The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 1: Murrrraaayyyy!

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

UFC Welterweight Michael 'Venom' Page joins the show in-studio - he talks about fighting as a career, the ego of a fighter and to see how quickly he would kill Stugotz. Plus, Julie DiCaro who runs Zombie Deadspin discusses the loss of Deadspin forever and what it means for journalism. Also, Murray the magician is revealing his tricks and the world is upset - how many people are actually money making magicians. Jalen Hurts shaved his goatee and looks Dominican.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network. This is the Don Lebatar Show with Stugatz Podcast. Stugatz is hiding in plain sight over there with audio proof glass between us because he doesn't want any parts of offering to take a Michael Venom page kick for $1,000. He made the choice recently, but doesn't wanna actually do it. It's nice to see you. It was nice to watch you work against Kevin Holland.

He's a veteran fighter. He's tough. He's respected by all your 22 and two in your division. We were talking before you came on, he's a veteran fighter, he's tough, he's respected by all, you're 22 and two in your division. We were talking before you came on, you're a bit, you must be a bit insane because I don't think, I don't think people who do what you do for a living are sane, but how much damage would you do to him if you were trying to do damage to him with a leg kick

and he was standing in front of you? Well, the fight before this fight, stole someone's kneecap, basically, with a kick. So, that's a fully trained fighter, so I'm sure I would. You stole his kneecap. He's laughing. Well, it is a bit crazy. I don't think people understand.

$25,000. I don't think people understand. $25,000. I got it back. I don't think people understand. Your body is a weapon, correct? Yes, yes, definitely. A trained weapon. And a trained weapon that does its most damage. Like if you had to damage someone the most

with something of that ilk, what would you produce? Well, I've damaged a few people. I think my most famous finish, I caved somebody's head in with a jump knee, so that's probably the worst thing that's done. Sounds painful. It seems like a horror. Yeah, it seems like, so does this sport choose you

or did you choose it? You know what, I'm gonna say it chose me. Not to be fair, it's a bit above. So martial arts separately, just being involved in martial arts is a family thing. My mom did it, my dad did it, my siblings will do it. So martial arts was just that chose me. But in terms of going into a professional sport from there,

you know, I made a decision to go to to Mixed Martial Arts specific. How many brothers? There's quite a few of us. There's seven of us all together. There must be legendary fight stories in your youth. What are the age differences if you guys get into a fight in your youth and everyone's trained in the Mixed Martial Arts? To be fair we started in kickboxing and my sister's the oldest one and nobody messes with her so you know if we even started argument second she walks into the room is game over did anyone dare to mess with the family not not really you mess with one you mess with also so when you cave in when you cave

in someone's face afterwards is there a sorry about that? No, of course, of course. I always say like you, we have a fight persona. That fight persona is, you turn into something, you go to a dark place, or you turn into something that is an alter ego of yourself. But when you come back out, you know,

you're back to yourself, you know, it's very different. So, you know, obviously when I'm going in there, you know, I don't, you don't regret anything in that moment. Can you explain this part to us though? Is, are you talking about something primal there? You're talking about something that you, do you even recognize who, well, now you've gotten comfortable with that person,

but you're talking about a predator who is praying for money. Oh, 100%. You know where to be fair, I think it's less about the money. It's more just the, I always say, just the experience of walking out into a cage, into a crowd, and facing an opponent, and winning that feeling of winning as well.

It's a drug, it's a drug in itself. So we don't take away the money, I guarantee you the majority of people will still do it. The arena at the top, high level, they'll still want to do that. And then just have work at the end afterwards. But it's just, there's something about it that is just addictive.

So where do you keep the stolen e-cap? We gave it back, we gave it back. So he's fixed it. It's interesting the way you describe them, because Ray Lewis described football as, you don't pay me for Sundays. You get Sundays for free. Monday through Saturday is what you pay me for. The preparation is what you get paid for.

You're saying the Coliseum spectacle shit, can I be better than another man and we're stripped down to nothing but our tools? You're saying that's the best a person can feel that's the best a person can feel is is there is some there's you know It's a very egotistical sport More sports are but this one is it's different somebody's really trying to something is trying to take you out It's not it's not about a game that's being played if someone's trying to take you out And there's a lot of ego in involved and yeah, we're just trying to we're just trying to bet be better than that person in front of us Do you sort of fancy yourself as a modern-day professional hunter of humans?

So good way of looking at it. The thing is I still see I still see a predator I mean buddy 22 and 2 in the fighting sports. He's as good as there is at the top of I fight you. And he's saying it's not even for money. I fight you because I like the challenge of fighting you. I don't think you could beat me at this weight. 100%. 100%. No, it's a good way.

