Curry Survives, Trae Melts Down, and Ant’s Crazy Shooting with Kirk Goldsberry. Plus, WWE President Nick Khan Stops by

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kirk Goldsberry to react to the Grizzlies-Warriors/Hawks-Magic play-in games before discussing shooting stats and NBA awards (2:10). Then, Bill chats with WWE president Nick Khan about the future of wrestling and more (56:59). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kirk Goldsberry and Nick Khan Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Jessie Lopez, and Steve Ceruti Get anything delivered on Uber Eats. www.ubereats.com The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  You're listening to the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. FanDuel Sportsbook is the best place to bet on the NBA. We have these fun little Tuesday, Friday player performance stuff. We have same game parlays. We have picks for me sometimes and boosts and all kinds of fun things. Get ready in the playoffs. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. And by the way, The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit theringer.com/rg to learn more. Listen to the end of this episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus, president of select states. Game and problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Coming up, we're going to talk play in NBA playoffs plus Nick Khan from WWE next. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season.

• 0:44Bill Simmons?

  Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, get 10 free boneless wings from Wingstop on qualifying orders. Game on, flavor on, Wingstop is here. So if your fantasy league is coming over for some in-person smack talk, order Wingstop on Uber Eats and get 10 boneless wings free. It's the perfect way to keep everyone fed tonight so you can focus on the game. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score a great deal. Order now and get 10 boneless wings free from Wingstop only on Uber Eats. Offer valid from September 14th to September 27th and from November 2nd to November 16th. Order minimum before taxes and fees is required. See retailer's storefront for details. Taxes, fees and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply.

• 1:28Bill Simmons?

  See app for details. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network where we put up new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Can't Hardly Wait, which was the height of the teen high school movies in the late 1990s. It was me and Jolynn Robinson. You can watch that as a video podcast on Spotify. You can also watch that on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel. If you missed Celtic City on HBO and on Max, we put up episode seven, which was the very depressing 1990s, including Rick Pitino, who's in the documentary, and Ryan Rusillo.

• 2:04Bill Simmons?

  You've heard him on this podcast, but he was in there as well. You can check out the first seven episodes of Celtic City on Max. So there you go. Coming up on this podcast, I'm going to talk to Kirk Goldsberry about the playing games tonight, Tuesday night, some award stuff, some best shooter stuff, some playoff stuff. And then after that, Nick Khan, president of WWE, he comes on at least once a year. We talk wrestling, we talk UFC, boxing and a bunch of sports media stuff. So that's the podcast first, our friends from Pearl Jam.

• 3:01Bill Simmons?

  All right, taping this a little after 10 o'clock, just watched Golden State hold off Memphis in the playing game. It was a fascinating one. Kirk Goldsberry, I love the playing game. Eight, nine is great. Super fun. We get a blowout, we get a fun game, we get some trade young trade rumors coming out of the first game and then the second game. Memphis, a team that I was not a huge fan of, who I think is now 12 and 18 in their last 30, put up a spirited fight. There's a couple of moments of this game where I was wondering if Golden State was actually going to blow this and be in this bizarre scenario of losing to San Antonio, losing in overtime in the last day of the season, then blowing this Memphis game at home. And now all of a sudden fighting for their lives just to play OKC, who just won 68

• 3:45Bill Simmons?

  games, but instead they escaped. Now they play Houston. What was your big takeaway watching this game?

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Oh, it shouldn't have been that close. It was a frustrating game for both teams, honestly. And Steph Curry, I mean, two giant threes. You know, I think he's bookended his season before the season, that masterpiece in Paris. And now to wrap up the regular season and secure the playoff spot for his team, two just classic Curry threes when they needed them most, who is an incredible moment. But a real frustrating end too. I mean, Draymond fouling out there, Jimmy Butler throwing the ball away. This team. Oh, they should have put them away earlier, in my opinion, but they got their, they got it done. Now they have this fascinating season, uh, series coming up with, with the Houston Rockets, Bill.

• 4:35Bill Simmons?

  It's one of those weird subplots of this entire Warriors run dating back to 2013. Abject sloppiness at the worst possible moments in crunch time. And they somehow won four titles and go down as the most, you know, one of the most memorable teams of this century. And yet at the end of games, they're up three. And I'm watching it, just expecting something stupid's gonna happen. Curry's gonna dribble the ball off his foot. Somebody's gonna lob a pass across court that's gonna get picked. A dumb foul, like it's for a team that fancies itself on high IQ stuff and they do have, you know, an unbelievable basketball IQ. They sure do dumb sloppy things at the worst possible times. It's really, really, really odd. I don't get it.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're always among the league leaders in turnovers, uh, and, and, and they've been loose with the ball this whole era.

• 5:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Loose with the ball. A little loose.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  A little loose with the ball. Uh, but yeah, the Draymond foul was like, dude, the time is on your side at that point in the night and they just give them the free throws. Uh, the refs didn't help either. I, I'm not gonna say it helped either team, like the phantom foul on Edie. And Pods, Pods had a great block, I thought was clean.

• 5:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  But this is, this is the result I think we all thought was gonna happen tonight. I think the Warriors securing the seventh seed.

• 5:58Bill Simmons?

  And a little Houston matchup. Well, let me, big picture on Golden State, a team that I was really bullish on.

• 6:06Bill Simmons?

  And this will be, this is now prisoner of the moment, Bill. This is my time of year. This is when I really shine, overreacting over and over again and trying not to overreact. But, um, I think Golden State's lineup stuff is a little alarming. For a team that I thought really had a chance to win two, three straight rounds. Kaminga is now just out.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:27Bill Simmons?

  Not only is he out, but you look at, at the, at the box score today, Curry led the team in rebounds? That doesn't seem my deal. They got killed on the boards. Edie's size, I thought, what did Edie finish with? 17 rebounds. Edie's size really bothered them in this game. And it feels, still feels like a team that's kind of grasping for stuff. And if Jimmy wasn't awesome in that first half, I think this game could have slipped away from them. But the big question for me, I was on Zach's pod on Monday. I didn't even realize that Kaminga got benched in that last game. I thought he was hurt because why wouldn't they play him? They need somebody like him. This game was just a Kaminga game. This was an athletic, physical. They needed his rebounding.

• 7:10Bill Simmons?

  They needed size and they still buried him. So I guess he's just out. I don't get it.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's remarkable. I, I know I was listening to you and Zach too. It's great to have Zach in the network. But it was, it was noticeable tonight. I mean, Golden State's old. You have Draymond who's old, who, who had just sort of banged up his neck the other day.

• 7:33Bill Simmons?

  Old guy injury. When you have like neck injuries, it's an old guy thing.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Steph has a bandage on his hand, his shooting hand and Jimmy, I obviously was limping around after that Clipper game. This is an old team, so it's another reason why I expected to see Kaminga again tonight. Just because of the depth, he's a young player, he's another body. But again, Bill, like you said, no Jonathan Kaminga. Early in the game, the, the bench actually saved them. Early Memphis came out hot and post and Gary Payton. Both I thought sort of gave them a fresh burst of energy. But yeah, what does Kaminga have to do to get some run out there?

• 8:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I guess you could say Butler played 39 minutes. And maybe they just don't want to play Butler with, with Curry and Kaminga. And I think the lineups were, the plus minus stuff with, with those three together were pretty bad for most of the season. And maybe they just made a decision if we're going to play Draymond, he played 30 today, but he has a foul trouble and Butler 38. That's just not a lot of room left for Kaminga, but then you look at the rest of it like Heald played 12, Peyton played 19, Looney played nine, Post played 21 and was pretty good. I just, for this specific game, I, if I'm Memphis, I'm like, hey, that's great. Please don't play Kaminga because he's somebody that could carry some offense. I mean, when

• 8:54Bill Simmons?

  you, you have 75 points for two guys and you know, Peyton is your third leading scorer who just had wide open shots the entire game. Not great. I don't, you know, on the one hand, first round's great for Golden State because of the breaks between the games. Right. It's the same thing for the Lakers. The older teams, first round is where you want to be, where you might play Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, Sunday. You just have all that stuff. But on the other hand, it just feels like some of the teams in the West are still going up and whereas the Warriors have kind of leveled off and now are completely dependent on having big games from Stephen or Jimmy. And they're going to this Houston

• 9:37Bill Simmons?

  series where they're going to be able to throw just a shitload of dudes at Curry. And we already saw with Amen Thompson two Sundays ago and try to wear him down. They also have a bunch of wings to throw at Butler, which brings back the Kaminga thing, but it feels like Kaminga is now in the attic with the Christmas ornaments and we're just not going to see him again.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think he's going to be an interesting figure to watch in another way too, because Houston's one of the better rebounding teams in the league too. And, you know, when Draymond's your big and you're not getting a lot of rebounds with, with Post out there. And I just, you just start to wonder, are they going to have to put Kaminga in just to match the athleticism and the physicality of this Houston team?

