The Press Box - This Week in Ringer Sports, Including the Possible Demise of the Patriots Dynasty (Jan. 2-5, 2018) (Ep. 411)

Episode Date: January 6, 2018

This Week in Ringer Sports features ‘The Bill Simmons Podcast’ with Mike Francesa discussing the tension between Tom Brady and Bill Belichick (00:38), ‘Ringer University’ discussing the upcoming College Football Playoff final (07:04), ‘The Ringer NFL Show’ discussing playoff teams in an imaginary scenario with Blake Bortles at QB (11:13), ‘Against All Odds’ discussing gambling props for wild-card weekend and the College Football Playoff championship game (12:17), ‘Sources Say’ discussing how the Cavaliers-Celtics game brought the LeBron and Kyrie split back into the spotlight (15:43), ‘Ringer FC’ discussing the impact of Liverpool FC acquiring Virgil van Dijk (21:45), ‘One Shining Podcast’ discussing the legacy of Joe Castiglione (26:38), and ‘The Masked Man Show’ discussing the Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho match at ‘Wrestle Kingdom 12' (28:49). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to this week in Ringer Sports. I'm Liz Kelly, bringing you the highlights from the Ringer podcast network. Big things happening on the site this week. After 12 years, Bill has returned to write the fifth edition of the Playoff Gambling Manifesto. We have everything you need to know about the NFL Wildcard Weekend and tons more. Be sure to check it out on the ringer.com. Okay, we are starting this week with football. ESPN Seth Wickersham released an article yesterday,

which detailed tension between Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. On the Bill Simmons podcast this week, Bill and Mike Francesa discussed the news. The part I didn't understand, and which makes no sense to anything that has happened in the last 17 years, is if Kraft told Belichick to trade Jimmy G., which is what this story basically says, that doesn't fly with anything that's happened. In the entire time, I've been following the Belichick Patriots. Craft has never told Belichick what to do. Do you believe that part of the story? which is something that I tell. It's always been the conventional wisdom,

and he hasn't played great this year. It's been great. I agree. And he said would craft and Steve Yon. And you left out a crucial part of this. Once upon a time, Brady was Jimmy Garoppolo. Yes, he was. He in 2001.

Yeah. Right. Right. And having an ego is one of the reasons that you become successful. Enormous. Let me throw a theory that's basically a twist of what we read in that piece. because I don't believe Kraft told Belichick to trade him. I just don't believe it.

I don't believe Belichick would do it. I think he would rather quit over do something because the owner told him to do that. And by the way, this is how Kraft got into trouble 20 plus years ago with Parcells. And he learned his lesson. And he was always, after that, you know, I hire these people. They do what they think happened. And I do think Belichick realized that he had to trade Jimmy for a variety of reasons. I think we had talked about it before that back in April.

when he had a chance to trade him, he's looking at the finish line with Brady. He's looking at the next 15 years potentially with Garapolo, who everybody thinks is going to be really good and who proved that he was really good. And he basically took the wait and see approach. I'm going to give this one more year. I expect Brady to probably have some attrition.

And eventually this will move toward Jimmy G. being the guy. Here's the problem with that. First of all, as you said, Brady knew from 2001. He knows what it's like to be the other guy. But then second, you know, Brady's 40 years old. He also has nothing in common with basically anybody in that locker room anymore. He's much older than everyone else on the team except for maybe two or three guys. Jimmy G learned from him.

He's in there every day. He's the first guy to leave, first guy to show up, last guy to leave, just like Brady was. He's hanging out with the offensive lineman, just like Brady used to in 2002. He's thrown to all the receivers all the time, just like Brady did. And Brady's a massive celebrity. Brady's doing the TB12 thing. He's in and out. He's basically kind of ascended the team.

He almost became too famous to hang out with these guys day and day out. And I think Garapolo was really starting to win the locker room over. And my theory is that this was really starting to bother Brady. And the reason Belichick made this trade wasn't because Kraft told him to. I think he saw that there was a real locker room problem that was brewing. And as you know from Belichick, anytime there's a problem, Anytime he sees something that he thinks is going to affect the team, the season, the Super Bowl chase, whatever, he cuts it. He gets rid of it.