I do enjoy it as, I do see it as a sport. I think I've done it so long now that I don't, even when I'm speaking to people about my performances, some people are looking at me like, what, you're hitting, you're trying to hurt somebody. But I don't, I see it as a good thing. I don't think I I'm speaking to people about my performances some people are looking at me like what you're hitting you're trying to hurt somebody but I don't I see it as a game. How does it work in everyday life with you because your hands and feet are lethal weapons right when when somebody picks a fight with you who doesn't know

who you are you're not allowed to use those lethal weapons on the street right? Well we are. You're taking back, that's a bad question. No, no, I didn't ask it right, apparently. At once wild. Like when you're not in the octagon, you can't get into a fight because you might kill somebody. No, of course, the thing is the good thing about being trained is, and like I said,

the being in the cage is a massive part of your ego that you have to use. Second you leave the cage, it's a massive part of your ego that you don't care to use anymore. We have to do that every single day. I get to challenge myself with my teammates every single, every single day. Going out to somebody, I'm usually the guy

that will talk everything down. I'll come on, man, that's fine. I'll buy you a drink, guys. It's not that serious. I'll calm everything down because I have nothing to prove. I've done it before and somebody's found out after the fact who I was and he's like, I'm so sorry. I didn't even realize he was like, no, it's no problem, no problem. We don't, I don't lead, we don't lead with ego and you find out a lot with fighters. We exert that button a lot in the gym, so we don't, we don't need to use it.

That's interesting. You're talking about the emotional drain of it too. By the time you leave there, because you're fighting other people who fight for a living, you don't even wanna do more work. I gotta do more work. Tired, I'm out here to have fun now right now. This is my downtime, so I don't need to cross into that area.

I wanna talk about the alter ego though, because I don't think anyone listening to this quite understands the mixture of fear, courage, everything required to, I'm going to fight in front of a bunch of people. I've trained for months and so have you, and now I just need to be better than you, and one wrong move, and I'm embarrassed by the internet

for a long time because I've gotten knocked out better than you and one wrong move and I'm embarrassed by the internet for a long time because I've gotten knocked out or I've gotten my kneecap stolen or I've got my face caved in. Can you explain to me the mentality because I don't think any of us understand what that is. Yeah, it is really difficult. And I think a lot of people, this is why, I think this is the difference between being at the top

and being amongst the numbers because if you can't perform in That moment because I've seen this certain guys that we have in our gym And I've seen another and heard stories about another gyms that are exceptional in the gym Unbelievable in a gym, but then when you go out to the crowd and that and it drains you and they just can't perform in the same way That we see every day in the gym. There's something else that you need. You have to dig deep.

You have to be comfortable being on show and comfortable with exactly that. These things that could go wrong. And I always go through a phase of, I allow my negative thoughts to come through. We're like, ah man, I could get knocked out. And especially with my style, people love to hate my style. They they love to love it but they also love to hate it because it's showy people don't like they don't always like the show off guy so you know

I can get knocked out people are gonna be know the comments and this and that and that but I allow myself to go through that and then I'm like no but I'm the guy man I'm that guy I can do this and I did and then I finish I'm nice like I start with a negative and finish but instead of trying to avoid it, because sometimes it stores up inside you, and then it just makes you struggle. When you get into the cage, let's say you get hit once,

and then all those negative thoughts start to come in that moment, and now it's hard to avoid while you're, so you've got this guy. You've reached real confidence. Oh, yes. Oh, man, that's bliss. That's for a fighter?

Yes. Real confidence. Doesn't mean it's not fearless, but for you to be aware of what the fear looks like and be like, yeah, that's normal, but I'm better than this person. Yeah, yeah, and everyone has to have their own process. And you know, I can explain mine,

but it might not work for you. Everyone, you need to understand yourself. And it's been years. It's taken me many, many years to understand the process for me. And yeah, I feel like I've like I found you know where it's work and and I execute as best as I can. MVP I was in the building on Saturday night when you came out the Undertaker music. Everything went purple. We want to

play it all on the screen right now. You dancing. You wanted to do something. Right? We friend of our show AeroHirwani. Yeah, you told him on the show that you wanted to have something different, that the UFC was like, let's not do that right now. Can you explain what that was? Yeah, so we were going to have a little bit of a... I think just something for the audience that I love to entertain. Like, I really do. I really take the entertainment side of it seriously. I think I'm very intentional about things that I say,

things that I do, everything. And I think it's a lot, this is kind of a side that fighters don't pay attention to. They just focus solely on the fighting. But for me, I was like, okay, think about, you're in the audience now, lights go dark. Everyone's used to seeing everybody walk out the tunnel. So everyone's looking at the tunnel,

waiting for just MVP's arrival to seeing everybody walk out the tunnel, you know, so everyone's looking at the tunnel waiting for you know, this you know MVP's arrival to the UFC and Then lights go dark then the light goes on back in in the cage and my figure is standing in the cage And everyone's like wait a minute. That's supposed to see what's going on here? He's in the cage already You know, everyone's just like what everyone's cheering. Okay. Yeah. Yeah And it's the intro the Undertaker song It's just like, what? Everyone's cheering, okay, yeah, yeah. And it's the intro, the Undertaker song.