• 10:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Cause why wouldn't Houston be able to do the same thing that Memphis just did with Edie and Jackson when they put their double big lineup? I would think that would be a nightmare for the Warriors.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  The other thing that's interesting with that matchup, I believe is, you know, Dillon Brooks and Fred VanVleet, nobody stopped Steph Curry, but those two guys have both done a great job defending Stephen, relatively speaking, for the last five to seven years. VanVleet in the 2019 finals and Dillon Brooks for years on this Grizzlies group. Not to mention, as you said, Amen Thompson. I think Stephen had one of the worst games I've ever seen him have on April 6th. One of 10, three total points. The only three points he got built were on a 34 foot three bomb. He never got anything going. Ime Adoka was essentially

• 11:15Speaker 01

  calling him a crybaby to his face. It was just a nightmare game. And so I'm really fascinated by this matchup on a lot of fronts. And the question for me is, can this aging set of great players, Hall of Famers, match the energy and the physicality of Ime Adoka's fleet of young bloods who are just dying for this moment?

• 11:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, and it's, this is Houston Golden State, just a classic old school NBA playoff matchup. The young guys against the older guys, right? It's not like Golden State's washed up, but they're older and their guys have a lot of playoff years, a lot of playoff memories. But it's, you know, this is the 87 Celtics against the Pistons. This is the 91 Bulls against the 91 Pistons. Like we've just, we've seen this over and over again over the years. The OO Lakers against the OO Blazers. And in this case, you know, I thought Houston would be favored in the series because they're the two seed. They have home court in game

• 12:17Bill Simmons?

  seven. They just kicked their butt a couple, 10 days ago. What do you think the odds are on FanDuel because they came out? I know you've dabbled on the gambling side a little bit. You've been corrupted by Amy Howe a tiny bit to look at the odds.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. We, we, I think FanDuel is going to have the Warriors as slight favorites. Am I right?

• 12:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're right that they're favorites.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  It's not slight.

• 12:43Bill Simmons?

  They're minus 200.

• 12:46Bill Simmons?

  Dang.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  I think that's too much, Bill Simmons.

• 12:49Bill Simmons?

  I think that's gonna move. And we did, Russell and I did the live Clippers Nuggets line on Sunday. And I, and it was way higher than now. It's like, I think the Clippers are favored now, but before the Nuggets were like minus 160. That Rockets line is gonna drop because all the dudes that they can throw at Curry, home court, youth, the fact that Curry's banged up.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:13Bill Simmons?

  The fact that Jimmy hasn't played like this kind of level of basketball over and over again in a couple of years where you're just like, hey, Jimmy, we need you now for 39, 40 minutes a night. And the lack of like that third scorer.

• 13:29Bill Simmons?

  I don't know who I'm picking yet. I'm gonna wait till Thursday. I really want to analyze it, but to me, this series is an absolute toss up. And I think the double big lineup and all the people that could throw a Curry are real advantages for Houston.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  I assumed it was gonna be this matchup all day, and I'm with you. I don't know who I'm gonna pick.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  I'm tempted to pick Houston because I'm sick of everybody just telling me Golden State's gonna walk away with the series like it's gonna be easy. And I know that's not gonna happen. I know that's not gonna happen. And, and I don't think those odds are correct, but yeah, I also could see a world where Golden State goes down, they're steals game one or game two, and is feeling really good about their chances back in, in the Bay. Um, I, I, I don't know. I just think those odds are a little wrongly priced. I think that Ime Udoka is gonna have these guys ready to, to do, you know, what they do best, which is incredible defense, incredible defense, physicality.

• 14:29Bill Simmons?

  Rebounds.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  And rebounding.

• 14:32Bill Simmons?

  Some punishing post up stuff. Maybe a couple, maybe, maybe somebody starts making a couple of threes from the corner that you wouldn't totally expect. Yeah, that the ceiling of their team is pretty high. I just don't know if they can hit it.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  They held Golden State, Bill, to 90 points. And in one of their, what did they play, five times this year because of the in-season tournament? Uh, and one of those games, Golden State only scored 90 points. You know, that's a pretty remarkable stat. I think Golden State.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Needs to score 100 to win. I think they're like one in 10 when they don't score 100 or something like that. So if, if, if Houston's defense is able to clamp down on this Golden State offense, the Rockets have a chance, a good chance to win the series.

• 15:17Bill Simmons?

  It feels like we've had a lot of Warriors Rockets over the years. And it also feels like Steven Adams has played the Warriors in a few playoff series over the years. Dillon Brooks said, like, there's weird history between these two teams and some of the players, which makes no sense because Houston's such a young playoff team. But if I was a Houston fan, I, I would look at tonight's game and be like, that's our blueprint. Big size on the boards.

• 15:43Bill Simmons?

  Try to play up and down and as chaotic as possible. Try to get them into where they, Warriors getting sloppy in offense. Use your athleticism. Try to wear these dudes down and, and hope at least one or two of your guys can get a little heat checky, you know, because if it hits the Rockets on the wrong day, when it just looks like a rock fight for them for the last seven minutes, you're like, what's going on with this team? They're in a little bit of the same position as Golden State with, they're not positive who their best five is to close a game. It kind of depends on the situation. That always makes me nervous when I get to the playoffs. I kind of like to know who's my five, right? That's like the, the best thing

• 16:25Bill Simmons?

  about the Celtics and some of the best teams is the Cavs, OKC, they kind of know who their five is. But the other best thing that Golden State has going for them.

• 16:36Bill Simmons?

  How much would the league want a Golden State Lakers series in round two? I'm guessing. I wouldn't want to beat Minnesota or Houston from a, hey, like, I'm just going into those series and be like, guys, we're probably not getting a ton of calls over the next two weeks. So just, how are we going to handle this? Are we going to be cool with this? Because that's probably how it's going.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  It crossed my mind many times today. And the, the great, the great thing about that too, for the league is like, it guarantees that either LeBron or Steph is in the Western Conference Finals too, right? So if they get to round two, you know, either one of those glamour franchises and superstars, it's going to be in the Western Conference Finals. So yeah, that crossed my mind too.

• 17:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, how about if the Lakers beat Minnesota? And it's Houston, Golden State on the other side. That's also a complete no lose for the NBA because Houston Lakers would be an awesome series that has the same kind of bad blood all over the place, including Ime, who got kicked out of a game for calling LeBron a bitch, which was amazing. Brooks, who, you know, has tried to make his decades mission to be LeBron's rival to very little success. And then Steven Adams, who's always willing to bang into somebody, but that's just such a weird matchup.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:56Bill Simmons?

  The Rockets going double big and the, and the Lakers don't have bigs.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  The Lakers don't have like real bigs, Rui, LeBron have

• 18:05Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Sort of masqueraded.

• 18:07Bill Simmons?

  They bulk.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Bigs, bigs in this Western Conference playoffs are a big piece of the puzzle. I think, you know, the, the Hartenstein acquisition changes Oklahoma City's ability to play big this time around. Obviously Joker is in there, but you know, I think the Western Conference, there's three incredible series and let's probably expect that 1-8 series to not be that great.

• 18:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think that's, that might be an NBA TV exclusive.

• 18:40Bill Simmons?

  Do they still have the NBA TV series? They do, right? The OKC versus whoever?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:46Bill Simmons?

  That might, might be squandered. OKC Dallas, I think you just shoved that over on NBA TV or maybe it's

• 18:52Speaker 01

  OKC Memphis.

• 18:54Bill Simmons?

  Tubey.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  OKC Memphis, by the way, should be Vancouver, Seattle. Think about that. That would have been pretty crazy.

