The Press Box - 'This Week in Ringer Sports' (Dec. 11-15, 2017) (Ep. 399)

Episode Date: December 16, 2017

'This Week in Ringer Sports’ features ‘The Ringer NFL Show’ on the impact of the Carson Wentz injury (00:30), 'The Bill Simmons Podcast' with Kevin Clark and Bill's dad on the Patriots-Steelers matchup (5:00), ‘One Shining Podcast With Titus and Tate’ on Duke losing to Boston College (08:45), ‘The Ringer NBA Show’ on the Rockets as a potential landing spot for LeBron this offseason (14:30), ‘The J.J. Redick Podcast’ with Karl-Anthony Towns on the current crop of NBA big men (19:15), ‘Ringer FC’ on the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 matchups (23:45), and ‘The Masked Man Show’ on the main event for New Japan’s 'Wrestle Kingdom 12' (27:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to this week in Ringer Sports. I am Liz Kelly bringing you the highlights from the Ringer podcast network. As part of our year in review package, we have our 2017 Sports Awards, which includes most improved player, best costume design, and best true-to-yourself performance. You can check it all out on the ringer.com. First up, we have some NFL news, so the Philadelphia Eagles clinched the NFC East in week 14, but at the expense of their franchise QB, Carson Wentz. On the NFL show, Robert Mays and Kevin Clark talk about the NFL. impact of that injury on the Eagles post-season run in our first clip of the week. Does this sink Philly Super Bowl chances in your mind? Well, I mean, there's two ways to look at it.

Number one, I was joking, obviously, but the context of 2017 season. In a normal year, it does. There was a statistic the NFL put out since 1991, 13 quarterbacks have started a game in the playoffs with three or fewer starts that season. Yeah. Okay. I saw that. Their combined record, two and 12th.

And Frank Reich has both those wins, which is amazing. Obviously, if you don't know, Frank Reich is the offensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles. Yeah. So that all comes full circle. I still am, I'm worried about this. Do you think that Doug Peterson is jealous of Frank Wright got to do that? Because he was just, he was also a longtime backup guy. Yeah, what sort of a lifetime backup politics exists in the Eagles offensive meetings?

They both, they both sit back and crack open a beer, you know, after a hard. day of work and they're talking about being backups. And then Frank Reich gets to talk about the time that he got to the Super Bowl. Yeah. Nick Foles is a member of that club though. Nick Folls lifetime backup as well. At least he has a coaching staff that can relate to him. It's probably a good place to start. Unbelievable. I'm not too optimistic about this. I feel like there are too many good teams remaining, even if you consider the flaws they have for Philly to walk in with a backup quarterback and be favored against a few of these people. I think that them playing New Orleans, New Orleans is a better team than them.

I think they would have a hard time with Atlanta at this point. I like the rest of Philly's roster, but I just think that Wence was playing so well. And Wence was doing stuff that Nick Foles just can't do. And that's my problem. This isn't a plug-in-play situation. The running game is very good for the Eagles. Their offensive line is still very good. They have weapons.

Their defense is very good. But what Wence was doing in extending plays and just kind of, negating what happened on the left side of the offensive line at times. I feel like the cracks in this team are going to show up more with Foles. And we're going to remember that they weren't a perfect team with Wence. So he was able to mask a lot of the stuff that made them imperfect. Wentz was sort of a light, a very light version of Aaron Rodgers.

When we talk about just a quarterback who's so good, they can mask anything. And an interesting thing of this year is that the Eagles roster is significantly better than the Packers roster. Oh, absolutely. Right. And so I was there on Sunday. I was at the LA Coliseum. And there were a couple things that struck me.

Number one, Doug Peterson tried to put a very, very happy spin on this because they had clinched the NFC East. And, you know, he actually used the term jubilation about the team. And I don't know what was going on there. I mean, like, you know, I think that I saw a tweet yesterday that one of the B-writers that basically said the team was trying to come. compare this to, you know, a Darren Sproul's injury or a Jason Peters injury. And I understand the significance and sort of the next man up mentality.

But at some point, it's not next man up. And so what I'm getting at here is that so Peterson's talking about jubilation. I was, I saw those players. I talked to those players. They weren't jubilant at all. Yeah. There was no. And there was seemingly a disconnect.