Then the lights go switch off again right as the track drops and then I'm in the same position, lights off, lights back on and I'm exactly the same position. It looks like I've just done a magic trick and I've just switched, you know what I've just randomly Undertaker style just come from one place to the other and then that same walkout would've come, the music drops and I would've,

but they were like, I chill, it's your first time man, just relax. Well they don't want you to become too big a star. They want the prices to be reasonable. I mean you've noticed what a lot of people in your sport have, that if you have some showmen in you, if you can talk a good game, if you can embrace the marketing of it,

and in some ways be disrespectful to the reasons you chose the MISCS martial arts originally. You can sell a fight by disrespecting everything you actually care about here because I'm guessing you have some purity of warrior spirit. Oh, 100% like you know, you strip everything away. I started in Lao Gao Kung Fu. It's a very respectful style.

You know, you walk in, you have to bow to walk into a room, you bow to leave the room, you bow to your fellow students, you bow to your instructor. You know, everything is show respect first, yeah? And then later on as I'm doing the competitions, I start to understand, I start to learn how to be creative and enter the, but the style of kickboxing I did was called freestyle kickboxing It's like going into a sports hall and there's just matted areas everywhere and everybody's competing for attention So there was like an unwritten rule where you know you try to show off a little bit without you know And no there was no disrespect everybody kind of it was just a thing that everybody would try to do and it got to the point where

The second I stepped on the mat because they knew I had antics in me, the whole competition stopped because the referees wanted to see what I was gonna do, the other fighters wanted to, and they're ready to fight, but they're like, no, I wanna see him. And it got to that level.

And all I'd done was when I crossed into the mixed martial arts world, I just continued. I said to myself, if I'm gonna do this, I have to do it in my style, my way. Otherwise, I just don't wanna do it. Michael, if I came at you looking for a fight and I was armed with a pencil, how long would it take you to kill me?

Is it sharpened? Yeah, sharp pencil, yeah? Yeah, sharp. It's as sharp as a pencil can get. Okay, okay, okay. One second. What? One second? It's as sharp as a pencil can get. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay one second He would be dead within the second within it would take nine seconds you're using the pencil against him No, no, no, no you keep the pencil. Wow Somewhat more

Now now two seconds Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you.

Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you.

Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of you. Some of fight because I wish you had full freedom to negotiate in a way that gets you guys paid better than you're paid. No, you know, here's the thing for me and everyone's like, do you find that you took too long to get to the UFC? And I feel like I said, always say my path was chosen for me and it's chosen for a reason. And because of the noise that I made outside, I mean, it allowed me to be paid, you know,

really well coming into. So, you know, I'm a good person. Because you come over from Bellator and you had established your star you're a value who was able to come up another level because you're skilled as they have in the UFC. Exactly, exactly so um so yeah now you know I'm doing well I'm doing well. Thank you for being on with us we appreciate it. No I appreciate you guys it's been amazing thank you thank you guys. Hello friends it's Mike and a lot has changed over the years. One thing that hasn't, great taste of Miller Lite. It was the original Lite beer and to this day it is still the best one. Miller Lite has more of the taste that you want and less of the stuff that you don't. I'm so grateful for Miller Lite because it supplements all my good times.

It makes good times great times. Whether it be football season, basketball season, or baseball season. And all likelihood your team is not living up to expectations. A few good moments made better by Miller Lite, and the bad times are made less bad thanks to Miller Lite. Oh, I love you, Miller Lite. I love you because you keep it simple.

Undebatable quality, great taste, only 96 calories. Times change, but you can always enjoy the great taste of Miller Lite. Tastes like Miller Time. To get Miller Lite delivered right to your door, visit MillerLite.com slash Dan, where you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly, Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories, per 12 ounces. When you're hiring for your small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs.

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I mean, stacked roster. This is the Don Lebatar Show with Stugatz. We need to get to Stugatz's winners and losers from yesterday. We're going to keep getting sidetracked because we're going to lament the death with finality of dead spin. We're gonna talk to Craig Robinson, who is very funny.

And I've got some more football stuff to get to. Again, Mookie Betts is a short stop now. Crazy. Greg Cody wants prosthetic ears. I don't know if Billy got out all his magic takes. Did you, was there more there that you had to say on magic? I know you didn't.