• 19:00Bill Simmons?

  Oh shit.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Happened.

• 19:01Bill Simmons?

  OKC Memphis would be a fun series because the thing about Memphis, I, I don't think they have any title aspirations whatsoever, but they are fun to watch.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 19:10Bill Simmons?

  The high scoring games, the other team is always going to have two guys in the 30s.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hope, I hope our man Ja Morant is, is back and ready to go on Friday. Uh, I think he turned his ankle pretty bad. I have a really bad memory.

• 19:23Bill Simmons?

  Might have to convene, who knows?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Well, they did seem, they played well. Bain had a great game. Bain almost helps. He almost stole this game. He was making it seem like every shot and the ones he missed were like these torturous misses that would go in and out. He looked great. But yeah, Memphis played pretty well, I thought, and I think. OKC isn't, isn't gonna have a problem there, but um if Ja Morant gets to play OKC, I think that would be, that would be really entertaining, actually.

• 19:54Bill Simmons?

  I can't say it was the greatest Jaren Jackson performance. And I, you know, I really agonized, I ended up leaving him off 13th in the NBA, making way for a couple of other guys. And it was, I, I just saw too many of those where it's like, he's good, he's solid, but um you're also forgetting he's out there for large chunks of time. He's not, he's impactful, but not totally. And I don't know, that was a game where I feel, especially with like Golden State as small as they were going, it felt like he could have kind of dominated that game. And I just, I think the situation is what it is.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, he, he settles for threes too much, well over half of his shots again today against that smaller team where behind the three point line, you know, when, when he was sort of running that offense last year in the absences of Bain and um Morant, he was doing a lot more driving and a lot more playmaking. That didn't exist tonight. Didn't exist tonight. Uh, and I'd like to see him be a little more aggressive against some of these matchups because he's so talented. He's got these like both, he can finish with both hands near the rim. Um, but yeah, I still think they're gonna, they're gonna win against the winner of, I'll pick them to win against the winner of the Sacramento Dallas matchup. What are your thoughts on that one?

• 21:11Bill Simmons?

  I think it needs a sponsor. Is there a dysfunctional product that could be the sponsor? Dallas and Sacramento, two of our most dysfunctional franchises. Um, whatever that product is,

• 21:25Bill Simmons?

  maybe is it like a, it's probably some sort of pharmaceutical product? Or maybe it's, maybe it's like a CBD thing then because you have to kind of get a little buzz on as you watch the dysfunction. But yeah, I, I have no idea. That, you could tell me Dallas is just ready for the season and I would believe it. Sacramento is always a roller coaster ride and both of them had really, really, really abnormally strange seasons.

• 21:52Bill Simmons?

  Like the Sacramento, the firing Mike Brown, going to Christie, that just giving up on Fox a year early for reasons that remain unclear, bringing back the Levine, the Rosen combo. And I don't know, it feels like two teams that I think are going to look a little bit different next season, whatever happens.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have no idea what to make of either team. I think I'm, I'm pretty sure that Sacramento's got enough to win this game.

• 22:19Bill Simmons?

  It would seem like it, right?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:22Bill Simmons?

  I said on Zach's pod, I wonder if it's a 123 Cancun situation for Dallas. Like we just got booed for two months. Like, let's get ready to call it a vacation. But I don't, I don't trust Sacramento either. Are we still lighting the beam in Sacramento? Or did we decide of going 500 for six months? Maybe it's not beam worthy anymore.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Oh, they're lighting that thing.

• 22:42Bill Simmons?

  Oh, they're still lighting it? Okay.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'll light it up, I think, tomorrow night. I think they'll light that thing up and then hop on a flight.

• 22:50Bill Simmons?

  Let's, uh, let's take a break. I want to, I want to bring in Sir Rudy, Orlando Magic fan to discuss the bizarre Atlanta Orlando game we watched tonight. So, quick break right now. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Our friends will come down to the stretch of the plan heading into the playoffs. The best place to get in on all the action for all the best games, FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. With FanDuel, there's so many ways for you to play. They've got all your favorite bets, player props, all kinds of things. They have futures. They have series bets. There's a bet I really like. Lakers to beat the Timberwolves for the series, the Knicks to beat the Pistons, and the Celtics to beat the Magic. If you parlay those three together on FanDuel right

• 23:31Bill Simmons?

  now, minus 113. Kind of like it. Bet on the infrastructure of LeBron, Luca, and the refs. Here's your chance for the next two weeks. If that sounds good, you can score an even bigger W on Wednesdays because FanDuel has given you a profit boost for all of tonight's action on the second, second day of playing games. So, check FanDuel Sportsbook. App to see how much you got. Head to fanduel.com/BS for more info. Make every moment more with Fanduel, official sports betting partner in the NBA. Must be 21 plus. Present in select states or 18 plus present in DC. Opt-in required. Minimum three leg parlay. Required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration.

• 24:16Bill Simmons?

  Max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Summer is almost here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmigiana delivered. I love chicken parmigiana. A cabana? That's a no. But a banana? That's a yes. A nice tan? Sorry, no. But a box fan? Happily yes. A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats.

• 24:59Bill Simmons?

  Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. All right, Sarudy is joining us. The Ringer's Iron Man. Just had a child, but loves the NBA playoffs and so wired from Cole Anthony Knight that he had to join us. But was that a better Orlando win or a more fun Atlanta loss for you?

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was all good. I was just feeding the kid and I was just like, you know, I might as well just stay up and hop in this zoom record. I'm wired. I, I gotta be honest with you. I, I don't know that I'm happier about winning the game or that I just don't have to watch Trey Young play basketball against my team anymore. Like that was, it was disgusting. Like it was, and maybe, maybe I'm super sensitive to it because they played the Hawks a couple of times here down the stretch. But it, it's, like, he's yelling at the ref for calls that he's getting during the game. And it's, it just feels like, I guess, as a guy who just likes to watch, enjoys basketball, because there's a lot of people being like, what's his future this summer? Like, you know, he would, he would undoubtedly make the Magic better. And I, I just can't, I could never talk myself into it. So I'm happy about the win, but I'm mostly just happy that I don't have to watch that anymore.

• 26:10Bill Simmons?

  Wow, Scott Sperry, if I heard that correctly, that was Sarudy saying that win was a double win because Trey Young was so annoying in that game. Orlando might not trade for him this summer, so we won twice. That's how I interpreted that.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Dude, I've never seen a player taunt a ref like with the ball. He was like gonna pass it to him and he spun it back to himself. Like a big brother to a little brother and that's when he got tossed. That was great.

• 26:37Bill Simmons?

  It's a tough one. Well, it's one of those things that'll go into the offseason now and it'll be a narrative. And I think he was gonna be in trade rumors anyway for a bunch of different reasons. And you know, I remember Paul Pierce hit this point with the Celtics when the mid 2000s, things weren't going great. And then he had that thing with the Indiana where he showed up for the press conference with this head bandage. And it was like, oh, man, is he trying to get traded? What's going on here? They ended up keeping him, but we've seen different players hit this specific point. And it does feel like fork in the road now for Trey. He was 2018 draft. It's a seven years.

• 27:15Bill Simmons?

  You know, I don't know what you get for him. You start is like, is Ja? Is it like a Ja type of level for a trade? Is it a level below? Is LaMelo too high? Is it? Do you try to do your version of that? Dejounte Murray, like some picks and an asset? Just get out of it. What would you do, Kirk?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Jalen Suggs, what do you think, Sarudy? Jalen Suggs.

• 27:40Bill Simmons?

  No way.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm not, I'm not gonna go like Dallas Mavericks fan level on that, but I would stop watching the team if they traded Jalen Suggs for Trey Young. I that's, I mean, no way. I mean,

• 27:52Bill Simmons?