And I think if the Eagles coaching staff tries to approach this. says nothing is wrong. That's the wrong approach because the players were devastated. Because they, by the way, I'm not saying anything about Nick Follos. I'm sure Nick Follah is a popular guy, but they were in love with Carson Wence. Carson Wens, the 53 players on that team, the 52 players who were not Carson Wence were in love with Carson Wence. And I think there could be some weird weeks ahead just emotionally for them.

At this point in the season, it's devastating. stating to lose your quarterback. I mean, this is in week six. This is, we feel like we're the best team in the league. We're headed to the Super Bowl. And then when it's a fully formed idea, it's suddenly taken away from you. Moving on to more NFL talk, we have a clip from the Bill Simmons podcast, where Bill was joined by his father and Kevin Clark to talk about the upcoming matchup between the New England

Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers. One of the things about the Steelers that should concern you guys is the Steelers are vaguely Belichick proof in the sense that Belichick's going to take away what the Steelers do best. Maybe that's Antonio Brown. He sells out to stop Antonio Brown. But then he still have Levy on Bell. He still have Martavis Bryant. He still have Jiu. And so that should worry Patriots fans a lot. Just the fact that how many options they have once they take Brown away. I think Belichick will, and he did it last year, will sell out to stop Brown. And if Brown can break through that and get 150 and two touchdowns, he's the MVP. If he gets 42 yards,

we double him. I think he might. And then I think that, but then that determines, I think, because it's a narrative award, I think that will determine whether or not he's going to be the front or the MVP come one. See, the way we played him, I'm going to say two years ago early in the season was we put Butler on him single and let him get his stats. Yeah. And they shut down Bell or tried to.

And they were just like, all right, Brown, you're getting 11 catches for 150 yards. And Butler actually played great against him. he's still making catches. But it gets back to... I don't know if he can double Brown. I don't know. He's so shifty. I know that...

I'm more worried about... I give him his stats. I'm more... If Bell has a good game, then we're done. Right. Right. And I think that in a weird... Bell and Brown have switched

the places as far as significance in that offense. I think two years ago, Bell was unquestioned. And even last year, Bell was most talented player. Bell is averaging 3.9 yards per carry at this point.

I know his... His... Value in the passing game cannot be overstated. But I mean, Brown is the guy. But don't you think he's averaging 3.9 because Rathus Berger's been so up and down this year, teams are like beat us. Yeah, no. They're almost giving him the borels. I do think there's part of that.

But I just, I mean, Antonio Brown is a transcendent player. And I think Sunday. I think he's going to end up being the NBA. I think they're going to double them. I think they're going to probably put a safety over him. But people forget that when we did that last year, Bell went out in the first. quarter. Yeah.

Right. And it seems like nobody remembers that Bell was not a factor only because he wasn't playing. I think we lucked out last year. Pat's favored by three. Who do you pick? Pat's favored by three doesn't. I can't understand that line.

We beat the Steelers all the time. I would never pick. I would never pick against the pats. Pat's on a back-to-back loss potentially, which they never lose back-to-back. I just hope Vinard plays. I hope Flowers plays. And I hope that whatever scheme he comes up with to stop round, I'm willing to do that and see if Rothsburger can go with his other targets.

I predict that the line will end up at Pat's by two and a half. This does not feel like a three-point game. Who do you like, have Patriots. Patriots, no matter three or two and a half. Grant coming back. Yeah. I, the tiger. I think Patriots 3 is fine.

We've seen Belichick do this a million times over the years. Sometimes he does the Milton Burrell, pulls just enough out to win when he has another big game coming. And in that Miami game, it seemed like they were trying to sneak by. Brady was getting rid of the ball over getting hit over and over again, which either means he's hurt or he just wanted to get through the game. And it was like they were just kind of trying to sneak it out.

Yeah. Which makes me think they're saved some stuff for this. week. There was no chicanery last week. Next up, the former number one college basketball team in the country, Duke University, lost their ranking due to a loss to Boston College last weekend. Mark Titus and Tate Fraser have the takes you need

on One Shining Podcast. Check it out. Wow, congratulations to the Blue Devils. The number one team in the country. They fall in Chestnut Hill to Kai Bowman and Jerome Robinson. And those two guys, for people that do not know, grew up North Carolina fans from the great state of

North Carolina and they get redemption. I mean, if you told those kids, Kai Bowman committed to play football in North Carolina, decided to bet on himself to go play basketball, and then he puts up almost a triple double, 30, 10, and 9 on the Blue Devils, gets a big win. It was a beautiful Saturday to wake up.

