? It's an important question.

Patriotic? Yeah. What do you mean? I don't want the NBA. I don't want the Lawrence O'Brien trophy to go to Canada. We may never see it again. I don't trust those people. What are you talking about?

We have to go through customs to get in their country. Now they're going to have the Lawrence O'Brien trophy. Is that what it's called? I don't want them to have it. Larry O'Brien trophy? Is that what it's called? I don't want them to have it. Larry O'Brien, yeah. We got to protect our home turf house. This is our country at stake.

I think that's a dumb point. This is us against them. What are you talking about? I don't want the trophy to go to another country. We got to save this thing. I like to be international NBA. I was joking, obviously. No, I know. I was joking, obviously.

Isn't it funny, though, that there's no patriotism at all with this series? Like, if this was the Olympics, we'd be going nuts. Why would there be patriotism? It's U.S. versus Canada. It's not really U.S. versus Canada. Why not? Because the Raptors have been in the NBA for however many years now. Listen, all of their fans were Canadian.

They're from another country. And we got to protect our turf house. This is ours. This is our trophy. I think you're trying to do something here. I just am not thinking about it. I'm doing a bit. Yeah, I think you're too late.

It's too late back on the East Coast. Too late for me. Kyle, did you get my bit? I got it. Kyle got it. It's like late back on the East Coast. Too late for me. Kyle, did you get my bit? I got it. Kyle got it. It's like the Russians sort of thing, right? Well, what about Rocky IV? That's what I'm thinking.

You know? Apollo Creed coming out to James Brown living in America. No? Nothing? I mean, are they going to do that in Oakland? Are they going to come and, you know, living in America? Maybe the Warriors need to think about us, the Americans. Maybe there's more at stake than just defending the championship.

It's about defending the flag house. This whole Toronto thing, though, with the people outside and all that stuff, I'm trying to think, has that been an american equivalent to this not in basketball right have we had this many people now it's a thing um all the teams have gotten smart it feels like it's been going on like three or four years like there was 45 000 people outside during the stanley cup in washington last summer yeah outside during the Stanley cup in Washington last summer. Yeah.

Um, watching the games out in the street, you saw Milwaukee now to, to the credit of the Raptors, they've been doing this Jurassic park thing for, it feels like 10 years. I mean, as long as they've been good,

at least for like the last five or six years. Um, and they, it seems like they have a great outdoor plaza for it. I love it. I think it's a great phenomenon. It seems like you should just move there. Why don't you leave this country?

We don't need, we don't want you. Go live with your friends in Canada. Toronto's supposed to be great. Danny Chow wrote a great food diary. I'm hungry. You know, there's a Momofuku in Toronto.

Is it the Momofuku? Yeah. Okay. There's a Momofuku in Toronto. Another reason to love Toronto. You know,

speaking of Momofuku, I was talking to Chang tonight. We were texting and there's, you know, we might go to Summer League again

and in Vegas and we were talking about, you know about whether we want to do another live show and what the theme would be. And I was thinking about Chang, David Cho, Alan Yang. Get basically the all-Asian podcast live show and call it Sin Sanity. What do you think? Sin San and call it Sin Sanity. What do you think? Sin Sanity 2019. Sin Sanity.

Cause it's in Sin City. Sin City. Sin Sanity. Sin Sanity. And they just got, they just do their thing. They talk about all of the things

that they talk about when we go to our dinners. I'm the honor Asian at the dinner, but it's just that. It's a live show, an hour and a half since Sanity 2019. No? I mean, I would pay for that. I think it'd be-

Would there be food? Yeah. I think there would be food, actually. Okay, then I would definitely- I think there would definitely, absolutely be food. Just Chang and Cho by themselves. That's a show. That's an hour-long show.

I mean, no offense to Alan Yang. He brings a whole other wrinkle to the table. Right. Chang and Cho have an established, legendary rapport. Cho with a live mic is probably not legal not definitely sure that that can actually happen in this country might happen in your favorite country canada but i don't know if it happens in america you could you just warn everybody you say you know the offensive things are going to be said yeah it might be like the disclaimer and jackass before that whole thing

about don't try the stunts. I think you'd have to say something like that beforehand. I mean, Louis C.K. is still doing acts, right? Jesus. You can cut that. No, that's funny. That's a true fact.

The show is not going to be worse than Louis C.K. How about that? Insanity. Get your tickets now. Can Louis C.K. be part of it? He's looking for work. I think he's looking for work. part of it? He's looking for work. I think he's looking for work.

The Riggers.Nquack is available, though. He'd be ready. Gotta get him, too. He's definitely in. This guy, I'm gonna work on this. I'm gonna workshop this some more. I think it's Insanity or something there. I love it. Alright, House, anything else? got u.s open coming up how many weeks less than two weeks it is uh wait a minute today thursday it's exactly two weeks from today they will be teeing off at pebble beach coming up on this week's fairway rule. And we have Chris Harrison from the bachelor.

Oh, wow. All those franchises. He's, he is little known, uh, a, an avid golfer.

And he's played Pebble beach a thousand times. He plays it in every program. We're going to talk about, he played it a week ago. So I want to hear about what kind of conditions Pebble beach is in. And he's doing a podcast right now with Johnny Miller, real golf talk with Johnny Miller. Oh, wow.

He's coming on the show. He's a big Rewatchables fan. He wants to come on the Rewatchables, apparently. He can come on every Ringer show. Maybe we have Chris Harrison day and he's just on like eight shows. He's on House of Carbs. He's on Dual Threat. He's on Jam Session.

He could host. He could go between Threat. He's on Jam Session. He could go between Louis C.K. and Cho. He could moderate it. Am I going to lose more money on Tommy Fleetwood and Jon Rahm for this US Open? Or should I just burn the money in my backyard right now?

Yeah, take it in your backyard. Get that nice fire pit going. Take a stack of hundreds that you keep and just start throwing them in there. I might throw our worries bet in there too. I might throw our worries bet in there. I'm worried about our worries bet. I didn't like what I saw tonight.

Well, obviously you liked it because you love Canada. So congrats to that. Congrats to you and the Canadians because you love Canada so congrats to that congrats to you and the Canadians I love Canada I love Canada and I love Cincinnati how's that always a pleasure we look forward to hearing you on Fairway Rolling this week thanks guys

alright bye alright we're going to get to Mallory Rubin in a second first having a high sports IQ super important. You just saw it tonight. Saw it with Steph Curry. You know who has a high sports IQ? That dude.

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ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. Also, since we're here, I wanted to mention Luminary, the Rewatchables 1999, our little spinoff series that we did from the much beloved Rewatchables feed, which has the hangover actually this week. We did Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me this week on Luminary. We are dissecting some of our favorite 1999 movies and also what they meant in a really great and really strange year in general, but a great year for movies.

Austin Powers, the spy that shagged me. If you want to check it out, two months of free access to Luminary's premiere content for free if you sign up at luminary.link slash Simmons. After that is $7.99 per month. Cancel any time terms do apply. All right, let's bring in mallory rubin all right the mother of dragons mallory rubin is here hello whenever i invite her on the podcast i never tell

her what she's talking about because she hates it uh not knowing this is a new extreme this is a new extreme even for you you literally have not told me anything about what we are here to discuss about game of thrones oh yeah i. Oh! I love Game of Thrones. It's been like 10 days. It's great. Your successful podcast, Binge Boat, you were on hashtag Talk to Thrones. I didn't really talk about it here

other than with fellow dumbasses like Rosillo and Cousin Sal. You had a recurring weekly presence that stirred the listening public. People did enjoy it. I wanted to have a big picture conversation, though, about this kind of chasm between the diehard Maniac fans and the people who just watched the show to watch it and could barely remember to have people who, it seems like those people kind of enjoyed the last season and the last two seasons. Whereas the diehards were like, well, this didn't happen, this didn't happen, they rushed this.

Is it possible to enjoy that show while also not being disappointed by it? Yeah, I mean... It's a complicated question for you. Yeah, I love Game of Thrones. It's one of the most important things in my life, sincerely. And so one of the things that I believe firmly is that part of what makes the story

and the community around it so special is that there's no one right way to consume it. Like you and I relate to the story very differently. Yeah, that's true. For example, I remember character names. There's just one difference one difference I love the brothels you don't like the brothels I love the brothels I said that to the wrong person we can talk about Molestown horror anytime you want great brothel stuff but I so I would say I guess in response to that that I I and this is not a way to avoid your question which I will engage with momentarily but just to refr it a bit, maybe I don't necessarily think it's those two poles. I think

it's a spectrum. And I think that people fall all along that spectrum. And I think that certainly maybe people who have read the books and have been really immersed in the world and the story for a long time and take it very seriously and have that extra level of anxiety about, because George R. R. Martin has famously not finished the books, whether this is maybe going to be the only ending they ever get, which of course exacerbates whatever existential dread you have when you're thinking about what happened. That's there. So you think there's a second ending potentially that could really screw with people's heads? No, I think the second ending is now the thing that you crave is like the life raft that you see in the distance. The book.

Yeah. So you almost like a second chance. There are people who just watched the show who I think were also disappointed. And then there are people who read the books and liked the ending of the show a lot. And there are people who only watched the show and either liked it or didn't. I think there are a million different responses to it. And it's not necessarily totally contingent on how seriously you take it. I think it's probably contingent on what parts of the story matter most to you. Fair. Can I throw this at you? Because I rewatched the

first four seasons. We might have overrated it a little bit. I think it was an outstanding, really fun show and it was fun to go in that world. But the show was always a little bit uneven. They weren't throwing a perfect game the first four seasons. They had unbelievable moments and episodes that in the moment were amazing. But then I think you remember them like the spoiler alert, but like Ned Stark's demise, things like that. Season one, episode nine, Balor. And there was so much time between the seasons that you start to remember them more and more fondly. And it gets everybody's expectations to this fever pitch that this is just going to be Sandy Koufax in the 1966 World Series. And it's like, real life doesn't really work out that way.