Well, we didn't even get to it. We were just talking about how, you know, there's a magician that has been suspended from the magic castle, but it's fine. We started talking about the secret society, and I'm happy, kind of, with the way that it went, the coterie. But what about, I'm glad that you're happy

with the way that it went, but I felt like we never got to what it is that you wanted to talk about. I am fascinated as how a magician gets banned, or excuse me, illusionist, I don't want to know his names Murray the magician So I think it's fine. Well, I think those by magician Well, they're still making Murray's that might just because Murray Murray the magician sounds better than Murray the illusionist Yeah, doesn't roll off the tongue. Yeah Ian the illusionist that would be good. I like where your head's at Yeah, so what did he do? Well Murray the magician went went on TikTok with, I believe his wife and they were revealing

how certain magic tricks were done and the magic castle was not happy with that. And they said, you know what Murray the magician, banned from the magic castle. Good magician never reveals the secrets, you know that, right? Well, Murray's argument was that these are like popular magic tricks that can be purchased on Amazon

and stuff like that. Like yeah, you could buy We should probably We should endeavor to get Murray the magician on we should endeavor to get Murray the magician on but also when you're a part of the Magic Castle, it's an esteemed group many magicians work their entire careers, and they don't achieve the heights of that You are basically a caretaker of the great arts and you have to protect the industry at all costs. And I think the Magic Castle was well within the rights

to do this. I have seen some videos, I don't know if it's Murray, the magician or another, where I was fascinated by how quickly and well somebody gave up the magic tricks on hand stuff, on cards, and they were illusions that were like, oh, that's easy, and it ruined the whole thing for me. Really, you harm the industry if you give away

too many of the secrets, because it looked really easy. I'm like, oh, I can't believe I fell for that. I was wondering, it was great to have that mystery of not, I felt like it was in the other hand. How did it move hands? Oh, he just put it behind his hand. Don't, well, Dan, now you're doing it. Slight a hand.

Be careful, you're gonna move hand to magic castle. His argument was it's not like, quote, it's not like I'm getting David Copperfield's tricks or Chris Angel's shin limbs and going here's how they do it. I don't know what that is. Oh my gosh! He just blew one of the great illusions. Even in his apology he's blowing magic. Murray! Well, let's, fairness. Murray! Murray! Murray! Murray defend, you know. Yes. You can't give away the secrets. You can't be in the secret code. He's out here advocating for secret clubs. And secret clubs have rules. And the magic club, I believe, one of the great rules, maybe the only rule that can be even unspoken is you don't tell people how you do the tricks.

Yeah. Right. It's a closed society. Like, when you're in the coterie, you know, there's a code, there's an initiation. And all this stuff is very secretive. But if you sell the secrets, though, that's a heady play, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't do that. I think the play that you do is like, because obviously magic industry is very competitive,

right? I mean, we were just in Las Vegas, there's magicians, all kinds of shows all over the place, right? It's hard to stand out. If I'm Murray the magician, and I figure out David Copperfield's tricks, bet your bottom dollar I'm going out there and telling everyone exactly how it's done, then David Copperfield can figure out my tricks and then try to ruin it for me. But if I'm Murray the magician, I'm out there squealing like a pig, telling everybody how

everything is done so that people can go to my magic shows, trying to figure out my magic. Can you guys help me with a portion of how the business works? Because I have maintained that being a poet in the modern age is a really, really hard way to make a living, not a lot of corporations hiring poets. It's honestly irresponsible. Magician seems really hard for me to make a living.

I don't think there are more than like 100 of them. Magician, MMA fighter, it's kind of the same. What about the Terracard readers? No, that's fair. That's a hack. Big year last year. Anytime Iician, MMA fighter, it's kind of the same. What about the tarot card readers? No, that's fair. That's a hack. Big year last year. And anytime I see like a building, it's like, come get your, your, your.

That's different. Tarot cards, you're killing it. That's real. Magic. Making a career out of magic. How often can you do that? There are certain like schools and universities that I feel like should be held liable

for having like bogus, like bachelors and degrees that they give out. Like you should be responsible liable for having like bogus like bachelors and degrees that they give out like you should be responsible when you're taking that much money from someone and be like look guys our poetry bachelors you're not gonna do anything with that we're just we're gonna like one in magic would you like one in magic we're gonna discontinue the magic program because it's just it's not gonna put it on you. All right, put it on the poll, please, Juju, at Levitar Show, harder way to make a living. Poetry or magic? I feel like poets peaked in the 19th century.

At least we still have active musicians. Dead poet society, Greg. Magicians, yes. Magicians, it's fine. What did I say? Yeah, musicians. Oh yeah, that too. There's more musicians than magicians.

There's some musicians that are poets. Yeah, that's a good point's more musicians than magicians. There's some musicians that are poets. Yeah, that's a good point. But very few magicians are poets. Bob Dylan, how do they saw in half that person on the stage though? We should ask Murray. Yeah, you know, how do they do that? Sullivan, do this. Next week, have the magician come on with Greg because I feel like this is a Greg guest. The Greg Cody show featuring Greg Cody. Go do it over there. I like that. Go talk to Murray the magician. We love guests named Murray.

No matter what they do or what they're talking about, who they are. Never had a Murray on. If your name is Murray, you have a home on the Greg Cody show. Murray! Thank you. He's a coder too.