The first game in the ACC, the Blue Devils go down. Now they're last in the ACC. And Boston College, I mean, are they the best team in the ACC right now? They are. That's what it says. I can't believe you haven't said it yet.

Boston College listens to the pod. They come out of the gate. And what do they do, Tate? What do they do to slow down the Blue Devils? Go ahead, say it. You can brag. Double bagley. They doubled bagley.

Just double the man. Sometimes you need two hands on your bag, and sometimes you need to double bagley. And that's what they did. Boston College doubles bagley. They go zone, which isn't quite doubling bagley, but it's kind of the same thing. Like, you just kind of pack the pain. Just pack the zone. Just, yeah, just.

Tate may have been right. I'm flustered right now because Tate may have been right. I'm having so much fun. It's been a great college basketball season. We've been doing these good guy, bad guy segment with you guys. we enjoy everyone reaching out to us and letting us know how they feel about each one that we picked. But, you know, looking at what Duke went through this weekend, I mean, it was just tough. I know that they were upset.

Grayson Allen, I called him the Kira Sedgwick of the season. I thought he was the closer. Turns out you take that C away. He's just the loser. And he doesn't score any points down the stretch. I thought he was their guy. I thought that's what he was supposed to do. Trey DeVal took some ill-advised shots down the stretch, some threes.

This guy shoots 17% from three, maybe drive, maybe pass it to back. Does he really? He's only shooting like 17%. And then when he threw it in the paint, Bagley got doubled and he threw the ball away for some bad turnovers. We should say the main stretch of this game was Duke was up four points. They go down. This is like three minutes left to go in the game. Trey Duval takes a, I would say, a Jason Tatum shot. A Jason Tatum shot, which is like, it is my time.

I am the leader of this team. He doesn't throw it to Bagley. He misses Jerome Robinson, who goes five for five from three, hits a three, cuts it to one. And then he comes down and hits another three. They can take the two-point lead and they ride this thing out. I just can't... It was one of the most fun Boston College wins I've seen in a long time. And the last time I had fun watching Boston College was when Tyrese Rice put up 46 on Carolina.

So, congrats to Boston College. I think the last time I cared about Boston College was Jared Dudley era, which is a long way away. Yes, that's like 2006. Yeah. So, yeah, it was Duke was 8 for 30 from the three-point line. Boston College was 15 for 26. So, I mean, this was obviously a case of Duke losing. I think more people are more interested in Duke losing

than treating Boston College seriously as an ACC contender or anything like that. So I'm going to focus my commentary more on the Duke. Like, cool Boston College. They had three dudes. It was basically like a three-man show. Their guards were hitting all the threes and everything. Yeah, we should say. I didn't bring up Chapman, but he was the other guy that had 20.

too. But I'm more, you know me. You know you. We're more interested in Duke. Let's just be honest. Titus, you love Duke. I do love Duke. So I want to, I, the question now becomes, is this cause for concern for Duke moving forward? And my answer is no. They need to fix these things. They're terrible defensively. But they've been terrible all season. This is, they've been terrible for years defensively, like in November and December and half of January. This is their M.O. with the one and done era. This is, by the way, this is everyone's M&O in the one and done era. Like, the only one and done

team that was great defensively was Kentucky in 2012 because they had Anthony Davis and Kentucky in 2015 because they had seven, seven footers. I mean, who else? Who else has like had a team full of one and done guys? I'm sure there's probably one other Kentucky team that was good that I'm forgetting, but

I don't know. It feels like this is like this is the same problem Arizona's having is that DeAndre Aidan doesn't know what he's doing out there defensively. He has the physical tools, but he doesn't know how to guard ball screens. And that's Duke. They just don't know how to communicate. But this is exactly what happened to them in 2015.