How many shows have actually done that? It's basically been, Breaking Bad is the only one that I remember that has successfully pulled off a last season where everybody was like, great job. Really enjoyed it, thank you. Other than that, it hasn't happened. I agree with you that the earlier seasons of the show were not perfect. Not perfect. And that as with anything else that people love and that not only a cult,

but a sizable cult following builds up around, there's a little bit of like idealizing the thing in your mind. That said, I rewatch Game of Thrones in full every season before the new season. I rewatch it constantly and it is damn good. Damn good. I agree. But like, okay, so on the one hand,

I think still to this day, the season that I would rank last on the personal power rankings is season five, not season seven or eight. I think season five is the weakest season on the personal power rankings is season five, not season seven or eight. I think season five is the weakest season of the show. Agreed. Conversely, my personal favorite season is season six, which is when they are beyond the book.

So I am not actually one of the book readers who subscribes to the notion that the show kind of lost something. I mean, what didn't happen in season six? Were there brothels? There are always brothels. Oh, great. Always brothels. You can always count on brothels.

John's Resurrection. Oh, yeah. John's Resurrection was great. You know, Hodor holding the door. Hodor. The Winds of Winter episode, the season finale, my all-time favorite episode of television, Cersei blowing up the sept, the Jon parentage reveal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, Danny heading west at last.

That was a great season. Season six is phenomenal. I think seasons three and four, along with six, are in the top tier. I really like three three is fabulous i mean the jamie brand bathtub scene at harren hall in kiss by fire the same episode episode where john and egret famously fuck in the cave is an iconic episode of television truly one of the top 200 cave fucking scenes on game of thrones you know, the show has always had highs and lows, but again, I think the difference is more about pacing and plotting, you know,

these moments in season seven and especially in season eight because of obviously how close we were to the end game in that sense as a viewer that you knew you were running out of time to learn something new or to understand something that you just didn't have those moments

that you used to have to really fully understand why a character was making a choice. I think that's the key difference. So like something like Dany and her decision to burn King's Landing and her ultimate turn to Queen of the Ashes. Yeah.

I am fine with that plot outcome. Just like I'm fine with Bran being king. It's more about how we got there and the rushed nature of the journey and the final stages. Like, I've brought this up on Binge Mode before, but just think about this as a counterweight. In season

three, Mance Rayder tells the wildlings that he's gonna light the biggest fire that anyone's ever seen. It's like literally a season and a half until that happens. Yeah. We have two scenes with danny after she lights king's landing on fire before she's killed two scenes with one of the primary protagonists in the show between a choice and the consequence of that choice a season and a

half to light a fire like that is not the same nature of storytelling it's a fundamentally different show in season seven and eight. And that was still plenty to enjoy, but it's different. Yeah. My biggest gripe. And I noticed that when I watched the first four seasons over again is, as you said, the pacing was so effective to set up when something actually happened. Think about the red wedding. When you now rewatch the show, you return to that season three. Every time you see Tywin Lannister writing a letter, you know now as a viewer what he's plotting,

what he's planning. You can luxuriate in the fact that you get to witness the time and attention and care, not only that the characters in the world are paying to the decisions that they're making, but that the show was paying. And things like that stopped happening. Yeah, it's even, I was saying,

people, I wish there had been 10 episodes. I even think it could have been one more. The big thing for me is with Dani, which I totally support. Everybody was so mad about the heel turn. I actually was really into it and I supported it and it made sense to me because it tied into all of her other experiences and she had a real fear about, oh no, they like this guy more. She just lost one of her dragons.

I totally get it. I just wish there had been a couple more scenes with, you know, maybe she hooks up with Jon Snow again and then he's sleeping and she's just staring at him. And a couple of those things just at least plant the seed in my head more that the turn's happening. I still think the turn made sense. Oh, I agree.

I think that that outcome is completely justifiable. I think it's been heavily foreshadowed the entire run of the show, actually. And, you know, if you want like a two hour, 40 minute exploration of how and why,

check out Binge Mode. But lines of dialogue, choices that she makes, you know, in the past. And Tyrion actually, when Tyrion and Jon are having their conversation, when Jon visits Tyrion in his confinement, Tyrion is simultaneously trying to sell Jon on why he needs to kill Dany. And also basically reminding viewers of the decisions Dany's made in the past and what's different between the then and the now. Similarly, heading into episode five, the bells, the King's Landing battle, we have the like smash cut audio montage in the previously on where we get all the lines of dialogue or not all, but numerous lines of dialogue where people in the past had expressed either

concerns about Dany's inclinations or about Targaryens and the danger of Targaryens. or not all, but numerous lines of dialogue where people in the past had expressed either concerns about Dany's inclinations or about Targaryens and the danger of Targaryens. What are the house words? Kyle and I talk about that all the time. The dangers of Targaryens. Kyle's always talking about fire. Every time I see Kyle, he's like, you know, every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin. Every time I see him. But I view that not as like a very effective reminder of what they had done and more as, oh, they didn't spend time

in the show in recent episodes reminding us of these things. So there's this compulsion to do it in the previously on. Something like that is just kind of, I think, emblematic. I completely agree that the groundwork was laid for Dany.

But so some of the most effective scenes in season eight, things like Sansa asking, well, what does a dragon was laid for Dany. But so they're the most some of the most effective scenes in season eight. Things like Sansa asking, well, what does a dragon eat? And Dany saying, whatever they want. That's actually that's terrifying that she thinks that that's OK. Right. Whatever they want. What about people? This is a person who wants chained two of her own dragons beneath the catacombs of Meereen because Drogon killed one kid. And now it's whatever they want. And I'm going to burn a whole city. Similarly, in the battle itself, just don't have it happen

after the bells ring and the city is surrendered. It's such a simple choice. It's actually just mass murder at that point. It really is. Have Cersei be the person who has forced Dany to this terrible choice. I think that positioning Dany's character as a tragic figure who spent her entire life wanting to get home, wanting to return to the place that she felt like other people had robbed her and her family of, working so hard to make a difference in the world, finally gets there, finally gets to the place where she's heard all her life. The people who you need are waiting there and what does she find that those people like someone else better that's like devastating and then on top of that she loses jorah she loses masande she loses regal positioning somebody in

that situation as utterly despondent and lost and broken and unclear of where the line is anymore between right and wrong how to navigate the divide between liberator and conqueror that she always sort of maintained, but struggled to see the difference between. Had to have Barristan and Jorah and all of her advisors remind her what was right, what was wrong, what her father did and why. Those people are all out of her life now. So all of that, I think, makes sense. But at the end of the day, the bell's rung. The Lannister soldiers threw down their swords and Dany burned the city. That's the nature of delivering that final reveal is a tougher sell.

And then again, we have one episode after that to grapple with the consequences. I still think if you lost Halo... Oh, I would burn everyone down. If I was killed, I'm trying to think one other thing that could happen. Lamar. Lamar Jackson couldn't throw a spiral anymore.

I do think you could burn down a city potentially. Potentially. Yeah. Again, I don't object to the outcome. I want more time. You burning down a city couldn't happen because you'd be too worried about the animals. That's true. You're the only person who could watch Chernobyl and get more upset about the animals than the human beings with the skin rolling off their faces.

Amazing show. Episode four of Chernobyl shook me to my core and forever changed me. Forever changed me. I will never be the same. I was debating whether to get my wife into the show just so I could hidden camera her for episode four. It's-

The most upsetting animal on TV moment of all time. The closeup of the sweet little orange tabby cat's face. I just, when I close my eyes now, it's what I see. It was Hunger Games with pets. So upsetting. I wanted to ask you about, so we started Binge Mode. What was that 2016 17

heading into yeah heading into season 7 of Game of Thrones Jump on Thrones yeah and this pod it started to gain momentum

and then it just it just seemed like three times as many people were listening to it this last season but I didn't really understand why that was happening, even as it was happening. Do you feel like with the streaming stuff, just everybody was caught up by this season? What was

going on? What was just going on with the audience for this show? Because I went back and I was looking at the first couple of seasons, and this is back when TV was supposed to have a bigger audience than it does now. And it's like one fourth of the audience for their premieres for stuff. Why did the show so belatedly blossom like it did? Is it because we didn't have a lot of other options for prestige TV or it was just the buildup, the streaming, the binging? What was it? I think it's a combination of multiple factors.

You know, we're in this era of boundless choice. You have so many things that you could be watching at any given moment in time. There are new things on Netflix and Amazon like boot up Crackle if you want. Stuff is everywhere. HBO is dropping something new. Were you paid by Crackle for that? No, but I just, you know, Jason and I like to think, well, maybe one day

Crackle will come ask us to write the Harry Potter TV adaptation, you know? Oh, okay. Crackle well, maybe one day Crackle will come ask us to write the Harry Potter TV adaptation, you know? Oh, okay. Crackle, what's up? Crackle name drop. like Marvel, the MCU, and Star Wars as the only remaining things, and certainly the only thing on television, that the bulk of the people in your life who you know might also want to talk to you about this thing. I think that became a very real idea

in people's minds. Even if the numbers, you know, like Juliette Lipman, our cherished colleagues, often likes to point out that as massive as the numbers are for Game of Thrones compared to the modern television landscape, it's like nothing compared to, say say how many people watch MASH or how many people watched, I was just listening to Juliet's interview with Chris Harrison, the first season of The Bachelorette.