Thank you. Just keep magicians and illusionists in high regard. This might be the only chance we have against the artificial intelligence. You have like four or five that could do it in Vegas and then how much demand is there for Turing magic acts all over? Like I'm dead ass serious when I ask you guys,

how many people are making a living right now as magicians? No, the mind freak. Chris Angel's been so rude. David Blaine. I don't know if he's a magician anymore, Dan. He's just like a guy that. He does Sun Snow. Yeah, it's like extreme. Copperfield's still killing it. Yeah, yeah, no, David Blaine. I don't know if he's a magician anymore, Dan. He's just like a guy that. He does sunsnow. Yeah, it's like extreme.

Copperfield's still killing it. That guy made it. You talk about haves and have nots. Is he still killing it? Is he still with us? He has a residency for sure. I think he's still with us. Copperfield was on the side of a building.

That name, that name, go read what he owns. Talk about haves and have nots. There is a poor underclass of magicians who were working at your kid's birthday party and then Copperfield's buying islands. Did any, did any, D.O.'s magic. I mean.

Did any make the statue of Liberty disappear? He did. On TV. Yes. That's wild. On television. And there were like eyewitnesses that said it was gone. So that is scale, my friend.

I Googled how many magicians are there in the world and it says there's 30,000 to 50,000 magicians worldwide. But I also see here how many magicians are there in the world? And it says there's 30,000 to 50,000 magicians worldwide. But I also see here how many magicians are there in the US and it says more than 219. Is that something from a bygone era? The network television special for a magician? Useless ones. What did Billy just say?

Very specific. Tony, that is Billy pretending to produce the show by just looking at some of the community. I used to have a common name for it, but no more than George and I. That's what it says. There was a writer strike. GreaterZipia.com.

There was a writer strike. We could have greenlit all these illusionist specials on network television. They used to mean something from evil Knievel to Chris Angel. Getting a network special. No, I'm saying some people used to get network specials. Those 10 poll.

Those were made for television. Wonderful. A gather around your TV events. Yeah. Do you remember the Mass Magician? I don't. Oh, he had a couple of network specials on Fox where he was doing this and it was just really

harmful to the great art. What was the name of the long snapper who managed? Like, you know, it's hard to make a career as a long snapper, but as a magician, him parlaying that, he was Kelsey before the Kelsey's. That guy made a magic career out of being a long snapper. We had him in studio. We fond all over him, he seemed a lot happier.

John Doarmboss. Yes. Yeah, male dominated industry magic. Yeah, long snapping. Like 90 to 10. Yeah. True. Both of them actually. Speaking of magic, you guys explain to me how it is that Jaylon Hertz looks like a professional quarterback and a guy who squats a million pounds when he has a goatee, but then he loses his goatee and he becomes Jason. Look, I mean it happens to the best of us, Dan. You know how it is.

Jason Hertz. You're trimming your beard. I don't recognize him. He looks like a dad. I'm dead with the thick eyebrows. Like he looks like somebody's father. He doesn't look like a young quarterback. I like where Tony's going. This wasn't intentional. Yeah, you miss it sometimes. You're like, ooh, this side's a little uneven. I gotta just redo the whole thing. I trust Jaylen Hertz with a goatee. It, you miss it sometimes. You're like, ooh, this side's a little uneven. I gotta just redo the whole thing. I trust Jaylen Hertz with a goatee.

It's to be my quarterback. This other person I do not trust. Totally different guy. You can't. He was forced to grow it back because the reaction to his clean shaven look was so toxic. I mean, like Doja Cat considered leaving Instagram. Let's be honest about this, Tony.

Let me put this back up here. She'll be back, by the way. This is what's happening here. It's always something. I'm not afraid to say it. Maybe Tony's afraid to say it. I don't know if he'll side with me on this or not. Without the goatee, he looks Dominican.

Yeah, he does. 100%. Yeah. I mean, 100%. Yeah. That's not Jalen Hertz. Can I agree? If Jalen Hertz were to sit next to us in this room and you told me that this was him

Yeah, let's get my grandmother is Dominican that dude's been over for dinner He's eating mango for sure 430 p.m. You're saying without it. He's J. Lange. She's an angel. She's gonna turn 90 Yes, that's what I'm saying and that is a less trusted quarterback. I don't have I martinez played for a while for Martinez is that play for a while in Nebraska? That was the same one But I cannot trust I cannot I cannot give put I Cannot give a big contract to the Dominican quarterback because I have no proof that the Dominican quarterback can be good

I guarantee you he's got a hose. Oh Whoa, I'm fine chuch because I have no proof that the Dominican quarterback can be good. I guarantee you he's got a hose. Oh, whoa. I'm fine, Chooch. You guys, get your minds out of the gutters, man. Not everything's a thing. I want to also look at, real quick, here, Lane Johnson. I don't know if you guys saw this, because the filter...

His dick is probably big, too. Here is Lane Johnson, who blocks... If you're of a certain height, you just... You know, oh, vintage quarterback, you know, six foot six. Yeah, six foot six, you know. Usually you can start drawing conclusions. The Philadelphia Eagles backfield. Unless he did steroids.