  That is Dallas Mavericks level, just for the record.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  It's, you can't trade a guy who, and I know you're just, well, this is just like hypothetical, but like a guy who's like kind of the heart and soul of like the energy of the team. For a guy who, I just don't know what trade is like, I, you know, we obviously had the conference final a couple of years ago. And I think he's really talented. He led the league in assists this year, obviously. Maybe there's a situation that works for him, but I can't, it's just like a basketball fan be like, yeah, I, I can't night in, night out for that. I just can't. It was, it was uncomfortable to watch. I mean, he's, that's why it was so great because Anthony Black, a couple of times, who had a great game, by the way, Anthony Black, Cole Anthony and Wendell Carter carried Paulo and Franz. I mean, more Franz a little bit. I mean, Paulo was good early and then, you know, got the cut above his eye. So who knows? But those guys were awesome. But it was great to see

• 28:38Speaker 02

  like the action of, of Anthony Black kind of got Trey tossed from the game. And I don't know, man, like I, I'd rather root for dudes that just like kind of, who just, I hate to be the old man, but play the game the right way. But like, that's just, I, I don't want to watch, I don't want to watch foul baiting. I don't want to watch, I don't want to watch somebody yelling at the ref the entire game. And, you know, I guess that the Magic would, they need another elite guard. They need somebody, they need to get the ball out of Paulo and Franz hands all the time. They leave those guys on islands to like, at the end of shot clocks and they just do them a disservice all the time.

• 29:11Bill Simmons?

  Coaching thing though. I don't know. I don't even know if that's a roster thing. Like it would be nice if the offense evolved even a tiny bit.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  I'd love Cole Anthony, who is, you know, basically carrying them at parts of the game. Like, why, why does he come in with two minutes left in the third quarter if you go up this massive run? And now the Hawks are back in the game. Questions I have after the game, but you know, he ended up doing it anyway. But yeah, like I, I just, I just, I can't, I can't do it, Trey.

• 29:35Bill Simmons?

  Kurt, all right, you're in the front office. Everybody gets together and you have the Trey Young conversation. And the problem with the Trey Young conversation, the stats are there. And the conference finals thing is the thing that screws it up because you can't say good stats, bad team guy, because he made the conference finals. And you probably have to go back and really look through, well, how'd they make the conference finals? What happened? And then you have to really analyze that goofy Sixers series, which was, you know, the end of Ben Simmons' career. It was a shortened season. And how do you, how do you judge, was this just a fluke? Or are we not giving him

• 30:16Bill Simmons?

  enough credit because he was one of the four teams left in a playoffs? I don't know what the answer is.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think he deserves a lot of credit for that run. I mean, what we saw him do in the Knicks series and like getting, becoming that villain and becoming a guy who's capable of winning those big games. There was a little bit tonight where I thought he was going to get it going in that third quarter, Sarudy, where they opened it up and finally got your team running up and down the court. And he was at the forefront of that. And then, yeah, like it's not ethical hoops like he the when the bonus light comes on, he totally changes into the worst, most annoying player. With all due respect to Chris Ball, somehow is taking it to another level. When the bonus light comes on, Trey Young shines even brighter. But there is some value there. There is a team that would take a chance on him.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Maybe it's somebody like Portland or Sacramento. I don't know. I don't like the player. I think what the Hawks have that makes it really interesting is they have this incredible defense waiting to be there with these wings with Rishashay, Jalen Johnson, obviously Dyson Daniels, Akongwu. They have this like fleet of young athletes that are ready to shine. I don't feel like Trey fits into that. So I'm among the other, I just, I believe that he will be mentioned in a lot of trades this summer.

• 31:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and I just wonder who the team is. So, Sirudi, Anthony Black and a contract? No? Just, just you're hanging up?

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm not even taking that phone call. There, there, before the Luca thing, wasn't, there were some talk about maybe the Lakers sniffing around late, kind of LeBron thing.

• 31:57Bill Simmons?

  I never, yeah, I never believed that. I mean, Sacramento can never be ruled out. With their last 12 years track record, you can't rule them out. And the San Antonio would be the wild card for me. I know. For people who aren't watching this, I'm video, Kirk just made a face and leaned backwards in disgust when I mentioned that.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  That's the problem, dude. Like when you talk about it with Sirudi's team, it's like there's this visceral reaction. When you talk about it with my team, there's this visceral reaction.

• 32:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. But it might get to a point where if you feel like you can get him for 50 cents on the dollar, like, you know, his contract's not that much longer. I don't know.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, isn't that, isn't that kind of what happened though, a couple of years ago where like it was Russell Westbrook and it was like, well, you know, would like a bad team just take a flyer on him just to kind of be interesting. But there aren't that many teams. I mean, Sacramento is probably the one, but there aren't that many teams that are just like, hey, we're so bad that we just need to be interesting. So let's just take a flyer on Trey Young. It feels like. You talked about it, Bill, like there's just a lot of talent in the league. A lot of these teams are, you know, headed in the right direction, even like, you know, the Wizards and the Hornets. Like, why would they, why would they do that? There aren't, there isn't just that team. It's like, hey, let's just do this because we have nothing else going on. And there really hasn't been teams like that for a few years now, it feels like.

• 33:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Plus with the apron, everything's harder, like moving contracts, you know, everything. Surdi, do you want to make the case for Orlando in round one against the Celtics?

• 33:24Speaker 02

  I was texting our good, with our good buddy, Kevin Clark, and I, the thing I said was, they, I don't think they have any shot in the series, but I weirdly think that they could win two games. Like, I feel pretty good about that. And that's, I, I think it could be a six game series and it'll be tough for the Celtics, but I just don't think, I don't know how the Magic score with them. I mean, I, I don't know how.

• 33:43Bill Simmons?

  If the Celtics play defense, yeah, your best, your best chance is almost on the road in Boston where the Celtics just seem to fall asleep every home game for whatever reason.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  They'll probably steal a game, one or two, and then, you know, who knows, like people might start losing their minds and say some irresponsible stuff, but they, you know, I, I can't imagine. Everyone's locked into the Magic all year long, but the, the offensive loss that they go through, it's, it's like uncomfortable to watch at times. You're just like, how is this? I think Zach mentioned, I forgot it was you or whoever, but it's just like, can we just get some sort of offensive coach in there to figure some things out? Why does, why does everyone that comes to Orlando, like KCP, what was he, one of seven, I think from three? I mean. Paulo and Franz were oh for seven or eight combined. It's just like, why is, why is everybody that go there just immediately? And it's not even like, like some of them are open shots. They're just missing open shots. And I, you know, as much as I like to think like, I think that what they're two and one against the Celtics this year, I think they, a couple of those Tatum wasn't around.

• 34:36Bill Simmons?

  Listen, it's a couple of years of Orlando having good games against Celtics. Like my dad, of course, who's always, sky's falling in his text sometimes as we get to playoff time. He was, he really wanted Atlanta to win because he's like. Orlando makes me nervous. Like, sorry. Like, they, we've had trouble against them over and over. Now, this is with Suggs. Suggs was always a big piece of that is the difference.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Atlanta is a great, like, you know, when Alabama plays like an FCS team in the first week, that's a perfect, like, first round opponent. Like, you just, you know, you get warmed up a little bit. You don't really get beat up. Like, the problem with the Magic is you're gonna get beat up for five games or so, five or six games, and it might kinda hurt you later on in the playoffs. That's certainly a team that, like, isn't gonna be awesome, like, bruise-wise in round two and round three. But I, I, I just can't, I can't see the Magic without Suggs. The scoring situation, I can't see it happening.

• 35:26Bill Simmons?