You know, it's just a different. I think the first Survivor was like the final was like 40 million or something. So it's just a different era of consumption. And so I think that heading into season eight in particular, and because there was such a long wait, you know, you had nearly two years, people knew that this was their last chance to share in this thing together. And it does really feel like the Super Bowl every week. And you don't want to be the one person who can't talk about the Super Bowl. So I think that's part of it. I think the other thing is that, again,

like nitpicking storytelling choices and pacing and plot in season eight and season seven aside, Game of Thrones is a phenomenal achievement and something special. And I think that a lot of the critiquing comes from a place of love. Actually, this is something that we've all invested in so deeply and love so fully that it's something we want to put under the microscope and examine in a way that we would examine a great work of literature you know so when you see other people who you trust and you care about and you value their opinion and they're just obsessed with this thing you want to know why you want to understand why and i think people knew that this was their last chance to experience that in real time it certainly wasn't happening like that and like you said,

like seasons one or two or three, but I think the last couple seasons it just became a different kind of beast. Yeah. I don't think a lot of that is fair. I mean, I agree with everything you said. It's just like I saw somebody else made this point about the last Avengers movie, right?

Like a lot of shit in Avengers doesn't make sense and you can pick apart. But people are just like, I'm in, I'm going to enjoy this. It was like Game of Thrones became LeBron. It was just being held to this higher standard where it was supposed to be the smartest possible version of a television show or a content property. And I'm not sure that's fair for anybody. I think that you're right. I guess the difference is that, and I love the Marvel movies. I loved Endgame. Endgame is being examined against the standard that MCU and other comic book movies and comic

book proper stories have set, which is, and this is sincerely no shade of comic books, which I love. I love comic book stories. I love superhero stories. You don't necessarily need to understand the physics and the full logic behind time travel to opt in. You pay five minutes of due diligence to pretending to explain something and the people are with you or they're not

because they want to know if Captain America and Iron Man make it out alive, not because you've properly explained what happens if Hulk gets the time stone. You know, so... They kind of glossed over it a little bit, right? Yeah, the difference is, and this gets back to your earlier point

about whether there's actually been a change in the quality of the show across seasons, is that I think Game of Thrones did set that standard for itself. I actually think it did. I think it set the standard that it was going to produce something with a level of, even if it wasn't perfect and some of those episodes are flawed, a level of care and ambition that is uncommon. And that was in every respect, in the cinematography, in the direction, in the writing, in the acting, in the size of the cast.

Just the scope of the ambition is not something that we've seen so when that's the standard that you said and then parts of what you get live up to that for example the visual storytelling in season eight is astonishing it's like a titanic achievement that i can't believe is real i cannot believe we saw the things that we saw on our television screens are you going through after everything gets burned down her reaching out whether she's gonna die or not with the dust everywhere like that was fucking amazing when television screens. Aria going through after everything gets burned down. Her reaching out to the pale mare. Not knowing whether she's going to die or not with the dust everywhere.

Like that was fucking amazing. When the hound looks up the staircase at the mountain and Drogon flies over and then he passes and you see that the sky is on fire.

Yeah, I'm in on season eight. I really thought that stuff was incredible. It was. But I think that as with so many things in life, there's room for nuance. That would be my case.

Yeah, that's fair. You can appreciate and admire the spectacle and the scale which i do and still ask questions about the story i don't think that there's any reason you can't they're not mutually exclusive like i can say that the shot of regal and drogon above the clouds in the long night is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen on television. And also say that I don't understand how the people standing in the dragon pit who have advocated for Jon never brought up the fact that he was the rightful heir

when they were talking about who should be king. Both of those things can be true at once. Was Rhaegar or that was Stannar, Bob? Which one was that one? That was the stronger one? Listen, the only thing that really was ridiculous and deserved to be nitpicked to the

bitter end was uh Tyrion with the handcuffs on telling everybody who the next king should be I think they meant that to be almost kind of funny uh I think that whole scene was written you know you had the one guy stand up like there's real there's attempts for comedy.

Yes. Edmure's pitch to be king is iconic. Don't you think they just wanted that to be kind of like, oh, my God, the wheels have come off, but in a good way. And instead it was like the wheels kind of just came off. I don't think so. I mean, I think that the moments of levity, like Edmure making his pitch, you know know this dude who has literally been in a fucking jail cell for years is like I'm a war veteran and I'm definitely

the one that you should listen to even though I have not been a part of this story in any meaningful way since Jamie Lasseter threatened to catapult my baby across into the castle and then having a moment like Sam basically pitching democracy and everybody laughing and

edmure and roy saying should the dogs get a vote should my horse get a vote that was funny definitely and deliberately so i don't think anything tyrian did was supposed to play as comedy i think it was supposed to be a this moment of uh fulfillment and redemption for a character who kind of lost his fastball and i was not clear on basically anything that got those people to that point how gray worm had military control over the city if he did why he didn't kill john when he arrested him why anybody was listening to him in the first place why he then gave up the control that i don't understood how he had why anybody was listening to tyrian how bran went from don't want, I'm not really a person anymore, to why do you think I came all this way?

Sansa, the only one acting rationally in that scene, insisting on northern independence. And then the Prince of Dorne, who literally was not even named. We don't know what Dornish family he's supposed to be from. A P.O.D. And Yara Greyjoy, who

is the one character who actually had a formal agreement with daenerys in place that the iron islands would get their independence that was part of their pact right dorn rebelled against the targaryens for a century have insisted on their independence across westerosi history those two people never say wait a minute you're giving her the north what about our kingdoms they just nod along like Jason said this on Talk of Thrones the night after the finale

I believe Chris said something like you know what's going to be the first thing that Bran and Tyrion have to deal with and Jason was like war

because all those people are going to realize they also should have asked for independent kingdoms that stuff was just too rushed Sansa kind of grabbing her

grabbing her north Sansa I applaud it Sansa well the grabbing her north. Sansa, I applaud it. Well, the big winner of the whole season eight was... The Starks, the Wolves. No, Sophie Turner. Is that who plays Sansa? Oh, yeah. The summer Sophie.

Great stuff. Just incredible. She's an icon. I have this email for you. I had to read you. I thought this was great. Okay. From Brian Garwood.

Did the GOT guys predict Kawhi winning the finals? Will we have two bland personalities win the two most anticipated games of the summer? Think about it. Both unexpected, forgotten first season, major leg injuries, switched teams, low key, great under pressure, and came into the league with fairly low expectations.

He said, I gotta hear you and Rossello discuss this. I think you're a better candidate. I don't know. Kawhi and Bran. Bran the broken. Kawhi the broken. I... I kind of like this. Now I'm starting to think Toronto could win the finals. That's interesting. I said this on desktop last week. I think that

the ending of Game of Thrones, Stark-centric, you know, Ghost is back with Jon, Arya out there exploring the Sunset Sea, Bran, even though he says I'm not a Stark,

ruling the Six Kingdoms, Sansa, independent kingdom in the North. The seventh book, initially, in Martin's series was supposed to be called A Time for Wolves,

so a lot of Thrones heads are calling this A Time for Wolves. I think this predicts the rise of the Timberwolves. That's the basketball comp I'm going with. Wolves time. They're up.

Towns. All right. That's interesting. Towns would be John Stark. So how many times did you cry during the season? Oh, countless. Countless. I mean.

What was the biggest cry for the season finale? Oh, I'm going to cry now thinking about it. Watching Jon. Jon and Ghost? Oh, my God. Ghost with the one ear missing? My sweet ghosty boy. I love him so much.

Jon riding off into the North. I mean, it killed me. That part feels very fitting. I wish that he had sent himself to the North. I wish that he had abdicated his throne. I think all of the Maester Aemon comparisons that we got in this season, something like hearing Pod sing Jenny's song, which has a connection to Duncan Targaryen, who abdicated his throne. There were all these clues that Jon was

going to formally renounce. Obviously, he kept saying to Dany, I don't want it. But I think after she died, having him say, no, I actually don't want it. I'm going to send myself out into the wilderness. Given the importance of choice as a theme in the story and identity and you choosing your own course over someone else defining your life for you, I think that would have been really powerful. But Jon heading off beyond the wall, is he now the king beyond the wall? Is he going to go and desert the Night's Watch and range out in the north? And Tormund said to him when they parted at Winterfell in episode four, you've got the north in you, theormund said to him when they parted at Winterfell in episode four you've got the north in you the real north

and that killed me does he make it to the 1400s also everything with Jaime and Brienne I mean when Jaime knighted Brienne

in the second episode of the season that was your hardest sobbing I was you were a puddle a wreck I was a wreck that's one of the best

scenes in Game of Thrones history. He knighted her and then he knighted her, if you get my drift. Boy, did he. He gave her a good knighting a couple episodes later. So you didn't like my theory that she was pregnant and they decided to cut it out right at the end. No. I thought she was writing in the Wikipedia page. You know, we have obviously the Cersei pregnancy plot.

Gilly revealed that she was pregnant. I was certain that Dany was going to be pregnant this season. We had so much, so much checkoffs. I have a barren womb and can't have babies talk in season seven between Dany and Jon. You pass out three dragon eggs in one fiery night. Your womb is never really the same after that. There's a whole quickening womb plot in the fifth book

that indicates that her belief that she can't have children is is misfounded and wrong and i thought that that would happen in the in the show i don't know what changed between seasons but clearly many things changed between season seven and eight because like the whole golden company thing and again this is something jason and i've spent a lot of time talking about this army is built up as and the the army plays a big role in the in the books this sellsword army fable never broken a contract and except they do once in the books but they get onto the show harry strickland is introduced as a show character and they're obliterated in like 12 seconds i couldn't believe it no wonder they didn't bring the elephants. It's not worth the CGI to just, especially by the

show standard of what's worth CGI with animals. That was bizarre. So I have to assume that not having Danny be pregnant ultimately was just another change between seasons. Maybe they thought it was too dark, but Cersei died while pregnant. Talisa was stabbed in the stomach at the Red Wedding

while pregnant. It's not like they haven't done that before. So, I don't know. What's your mentally with uh benioff and weiss right now they created something that is one of the most important things in my life and i will be forever grateful i wish that we had a few more episodes in season seven and eight that's a great answer um trying to be positive was your life the last year and a half just meeting people actually you don't really leave your house but if did, was it a lot of people bringing up Game of Thrones? Like the guy delivering Postmates, like, hey, what do you think is going to happen in season eight?