The Philadelphia Eagles backfield. That's a testicle thing though, isn't it? No, no, it had a penis size too. This means Tony has a hose. Speaking of steroids, here's Lane Johnson. We're used to. He is walking in the gym with 705 pounds. Here is video of Lane Johnson.

This is what the Philadelphia Eagles. It'll be Saquon Barkley. It'll be Jalen Hertz. And it'll be, this is Lane Johnson. That's 705 pounds. I thought that was Racillo at first. Damn. Put on some pants, Mr.

Why is Racillo doing that in his underwear? Why are those, why, those are just straight underwear. Those are not shorts. Yeah, that's what Rocillo does every time he subtweets us. What is happening with the, those are straight underwear. Those are just, that's not, why does he need to work? You can't put a pair of shorts on. You can't put big shorts on when you're doing

farmer carries like that Yeah, you're trying to show off the quads Those are shorts that are tucked in a little. Yeah, you gotta roll them up. Let the people see the quads that he's working on That's incredible And so now say quan Barkley leaves New York and tiki bar barbers said that he's dead to me Who cares because he left to fill it out? that he's dead to me. Who cares? Because he left to Philadelphia.

Whoever alive. The rivalry's mad. Who cares? Tiki Barber, you're dead to me. Okay, all right. The back of the phone. I would have texted him back, okay. I'm not even kidding you, this is how it went.

This for modern media is perfect. Tiki says to Saquon that, Saquon says you've been a hater since I've been here. Don't smile to my face when I see you and you know what Tiki said? I'm voting. Be that way. Yeah, wow. Clever. He says, I'm quoting. Be that way. Yeah, wow.

Clever. He says, I like Saekwan. Be that way. Fine. He actually said, fine, be that way. Don Lebatard. He, for some reason, would do a Gary Stevens impersonation of the offensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins

and the University of Miami. Go ahead, do you wanna do that for the people? You're Gary Stevens impersonation. You wanna give people some of that 30 years in the making. Stugatz. What? Who needs me? Oh, that?

What? Give that my whole life. You're gonna go to Buffalo and win with Bernie Parmoli? Who needs me? This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats. I know that a lot of people now in the modern media Stugats are afraid of athletes coming into the space

and are threatened by athletes coming into the modern media space. But I remember the first time I felt like something was a threat to journalism because young people liked it and it was doing things much differently than traditional sports journalism was doing. And I remember blogs being the first threat to traditional sports journalism and Dead Spin was the biggest of those blogs, the most revolutionary of those blogs. Dangerous, did good journalism, but also did dirty things, was on the cusp of cutting edge, sort of,

how do we attract young people and change the way information is delivered. And so I actually felt sad yesterday, even though Julie Decaro is basically running zombie deadspin. She's been trying to keep the spirit of that alive for many years and it's hard and there's a lot of defense corporate defense being played against her and we wanted to have Julie on to both respect what deadspin was once upon a time good and bad because they did plenty of bad too but they were groundbreaking they were pioneering and yesterday a European company bought it fired all the staff and so I wanted to talk to Julie about what happened. Julie, thank you for making the time for us. Hey guys, thanks for having me on. So tell us about the

history here and how heartbreaking the details of yesterday were to you personally. Yeah, it was really, it was heartbreaking. It's a good word for it. I you know, I was a huge fan of deadspin from its iteration I came up through blogs as well. That's how I made my way into the mainstream media So, um, or I guess it was mainstream media's deadspin ended up It was tough. I mean for those of us that really loved deadspin and cared about the kind of work that they did You know, I think about Diana Moskowitz's work. She was one of the first person I know who would go to the police and actually get the records

when an athlete was accused of harming someone and, you know, put those up for the whole world to see so that nobody could sort of take an athlete who'd been violence against women and minimize what he had done. That kind of stuff, I mean, Drew Magery's why your team sucked was great. And, you know, by the time I got to Deadin in 2019, I'd always wanted to work there, but it did

feel like being, you know, like you're getting to a party right as everyone's just kind of starting to make their way out. That was sort of the feeling there. And I don't know that management ever really understood what made Deadspin work in the first place, why it was so beloved, why it had such a dedicated audience. And so for the last four years, three and a half years, however long I was there, there were a few of us that were trying

to still do that kind of work, but obviously met with some resistance. Well, speak on that please, not some resistance, right? Now it can be told, can it not? How much resistance? Yeah, I mean, what I would say is that, what's happening at DebtSpin I don't think is unique to DebtSpin.

I think that we've sort of been singled out as the example because of what happened in 2019 when the entire staff quit in protest. But it's a thing of Google algorithms ruling everything of being constantly encouraged to write not about what you wanna write about and what's interesting But or what you think your readers will find interesting, but what's trending on Google?