They sucked. They played Miami. They got blown out against Miami in January. Then they started to play some better defense. They hit the ground running when the state tournament came around. They locked dudes up. Justice Winslow was great. I sort of think that's going to happen again here.

I hate to say, Tate, I'm sorry, but... There's no apology necessary. I will say this about this Duke team. I mean, there's the two sides of this. So Kay comes after the game, and he's... contrite, he comes out, he says, We knew we were playing one of the best back cards in the ACC, and they show themselves today.

They played their hand perfectly. That's what he says. But what he's really saying is what in the you know what is going on with his team. He's going to run them to death and practice. They're going to figure this stuff out. And that's what you mean by that. Like Kay is now he has everything he needs to really light a fire under their ass and just make them run up and down.

These coaches love, yeah, that's what college basketball is awesome. College football, you lose like this, your season's over. college basketball, you almost strategically lose like this. So then now Kay can go to the locker and be like, see, I told you guys, you're not shit. And you just lost a Boston college. Jason, get here. Come here. All right, switching to the NBA, we are not finished with this season now, but people are already investigating where LeBron may take his talents this off season. Houston has actually popped up as a potential destination.

On the NBA show, Kevin O'Connor and Chris Vernon discuss where he could potentially go next. Did you read Charks an article yesterday on how LeBron should go to the Rockets? I'm thinking, I think LeBron, like everybody's talking about rockets, but what about the spurs, too? The spurs feel like they would be a cool place for LeBron. Oh, good grief. He's going to Los Angeles. Isn't that what everybody's always said? He's going to Los Angeles.

Yeah, he's coming to the Clippers. That's what's happening. Yeah. In your dreams, Isaac. You know, he's big into all that production stuff and whatnot, right? Like, he fancies himself as becoming like a real mogul. And everybody knows he's already got the mansion out there. Two.

He has two of them. Two mansions in LA. All right. Well, he's got two mansions. You know, he's like getting into, you know, television and movie production. He's already done some acting so far. And so I think that, I think most people have thought, like, that the reason beyond basketball, but the reason that maybe he ends up closing out a career there is that he gets a couple

of his buddies to go with him out there. And, like, I mean, he might be able to get Chris. Seriously. Like, what if the Rockets don't win? It's always a possibility. You can never rule anything out, right? Charks laid out a great argument, though, for LeBron to Houston. And I think if I were LeBron James, I would do one of two different things.

My first choice would be to go to the Lakers now, right, and to assemble my own super team. Bring Paul George, bring to Marcus Cousins, whoever the superstars are, that that would be my first choice. but it's not a bad second option to, you know, try to take a pay cut to go to Houston, play with Chris Paul for a season, Dwayne Wade on the league minimum, right? Play there for two or three seasons and then go to the Lakers because the Lakers aren't going to say no to you two to three years from now. You can go there whenever you want. You can go anywhere you want.

The most persuasive of that would be that you're joining up one of the great teams instead of going to like Lakers, clippers, whatever you're saying, because otherwise, just stay in the east. Like, you know what I mean? You've got to beat one team, really, that would have a crack at beating you in order to get to the NBA finals. And then once you get to the NBA finals, you never know what can take place. But, I mean, good grief.

If you're going to try to do your own thing with a couple other guys and you've already got, you know, Westbrook, George, and Mello, and Chris Paul and James Hardin and. Durant and Curry and Thompson and Kauai and his crew and Aldridge and them over there. Like, why would you want to try to bust through that West? It's simple, man. The toughest challenge will bring the greatest reward. And I think if you're LeBron James, if you put yourself through that challenge for a higher risk of failure, I think the reward at the other end of that, if you win a championship with the Lakers,

if you leave that team back to the top and you dethrone the warriors, dynasty that everybody's saying they're going to win all these titles. If you do that, there's no better argument for you being the greatest player of all time, right? I think that's the reward at the end of the tunnel by going to the west, whereas in the east, it's going to be the same old argument that a lot of people use against LeBron. Oh, he had an easy path. You know, he never had a play in the West. And you know what? That's a valid argument, I think if you're talking about playoffs. I think that's a valid argument for people to have. Even though I still think LeBron, potentially when I it's all said and done will be the goat. I think he will be the goat when it's all said and done regardless. But right now, that's a hole in the argument that people fairly use against him. And to beat that is to go west. And I think the better way to do it is with the Lakers more so than what latching on with the Rockets. Because like Charks even said in his article, that's the equivalent of what Durant did going to Golden State. So I think that would also be used against LeBron as well. Oh, he just joined us an existing super team. So build your own super team with the Lakers. And think

about sustainability when you guys have guys like Ingram and Lonzo on that team some young guys on that roster adding two or three veterans I think that could be the way to do it. Bring the Lakers back to the promised land and dethroning the Warriors. Could anything be better?