As you know, I make Adam answer the door when Postmates arrives. Yeah, a lot of Thrones talk, a lot of Harry Potter talk. I get the occasional Joe Flacco comment, you know, from the- Now it's like, what's up with Lamar Jackson? Can he not throw a spiral anymore? What's going on? He'll be fine. He'll be fine. I believe. spiral anymore? What's going on? He'll be fine. He'll be fine.

I believe. It's going to be a great- He'll be fine. Season eight is going to be fine. A great decade of Lamar. I believe. He's going to be great. I believe in the offense.

Hollywood Brown, first round draft pick. Drafted a lot of speed at skill positions. Signed Mark Ingram, Earl Thomas on defense. Yeah. It's going to be good. And Binge Mode is going to take a break for a little bit, but then we're going to come back with something. We are indeed going to come back with something.

We're back in the planning room. But what? The highlight of all of this was the Baltimore Sun wrote a feature about you. And then it was in the newspaper and your mom bought 50 copies. And was just mailing them just on a street corner, handing them out to random people in Baltimore. She mailed me so many copies. She sent me a really adorable picture of her holding the paper with just a big smile on her face. That was great. I love that. She sent a text message thread. I don't know who like 70% of

the phone numbers on this thread are. She then also sent an email to, I think almost everyone in her life. She posted it on Facebook. It's precious. But my dad is very excited. Got a text message from my grandma with all sorts of emoji. It was the Baltimore contingent was delighted by it. It was very sweet. It's very sweet.

The parents get so adorable with this stuff. My dad's house in Boston. You walk in, you go in the bathroom and there's like two different pictures of me and Obama. And then you go into the bathroom and it's four different frame. Like no matter where you're peeing, if you look around, I'm just staring at you in some form. And I'm always like, this is psychotic. Like what's wrong with you? And it's like, y'all understand. You'll understand one day. Does it have to be in the bathroom? like four pictures of me in the bathroom like he's a psycho

but he's like you'll understand someday but I was thinking about that the sitting room or something yeah maybe like the fourth floor

of your house or whatever some sort of dining nook perhaps it's weird but when Ben becomes a professional wrestler someday

I'm sure I'll have pictures of him with the WWE belt you'll have them lining the trampoline basketball net out in your yard. No question. All right.

So we're back. We're back. We're plotting the next big binge mode thing. We are. And that's it. We are. I'm glad you're in a good space with Game of Thrones. I was a little worried about you.

I love Game of Thrones. Because I was saying to somebody, it was like the equivalent of if the NBA just ended. Like if this was the last NBA finals ever and I had to just like, I have seven more games potentially of Toronto Golden State and then I never get to watch the NBA again. Here's how I'm processing that. Yeah.

On the one hand, this has been a monumental thing in my life and this particular facet of it is over and that's devastatingly sad to me and I feel empty and alone. However, remember old nan season one she's sitting by brand's bedside telling stories okay old dan one of my favorite quotes in the books is old nan saying to brand the stories are like the stories are they exist and you can return to them whenever you want. The show will always be there for us.

The books will always be there for us. The fandom will always be there for us. I will always enjoy re-watching, re-reading, returning to the world. And hey, maybe we'll get another book. George, I believe in you. We're going to get spinoffs. Who knows?

Who knows what the future is? We'll be in the world forever. The Larry Bird Celtics in the mid-90s. When the Celtics were just rock bottom. Two of our best guys died. We were just awful. And we would go out. And the J-Bug and I, we brought out my nice big bong at that point.

Of course. This is when I was smoking a lot more pot. Yes, sure. We'd smoke pot. This is when you were smoking more pot. Sour Patch Kids. And we would watch like an old bird basketball game. We just kind of go back in time.

Back when the Celtics mattered. This will be you in Game of Thrones. I am a fan of all the things you mentioned, specifically Sour Patch Kids. Let's go with that. Jenny's. You're the only, Mallory, for the people listening,

is the only person I've ever known who postmates ice cream. I do. It's embarrassing. I'm not ashamed, though. Recently got a new order. Some great seasonal offerings are back. Strawberry buttermilk on the menu.

It's wonderful. The sweet cream with the biscuit and the peach jam, one of my favorites, back on the menu. Put down a pint of that while watching The Bachelorette the other night. Felt great. This is great. So what media are you going to consume now? I'm re-watching Deadwood right now. You got Chernobyl.

You're re-watching Deadwood. I'm re-watching Deadwood, a truly spectacular television achievement. I'm all in on Chernobyl, as you know. I got to catch up on Billions, of course. That's been a hole in my life. I can't wait to learn who Hard Bob is. I miss Swags, miss everything about Billions. So I'll binge that.

I'll catch up, hopefully, in time for the finale. I know Coppola has taken that legitimately personally, that you're 10 episodes behind now. It's not something I want. It actually physically hurts me. I didn't choose the timing of Game of Thrones and Billions. The world did that to me. I don't know if they did either.

Can't wait to catch up on Billions, and then I'm excited about a lot of the stuff that's coming soon. Succession, obviously, love. I'm really excited about Good Omens, Stranger Things. This is a little further off. Big Little Lies is really good. I saw the first three eps. Can't wait. Can't wait for Big Little Live, the Ringer after show.

And a little bit further down the road, His Dark Materials, the HBO show that's coming up, I assume sometime in the fall. They don't have a date yet. Those are some of my all-time favorite books. I cannot wait for that. What about Watchmen? Is Watchmen a potential? I'm excited for Watchmen, too. I love the Watchmen comic. And then the big kahuna way down the road,

if they don't fuck it up, is Lord of the Rings. You figure Amazon, the richest company in the world, just spent so much money on it. That could be great for us. It's going to be fabulous. Cogman, one of the producers on Game of Thrones, Brian Cogman, George R.R. Martin has called him the third head of the dragon along with Benioff.

And while he's consulting on the Ring show, I think that the Lord of the Rings show is going to be special. Young Aragorn, here we go. Let's do it. Well, the biggest win you had this year was my son watching all the Harry Potter movies. That's incredible. Yeah.

Where did he net out on favorite characters? Still Dobby and Hagrid? Yeah. Whoever they are, those were his favorites. Very sweet. When will he read the books? When will you read the books? When he learns how to read about five years from now.

Age 16. Audiobooks. That could be his future. You go right from the audiobooks into the podcast. Maybe that's where we go. Hundreds of hours of audio. The Mother of Dragon. What did you call Danny?

The Queen of Ash? Queen of the Ashes. Queen of the Ashes. We are have hundreds of hours of audio. The Mother of Dragon. What did you call Danny? The Queen of Ash? Queen of the Ashes. Well, you're the Mother of Dragon. I hope you never become the Queen of the Ashes. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Hey, when it comes to your underwear, feeling cool is pretty cool. If you're wearing Fruit of the Loom's Cool Zone

Fly Boxer Brief, you'll be feeling both cool and cool right now. What's better than feeling cool and cool, Kyle? I don't know. Nothing. I don't know. Fruit of the Loom upgraded their Cotton Boxer Brief by adding a ventilated mesh fly.

Ventilated mesh fly. God, I'm jealous. To promote airflow and support right where you need it most. Where do you need it most, Kyle? I would say right there. In the no-fly zone. That sounds perfect. That's right. The Cool Zone Fly Boxer Brief In the no-fly zone. That sounds perfect.

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and comfortable all day long you know i'm one of those guys that i never changed my underwear and i was like i have like the same 10 to 12 things that i wear over and over again i rolled the dice i tried these guess what super comfortable really they're not lying as a guy who takes like the my fly zone was a really good shot that's what i'm worried about is my yeah zone. Yeah, especially in the summer months. You need things to be a little cooler in certain places. If you could use a little extra ventilation in your life, check out fruit.com,

and you could check out the ventilated fly for yourself. Use the code Bill to receive an additional 10% off their current promotion of 20% off the Cool Zone Fly Boxer Briefs. Once again, that is fruit.com, promo code Bill. And by the way, while we're here, Ringer NBA Show is cranking all the way through the finals. We have a whole schedule. We have a bunch of our Ringer people that are going to be on.

And they're posting podcasts right after the games. I'm not going to be posting a podcast after every finals game. But if you want that immediate reaction stuff, follow the Ringer NBA show. And great hosts like John Gonzalez, Blues fan Chris Vernon, Kevin O'Connor, a whole bunch of our Ringer people. So you can listen to that. Speaking of the Blues, I invited Jon Hamm, diehard St. Louis Blues fan, to come on the podcast. But he's traveling for a movie.

If the series goes into the later games, we'll see if he has the courage to come on, that Jon Hamm. I don't know. I told him he lost to the Red Sox in 2013 with his Cardinals, and he lost Ben Affleck at the end of the town. So he's lost his last two against Boston. So there you go. Not to mention Super Bowl 36. Yeah.

Come on, Jon Hamm. Anyway, we're bringing now in David Shoemaker to talk about wrestling. Here we go. Alright, on the line right now, longtime Ringer Grantland colleague, host of the Masked Man Show on the Ringer Podcast Network, as well as the Press Box which is

keep an eye on the Press Box over the next couple weeks FYI all good things not bad things David Shoemaker is here how are you? I'm doing great man doing great this is a big week for wrestling nerds like me yeah I just we were talking before we came on and I was like I hate

doing the same topic on my podcast that you do on the Masked Man Show because you're going to do that with better people. But this was a really, really, really put together, carefully thought out, and really well executed make a real run at the WWE for the first time, I think, this century, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I want to say that I'm glad.

It makes me feel good when you want to step on my podcast because it validates the craziness with which I follow this stuff at times. It's easy to work myself into a shoot in the wrestling parlance about this stuff and convince myself that Seth Rollins' promo was the biggest thing that's ever happened in wrestling history, but this is one of those moments where when you text me, I'm just like, oh good, this is as big a deal as I thought it was. Yeah, so All Elite Wrestling, AEW, just started up.