And he obviously looked at this and thought that he had to trade Jimmy when he did. Next up, the college football playoff national championship is an all-SCC affair with number three, Georgia, taking on number four, Alabama. On Ringer University, Ben Glickman and Roger Sherman break down the keys to the game. What do you think is the biggest factor that's going to determine who wins and who lives? lose on Monday night. As we said, Alabama's offense did not actually play that well while stomping Clemson. George's defense is just as good. They didn't look at it in the first half against Oklahoma, but then they really turned on

the heat and actually made one of the best offenses in the country look bad for a half plus. And, oh, Jalen Hertz did throw two touchdowns, but we're still shaky on him, aren't we? Jalen Hurst, so just to run down his stats for that game, he went 16 of 24 in the Sugar Bowl for 120 yards and two touchdowns. He did not make any mistakes, which as the Alabama quarterback, that is the most important thing. But he also only averaged five yards per attempt. So it's not like he was blowing people away with what he did to Clemson. And he had a big run of 19 yards, but still only got 40 on the game on 11 carries. They weren't.

I still don't know whether. Alabama's offense can do anything against a good defense. In fact, I would say after this game against Clemson, you know, that was another tick in the argument you made last week that Jalen Hertz against a good defense doesn't necessarily put up great stats, doesn't necessarily do national championship related things. Yeah, there were some rumors floating around before the game that two at Tygo, Viloa, my one true love, was going to enter the game. Do you guys realize what happened to Ben here on Monday night? Like, you got so excited when people said that Tua was going to be playing.

You can barely focus on the Rose Bowl. Which was a pretty good game, turns out. Because you were just, like, so hyped about Tua coming into the game. I had to watch highlights of him torching Vanderbilt. The pass against Vandy. Yeah. So, exciting times. Yeah, I'm with you.

I think the key to the game for me is Jake Fromm, and it's actually sort of for the same reason that you said. Because Georgia is going to have an easier time slowing Alabama than it slowing Oklahoma. It's easier to slow literally anybody in college from college than it is to slow Oklahoma, right? So Jalen Hertz,

if he doesn't make mistakes, that is the most important thing, right? When he turned the ball over in the first drive of the second half against Clemson, they kick the field goal, that was really the only moment in the game where it seemed like, okay, Clemson has a real chance to win this game

before that giant 14-point swing that happened just minutes later. But yeah, so I think Georgia is going to have, Georgia is going to be able to stop Alabama's off. offense. There's going to be a lot of puns in this game. The thing is, Georgia's running backs are not going to have the holes that they had to run through that they did against the Sooners, right? Alabama's defense is going to say, we know that Nick Chubb is good. We know that Sony-Michel is good. We're not going to give you guys 50 and 75-yard runs, basically at will.

So to me, that means it's going to come down to Jake Fromm and whether he can add another dimension to this offense to see if Georgia really has what it takes to win the game. Don't you say the phrase there's going to be a lot of punts in this game to me without driving me into a tizzy. I mean, between the possibility of Tua and between all the punts, this game is built for us, man. This is going to be beautiful. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be horrible. But like when we talked about Oklahoma, Georgia really being like a matchup of two stylistically, completely different teams, you know, when we're looking at the keys for each team here, they're pretty much the same.

You know, it's like, can Jake Fromm slash Jalen Hertz actually do anything against a good opponent? Can X Incredible Defense stop Nick Chub and Stony Michelle or, you know, Damien Harris and Bo Scarborough? You know, they both have the same things going on. They're very similar teams and it's tough to pick. Next, Wild Card weekend is here and this week on the Ringer NFL show. Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, and Danny Kelly have some fun discussing playoff teams in an imaginary scenario with Blake Bortles at QB. Hey, Mays, would Blake Bortles improve the Eagles?

Oh, my God. Maybe. I just feel like with Bortles, the unpredictability factor is not good when the rest of your team is that good. That's how I feel, I feel the same way about Jacksonville. So I would not like to watch Blake Bortals with the Eagles because the rest of that team is too good. If you put Blake Bordels on every single NFL team, who would win the Super Bowl?

Would be the Eagles? Yeah, I think it'd be the Eagles. That's the question there is just who is the best roster. If the playoffs were just 12 Blake Bordels. I think it's still the Eagles. I think the Eagles have the best roster. I think Jags are close. I think Pittsburgh is right there.

But I think the Eagles are there. I think the Eagles are number one, which is really unfortunate that the Eagles can't win a playoff game. I can't believe we've got to that point. So like you all have been hearing, a lot of playoff football is happening this weekend. So Cousin Sal and the degenerate trifecta are here to discuss gambling props on against all odds for Wild Card Weekend and the college football playoff championship game. I try to make this like a feminine prop Gurley, Todd Gurley against Sony Michelle. And I think it was lost in the trend.