If he came to the Clippers, that would be better. Listen to Isaac. Clipper Isaac just wants him going to the Clippers. Nobody wants to be at the Clippers. Nobody wants to be at the Clippers, Like, come on. But what if he was the first one to break the Clippers' curse?

What if he's the one who brings the Clippers beyond the second round for the first time in history and maybe won a title? Like, wouldn't that be a big legacy too? Nobody cares about the Clippers, Isaac. Okay, we move on from one freakishly talented player to another on the J.J. Reddick podcast, where he spoke to Carl Anthony Towns this week about the current crop of uniquely talented big men. If you had a unicorn power rankings, who's number one? I mean, I think everyone, if you was with Jojo, Jojo, Jo definitely is saying himself. Hands down, no, Jojo will say himself.

And obviously, I already knew that, how that was going. And, you know, I'm going to, we're all going to pick ourselves, you know. We all feel that we all could do something special in the court. But it's just amazing. Now, we're in a league where we have, we don't have the one unicorn. We have multiple unicorns, you know, the land is full of them. You're not supposed to see unicorns. And if you're an NBA fan, you see them on a nightly basis.

Years ago, you say you'd never see one. Now you're seeing them everywhere. For me, I got a, no offense, but for me, it's KD. And I'll tell you why, because his defensively, he's been amazing since he went to Golden State. So that's part of it. But like when you really think about his skill set, he does things that no one at his size has ever been able to do before.

And to me, I said this on one of my podcasts prior, but like to me, he's one of the greatest shooters ever, period. Yes. Like he's led the league in scoring four times. He's been an incredible defensive player the last two years. You can take all that stuff away. He will still go down as one of the greatest shooters, period, ever. I think we all know he uses the gifts by God that he was given very well.

Like, you know, his shooting ability, he could shoot, but it's very hard to block KD because he's so long and athletic and he jumps so high on his shot by that it's very hard to even get a chance to get a timing on jumping and blocking the ball in a three-point shot. And he makes those difficult shots. It's like a Steph thing, you know, like Steph Curry, you know, they make the difficult shots. You know, you could be right there in his face, guarding tremendously well, and he still hits the shot. And that's what I think makes KD so special is, you know, it's just his God-given abilities, you know, his God-given traits, you know, his long arms, you know, his size, his length. And like I've always said, I've grown up, my favorite player in the league present was KD.

And it's always been. And I take no disrespect. why you say at all. Like, I think he's, I think he's fabulous. I think he's one, you know,

I've always been excited going against him and always watching him play because he's just one of those players, you know, you never know, no matter how much the league changes that we may ever see again,

you know, and Giannis is an amazing player and what he does with his length is crazy, but KD and his shooting ability is second to none with his size and it's, it's amazing what he's been able to do. We were talking about like Porzingis and you

and Katie, and even Jojo, just the ability to shoot at that size. And then you have like Janus and Ben who, Ben doesn't, I don't think he takes a shot outside the paint, but he gets where he wants to go at all times. Like the thing I say, everyone, when they talked to me about Ben when he got drafted, they said, do you think Ben will be good? I said, listen, I don't think you're going to need a jump shot

when you can get in the paint whenever you want. So everyone has their own traits and they have their own special abilities, you know. It's like a video game, you know. Everyone has their little trade and their special abilities. You remember, like, old school, like, 2K has their little badges and stuff like that. I was going to say a street fighter, but yeah. Yeah, but you know, everyone has, like, that's a perfect example.