They've been announced for a little while they had their first pay-per-view although not under the aew banner a while back called all in um it was just a you know supposedly a one-off event then they linked up dusty roads the young bucks kenny omega these three big these four big wrestlers uh go into business together hook up with tony khan the co-owner of of the Jacksonville Jaguars, and they start this company. This past Saturday night was Double or Nothing, their first official pay-per-view under the AEW banner, and they have a TV time slot that's fall on TNT. They're not going to go head-to-head with WWE. They repeat over and over again that they're not trying to be this sort of WCW style competition.

But for wrestling fans, this is just... Yeah, and this is a huge deal. I mean, it's not... You don't have to go head to head on a Monday night to be competition, especially not in the over-the-top era. This is another giant wrestling company with billion-dollar backing, and it's a

really, really enormous thing for the industry that it's happening. Yeah, and if you're chasing the lineage of this stuff the Monday Night Wars famously like 97 range really get this going it even starts 96 but 96, 97, 98 is

when wrestling and the internet collide in a big way for the first time and you have this whole community now that has all of these online buddies to complain about stuff with and talk about and angles and rumors and gossip, and it just explodes and it's awesome. And everybody who likes wrestling just really enjoys this one era. And then it becomes a lot of complaining. And why do they do it this way? Why'd they screw up this angle? Why'd they screw up this angle?

Why'd they screw up that angle? Leads to this whole other era of the wrestling for the first time actually kind of listening and wink-winking some of the stuff that people are talking about online. Yeah. But the one common theme for those 20 years are, man, it would be fun if somebody

just challenged WWE correctly. Not because we don't like WWE. It would just be fun to have somebody that said, all we care about is the wrestling and having awesome shows. And I shouldn't have to watch all Japan and all these other places. If I want like my old school wrestling fix, why do they have to have the three hour raw? Why do they have to have, you know, the terrible promos, all this stuff. How about just wrestling? There's an idea. And all the characters that got squandered over the years and people that we thought were

really good that never really hit their stride, WWE. WWE was winning. They were doing great. I love it. I went to WrestleMania. My son is all in. Like, it's not like we don't like WWE, but it was always like, it would be fun if there was one more challenger. And now it feels like we have it, David Shoemaker. It sure does. I mean, listen, when you talk about

the Monday Night Wars era and how that was the era that all these wrestling fans love, it's not just us. WWE loves that era too. Half of the content on the WWE network is in reminiscence

of the Monday Night Wars. I mean, sure, part of it, most of it's that they won and they're glorifying themselves in the process, but that, listen, there's two big things thatiscence of the Monday Night Wars. I mean, sure, part of it, most of it's that they won and they're glorifying themselves in the process. But that, listen, there's two big things that mark some of the greatest moments in wrestling history. One is technological leaps.

You know, when cable TV came on, that's when wrestling took the big jump. There've been numerous examples over the years. But the other thing is competition. WWF would never have been WWF without the NWA, you know, without it trying to take over for the NWA. They would have never been what they are today if they didn't have WCW going at them on Monday nights. And then they tried to create their own competition by doing a brand split between Raw and SmackDown.

Now they had this sort of in-house competition from NXT and they previously they had ECW. But they're never going to have competition like real competition. And for years, there was this specter of TNA wrestling, which became Impact Wrestling, which sort of took that spot. And more than anything, I think just squatted on a TV time slot and made it impossible for anyone else to compete because they weren't able to achieve up to the level of a WCW or something. And it discouraged other competition. But now we finally have this other thing. And you're right. Part of it's just real wrestling. And part of it is old school. And we saw this at Double or Nothing on Saturday night. We saw Cody Rhodes

versus Dustin Rhodes, the two children of Dusty, the legend, go head to head in the bloodiest grudge match you could imagine that of course, spoiler alert, ended with them embracing at the end of the match. I mean, it's old school. invested wrestling and 75 percent of the power of that was in these beautiful promos that they cut before the event on that were on youtube and i mean that was

really cool and then the other half of it is this very i guess in wrestling terms is kind of ultra modern style of sort of post-K-fabe, trying to make you believe it's real, the super flippy, like all over the place. But really it's taken this extent of like pure athletic ballet that is, you know, throw suspension of disbelief out the window. It's just amazing exercise. I mean, it's just this amazing spectacle.

And they do that too. And if they find a way to sort of bridge those two things and make it into a compelling weekly program, well, I mean, they're going to really give WWE a run for their money. And competition, as you said, is a good thing. It is. It keeps people on their toes and makes them, you know, sometimes you get fat.

You look at anything that has kind of, anybody that had a huge lead that kind of fucked it up, you know, and not just wrestling. You look at like Sports Illustrated, which just got sold. I don't even really understand that sale. You and Curtis took down a press box. It's like kind of a sale, but not really. And it's like Sports Illustrated had a massive lead on everybody.

And what happened? They never figured out the internet. And it's like Sports Illustrated had a massive lead on everybody. And what happened? They never figured out the internet and they never figured out podcasts and never figured out anything. And eventually everybody else caught up to them. ESPN to some degree, you know, they basically threw away three, four years there this decade where they just kind of didn't have their shit together with the streaming. Now they're belatedly into it. Rolling Stone, you know, they have this huge, huge foothold and they just kind of get old and they don't really realize they have to reinvent themselves as pop culture on the internet.

So this happens. I don't feel like this was dire straits for WWE by any means. I mean, in a lot of ways, 2018 was one of the best years in the history of the company where they had big stars, they had a monopoly, the WWE Network did really well. But then all of a sudden,

it started to flip near the end of the year for a lot of different reasons, one of which was not as many stars as they normally had. They made a big bet on the women's side that it's still unclear whether, you know, whether you can really have these main events with the women wrestlers

that it's going to resonate with people. Have we seen it yet? No, I mean, we saw it at WrestleMania. I think that was an unqualified success, but I think that it's... You think the match was? Well, I mean, I'm not sure the match... I mean, I thought the match was great it's... You think the match was? Well, I mean, I'm not sure that the match...

I mean, I thought the match was great. I'm not sure the match was... I mean, I think more than anything, that match suffered from going on at midnight. You know what I mean? Right, right. The five-hour card.

Yeah, that was the problem. Yeah, longer than that. But I think that with women's wrestling, I think it's... There is a lesson there that has been neglected on the men's side, too,

over the past decade with WWE, which is just you have to make matches matter. And if matches matter, like I feel like the Becky Lynch angle leading into WrestleMania did, then that can be a main event and that can be a big deal. But you can't just wave the banner of women's wrestling and expect people to line up. Yeah. The storytelling aspect was just all over the place, which we'll talk about Dean Ambrose's podcast with Chris

Jericho in a second. But I think that's what they really lost. They had so much talent that they could just say, hey, we're really going to get the women's wrestling side going. Let's go. And they add all these wrestlers. And then half of them, the stories are just completely all over the place. And then on the men's side, you have a couple injuries. The Roman Reigns thing they didn't expect right as they're about ready to bring the shield back. But there was also people they mismanaged, which leads us to AEW again. Dean Ambrose, who was somebody that I always thought was really good, and they could never quite figure out what his character was.

And all of a sudden, he'd be a bad guy again. It's like, what happened? What's he angry about? Why is he declaring war on people? I don't understand it. But it was still somebody and was a really good wrestler and was good at selling the other guy and all the stuff you need to have a real stalwart.

AEW takes him, and that's somebody you can build part of your business around, I think. I think he can be one of the best four guys in AEW pretty quickly and for a long time. I think he could have been one of the best four guys in WWE. I mean, listen, you mentioned ESPN earlier, and maybe this is a tortured comparison, but what WWE has done, basically since, has tried to do, basically since The Rock left, is make the brand more important than any of the names of the wrestlers, right? And that's a criticism that was leveled with i mean legitimately at espn for a long time

when they were letting their biggest name anchors walk if they became if they wanted too much money or if they thought they were too big for sports center or whatever um and wwe has seen a procession of potential big stars pass through and a lot of them are still there but you know like there's there's a ceiling on you know someone like Daniel Bryan can momentarily transcend the sport right but there's only one John Cena in the past you know 15 years or whatever CM Punk was going to be that guy but then CM Punk got disgruntled and he left right I mean there's there you can look at a Seth Rollins you can look at Roman Reigns they're trying to make that guy but in the environment it's become impossible and Dean Ambrose listen Dean Ambrose is not The Rock, you know, but he's

not Stone Cold Steve Austin. And I've taken, you know, some crap for comparing him to Stone Cold Steve Austin in the past, but because Dean Ambrose is not a consistent, has not been a purely consistent performer. But when he was the champion and he was standing in the middle of the WWE ring, the fans reacted to him in a way that's really, really hard to put words to. I mean, he is a real charisma when he's put in that spot that almost nobody else in the wrestling business has.

And you wonder why there was this inconsistency. You wonder why you never knew what he was doing. Well, he answers that on the Jericho podcast. And that's because he and Vince had different ideas

of who this character was. Yeah. And if someone's writing for, podcast and that's because he and Vince had different were different ideas of who this character was yeah you know and if you have if someone's you know writing for you know if you know if Kevin Hart and The Rock switch roles in Central Intelligence it doesn't make any sense you know because you're writing for a different person

to play the part it's not going to work now in AEW he popped up there at the end of the again spoiler alert at the end of the show at the end of the, again, spoiler alert, at the end of the show, at the end of the main event, and went at Chris Jericho, who's there now, and Kenny Omega, who according to a lot of people is the best wrestler in the world, and who, by the way, wrestled an entire

main event match with a broken nose on Saturday. Oh my god. He popped up there, and immediately it legitimizes the company, and it re-legitimizes a guy who had his ups and downs in WWE. And it's also one of the oldest wrestling moves in the book to pull the slightly disgruntled,

never-was-used-totally-correctly guy from the other place. Oh, yeah. And just move all your chips behind him. What's interesting to me about what's happening here and why I think it's different is they're doing it correctly. So, alright, what does that mean?