It's a lot of SEO stuff. It's a lot of you know, you can't swear in headlines that affects our Google ranking You can't do this that affects our Google ranking Google really is sort of running the show these days and I'm not sure that the general public Understands to the extent that that's affecting what you read in the news that you're getting because you know every every outlet now has an SEO guru who's sitting there and is constantly looking at what's happening on Google and how we're ranking and why we aren't ranking well and those are the people really that are sort of calling the shots um you know we would sit in meetings um with our with management and be told constantly you know why didn't you write know, why didn't you write about this?

Why didn't you write about that? This story did a million hits for this site. Why didn't you write about that? Um, and so it really became a game of how many readers can I get to read this rather than good journalism, which is what I think many of us went there intending to try to do. All right. So dead's been, I'm not sure a lot of people would associate it necessarily with good journalism, even though I do so I would ask you this question as you're

trying to or dedicated your career in spirit to trying to protect a certain thing as you see a lot of disinformation spreading and corporations buying journalism and knocking out local news and the algorithms dictating what information is spread to how close are we to Propaganda because something like Deadspin simply can't exist today. It's going to get overrun by the algorithms Yeah, I think we're already there. I mean we've seen it all over the place I mean there's things that there are things I mean I'm off Twitter now for the most part But I mean you see things there all the time that people take as the God's honest truth and, you know, it's false. And it comes out a few days later that

it's false. But by that point, the damage has already been done. So, you know, you've got these VC guys coming into journalism, seeing it as a profit making enterprise. And, you know, they come in and what equity firms do is strip away resources, layoffs, everything to squeeze every last dime out of a company before they sell it for its parts. And I mean, GeoMedia has lost Lifehacker, they've lost Jezebel, they've lost now Deadspin. You know, everything's being sold off for its parts and it's not just happening to Deadspin, it's happening across the media landscape. I think that Katie Britt response to the State of the Union address

where she completely misrepresented a story of a woman that has supposedly been trafficked. It wasn't even a journalist that discovered that. It was a tick tocker who was the person who looked into it because there just aren't journalists to do these jobs anymore. And you're being much more likely to be told, hey, we need a slideshow on the 50 best

wide receivers of all time, rather than doing something that might actually matter, that might actually be something that goes towards the truth that exposes something. There's too many people out there that just want to click through slideshows, and everyone complains about them, but everyone clicks on them, so that's what the powers that be want everyone to do. 50 Y receivers of all time you say.

Yeah, I got the room's attention there. Let me throw a little bit of chum in the water here. Tyrod Taylor's going to the jet. Backing up there. Mike Koseky, Cincinnati Bengal, one year contract. Mike Koseky. Not bad, I like that. Just keeping you guys.

There's Julian Edelman, is he top 50? Did you know that Austin Hooper is still under 30? What? Get out of here. He's 29. Julie, I'm curious because this part is, you just sort of skipped over it. So just quickly, the history,

entire staff quit in protest. Yeah, so in 2019, when GeoMedia or bought the onion, bought Deadspin, moved Deadspin to Chicago, Deadspin used to do all kinds of non-sports-related things. So they would write about Trump. They did 50 things people put in their butts this year, like all these amazing content that didn't have anything to do with sports.

Another good category, though. Another good category. Where's that dune pop on? Another category that's really strong. I can't even argue with the journalism of that. Another good category though. Another category that's really strong. I can't even argue with the journalism of that. I'll click on that every time. You click on 50 slides of that, right? I would. So, you know, in my understanding, and I wasn't there for this, was that the mandate was, and what I was told when I started, was you can write about anything you want, but it has to have a tangential relationship to sports. Again, I wasn't there until in 2019, so I just know what I've read from the people who were there.

But my understanding is that the day after that mandate came down, they did an entire front page that had nothing to do with sports as a protest, and that resulted in their EIC getting fired and then everyone quit in protest. So Dead Spin was shut down for, you know, a good, I don't know, six months, something like that. Everyone was telling everyone else, you know, you can't don't work there, don't work for this guy, don't write for Dead Spin, which I was on board with.

I mean, I thought it was an incredibly principled stance. And then the pandemic hit. And so suddenly I didn't have a radio gig. They were resurrecting Dead Spin. They reached out to me the day it was announced that my radio show was canceled. And there were people there, there were journalists there, Jesse Spector, Sam Fells, who I really respected their writing

and their work. And I thought, well, I've got two kids in college. I don't have a ton of options. So I was part of that resurrection of Dead Spin that's been going on since early 2020. And, you know, during that time, Jim Spanfeller became involved with the site, you know, you can Google his name. Well, let me not let me know, please. Let me stop you there.

Who is Jim Spanfeller? Because this history, this is a person who basically made it so you couldn't do anything but cover sports and not particularly well, correct? Yeah, I would say that's true. I mean, I was never told that there was anything. That's not true. I was told there were things I couldn't write about.