Everyone has their little special trait and their special ability. And, you know, Ben just gets in the paint. You know, his size and his ability to get in the paint is amazing, especially for a rookie. Giannis has his length and his speed and the size at that. And obviously for how tall me, Jojo and Porzing is hard for us to be able to do what we do is, you know, obviously unheard of. And KD, you know, they lie by his size. he's much taller in person and then for him to be able to really be the one, that's unheard of. It's interesting because when you think of a unicorn, it evokes like just like rainbow colors

and like a white horse and like these really like happy thoughts, but really unicorns in the sense of an NBA unicorn, you guys are more like Mortal Kombat and you each have your own finishing move. Yeah, it's a little more, you know, aggressive than a regular unicorn is, you know. You know, unicorns, they walk around and they appeal to little girls and stuff. And we're using the horn, actually, to try to kill each other most of the time. So it's pretty fun. Our next clip in the roundup comes from Ringer FC.

The round of 16 matchups for the UEFA Champions League were announced on Monday. And Micah Peters, Donnie Kwok, and Ryan O'Han discuss who had the best and worst draws. Check it out. Who won and who lost the Champions League draw? I think City definitively won the Champions League draw. They got Basel, right? Oh, well, no. England won the Champions League draw.

Yeah, for the most part. I would probably agree with that. Yeah. Five English sides in the knockout rounds of the Champions League for the first time ever. Well, for the first time ever, you know, tempering that with the knowledge that UEFA only allowed more than two sides per nation in the 2000 season. but I mean there was I mean like they got they it's basically like England has been in decline since the top four basically became a top six right and I think the closest they ever got to well I mean like they almost did four sides in the knockout stages in 06 but Everton lost to like Vieer Real I think yeah almost five because Liverpool won and didn't finish top four so there had to be a rule instituted.

Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep. God, Everton finished top four that year. Who do you think, Donnie? Winner or loser? Who won and lost? I mean, I think Chelsea drew Barcelona, which could be a problem, but even beyond who they drew,

because Spurs got Juventus, who I think they can beat. But I was just reading here, we were talking about fixture pileups for the last couple weeks get a load of this. Spurs in the span of two weeks, United, Liverpool away, Arsenal, and both

legs of the Juventus tie. And then Chelsea, in the span of three weeks, Barsa twice, united away and Man City. So that's going to be problematic and it's you know I guess if the league is lost as we've been saying, maybe they'll

Pach and Conte will devote all of their attention and resources to winning these knockout games. But Chelsea, I think, is the big loser. I think the winner is us, soccer lovers. These are all really good matchups, I think, most of them. And it's going to be some good games. That's such a great way to look at it. I want to quickly point out, I think winner is Byron Munich, who finished second in their group.

They have to say Ryan Babel. Somehow drew Besiechtish. They're more winners because they get to share a field with Babel and Ricardo Corresma. And meanwhile, PSG won their group with Bayern Munich and PSG has to play

Real Madrid. So, man, if PSG goes out in the last 16, just imagine. I'm simultaneously

extremely excited and dreading to see what the aftermath of that would be. All right, in our last clip for this week, we have David Shoemaker, Mike Lawrence, and Dave Schilling

talking about the buildup for the upcoming New Japan Pro Wrestling event, Russell Kingdom 12. They discussed the main event match between Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega in this clip from The Masked Man Show. Now, I want to get your guys' opinion on this. My quick take is I'm a little bit,

I'm a little bit mind-effed by the whole thing because you can't really break down, you can't really pinpoint what they're doing that's so much better than it would be if it was in WWE. It's just more of like, WWE be more of like a soft-focused lens version of it or something, but all of that is to say this was like the weirdly,

weirdly the most like vital, exciting thing that's happened, you know, and clips on the internet, in the wrestling internet in a while. What was your take, Dave? Well, I think simply, it just felt more real. Yeah. You know, you can, you can overestimate the benefit of getting color

in a situation like this, but I think that's, it's, you can't overestimate it really. You can say you can, but you can't, because that gives you a visual, It gives you a feeling. It's a surprise to see it because it's so rare. And also just, you know, the way that they did the angle was so simple. Yeah.