They just put Gurley against Michelle. Brother Brigh, you have an opinion on this. Gurley is minus seven and a half yards rushing over Sony Michelle. What do you like? Yeah, I like Gurley minus 7.5 in this one. Look, they both average about 87 yards a game. But I don't know if Sony Michelle, I mean, had the monster game the other day. But his over under, I think, was about 73 in that Oklahoma game, although he had 181 yards.

I think in this game, I'm guessing, his over under against Bama is probably going to be about like low 60s. Because he doesn't get more than about, I think the most he had is 16 carries a game in one game this year, maybe in two. and he'll be facing Alabama's defense, which is number one in the country. They only give up 92 rushing yards a game and only 2.7 yards for carry. So I think going up against that terrible defense, Oklahoma had last week, I don't expect a huge game from him. I don't necessarily expect a huge game from Gurley either because Atlanta's really good against the run as well. But Gurley's still going to get his 18 to 22 carries,

and I expect him to be in like the upper 70s. least he'll get one carry of like 25 to 30 yards. Yeah. When you said minus 7 and a half, I'm thinking Girlie's over under is probably going to be between 75 and 80 and Sony Michelle is probably going to be about. I think it's going to be low 60s, so I think you're getting some value here with Gurley minus seven and a half. Yeah, I think so, too.

I think it's, I think like you said, Gurley may have twice as many carries as Sony Michelle, at least 10 or 12 more, and that translates to minus seven and a half. That should be a good bet. Harry, I also have a prop up there. Highest margin of victory in the wild card games. Bill's Jags plus 175, Titans, Chiefs, 2 to 1, Falcons Rams plus 275, Panthers, Saints, 3 to 1. Which way are you going with this?

I like the Titans and the Chiefs to have the highest. Marcus Mariotas. He had four donuts. He only mustered. I think Casey is back on track, winning four games in a row. Okay, finally moving on from football to basketball, the LeBron and Kyrie split came back into the spotlight this week with ESPN's Jackie McMillan's in-depth article on Kyrie.

On sources say Chris Ryan and Juliet Lippman discuss the feature. Check it out. This morning, Jackie Mack on ESPN.com dropped a big Kyrie feature. And just every time you think maybe Kyrie is like wrapped up like his, his speech that he's been giving this season, he just dials up some more stuff. She did. I guarantee. I can't guarantee. But I would strongly believe that he probably said something like weird like Earthless Flat. stuff that she just didn't print. Well, let me just say, I think Jackie Mack might be my favorite basketball writer. I think so, too.

I totally agree. She doesn't, there's not the same kind of, like, sentimentality. Like, doesn't drench her writing, which I'm so sick of. Yeah. And she gets, she obviously gets really good access. And she had more, like, named sources than any profile. I can remember in recent history. There's also, like, a grace and a calmness to, like, her writing that I really respond to you right now.

There's no sort of like, here's my big drop. Like, read it up, bitches. Right. I can't imagine if Jackie McMullen was like, here's my drop, bitches. She really is like the model for these kinds of stories. I can't believe there are two people who host a podcast that starts with an alarm and is just about like sources say and it screamed about Barron Davis and Lurton for 10 minutes.

It's really all about the grace with which Jackie McMullen handles herself. I like how she names her sources. I do too. There's very few names in there and that is increasingly rare in the NBA. I only had to wonder, like, one time, like, huh, I wonder who said this. So this is an interesting piece because I really encourage people to read it, because it kind of begins as a Kyrie profile. Yes.

And most of the times what happens when you get, like, a profile going is there is a tacit agreement with the subject that, at least in sports media, that things are just going to be somewhat told from that subject's perspective, right? Or that they, it's not going to be necessarily all flattering, but that a lot of the stuff is going to be filtered. through their lens. And what's interesting about this piece is that it's initially about Kyrie and it's about Kyrie's life, really. And then it kind of gets into Cleveland and it kind of changes perspective a little bit. And it's more about not only like what he was frustrated by in Cleveland, but maybe what

was frustrating about him in Cleveland. Yes. So there's a specific scene where they were running, they were playing in practice. And Tyloo came up to Kyrie Irving and was just like, you got to slow. you need to speed up the tempo so we can get more shots. So we can get more shots. He's just basically. And Kyrie was just like,

and he said specifically for RJ and JR. Yes. And Kyrie's just basically like, I can get shots no matter what tempo. Like I don't need to play at a fast tempo. Like I can get, because he can create space like from a standstill. And Tyrolou is like, well,

it's for other players on the team. It's about getting the ball to these guys. And he goes, that's LeBron's job. He says that's number 23's job. Right. He doesn't even say LeBron. Right. Which is fascinating.