First of all, it looks really good. It looks really professional. It's like well thought out. It looks like they've spent money. It's not like something like ECW, which I really enjoyed back in the day, in the 90s. But it always felt a little bargain basement-y, a little cable access-y.

Everything about it was cutting corners. And I think that's mostly been what we've had with contenders, except for the Ted Turner and the NWA, WCW, that whole world. The quality is there from the behind the scenes standpoint and then the second thing is you know tony khan who i i had talked to a couple times way back when really haven't talked to him in a couple years but um is the opposite of vince mcmahon i would say in every conceivable way um but loves wrestling and really obviously cares about it and has put a lot of thought into it, what works and doesn't work. And you can see it in the blueprint. Every move they've made has been smart. And I think there's room for both. I mean, for me, it's like the more

wrestling, the better, that's quality. I just look at how my son reacted to it. I was with my daughter all weekend in a soccer tournament and my son was at a baseball tournament with my wife. So we didn't see the pay-per-view. But the next day I found out about the Dean Ambrose thing in the morning. And so I FaceTimed him and I was like, hey, did you see what happened in the AEW thing last night? He's like, I watched all the clips.

And like, he was already in. Like he watched all of it on Twitter. He knew it was going on. Like they've already gotten him. He's 11. Um, so he has WWE. He has AEW and he has NXT, which he loves,

which we shouldn't, you know, gloss over. NXT is basically become in a weird way, the rival to WWE, even though they're owned by the same thing. And now AEW, I would say that's their competition coming out of the gate,

right? They have to beat NXT first. Yeah. Um, yes, would say that's their competition coming out of the gate, right? They have to beat NXT first. Yeah. Yes, I think that's right. I mean, NXT doesn't have a TV deal, and there's some discussion that that might be part of a Fox package or whatever when they were making that, and I don't think

any of that's been inked out. It's just in the WWE network. I meant more for from a coolness, the real wrestling fan type of people they have to kind of steal that corner from NXT or at least share it. I think ironically I would have said without a doubt if you had asked me

a year ago that the biggest problem you know the biggest hurdle facing AEW was being better than NXT I think that in the past year there's been a little bit of a downswing in fan feelings about NXT. I think that in the past year, there's been a little bit of a downswing in fan feelings about NXT. And I'm really, you know,

making a lot of assumptions here. But I think that the hype has gone down a little bit just because the biggest stars of NXT have continually been misused on the main roster and then misused there. And it's sort of hard to get yourself all invested in, you know, Adam Cole or whoever, when you're just, when you feel with great certainty

that he's going to wind up, you know, jobbing out to, you know, Drew McIntyre or whatever for five weeks on Raw. I mean, it's, and so NXT is a little bit, you know, a little bit, it's a little bit harder of a comparison now. But I do think that they do have to go head-to-head with NXT, with the perception of NXT. And I think partly that's why you saw Cody Rhodes

sort of take a shot at Triple H. The only way they really addressed WWE besides the existence of Dean Ambrose, a.k.a. Jon Moxley, was Cody taking a sledgehammer to a Triple H-style throne before his match. So, I mean, I think that there's a little bit of a, there's going to be a little bit of that rivalry going on

as we start, even as they continue to say they're not competing with WWE. Yeah, and I think it comes down to, wrestling always comes down to you need, what, seven, eight people realistically at any time that you can push. It's like a basketball team. That's why you need an eight-man rotation.

In wrestling, you need eight people. You need the one reliable superstar, and you need the one great heel, and you need the one up-and-comer, and you just kind of mix and match or bring new people up that nobody knows and pit them against one of the established eight.

And I think sometimes with WWE, like it's just really hard at the, at the same time, they don't have the eight, but it's also hard for people to crack that eight. So you have these people that I thought were definitely going to crack it. Like Samoa Joe, I thought was going to be like a real star for them for sure.

And it doesn't feel like that really happened. Um, or, you know, you mentioned the NXT guys. Ricochet is amazing. Oh, yeah. I mean, he's my son's favorite wrestler.

That guy is like in person, is completely out of control. It's like seeing Giannis. And they're probably going to screw him up, right? Like that's somebody that should become, he should immediately be a top eight guy for them. He's so freaking exciting. And I just don't, it's almost like there's no roadmap for him to do that. He should immediately be a top eight guy for them. He's so freaking exciting. And it's almost like there's no roadmap for him to do that.

It's depressing. Yeah, I mean, that's the problem, I think, with WWE right now is that they have difficulty. I mean, in this part of it, it's just a huge corporation with an enormous infrastructure that is insurmountable at times. But catching lightning in a bottle is really hard when you're a corporation of that size. You know, I mean, it would be imagine trying to get NBA desktop off the ground at ESPN. I mean, imagine like it's there's some things that you can just do as a smaller company. You can be more fleet footed and, and, you know, change direction on the,

on the fly and WWE. That's really difficult. And now we can get into the John Moxley, Chris Jericho, you know, interview. Yeah. But the most damning thing that he said, and he spent a lot of time talking about it was just the,

the impenetrability of the, of the creative process. Yeah. You know, just the way that he, it was impossible, like, talent. I mean, the wrestlers weren't really, like, given much input into their own characters and were kind of constantly in this position

of, like, fighting off the worst impulses of Vince McMahon and the writing staff. And, you know, even if that, having a big writer's room that coming up with the ideas is the right solution and having everything funneled through Vince McMahon made good content, you still have month ago or you know the same finishes to a match the same sort of the same vibe for what a hero is and what a villain is um and then also yeah i mean what makes a professional wrestler and for people who aren't wrestling fans this is you know they're probably not still listening this podcast but if you are it's not just being able to go drop an elbow off the top rope and grab your belt and

say, oh, yeah, you know, it's it's having been the guy standing in front of his mirror in a hotel room in Poughkeepsie coming up with that idea. Yeah. It's the guy who says Kyle just raised his arm. He thought you were talking about him. Yeah, it's the guy. It's the guy who watches a VHS tape of, you know, Japanese wrestling from 1993 and sees a move and says, oh, my gosh, that's the guy who watches a VHS tape of Japanese wrestling from 1993 and sees a move and says, oh my gosh, that's the move I'm going to do. It's the guy who grows up in this day and age playing WWF video games on Super Nintendos or on Xboxes or whatever else and imagines themselves doing it and actualizes that 15 years later. Or it's my son on the trampoline trying to ricochet 720 by the way that's a real thing that's happening and listen he's gonna die on the trampoline it's very possible well i hope best wishes to ben i hope it doesn't

happen but listen of all of the of all of the 11 year olds i've ever met in the world ben simmons has the highest upside for being a professional wrestler. He really does. With the exception of maybe some kids on the U.S. gymnastics team that we haven't seen yet, though Ben's probably going to be much bigger than them.

His whole life is like he's training for eight years from now to be an AEW. It's really like AEW should just start scouting him now, like way ahead of time. Well, two things. I long ago pitched the idea to have a pro wrestling

summer camp for kids and just be like tumbling and cutting promos and who wouldn't send their kids to that? But we'll set that aside for right now. But listen,

the point is that Ben Simmons being told what being handed a script and told what to say, even 24-year-old Ben Simmons is not going to work. Of all of the people who were made to do this, your son is maybe one of them.

And that process is not going to work for him. Well, and then the other thing is, are we sure that should be the process anymore? No, it shouldn't. That's the point. I don't know. I don't know anybody who's like, you know, it's awesome that Raw is three hours. Yeah. I'm so psyched.

I'm so psyched for the three hour Raw that's coming up. And what's weird is I've gotten to know a lot of the WWE people. I think they're exceptionally smart. A lot of the stuff they've done has been really savvy. I think what they did with NXT and the training center and what they're doing now with their IP and studios and all that stuff, it's really smart. What I don't understand is how counterproductive

a three-hour Raw every week is, how counterproductive a three-hour Raw every week is, how counterproductive the five-hour WrestleMania is. At some point, they need a little kick in the ass to be like, oh, actually, we have to care a little bit more about winning fans over week to week, and this is the perfect way to do it. The AEW now is the super hot next door neighbor who moved in, who's by the pool every day on the bikini and

wearing a bikini and just like having a daiquiri and kind of staring you over the bushes. And you just got to be wary of them. You have to. And the other thing is, there's going to be wrestlers who aren't happy in their current WWE situation who are watching what just happened with Jon Moxley.

Like, oh man, that could... I'm next. I'm sure they got calls this week, right? There must have been, what, 15 people that must have called them? Hey, man. Dave Meltzer says it's enough people to count on two hands that have inquired people that you wouldn't expect. And so it'll be really... I mean, we know that there's some names

out there. Sasha Banks is sort of sitting out right now. Luke Harper has been sent home. He's getting paid, but he's basically been told they don't need him until his contract is out. And then the revival of the tag team, they formally rejected a very, very healthy contract extension with the expectation that they'll be heading over at some point. But those are just a few of the names. You look at Moxley, and you have to think that there's got to be a, you know. Great career move. Yeah.

I mean, even people that don't, I mean, people, the name that keeps coming up in conversations is Randy Orton because he's out there on Twitter just being really sort of dismissive of, you know, his career. And, you know, he's kind of acting out a little bit. And, you know, he doesn't need the money, and he doesn't ever seem like the guy that just like desperately wanted to be wrestling in japan or anything like that just

to prove his mettle but like man if somebody like if somebody like that can look at john moxley and say that looks like fun then that's huge you know that's a really big deal samoa joe is i mean we don't know what these contracts are for some of these people but samoa joe is one to me that feels like you put him in aw as your lead villain and he's just ripping through people and that could be something. You know, I was thinking about, all right, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash when they jumped. Like, all right, how big of a deal was that just for how talented they were, right? Diesel was the champ for a while. Scott Hall as Razor just,

you know, had some of the best matches of the mid nineties. They were definitely big guys. They weren't like the guys. It wasn't like getting, you know, Shawn Michaels or Bret Hart basically. But when they,

when they came over, it vaulted them to another level. And what else helped was that they were the first two guys that did it. And the third guy was the one, two, three kid who became X-Pac. Now, I don't know, was he like one of the top 40 guys in the WWE roster at that point? But by being the third guy, he became a guy. Yeah. You know, and wasn't he the third guy? He was the third one, right? Yeah. No, no, no. Well, he was, he was the third crossover. He was the third one, right? No, no, no. Well, he was the third crossover. He was the third one that jumped.