It was, it didn't have to have like a 20-minute promo before it. It didn't have to have, you know, a bunch of other people running in. The bucks come in late with the baseball bat and that ends it. And, you know, their rationales for why they didn't come out because they had been in a match or whatever the reason was. But it didn't have the kind of bells and whistles. It didn't have the commercial break. that's got to come right before, right after. It didn't, it was not

WWE's format, so it felt different. It felt better. And just to be clear, I'm sure most people listening of this, probably everyone has seen these clips, but there were two different moments. Have there been three, or is the third one I'm thinking of Jericho talking about it? But there was, Jericho appeared in the ring

when Kenny Omega was there, surprised him, beat him up, got color, hit him with the belt. And then there, subsequently, there was a Chris Jericho press conference that Keni Omega invaded. Yeah. Mike, what was your,

what's your take on this whole thing? I mean, my thing like with, with, you know, the use of blood is that I don't think that's what makes it better because I completely understand why WWE doesn't do it. And so I don't think you need that

to make things better. And after, I mean, let's just say after Benoit and all these other horrible tragedies and stuff and, just the foreheads in HD watching Rick Flares 30 for 30. I'm okay. I get it.

Maybe in 2017 we don't use razor blades against our foreheads anymore and, you know, hit each other with chairs and stuff. So like I don't want to think that that's why it was great. I think the reason why it was great is that it brought a tour ship back to wrestling. It's that idea that and I think Chris Jericho is great at this. And, you know, even when he's in the. the handcuffed land of WWE, it's just his programs feel different because he's a driving force in them.

Yes. And I think, you know, you have one of the best minds of all time in Jericho with one of the best minds now in Omega. I think Omega is not getting enough credit in all this. I think this is the thing they've been doing together since the beginning with the tweets. And like, if you look at the feud from its inception and, you know, with social media and then, like, that he is in Japan. I think a part of what makes it great is like

no one's taking pictures of him in the Tokyo airport the way they do every time there's a rumble or a survivor series where we can't help but look at the spoilers but the spoilers often do really spoil the product. Oh yeah. Yeah, I don't think that it's specifically the blood that does it. I think the blood is

helpful. I think the blood creates a better visual but I think it does. Yeah. I think you're right though that a lot of it is that it's existing not only in the world of the television in Japan, but also they're trying to k-fabe as much as they can

on social media, on podcasts, they're pushing it in a different way where it's not like, this is just a show. Yeah. This is just a silly show. And, you know, Sasha Banks or or Gals and Anderson or whoever are like in a big feud with somebody,

but they're also tweeting from Toys R Us, you know? Yeah. Well, it's like, I think the second best Jericho angle this year would be, you know, the friendship stuff with Owens. That had no blood. Yeah. And I think it still worked. But then the problem, too, is that with, you know, Marvel is like this, there's such a formula

that you know, like when you look at like Ragnarok, the way that Tyca was able to infuse himself as a director into this stale formula. Yeah. And I think that's kind of what they're doing where it's like, if you did this on, you know, WWE, you know they have to have the rematch. they have to have tags with other guys leading up to it. And, you know, Kenny Omega has to do guest commentary on a Jericho match. And it's like- Cost him a title.

That's it. I think when it comes down to it, I totally agree with everything you both said. It's the expectations of WWE. It's like as soon as anything exciting happens, we can project out the next eight weeks of content. And they're going to be 90% right. Yeah. But also, I think there's something in just the very literal production values. that it's all,

WWE's almost gotten, it's almost just, it's too clean, it's too pretty, it's too, it's too much of a certain thing. There was, that,

the, when I saw that first clip of Jericho's running, it almost felt like washed out. You know, it felt like when you're looking at like a, you know,

UFC highlight reel on YouTube where everything's black and white except the blood, you know, I mean, it really, for the blood really popped in a way that it,

it just feels like Hollywood blood in WWE, even though it's real when we see it, right? Everything, about this angle felt to me like, and we need a sound drop for whenever I bring up Memphis wrestling,

but it felt like the regional wrestling that I grew up with, right? I mean, it was, the run-in was, was straightforward. I mean, it was very, it was just a straight-up, like, I'm gonna beat you down. There was no necessity to, like, balance it out with comedy, like was the case with the Jericho-Owens storyline?

I think when you're working in the constraints of WWE, like you're saying, you kind of have to, like, go to extreme, to sort of, you have to go to one extreme to sort of like, earn the other extreme. Okay, that is the roundup for this week. You can find the full-length versions of all these podcasts and subscribe at the ringer.com slash podcasts.