Yes. Sounds like a real prick. Yes. And also somebody who was just thinking about things from their perspective of like, I know what I'm capable of. It's up to these other guys to be capable of it as well. Yeah. And also like this is another guy's job.

It's also very sort of like without emotion. Like this is what I do here. This is what he does. And like I'm going to do my thing and he does his. What I was really fascinating to me about this piece though. And it's something that I don't think goes remarked upon a lot because this is a pretty unique trade in a lot of ways, like at least in terms of the way it's been. talked about afterwards because if you think back from some of the other things where people

have forced themselves off teams like whether it was PG last year with the Pacers or Mello even back from the Nuggets days like when Mello basically was like this is where I just want to get out of here and this is where I want to go and you should trade me now. This Kyrie trade is it seems like a lot more rooted in Kyrie's conception of himself and it has like a real kind of normalcy to it where you're like oh yeah maybe you were just tired of being in this specific situation. And it sounds like almost going to the finals took away some of the luster of being in Cleveland frame. Sure. It's like sort of like he got to the mountain top. Yeah. It's like what else can I really do here with LeBron? Yeah. There's a couple of anecdotes about how he's always like

looking for a new challenge. I forget which one of his team, former teammates said it, but it was like he or he asked him on Schumpert to ambush him in the layup line before game. So he could like practice his finishes. And he's like, Kyrie makes things harder on himself on purpose. Yeah. And there's also a great anecdote at the beginning about when he first meets Michael Kid Gilchrist in high school and how he just sort of brings it to him. And Kyrie just seems like a loner who wants to like be his best and like test himself, which doesn't necessarily lend itself to being a great teammate. Though it does seem like he has quite a few, like he's still friendly with the former Cavs player. Yeah, for sure. I think none of these things are as soap operaries. They probably come off in print. I think that also

one thing this piece does is it's been rumored for a while that Kyrie was pissed that the Cavs thought about trading him for to get Paul Jordan. For the first time to get Eric Blurries. Yeah, and when Daniela were still there. And because Eric Bletsow is a clutched client. And it was like LeBron pulling the strings. And LeBron is openly said like, that's nuts. That's not true. Yeah.

That had been rumored for a while. I don't think it'd been committed to print before. But so it's sort of like almost like a. Yeah. I think Win Horse had talked about it. Like people have talked about it. But it was. It's been mentioned, but it hasn't been like confirmed or like sources like this kind

of like sourcing or whatever. So now that's like part of the record. That's kind of interesting. It changes the timeline of how we think about the Kyrie trade a little bit. And it also like one of my big takeaways for this as like, as a Kyrie defender is like, like Dan Gilbert just breeds chaos. Like that's kind of like underlying the Cleveland section.

Yeah. Where she's like, you know, Jackie points out that he never extends any of his GMs. And she, he met, Gilbert met with Kyrie and his agent, Jeff Waxler.

And then he went to Vegas for Summer League. And that's when all the details came out. And like all the basketball world is in Vegas together. And it just sort of made it. Actually, I thought in some ways, absolved Kyrie a little bit and also absolved LeBron and just made it seem like that calves were a mess over the,

over the summer. Moving on to soccer, Liverpool FC acquired Virgil Van Dyke from Southampton for 75 million pounds. So in this next clip from Ringyer FC, we have Chris Ryan, Donny Kwok, and Marano Hanlon discussing the deal and its impact. Virgil Van Dyke is the next friends, Beckenbauer. I think we should let a non-Liverpool fan talk about this first. Yeah, it's here. If by Beggingbauer, you mean Lovrin?

Danny, go ahead, go ahead. No, you know, we talked about this as it was happening, and I think the $75 million price tag was the major talking point because it wasn't a surprise. We all knew that the player wanted to go to Liverpool. Liverpool wanted the player. I was kind of needling you guys a little bit because both of you guys were defending the move, which I get it. It's a defensible move because you got a player that you need. But I remember in Transfer Saga's past how you guys would laugh when someone like Thomas Lamar, his price would double overnight. But the difference is, of course, Arsenal doesn't get the player.