Yeah, because it was a big show. And then. But they were already there. Yeah. Million Dollar Man was weirdly one of them. Yeah, they were all there. I think being in that first wave of I jumped and I'm reinventing myself is a good career move for, I would say, about eight to ten guys on the roster. Yeah, and there's going to be a limit to how many they're going to sign.

I mean, they've said this, and I think that it'll bear out, that there's a limit. They can't just be WWE 2.0. I mean, if it's all WWE, perceived to be WWE cast-offs, even if it's the cream of the crop, that's going to be a hard perception to compete with. But that's a good storyline, though, is they sign like five of them, and it becomes like the old school guys don't like the new guys.

Like, oh, you're just trying to glom on our success. We did this without you. We don't need you. This is our thing. And then you can, you know, that's what we love when real life spills into the stories. Yeah, absolutely. And that's what, you, and it remains to be seen how much of a deal they're going to make about that

when they have a weekly TV time slot to fill. You don't want them to go too much in the territory of reality. I mean, just of straight up shoot interviews or whatever, but walking that line, figuring out the right tone is difficult, but that's what they're going to have to do. They have to be a modern wrestling company and they have to address that stuff.

Well, so how many times has somebody been in this specific spot that they're in now where people are just in on them and fired up to see where it goes and feel like, all right, finally, somebody's here that represents me, which is, you had like the ECW, right? ECW. Yeah. But that was, I mean. For like you had like the ECW, right? ECW. Yeah. But that was, I mean. For like a year and a half there, maybe? Yeah.

I mean, no, no. ECW had a good run of being that company. I mean, from word of mouth, from the beginning of word of mouth to their sort of like peak on cable and TNN or whatever. And not their creative peak, but their national awareness peak. Yeah, I meant more like their creative, like the 97, 98, when they started having those pay-per-views. No, I mean, they had a long run.

I mean, a year and a half is probably less than what they deserve, but somewhere around there, you know? I mean, they had a good run. I mean, honestly, it can't possibly be the same thing, but WWE, or the WWF, sorry, when, like, you know,

Mick Foley famously won the championship on the night when on that pre-tape segment. And they were they were they had positioned themselves so much as the underdog that I remember as a wrestling fan feeling like, OK. And the NWO gimmick was sort of getting tired. And that felt like that Vince and WWF were actually responding to the fans. And they were, you know, in a way that... Yeah, that's a good call. They were like the Tampa Bay Rays and the WCW was like the Yankees.

They let all these big contracts go and they were building around these younger people or these old established dudes everybody liked that they were giving a moment to. And it worked for, I don't know what, all the way through the 90s. Then it gets a little dark in the 2000s. I also,

I don't think you can underrate the TNT Bleacher Report thing because they don't have a lot of new stuff going on from their end. And this is something you can, you know, you see when they get behind something, like the House of Highlights feed, like Game of Zones.

They don't have a ton of new IP that they can be like, hey, look at this. We got this. Champions League was like that for them. I think they're going to really get behind this. You're looking at a world where you have this Warner Media. They're trying to combine all these assets and TNT and TBS and TruTV are all going to be under one person

and HBO is reporting to AT&T and all these different things happening. They're clearly headed to a world where like sports becomes like a vertical for them because they have basketball, they have March Madness, they have the baseball playoffs and a couple other things.

And wrestling is 52 weeks a year if you do it correctly. It's a huge asset for them if they can pull it off. So I'm sure they will. I'm sure they'll promote the shit out of it.

Yeah, I mean, it remains to be seen how much content, I mean, if it's going to be 52 weeks or what. Because, you know, they've,

AEW's already been pushing back in terms of, you know, offering full-timers health insurance and stuff in the subtle ways, in the little ways that diehard wrestling fans, you know, have suggested that WWE change.

I've been, I was out there early about, they're about asking for an off season just for the sake of these wrestlers and for fans too to recharge. But, um, we'll see. Maybe they'll do that. Maybe they'll take off July and August. Maybe they will, you know,

or at least give guys, you know least give the performers rotating vacations or whatever. But that's a market inefficiency for them though, right? That's a way you could steal dudes from WWE pretty easily. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you're working seven months a year instead of 12. The WWE basically did this with Brock Lesnar and that's it. Yeah, well, Chris Jericho too, I mean, who's now part of AEW.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Jericho kind of made, blazed that trail for himself because he had the ability to say, I'm going to go play with my band. You know what I mean? He had the ability to be like,

if I'm going to keep doing this, if I'm in it for a long time, then I have to be, I can't just do it every week. And that's what Brian Curtis is like that at The Ringer. He just, you know, we don't mess with him. He just kind of tells us what he's going. He just, you know, we don't mess with him.

He just kind of tells us what he's going to do. And we don't we don't ever want to make him upset. Then he comes in and hit somebody with a chair. You know, everybody goes crazy. But, yeah, no, I think you're right about TNT. I think that they're really going to get behind it. And I think that there's I think that that one, you know, we've talked about this. I've talked about it at length.

But, you know, it's as silly as it might sound, wrestling is cooler now than it was 10 years ago. It's cooler now than it was five years ago. And there's a lot of reasons for it. But part of it's just, I always say, when I was growing up, people made fun of you for watching wrestling. The first thing they said was, you know that stuff's fake, don't you? And now it's impossible for someone who go who spends a night a week watching the kardashians to make that sort of comment you know i mean yeah everything has just gotten faker and

everything has gotten more ironic and it's okay to like silly stuff like wrestling wrestling fans have known this all along but i think wwe has really and i don't and i'm not saying you're telling them what to do because i don't have any brilliant ideas. But WWE has been behind the curve at exploiting that change, right? I mean, they have not been able to make wrestling, their brand of wrestling, as relevant as it should be in the modern era where it's like, you know, when I started this, when I started writing about wrestling, people were, people in, you know, professional writers were floored that this was a thing that someone in Brooklyn would be willing to do. Right. And I was, and, and now it's like, we, there's more people

who write about wrestling than there are that write about music. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's, it's so much like the, the shifted so much on the ground. It's so funny. I remember trying to, I remember telling ESPN that one of the people we were hiring was a guy who was going to write wrestling for us and they were just what was that 2011 telling John Walsh like yeah so we're going to cover wrestling and this great writer and he's like professional wrestling like he's just like completely stupefied by it we had a lot of wrestling content those first couple months at Graylin remember I think I even wrote like two pieces, but we had a ton of stuff. But yeah, now by the end of this decade, it's become a cottage industry. And do you think Meltzer, by the way,

is involved in this AEW? No, I mean, I don't think he's financially involved. I mean, I don't, I think that- Do you think he's like a consultant? I think that he's really good friends with the people who were running the company and i think that inevitably he's gonna you know have some conversations with people i mean there's always been a thing about melter in new japan about his his level of of you know

investment their investment metaphorically speaking and and uh and i think that he just you know he is a diehard wrestling fan. Old school wrestling. Old school wrestling fan who enjoys, you know, that stuff from Japan, enjoys going to indie shows when he goes out to a show. He enjoys that sort of like, you know, PWG content in a way because it's something that WWE doesn't provide. Right. And I can speak from personal experience, too, that like WWE is awesome. But, you know, it does start to feel like a job at some point, watching, you know, eight hours of content a week and then pay-per-views on the side. Yeah.

And you can understand why someone would get excited about, you know, a different, kind of a different iteration of pro wrestling. But no, but Meltzer is, I mean, I've not talked to him and don't, I mean, don't know, but, you know, it seems clear that he's, that he's on good terms with the Young Bucks and with Cody Rhodes and with,'t know, but it seems clear that he's on good terms with the Young Bucks and with Cody Rhodes

and with some other people who were involved with AEW. And I don't know how much it moves the needle for him to be really invested in it, but it certainly seems like his discussions of AEW on his podcast and stuff like that are what people are very, very interested in in the pro wrestling you know

kind of online community right now yeah it does feel like I think he's spiritually involved because I think Tony Khan seems like somebody

who probably had the Meltzer newsletter since he was like nine years old for sure yeah and a lot of what this idea has been

is probably like what if how do we how do we take all this stuff happening in probably like, what if, how do we, how do we take all this stuff happening in Japan and have it here? And how do we empower wrestlers? And it's all smart. And for Meltzer and, and,

and, you know, there's, he's not the only person out there on that beat, you know, Mike Johnson. I mean, there's,

there's a bunch of people who do this, but for, for people who are the real reporters in the wrestling business, this is, this is more exciting for them than it is for us fans because they get to actually report on people on contract situations again. Right.

The business side is what, and I've talked about this too, with WWE has these two brands, they've had drafts, they have shakeups, they have everything else, and they've totally missed out on actually replicating the fun part of professional sports these days, which the off season true and now we have the off now we have it you know i mean that's going to be and it's and and just like with pro wrestling the

off season's never ending because all these contracts come up at different times so you know that that's going to be a really really intriguing thing and i don't mean to and not just to make light of it in terms of our enjoyment of it, but this is huge for the power of the wrestlers, right? For the bargaining power, for their personal well-being. Finally, they can go, you know, when the contract comes up, it's not just I sign whatever the McMahon's put in front of me. It's like I can go to them and say, you know, I got another offer or I'm willing to entertain other offers.