  Plus, it seems like the Celts are happy. Kirk, Celtics sweep, plus 126 on FanDuel. 4-1 is plus 168, and Sarudy's two-game prediction, that would net you plus 610. Celtics 4-2.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Wow. That's, that's a pretty good price. A lot can happen in these games. People forget how few sweeps there are sometimes. I think that the case for the Magic winning one is like, what they did to the Hawks' three-point shooters tonight. They had four made threes, Bill. That's like, only out of the 1,200 NBA games we watched all year long, only, I think, 13 times did a team, either team, make four or fewer threes. So Orlando has been the best three-point defense in the NBA all year. They've suppressed attempts and makes at a very high level.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  That said, I, I, I think, you know, the Hawks are not the Celtics. The Celtics and Missoula have a way of going from good to great against every defense, and it's terrifying. But that, the case is, they will sort of force Boston into, you know, and you watched them all year. If Boston has a below-average three-point shooting night, if they hit 26% of their threes, they're beatable.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  And I think if Orlando can get some better scoring, if they have Cole Anthony playing like this, or Wendell Carter Jr. Playing like he played tonight, they could steal one game. I think this is a five game series, but I wouldn't surprise if it were four or six. I would, I would say it's a five game series in my head.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  It's also a, like an interesting big brother, little brother dynamic with the Jason Tatum, Paulo thing. Both Duke guys, they're friendly. I think Paulo was asked about it after the game. And you know, he said like the ultimate, you know, compliment or whatever, be just playing well against him. You know, it's a guy who I think a lot of Magic fans like hope Paulo, that his career steers towards the Jason Tatum. Like he's never going to be that defensively, but at least just kind of like the, you know, the caliber of player, the, you know, MVP, first team All NBA is like that thing. Uh, it's an interesting storyline to watch. I, I just, I just watched Paulo too many times. I just go, God, like I, I understand the criticism about the, the, um, like the shooting and the shot selection at times, but I, they just leave him hanging out to dry. So he's asked to do so freaking much all the time. And like,

• 37:46Speaker 02

  that's why when Cole comes in and gives him like a secondary ball handler creator, like, and Cole was pretty inconsistent. He was awesome tonight. If they just had a guy that can, I don't know who that is necessarily. I wanted it to be Malik Monk in the off season. Who can just like ease the load. And we go, gonna keep asking me, ask me, I don't know, who knows? Let's see how this series goes and how depressing it is.

• 38:05Bill Simmons?

  Jonathan Kaminga, he's available.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, I, I, that's, it's just an interesting dynamic to watch those two Duke guys going at it.

• 38:14Bill Simmons?

  Who, what's your Tatum plan for this series?

• 38:18Speaker 02

  I would just throw, I mean, Isaac and just hopefully you could just bother the heck out of him. Um, Isaac's been, he hasn't been as consistent this year as he was last, although he played a lot of games. So I guess he stayed healthy. So credit to him, but I would do that. Um, maybe a little bit of Franz. Uh, I mean, they're, they're certainly big. They've got the size to, to, you saw it tonight. I mean, the Hawks are a different team, obviously, than Celtics, but man, like they just, it's hard to get good shots against them. And Kirk said it, they're the best defensive three point shooter. They're the worst three point shooting team on offense, but they also defend and don't let teams make threes. Uh, so they're, they're kind of, you know, old school in that way. So that's, that, that's the path is just, can they just get the Celtics to not shoot well and play good three point defense and hopefully they can get some shot variance on offense.

• 39:00Bill Simmons?

  Four for 21 from three. Iconic. It's a box score right out of the early 2010s. All right, Sarudy, I guess we're natural rivals for, uh, for the next two weeks.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  It'll be fun.

• 39:13Bill Simmons?

  All right. Thanks for popping on.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Later.

• 39:16Bill Simmons?

  Kirk, you did a shooting column on the ringer.com.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:21Bill Simmons?

  A great website. And you gave out the shooting excellence awards, including the Wardell Award for Best Shooter of the Year, Steph Curry, um, which is the number one award and the, and the, you know, the most important. That's like your best picture, basically. Is anyone ever going to win this award other than Steph Curry? How did you frame this in your mind mentally? Is, could somebody win it when he's still playing? Could somebody come and take it? And if somebody did take it, who would that be?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like the batting title in the Ted Williams era, right? Like this is just feels like this is going to go to him. But, you know, in the piece I looked at some, some potential young players coming along and there's some surprising names. That, you know, there's the Devin Bookers of the world that you think of. But dude, I'll give you a name that is really relevant for the playoffs. Who is suddenly an incredible jump shooter and that's Anthony Edwards, who is combining uh, volume and efficiency and age, I would throw that in there at a ridiculous level. And some people early in the season sort of lamented that the fact that this hyper athletic, you know, highlight machine was taking so many threes, but he's good at it.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Uh, and so he comes to mind as somebody who like it or not, could be the best shooter in the NBA in four or five years, if he continues this trajectory. I mean, I, I don't know if you saw the stats, but like very few players in NBA history have had more than 300 threes in a season. Um, and, and now he's on that list, uh, and he creates a lot of them. And specifically with a step back bill, which is a very difficult shot that only players like Luca and Stephen and Harden have really been able to do reliably well. He's actually hitting at that at a rate that's better than all those guys. Uh, and that really caught my eye this year. So Anthony Edwards. Could take the torch in a weird way. I would not said that last year, but doing the

• 41:14Speaker 01

  research for the piece, I was like, it's undeniable that this guy is ahead of schedule as a jump shooter.

• 41:21Bill Simmons?

  I looked at his stuff long and hard because I was debating, I gave him a test drive for that last first team NBA spot. I gave him a test drive for fifth spot MVP. So I was looking at all his stats. First of all, he won the three point title this year for three pointers made, which Curry has owned. If Curry's healthy, he just says, he just wins that every year as long as he plays 68 games, you know, 65, whatever. Edwards hit 320, Malik Beasley at 319, Curry at 311, and nobody else had over 266. But I don't think people realize how many threes he takes and makes. Like, people like us realize it, but I don't

• 42:02Bill Simmons?

  think, if you ask the average person on the street, who made more threes this year, Steph Curry or Anthony Edwards? I don't think anyone would say Anthony Edwards. So you have that, but he also took, took, he made 415 free throws, which was sixth. He took 496 free throws, which was fifth. So he's moved into that kind of late 2010s, James Harden. Harden was the all-timer for this, but threes and free throws.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:33Bill Simmons?

  Little bit of that, but then he's also doing all this other stuff, including the defense and the athleticism. And I just, I was really, really happy with where we landed in this ant journey. And now we have this Lakers series where we're going to find out, can he, can he go up a little bit of a level here?

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's, it's a perfect stage for him to, to, to, to check in and see if, where he's at. Cause there's a chance that the, the Wolves will win this series and he's going to be just the, the, the star of the show on, on some of the biggest stages in the first round of these playoffs. And, you know, when he came out of Georgia and was the number one pick, I didn't think that he would be the best shooter in sort of his cohort of early twenties players. I didn't think that was going to happen. I always thought I was going to be an athlete. But he's great. And then the other name you mentioned that I don't think people quite realize how great of a shooting season we just had was Malik Beasley. And if you look at just the catch and shoot stats.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  It's better than any Klay Thompson season, except for one. Like Malik Beasley, it's not an exaggeration to say when you look at the volume of threes he's taking and the percentage he's making, it's like having Klay Thompson out there. In fact, it's like a better version of Klay Thompson for most of Klay Thompson's career. And I think that helps explain what's happened in Detroit, the sort of.

• 44:01Bill Simmons?

  Because he's doing it at the end of games, too.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he doesn't even start, which is why he's a sixth man of the year candidate. But he finishes a lot of games and he gives Cade Cunningham a just a great spacing weapon. But it's also just a, you know, Malik's been a great catch and shoot guy in the league for a while.

• 44:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  He had one down year in the Lakers. But this is not, this is, he's taken it to another level. So he's another one that sort of popped in this awards and it gave him the best catch and shoot guy. Cause I don't think people realize, and we'll see that in a big series too with the New York Knicks.

• 44:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Too, Bill, is can he continue this under the bright lights?

• 44:38Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't believe that he wasn't the favorite for a sixth man of the year. I voted for him. I voted for him over Pritchard. I watched, I obviously watched the Celtics the most. I thought Pritchard had an excellent, excellent season off the bench, but Beasley, you know, the Celtics could survive whether Pritchard was good or not. He could go one for eight for three points and it just wouldn't matter. The Pistons couldn't survive Beasley having a bad game against a good team. Like they actually really, really needed him. He was probably, you know, Durin is their second most important player, I think, because of all the, the rim protection, rebounding, the alley-oop stuff that he gives them. And Beasley's probably, it's probably two A Durin and two B Beasley.

• 45:20Bill Simmons?

  But with the shot, and I've talked about it before, but the shocking thing was how they would run offense for him in big spots at the end of games. Like they, they really would come out of timeouts and be like, we're running this play and you're gonna, like the same way you would treat Klay Thompson, so. To me, it wasn't close. I thought I, I didn't think it was close. I thought he was clearly sixth man of the year.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Anybody doubts, go to basketball reference and look at Klay and then look at Malik.