And Jose Marino, actually, in commenting about this move, said, ultimately, it's all about getting the player, which I agree with. And the price at that point is just the market, and it's kind of moot once the deal is done. I think that, obviously, I just don't care. It's not my money. If they can afford it, if this isn't like auger some sort of leads like collapse through the leagues, then I really don't care what they pay. If they feel like this is the guy they wanted, if Klopp has had tunnel vision for Van Dyke for such a long time and he's identified him as the perfect centerback for the way he wants to play, it's the weakness of the team, I think arguably aside from keeper. And I don't I don't care about the fee. I do think to sort of not agree with Donnie, but to just sort of put out a word of caution,

is I don't really understand how transfers are going to work going forward. It's tough. So we're a couple minutes basically before we started recording, the Guardian put out a story saying that Liverpool is going to demand 130 million pounds for Philippe Coutinho. There's not much new information other than it says. that a deal could be struck for Cotinio to leave this summer, but they could strike the deal now, but supposedly Cotino actually wants to leave in January. Who knows what's-Ni-Ni-Ni-Ni wants Catero to leave.

Yeah, exactly. Nike who just leaked Cotignio to Barcelona announcement over the weekend accidentally. So it's hard to... So the Namor move happened. That's what we're all sort of still talking about, right? The crazy Namar move happened this summer. And the move that they mentioned in this Guardian piece that I think is kind of important here is the Dembele move, where Barcelona sold Namar, but then bought Dembele for however much money

was in 90-something. Yeah, a little bit less than what Liverpool wants for Coutinho. So, Barcelona hasn't spent all of the Namar money, right? And so there's a chance that the Van Dyck money is Liverpool spending the Cotigno money before they actually get it, right? And if that's the case, the Van Dyke move is going to be this sort of spike, and the Cotinio move is going to be a spike. but I think once that money gets sort of parceled out to everyone,

I don't know if I see these prices staying that high. That's the thing I'm trying to figure out, is because if you're... So they want more money for Cotigno than Barsa paid than Dortmund got for Dembelli. Yeah, I get that. So they pay 75 for Van Dyke. How much will Spurs demand for Alder Wilde? You know what I mean? Well, yeah.

I mean, when does... If you say, well, if this is like a baseball-style market where there are people, like, if you sub in Jorge Mendez for Scott Boris, and they're like, this guy sets the market. You know, now this centerbacks who are under 30 who are this good are worth this much money, I don't understand what you're going to do if Benucci moves. You know what I mean? I know Benucci's a little older, but like, what do you do when you get like, I mean, this kid Umpiti from Barcelona, like, he has a 50 million. buyout, but he looks better than all these guys. Yeah, so if you judge it that way, and Intiti has that buyout, it's like someone

should just pay the buyout, you know? Right, right. Well, that's part of the reason why the Van Dyck thing is so, it's such an outlier, because it's, you can sort of justify these prices for, like, Cotignio or Namar or Mbapé because you're buying

not only offense, but potential. And this is like a need buy at that premium price, which does, as you're saying, Chris, like, it begs the question of like how much these other defenders are going to be worth moving forward. Next up, University of Oklahoma freshman guard, Trey Young, has quickly become one of the biggest names in college basketball. And in this clip from One Shiny podcast, Joe Castiglione, athletic director

of University of Oklahoma, is the inspiration for Mark Titus and Tate Fraser's good guy, bad guy segment. I'm going with Oklahoma athletic director, Joe Castiglione. And the reason is this, tape. this man was hired as Oklahoma's athletic director I believe in 1998 since then he has now I just it just all came to me as I was watching the college football playoff

and I'm watching Tray Young go nuts since this man was hired as athletic director they have had and stick with me here Heisman trophy candidates Josh Heipel who did he win the he won the Heisman right What? Did he really? No he didn't

No he didn't win the Heism. God. If he did, then anybody can. No, I'm thinking of Jason White. That's the guy that one of the Eisenhower. Jason White, I get those two mixed up. So he has Hypo. Hypo was a He was a Heisman finalist, though.

I swear he was a He was a Heisman finals. He has Jason White. Adrian Peterson was a Heisman finalist. Who else am I missing? Sam Bradford wins the Heisman. Baker-Maidfield wins the Heisman. On top of that, since this man was hired, Blake Griffin wins National Player of the Year.