And basically that had to do with making fun of the decisions we've used for AI, that they were using AI at Deadspin. So Jim Spanfeller is a member of a private equity guy from Great Hill Partners. I know he was at Forbes before this. I don't know his whole history, but he came in and took over and took over a CEO of GO. So that's Dead Spin, Jezebel, Gokker, Quartz.

Gokker's gone. Quartz, Jalopnik, Eater, all those sites, the onion. And you know, quickly I think his way of doing things became the way that it was his way or the highway. You know, you're hauled into traffic meetings and you know, asked questions about why isn't your site performing better and you'd say, well, the site's crammed with ads, people are complaining about it. I can't even read my article on mobile because there's too many ads.

Nobody wanted to hear that. We're going to change the whole homepage. We're going to give it a whole different look, you know, and that's not a great idea. The fans are really, you know, loyal and dedicated to this iteration of the site. That doesn't matter. You know, more slideshows, more clickable things, more things to get people to click on, more SEO words and headlines. That was the order of the day and journalism came second to all that.

But you also, one of the most popular posts in Dead Spin history was headline, Jim Spanfeller is a herb. Yeah. With pictures of him looking like a loser as well. So you were, you were going after management there and understandably trying to protest from within the side of the machine. I want to play for you some sound from season two of succession It's Kendall walking into the company Volter

Which seems based on Gawker you tell me how accurate this felt Some of you may have noticed servers are down And we're setting a satellite office on seven and I'm afraid I have to inform you you are all dismissed on seven and I'm afraid I have to inform you you are all dismissed. Yeah, you're all fired. So if you can leave your laptops where they are and hand in your passes,

security will be coming around now. Been through everything you've shown me, food and weed. Those are the only two verticals driving revenues so we're folding them in and yeah, you're all free to leave. What was yesterday like? It was kind of like that.

We had a little bit more, I mean look, anyone working in journalism these days feels like the sort of damocles is hanging over your head every day when you go to work. I mean sports illustrated vice, like you name it, you're watching mass layoffs and you're watching basically the implosion of journalism in real time. So when we got a note at 1130 that there was a mandatory meeting for dead spin and everyone had to be there, we were sort of like wow this is exactly what happened to Jezebel right before they shut the site down. So then it was 30 minutes of abject terror. We you know we jump on the zoom call our deputy editorial director is there, she's been the one who's dropping the hammer on everybody. HR is there.

So at that point, we pretty much knew the writing was on the wall. By the time the meeting was over, it probably took 15 minutes. We were out of Slack. We were out of, locked out of our email, locked out of Google Drive, or a lot of our documents where people are frantically trying to archive all their stories.

But yeah, I think that succession nailed it. I think I always thought that was based on Buzzfeed, but could be Gawker as well, because it's happening everywhere. And so it just sort of felt like it's our turn. Like, you know, everyone knew this was going to happen sooner or later. I know no one cares about this, but it's a bummer. The NFL News, Dan, it never stops according to Diana Rossini, the great Diana Rossini. Titans running back Derek Henry has had a conversation with the Ravens.

I love a good conversation. A conversation has been had. Continue yours, brother. Yeah, you don't want any more of it. What else do we need to know here? Just what's the punctuation you would like us to put on this? Because Dead Spin was a fun, wild meteor that was dangerous, did, like I said, some things wrong.

I could chronicle them. But they were trying to carry the spirit of muckraking journalism in the modern time. So what words would you leave us with, Julie? You know, I think that people need to care where their news comes from when you're hearing that, you know, ESPN is in talks to, or that NFL wants to acquire part of ESPN, things like that. I mean, if people need to realize,

if you don't like the news you're getting, you don't like things that are happening, it's because everything is being congealed into like one media company that is in bed with all the leaks. And so, you know, people would say to us on Deadspin all the time, where are the stories about, you know,

the owners who are secretly laces? Where are the investigations into sexual harassment at? Well, first of all, journalists don't have time to do those stories anymore because everyone is having to crank out two or three stories every day. So you simply don't have time to do that investigation. But you have to care where your news comes from.

And it can't just be the NFL sending Ian Rappaport and Adam Schufter in there to cover things when they are not, they are doing a different kind of journalism than what I was raised to do. And I think that you need to care if the teams are in bed with the media outlets, if the people in bed with or people who own the media outlets don't care about journalism, only care about clicks,

is getting increasingly difficult to find places to go where that isn't the case. And unfortunately, you know, it's what's happened in sports, illustrated advice, it's happened in a million places, it's been all over the news. It's hard because people just don't seem to care about journalism anymore. And, and I really fear not just for sports, but for the country where we're going, if care care, care only care only enough to hate

it. Yeah. Ah, the NFL news never stops. Julie just mentioned Adam Schefter and Adam Schefter is reporting Marcus Mariota is now a commander. Him and Sam Howell. You know what happens, Dan, when you have two quarterbacks. You know what it means, right? You don't have one.

Sam Howell this year. Julie takes many sacks. Julie, thank you for being on with us. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Dan. Gotta think they're drafting a third. Right.

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