• 45:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  There've been only nine instances of a player hitting more than 39% of their threes while also hitting more than 300 threes in a single year. Curry's done it six times. Klay's done it one time. And then this year, Bill, Anthony Edwards and Malik Beasley both did that. So I think that was a stat that was like, oh my God, yeah, there's more threes than ever. Nobody wants to hear me complain about that anymore. I get it. But we're seeing the emergence of more of these great shooting campaigns. And this year it was Beasley and Edwards.

• 46:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he, you know, one of the things that screws up the six man stuff, when you look at it, is some guys will have these games as starters and their stats will jump way up when they're the starter. And then when they're the reserve, the stats are different. You could look at all this stuff with the splits. Beasley, it didn't really matter. He was just as impactful, no matter how many minutes he got, whether he brought him off the bench. He started 18 games. Stats were like four points better, but it wasn't dramatic. And he was.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  He didn't have, what, Pritchard had that one game where he had like 45 against Portland, right?

• 46:51Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing. Nas Reed had a couple of those where he started and had big games. Beasley was, you know, he averaged 16 points a game. And I don't think he played, did he play, I'm looking at it now, sorry, 27.8 minutes?

• 47:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. Shot 41.6 from three. Took nine a game. Like that's, these are crazy numbers for a six man. It's one of the better six man seasons we've had. So, uh, any other shooting seasons stand out for you?

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Uh, well, relevant to this weekend, I'm going to say Tyler Harrow, uh, has had a breakout year, but he's, he's, he's mastered the floater, which is really interesting, uh, and kills, kills a lot of drop coverage. And he's just the best at that. The floater sort of replaced the pull-up jumper for young guards. You know, Chris Paul's generation would always pull up at the elbow off two feet.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Tyler Harrow and, and John Moran's generation is definitely like running towards the basket, throwing up the floater. The stats back that up. And this year, nobody has been better than that than Tyler Harrow. And, you know, I think in the Butler absence. If you look at the Miami's Heat's numbers over the last 15, 16 games, their numbers jump off the page and I think whoever wins that game in Chicago has a really good chance, Bill, of taking the eight seed in the East from Atlanta. And I think Tyler Harrow and the Heat.

• 48:25Bill Simmons?

  I forgot we're not done with Atlanta yet. We have them again.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  We have them again no matter what.

• 48:31Bill Simmons?

  We were saying goodbye to them for the year, but no, we're gonna have them again.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  And both Chicago and Miami are playing above that nine, 10 level right now.

• 48:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  And so I think whoever wins that game is gonna have a lot of momentum going into Atlanta. And I could see that being Miami and I could see Miami going into Cleveland to steal in a game. So.

• 48:54Bill Simmons?

  I noticed, by the way, I noticed the same thing with Miami, cause that line, it's, I think it's like Chicago by one. I loved, I loved Orlando tonight and I also like Golden State, but they were favored by like six, seven. It's not amazing to be like, I think, I think the two favorites are gonna win. Tomorrow's a harder match of games. And I really like the Chicago thing. I, I think they're fun to watch, but the same thing, you, you made the key point with Miami. The numbers are pretty good for them. Just this last 15 and Bam, I think finally looked like Bam. And had a couple of real kick ass games, but in, you know, a couple of times they played teams that are trying to tank, stuff like that, but.

• 49:36Bill Simmons?

  I, I just would be surprised if they lost tomorrow. I'll say that.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too. I think I'll go a step further. You have Spoh, you have these guys that have gone very far in the playoffs, still on that roster versus a Chicago group that you can't say that about. So I feel like I am picking Miami, you know, I, I like Chicago. Again, I think they're playing better than, than, than the nine spot right now, but.

• 50:02Bill Simmons?

  Giddy's hurt and playing, which that part makes me nervous where he's like questionable, but he's gonna play it. I don't like that.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, yeah, so I, I love that. But I was here. What else in the piece is interesting?

• 50:15Bill Simmons?

  By the way, the other one, I, I refuse to make a pick, but if you actually force me to make a pick, I'd probably take Sacramento.

• 50:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't feel great about it, though.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  The last thing from the the shooting piece that I think you'll enjoy is the best shooting big man in the NBA this year.

• 50:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  You'll remember a couple of years ago, Karl Towns claimed to be the best big man shooter of all time, uh, which was offensive.

• 50:41Bill Simmons?

  That wasn't true. What what happened? So did we debunk that?

• 50:44Speaker 01

  To those of us who watched basketball before 2000.

• 50:47Bill Simmons?

  There were other good shooting big men before Towns? I didn't really... Oh, Dirk Nowitzki. I forgot. Oh, yeah, that's right. The MVP who won a title. Yeah.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  But Nikola Jokic, among his many feats, is literally the most efficient jump shooter in the NBA among all the people that took 400 jump shots this season, which I forget, 98 players. So of of the 98 players that took at least 400 jumpers, nobody's more efficient than Nikola Jokic.

• 51:13Bill Simmons?

  But he also, that doesn't include that he was like 42% from three?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  That includes the threes. That includes the threes. It includes all jump shots. And I think that is an astounding fact. Uh, I know you and Ryan are debating the MVP votes, uh, but I didn't know that going into that. But just how great.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  I'm not debating anymore because we had to mail it in today.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 51:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  And you and you ended up with Nikola, right?

• 51:41Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna save it for Thursday's pod.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:44Bill Simmons?

  But you bet you, I mean, some of the stats with him, like that shooting stat you just mentioned, there's like nine different things you could say about his season from either using counting stats or advanced stats that are just dumbfounding. I mean, nobody had, I'm pretty sure nobody had been in the top five in points, assists and rebounds per game in the same season, and he's in the top three. But he was also second in steals. And then he also shot 42% from three. And then he was also like, it was like a 19-point difference when he was on or off the court offensively for them. Uh, it's just like, you start going through this stuff and it was like, he did eight things that just don't

• 52:29Bill Simmons?

  happen.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:31Bill Simmons?

  Ever.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  That's, I think the last one you said for me, I really think the MVP vote comes down to how you look at the word value and valuable in this context. And for me as a stats guy, those on off differentials with, with, with the Joker are so extreme that it proves to me that way I think of value. And again, I think this is a year where we have really unique two candidates, both are deserving.

• 52:59Bill Simmons?

  Two, by the way, yeah, A plus candidates. This is not a, I have to talk myself into an MVP player.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But, but, but I always come back to, and I think you alluded to this with the two through 12 thing. But yeah, like when Nicola is sitting down for the Denver Nuggets, they're immediately a lottery team. They're immediately a lottery team until he takes off the towel and stands up and goes to the scorer's table and comes back into the game. And then they're a playoff team again. It's, it's.

• 53:28Bill Simmons?

  Did you, did you vote for the Ringer 100? I can't remember.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I didn't do it. I didn't do it.

• 53:33Bill Simmons?

  Too tense for you? Well, I sent my last list and um, it's interesting. So 100 players. I obviously took it seriously and really tried to rank everyone correctly and put time into it. OKC had seven of the top 96 for me. They had number two, 17, 18, 62, 65, 79, and 96. Because I put Kason Wallace in my top 100 because I think he's unbelievable. Denver had one, 41, 60, and 78. And I had, I didn't, Jamal's not even the top 40 for me at this point, just because he's been so erratic this year, you know, and it, even when he

• 54:16Bill Simmons?

  starts playing well, then he gets some dumb injury again. And I, you know, you, the league is so deep, you start comparing him to like somebody like Desmond Bain tonight, you know, who's had a really good season and showed up when it really mattered. But anyway, the point is, uh, I thought that was interesting. This, this one jumped out at me too. I had seven Houston guys in my top 100. 31, 43, 72, 73, 81, 83, and 95. It's not nothing. And then you look at Golden State, 6, 28, 40, and we're done. It's three guys. You know, so that's not everything, but it is kind of instructive when you start looking

• 54:58Bill Simmons?

  at talent in a big picture of guys, teams compared to other teams. And one team has seven top hundred guys, the other team has three. Now, granted, one of them is number six.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  It's one of the themes for me this season too, Bill, is like, if you look at the top four teams, top two in both sides, there's, there's something in common is they're all pretty young. I think the Boston Celtics have a couple of older guys in Horford.