Buddy Heel wins National Player of the Year. Tray Young's about to win national player of the year. Oklahoma's won a football national championship. They went to the final four in basketball. They've been to a few BCS title games. They went to the final four this year. This man is dropping bags left and right. It finally all clicked at how insane it is

that we're about to have three national players a year from Oklahoma in basketball in like a 10-year span. And so I wanted to give a shout out to Joe Castiglione. And he just got the whole Jordan deal done. So basically, Blake Griffin comes back to Oklahoma and is like, here's everything Jordan you could ever want. So, you know, enjoy recruiting kids for the next 20 years saying, hey, you want those Concord Jordan 11 Greys? Yeah, we got them here. Here you go.

You can have them. Welcome to Oklahoma. You can play basketball for us. So he's got a whole deal set in place. That was a huge thing for them. There's, yeah, Oklahoma, if you're Texas right now and you get to watch Oklahoma, you're just like, what are we doing wrong? How have they figured it out? But they have.

In our last clip of the week, we have the ringers David. Shoemaker and Bleach reports David Schilling discussing the Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho match at Russell Kingdom 12. I thought it was a really good show. I should say now I didn't watch the whole show. I watched the two mains and caught highlights of the rest. That's okay, man. You are hashtag with a life.

Yeah, that's true. I'm very much of the life this week. I was so into the Kenny Omega Chris Jericho match that I almost had an inverse reaction to it where I was just like, why can't we have this kind of wrestling on it? in WWE. I paid attention so much more than I usually do. Yeah. Or I'm like, oh, let me see what's on Twitter, or let me say something silly about the show.

I didn't want to tweet during the match. I wanted to just watch the match. Granted, I was watching it this morning. Yeah. Because I tried to watch the show last night, and it was right after a Laker game. And I had to write about the game. And it was two in the morning, and I just, I was done. I was done.

So I got to the never open wait. six-man tag and I tapped out. But it was a really fun match. I think there are a couple things that I didn't like. Number one, the confusion about the rules. It's a no-d-Q match. See, I wasn't confused. We've established that.

Yeah. Then we say, okay, so you can't, there's no rope break from a submission. Okay, fine. But Kenny hits the one-winged angel. Yeah. On Jericho by the ropes. Jericho grabs the rope to break the pin. Yes.

So why is that allowed? Because when you, we're going to go deep cave. I don't even know if this is K-FAPE. We're going deep here. Because when your hand is on the rope, you're no longer in the ring. Right. It's not a Falls Count anywhere match. Right.

It's just a no-d-Q match. Got it. So I think there was once where Jericho broke the walls of Jericho, when Omega was on the. ropes and there's some confusion I when I was watching it I read it as as the ref broke the hold but I think you can read it as

Jericho just got tired and you know like it's the exertion was on him too and Omega was was you know on the ropes was helping alleviate someone whatever and Jericho did yell at the at the ref this is it's a no DQ match stupid or whatever like there was Jericho was was old in his own but on commentary Kevin Kelly and Don Callis were saying,

you can't break this hold with the ropes. It's a no-d-Q match. It's true. But also, I guess being outside the ring, Omega couldn't have lost the match there. Right. And then there was a count-out. I don't understand why there is a count in a no-d-Q match.

They spent so much of that match outside of the ring, which was cool because you don't see that very often in WWE, a true, like, hardcore, like, brawl outside of the ring. But why is Red Shoes counting? Is there going to be a countout in a no-d-Q match? Really? Yeah, well. I didn't mind any of it.

And I think that's why I didn't think too deeply bad until I realized people were all talking about it. I mean, it's like wrestling's full of fake rules. Yeah, but you want storytelling consistency. Anyway, the other thing that they kind of bugged me. The match was so good. It was good, okay. And then there was another thing where it was clear

that there was a problem with the blade job. that Kenny was couldn't either couldn't find the blade to get color or it just wasn't working because he grabs red shoes and Jericho goes to sort of do his like posing

and then an official comes by and hands Kenny something or they have some sort of chat and then all of a sudden he's bleeding. It just, that felt weird to me but that's only because I was paying attention so much because I liked the match so much. That's true.

Okay, that's the. round up for this week. I will be back next Saturday, but in the meantime, you can find the full-length versions of all of these podcasts and subscribe at the ringer.com slash podcasts.