And that's a game changer, especially for people who see WWE signing billions of dollars of TV contract and none of it's trickling down or little of it's trickling down. It's a really big deal. Yeah, you left out one piece. The guy who has eight months left

or the girl who can use that last eight months as leverage. Like, all right, if you want me to stay, like I'd like this, this, or this to happen. If it's not going to happen, I'm not going to stay. So just, you know, it's almost like an NBA player heading into the February trade deadline. Like, are you going to trade for some help

or this is just going to be my team in the next five months? Oh, it is? All right, well, I'm going to leave then. But I think, you know, somebody like Sasha Banks, who I agree with you, one of the wasted talents of the last five years for what I thought her potential was with them. I don't know if you can waste a talent like that in the same way because she can just leave and really come back to haunt you,

which goes back to my initial point. I think this is weirdly good for WWE. I think it's good to have competition. I think it's good to have somebody keeping you on your toes. I totally agree. And WWE, once they, I mean, listen, they like to position the Monday Night Wars as a kind of fight for their existential existence. And it was, you know, in financial ways and everything else. But, you know, if they can see past just the,

you know, feeling that they need to like destroy or, you know, kill the, kill a W and it's crib or whatever, then they, then, then they,

they hopefully will come to the realization to the competition is good because they haven't been able to provide that for themselves, no matter how hard they've tried. Where do you think my son ends up a W or WWE? If you had to handicap it right now? You figure like this is nine years away now, I think he's 20, he's probably in here.

I think it's, I mean, listen, it's, your son is, your son, you know, is gonna, has grown up with,

is gonna continue to grow up with some level of privilege and one of those is that he has been at the performance center and if you make a phone call, he could probably show up at the performance center to start training for like a week although but but so i mean and so that the pipeline the wwe pipeline seems like the real likelihood but that said if he does anything else with his life and just decides to start you know indie wrestling on the side or something like that then aewW could be... If you make him go to college

and he starts just training at a gym, training at a wrestling gym at night, AEW might be the leader in the clubhouse. I don't know. True or false, he asked us to buy a wrestling ring for his birthday last November. An actual wrestling ring to put on the basketball,

on the little half basketball court we have in the backyard. That is actually true. He priced them. He looked them up. There's companies that make wrestling rings. He's like, what about this one? It's not that big. Like, not ironically.

He's really like, no, no, this could fit. I did the measurements. So that happened. We bought him this really cool trampoline that I put a couple Instagram videos on that has a basketball hoop. And he's been on there all the time. And he really is turning into like Ray Mysterio

on this trampoline. So I don't know what to expect anymore. He's all muscle now. And it's like all of his choices that he's making just point toward a wrestling lifestyle so I don't know AEW start scouting him you just gotta keep him you gotta keep him you know zoned in

on the pro wrestling as he gets older you know there's gonna be some point where he gets more obsessed with girls or with baseball or whatever else and I mean you just gotta keep the wrestling it doesn't have to be number one. Right. It has to be there

in the top five somewhere. Yeah, top three. Yeah, and I think you can pull that off. He's been working out. Like he's, I don't know, he's doing push-ups now.

I don't know, Kyle. What do you think? That's great. You're around this psychopath. I think just more trampoline time is really all he needs. Trampoline time. Yeah, get some ropes in there.

You know? We'll makeshift ropes. That's what he needs. The funny thing is, I remember watching The Miz's real-world season, and he really, you know, he, like, really wanted to be a wrestler and had this whole character,

and I was like, wow, this guy's pretty good at this. But then he actually became a wrestler, and now he's, I would say, one of their best eight stars. So who knows? It's wild. I thought that, you know, on the real world, I thought it was a joke. I was watching it in real time, too. I was just like, this guy is making a mockery of the pseudo sport that I love.

And for the first 10 years of his career, The Miz was that guy. The Miz was a professional wrestler, but he looked like a guy who was pretending to be a professional wrestler. And he has turned into, yeah, one of the legitimate top guys in the sport, in the business. And I think he's a model for people that grew up watching it. But listen, the coolest thing about pro wrestling right now is that almost all of the top stars are not football players who blew out their knees. They're not bouncers who some strip club bouncers who Dusty Rhodes pointed out and said, come down to the office and I'll give you a singlet. They're guys and girls who grew up watching wrestling and dreaming of being pro wrestlers. Everybody on the roster has a picture of them posing with, you know, Jake the Snake Roberts when they were a little kid or whatever, you know?

Like, they were all fans. And there's nothing, and really, that should amount to this great new glory day of you know wonderful era of pro wrestling with all these fans and brilliant minds and instead you know and it hasn't quite gotten there yet maybe AEW a wrestler that's I mean a wrestling promotion that's going to be you know sort of like by the wrestlers for the wrestlers and also for fans too um maybe maybe that'll be the the platform for people like that to really flourish. Well, they have three more pay-per-views this summer, it looks like. Yeah, I mean, they have...

I know this because my son looked them up and then showed them to me. There's three more coming. And then it looks like the TV show, whatever incarnation, whether it's weekly or bi-weekly, whatever it is, it looks like that's going to be in the fall. So we'll see. And we'll see who jumps, whose contracts are up. I'm excited. I'm like you, I'm excited. This is going to be like July 1st NBA, where there's just going to be rumors every week about this person might go that person. If you had to pick two, this would be my last question, then we have to go. Two people that you think could jump, who would the two be?

Oh God, that's really hard. I have no idea. I mean, I have to go in people that you think could jump who would the two be oh god that's really hard i have no idea i mean i i have to go in and try to figure out when everybody's contract is up i mean sasha banks had the problem of like just signing a contract not too long ago and that's why she's in this really weird this really weird netherworld right now that like you can't just walk away true at least you can't walk away you can't walk away to wrestle for somebody else i guess you could rock walk away for most other career paths um but man i i don't know i mean i think the revival is a done deal you know i mean someone like luke harper has i think another nine months or something they're going to tag on some extra time to that to his contract and and and you know he but those are

those are the names that people have talked about a lot i think if you want to start speculating about people who would you know if if everything if start speculating about people who would, you know, if everybody was a free agent who hasn't reached their potential, who could be really great outside of WWE. Samoa Joe, you mentioned. I think Finn Balor is a name that should come up in these conversations. Yeah, my son's in on that one. And then you go down and look at NXT where there's, you know,

I mean, some of the biggest names, the biggest stars that have come through there have a legitimate, like, size disadvantage in WWE. You know, the Undisputed Era is not going to look normal, you know, not going to look as big as they do in NXT when they get to the main roster. They would be a really cool addition to the AEW. I mean, those guys are supremely talented in every way. But, and yeah, I mean, and there's just this laundry list of tag teams, too. I mean, AEW's really focusing on this stuff, but man, I mean, just look at the,

what they're calling the Viking experience now. We've been absent from TV for three weeks, or two weeks or something like that. My son is so upset about this. This is one of his favorite NXT people. The War Raiders on NXT, yeah. He loved the war chant and they came to WWE and when did they change their name?

Like three different times? They were War Machine on the indies. They changed them to the War Raiders in NXT and then when they got called up they were the Viking Experience and then after that was just summarily laughed off the internet, they changed it to the Viking Raiders And then after that was just summarily like laughed off the internet, they turned to the Viking Raiders. Vince McMahon apparently was very concerned that people would have trouble discerning that these two guys with like Braveheart face paint and horns and, you know, leather, leather sink.

I mean, in leather loincloth, they were going to have trouble realizing they were supposed to be Vikings. So they changed their name to the Viking Experience. It's always good to take somebody that had a great gimmick that fans were responding to, and then just completely change the gimmick and the name. And be like, hey, no, no, now we're going to do it this way. That always goes over great.

People love that. People love when things get changed that they like. Yeah. So hopefully, and then that all goes back to Dean Ambrose, a.k.a. Jon Moxley's issues with WWE and WWE creative, and that's that the wrestlers weren't given enough volition. They're not given the chance to be creative and to be the stars that they sort of made themselves into.

And hopefully WWE will realize that that's a problem that they need to made themselves into. And, you know, hopefully WWE will realize that that's, you know, a problem that they need to fix on their own. And, you know, clearly AEW is going to be giving people the opportunity to, you know, be their best selves, or at least for now, it seems that way. Well, good luck to AEW. I love the competition.

Kevin Owens is another name I think could be a good AEW guy. He just signed a five-year deal. Oh, he did? Yeah, I mean, and I think that he's, you know, in a lot of ways, he's a really important cog and WWE knows that.

I don't think that, but he would be a great fit there. He knows that, except he lost like 180 matches last year. Well, yeah, but you know. Who's the one who posted win-loss records

that they're there? Kevin Owens was like 50 and 185 or something. Yeah. It's a crazy bad record. It was like, wow, this guy's so important. Another name to look at is Rusev. That guy is an incredible, I mean, that guy could be a conquering monster in All Elite,

in New Japan. He could do a lot of things. Sweetheart of a guy, that Rusev. He's an amazing fellow. Turns out he doesn't really have the Russian accent in real life. Well, he has an accent. It's just not, you know. It's not Russian. It's not in real life. Well, he has an accent. It's just not, you know. It's not Russian.

It's not Boris and Natasha. Yeah, yeah. Shoemaker, this was wonderful. Good luck with the press box. Keep an eye. Speaking of moving things, keep an eye on the press box. Keep an eye. We're going to try some new stuff out.

Yeah, we're up to stuff with the press box. All right, cool. Hope all is new new all is well with the fam and everything talk to you soon talk to you man thanks

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We are back maybe Sunday night. I haven't decided yet. Depends how good game two is. Kyle doesn't want us to be back on Sunday night. I'm up for it. I'm up for it. Don't let me. Maybe Craig would want to work Sunday night.

Chill, chill, chill. I'm there. I'm sleeping over on Saturday night. That's how much I want to be there. You're sleeping over? Oh, my God. We'll see how we feel about the game, too. But might be available.

Might be doing the pod on Sunday night or Monday morning. We'll see. Kyle still has three days to talk me out of it. Enjoy the weekend. And we'll see you next week.