• 55:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  And Drew. Yeah, but like, when you look at the absolute core of the Cavs, Celtics, but also obviously in the West, the Rockets and, and the, and the Thunder, it's a young man's game, dude. It's a young man's game. And in these playoff series, like where I can see myself talking, talking myself into the Rockets beating the Warriors is like, dude, there's just these young bucks who have a lot more energy or a lot more resilient. Like when Ja turned his ankle and like, for an older player, that's probably the game, right? You can't come back from that.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  It's like a week. Yeah. You're, you're, you're coming off on the wheelchair.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, those are the moments. Uh, and I, I think there is a case for depth being more important than ever right now in the NBA. And I think the Rockets have that and the, and the Warriors don't. Um, but yeah, I think that's an interesting way to look at these playoff matchups too, is who has the most depth? And what you just said about the Rockets is another reason I'm going to talk myself into taking them, I bet.

• 56:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, they're bringing in Tari Eason for 17, 18 minutes a game. And it's just like, it's like, you're unleashing him for those minutes. And it's like, oh, let's put him and Thompson together. Watch this. Um, yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do. I hate any series taking the team that doesn't have the best player. The Warriors clearly have the best player. And then when you saw how Jimmy could flip the switch tonight with all the time off between the games, but I don't, the Warriors, the fact that Steve doesn't seem to really trust what his roster is, makes me nervous. Cause I felt like he had a handle on it three weeks ago. It really did. I felt that Laker game when they beat the Lakers a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, oh, this team knows who it is.

• 57:09Bill Simmons?

  They know who their guys are. And now we're heading into playoffs and I'm not sure they know.

• 57:15Bill Simmons?

  So I guess we'll find out.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  We'll find out, man. Yeah.

• 57:19Bill Simmons?

  Kirk, I kept you up too late. We're gonna go.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Dude, it is late.

• 57:23Bill Simmons?

  Unless you got any University of Texas updates for us.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  No, I mean, it was great to see the Longhorn Corey Joseph back on the television screen tonight. I haven't seen Corey Joseph in a while.

• 57:35Bill Simmons?

  There's our update. It was a Corey Joseph update.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Corey Joseph, yeah. But yeah, Bill, thanks. And I can't wait for these playoffs to start, buddy.

• 57:42Bill Simmons?

  All right. Great to see you. Your beard's looking as, as good as ever. Nice little salt and pepper. Really nice.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.

• 57:48Bill Simmons?

  Good to see you. Thanks for staying up with me. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what, you're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season, whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead? But what if you went to Cancun with Expedia? Save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though,

• 58:31Bill Simmons?

  hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. All right, my friend Nick Khan is here. He is the president of WWE. They have WrestleMania coming up. Do you want to hear my WrestleMania 40 years ago story?

• 58:50Speaker 03

  Please.

• 58:51Bill Simmons?

  I didn't have a lot going on. No girlfriends to be seen. And the fact that they had a WrestleMania pay-per-view with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T was in the running for biggest thing that happened to me in 1985. Maybe not related to the Celtics or a Boston team. Couldn't wait. Felt like there was a real moment where wrestling fans were kind of shoved to the side. We were kind of at the kids' table. We weren't doing the booger eaters. We weren't taken seriously. And then all of a sudden MTV and Hogan and it's like, no, no, no, now it's our time. The wrestling fans matter, but you're also a wrestling fan. So you remember it.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  By the way, WrestleMania one was so big. You watch it, I assume on closed circuit?

• 59:31Bill Simmons?

  We somehow had had cable in Connecticut because I was going to high school in Connecticut.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 59:36Bill Simmons?

  We somehow were able to order it on cable and watch it that way. But I don't think everyone, everyone had that option. Some people had to go to like weird closed circuit places and stuff.

• 59:44Speaker 03

  I was closed circuit LA Sports Arena because at that time we were living in Los Angeles as kids.

• 59:49Bill Simmons?

  So what was, what was the crowd the most fired up for at the LA Sports Arena?

• 59:54Speaker 03

  You know, look, the Hogan, Mr. T, which snuck in the corner.

• 59:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  Against Orndorff Piper and Bob Orton in the corner was huge. But that Andre the Giant moment, there's something about that. I think it was $15,000 body slam challenge or body slam match with John Stud. That felt big also.

• 1:00:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the closed circuit era is so hard to explain to young people. I saw, I saw Duran Leonard one. I saw.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  1981.

• 1:00:20Bill Simmons?

  I saw Hearns Leonard, the Boston Garden, Boston Garden closed circuit. So that was what, November 1981, something like that?

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:30Bill Simmons?

  Saw that in the garden and just about everybody was rooting for Hearns and I was outraged.

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  But by the think about it, like we would pay tickets to go watch TV in an arena.

• 1:00:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, on like a really crappy screen and it wasn't even, it wasn't like it is now. Like if you did like a watch party now.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  It's great. It's great now, but it was a blurry screen back then.

• 1:00:49Bill Simmons?

  Do you guys do that? You have watch parties now?

• 1:00:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, we have a lot of international watch parties with Netflix for the upcoming WrestleMania. We did deal with Cosm, if you know Cosm.

• 1:00:59Bill Simmons?

  Of course I don't.

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  Right. Cosm is a, it's sort of like a sphere like bar and lounge.

• 1:01:05Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:01:05Speaker 03

  It's in a few select cities, including Los Angeles, Atlanta. WrestleMania will be there. It's already sold out. But it's a great viewing experience. So we do them and we do them domestically as well.

• 1:01:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, I want to talk about WrestleMania in a second, but since, since the last time you came on, we actually finished a Mr. McMahon documentary for Netflix. It was a multi-year odyssey. I still can't believe that it ran, six episodes, six hours.

• 1:01:32Bill Simmons?

  A big history of WWE, Vince was prominently involved. You guys were, Vince was gone at that point, but um, the whole situation was pretty weird and I think pulling it off was one of the craziest achievements I've ever been involved with. I still can't believe it actually aired. It felt like it was dead seven times?

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  A lot, a lot. But by the way, it's a testament to you. It's a testament to Netflix, you know, to get that done. Obviously in getting it done, the latter part, which you just referenced was quite bumpy, you know, for everybody. But it got done and it seemed to get, you know, quite high viewership numbers on Netflix.

• 1:02:08Bill Simmons?

  So what was the response like internally and like you're in charge of WWE, you're doing this giant documentary that's, you know, it's warts and all of a pretty controversial guy who's involved in a big legal proceeding and, and did you get people going like, why are you doing this? Why hasn't this been killed?

• 1:02:25Speaker 03

  Well, look, episodes one through five, it was all fine.

• 1:02:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Speaker 03

  And then, you know, episode six, obviously had a lot of, you know, tawdry allegations in there. So, you know, the most important thing at the company was, hey, this is not for us to spike it. That's not what the deal was. And the deal that was struck with Netflix was prior to me joining WWE on a full-time basis. So it was sort of trying to help everyone stay calm who was watching it. And hey, we'll get through this thing and get to the other side of it, which hopefully, you know, now we are.

• 1:02:57Bill Simmons?

  What was the kind of, what kind of feedback did you get from people on it?

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  It went everywhere from, hey, it was phenomenally done like you did with Andre, the giant documentary on HBO Sports to, oh my God, you know, this thing, uh, you know, it's not true. It's not factual, you know, this and that. There were people who loved it as an objective, objectively told profile of a person.

• 1:03:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:22Speaker 03

  And people who were close to the subject who didn't like it, which, you know, I understand and I would think you understand.

• 1:03:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It was, uh, it certainly ran the gamut of emotions. I was really proud of how it was done. I thought, and I thought it was the hardest thing I've ever been involved with, just to, just to make.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  By the way.

• 1:03:38Bill Simmons?

  Especially when the story kept changing.

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  My compliments to you. There were a lot of bumps in there. There were a lot of, you know, it was not easy. And you stayed steady. You got through it, as did Netflix. And, you know, here we are.

• 1:03:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, you know, these things are documents. And I feel the same way about the Celtics thing we're doing right now, where it's like, you know, you, you hope that 20 years from now, people watch it. It'll be some sort of snapshot of what happened, but.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Were you happy with the way the Celtics one turned out?

• 1:04:04Bill Simmons?

  I really was, actually.

• 1:04:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I mean, that's, that's different because these big ass documentaries spread over a bunch of years. Like they, they, there's a certain level of expectations that come with them now and, and you kind of have to exceed those. People just assume they're going to be infomercials or they're not going to be good and they're prone. They're prone to not want to watch it over. Why? You almost have to convince them, no, no, this is a good one. You should watch this. So I'm proud of it though.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Look, I, for whatever it's worth, I too thought it was phenomenal. I put it up there and HBO Sports, you know, as you know, you're one of the co-creators of 30 for 30, but HBO Sports was the sports documentary home for everything. Prior to 30 for 30, that Bird versus Magic, you know, documentary that Ezra did 10, 15 years ago, whatever that was.

• 1:04:50Bill Simmons?

  15.

• 1:04:51Speaker 03

  I, I thought that was the best basketball documentary I had seen.

• 1:04:55Bill Simmons?

  Excellent.

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  I put this one up there with that. And I also loved once brothers. I'm not suggesting.

• 1:05:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. We did that one.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  I know you did.

• 1:05:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was a fun one.

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  Loved it. I thought it was a deep emotional story, but the Celtics one, it was not told simply through the lens of a fan.

• 1:05:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  Which I think, I don't, I don't want to say was difficult for you. I wouldn't know that, but I know you're a huge Celtics fan. So to be able to tell the story objectively, you know, Wartson always impressive to me.

• 1:05:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we wanted to do like, just have an interview, a hundred people, tell the story of the city as it intersected with the team. And, you know, I, I think I've been trying to do these and we felt that same way when we did the Vince one. You don't just want to tell the story. You want to also be levitating above it, trying to actually say something. I think that's when it gets hard. There's, and like in wrestling, there's been so many. Documentaries at this point, just about everybody's been done and they've been kind of varying degrees of quality and the ones that seem to resonate the most, there's is like two different audiences for it. There's like the diehard wrestling fans who like, like dark side of the ring and all like the nitty gritty stuff and they're just going to eat those up and those are basically for them only. And then the question with the wrestling stuff is how do you,

• 1:06:05Bill Simmons?

  how do you get like our wives to watch? How do you get like our kids to watch? How do you get a much bigger audience for it than just the people that were going to watch it anyway?

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  Totally. Look, it's sort of the same thing we try to do weekly with WWE. You're going to have the hardcore fans who watch, you know, no matter what, and they'll either love it, hate it, or they're somewhere in between. And then you try to broaden the audience as I think, or at least I hope that we have over the last number of years to get people like your son back into it.

• 1:06:34Bill Simmons?

  He's out again. We gotta talk about this.

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  Well, I thought he was coming to WrestleMania.

• 1:06:37Bill Simmons?

  He is, but he's, you know, all the stages. He's in the state, the stage now where the next stage will be like age, what 24, when all of a sudden you come back hard.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  I'm gonna have a private conversation with him.

• 1:06:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're gonna have to, you might have to pile drive him.

• 1:06:52Speaker 03

  We'll have to have a private conversation with you and me on the side with them at WrestleMania.

• 1:06:55Bill Simmons?

  He's excited to go, but it's not, he's not on it like he used to be.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  He's above it now.

• 1:06:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's too cool for it now.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  I understand.

• 1:07:02Bill Simmons?

  But he, but the thing is, he's not too cool. That's the thing.

• 1:07:04Speaker 03

  No one's too cool for wrestling.

• 1:07:06Bill Simmons?

  It's the cycle of being a wrestling fan. So now he's here and then eventually he'll be back here.

• 1:07:10Speaker 03

  I know I've mentioned it before, but WrestleMania, I think it was 2016 in Dallas. So your son would have been nine years.

• 1:07:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, my son was nine. That was the wheelhouse for him.

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  You were sending me videos from your hotel room of him doing Ben, your son, doing all the wrestling moves on your guys hotel bed. Now my son, who you know, Sonny is nine.

• 1:07:33Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  So I get to experience that firsthand in seeing him, my son, do all the things Ben was doing nine years ago.

• 1:07:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then Sonny also, when we saw him. He deceived us on what the, um, what the WrestleMania was going to be. So you've already trained him to, to swerve. People trust little kids with information. We thought we were getting inside info for how WrestleMania was going to play out. And what he told us wasn't true. I really respected it.

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  Well, by the way, there's a precursor to that conversation. He said to me, hey, if Bill Simmons asked me, what's going to happen in Royal Rumble? Do we trust him? Do we tell him? I said, we trust him, but we don't tell him. And he said, okay, then I'm going to tell him Cena's taking the whole thing. And I said, okay, great. He never said any of that, but I'm just kidding.

• 1:08:17Bill Simmons?

  I wouldn't believe that. But that's what happened. He told us Cena was winning Royal Rumble. And we were like, wow, Nick Khan's kid. He's got to get that kid in line. He, he, he told us the wrong thing, or he told us the right thing, and then it turned out to be the wrong thing.

• 1:08:32Speaker 03

  Listen, someone in this room, and to the listeners, there's only two of us in this room, told me years ago, hey, keep in mind, everybody tells somebody. So, you know.

• 1:08:40Bill Simmons?

  It's the Jacoby Trust triangle.

• 1:08:41Speaker 03

  The Jacoby Trust triangle. So we had to keep it tight that Cena was not winning the Royal Rumble.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  So that was the biggest decision you guys have made with a character in the company?

• 1:08:55Bill Simmons?

  I don't even know since when. This was somebody that you protected for 20 years. You never turned him over. He was always a good guy, even as the crowd, he's polarizing and is 50/50. But that was the cool thing. But he always tried to stand for something. He was a role model. It helped. The thing I always heard was the merchandise made it so much easier to just sell a bunch of stuff because there was always this next generation of kids coming. And then you finally turned him right near the end, out of nowhere.

• 1:09:21Speaker 03

  So he, here's what I thought was interesting about that whole process. Number one, John Cena's merchandise still off the charts.

• 1:09:27Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:09:28Speaker 03

  Top of show at every event or almost every event. The sort of collective decision to make that heel turn.

• 1:09:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Speaker 03

  Triple H, Cena, Dwayne Johnson, Cody, everyone immediately on board with, with the whole thing. So.

• 1:09:46Bill Simmons?

  Had they pushed Cena to do that before or no?

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  Not since I had been at WWE and not since Triple H had been, you know, in charge of creative. So I don't know, you know, 10, 15 years ago, you know, perhaps, but certainly not in the last five years.

• 1:09:59Bill Simmons?

  Cause when they did it at WCW with Hogan. That was kind of a form of desperation. Like he was really Peter Hulkamania had petered out with WWE and then was petering out with WCW again and they flipped it at the perfect time and just, you know, jump started it.

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

  By the way, that is, as you know, one of the greatest heel turns in the history of wrestling. But as you just articulated, sort of had to be done.

• 1:10:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  Cena on his, you know, final run with us. You've even saw the fans prior to the heel turn, the ones who were saying Cena sucks and, you know, we love Cena. There was no more Cena sucks. It was 98% overwhelmingly positive reaction to John Cena for at least the last couple of years. So to do it when, again, Triple H and Cena and everyone else decided to do it, I thought was phenomenally and phenomenally effective and really smart.

• 1:10:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because we went to the show in LA the day before the fires, which seems like it was seven years ago.

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:10:56Bill Simmons?

  And had this, you guys had your first Netflix show. Cena, there was a popularity with him that I, it felt like a little nostalgia tinged with, we kind of know this is the end. And it was probably the most tied into him that I felt like I had seen a crowd in a long time. Where people were like, we love this guy. We know, we can see the finish line now. And it was one, that was the two legacies from that night were that. And then Hogan just got booed out of the arena, which I can't imagine you guys ever thought would happen, right?

• 1:11:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, look, it was also Rock showed up that night. Travis Scott with Jey Uso, if you remember him coming through the crowd, you know, doing sort of the Yeet thing, you know, with Jay. I thought there were a number of moments that resonated. But yes, Cena sort of announcing, it had been announced, but sort of physically announcing like, hey, this is it. This year is going to be it. And you're not going to see me again in the WWE wrestling ring. You'll see him across our stuff, you know, well past the end of this year. But to turn, if that was January 6th, Elimination Chamber was March 1st. And that's when the big heel turn was over the course of seven weeks, you know, massive, massive turn.

• 1:12:06Bill Simmons?

  We always talk about wrestling, it's like the NBA where you have like draft classes or eras or generations and the talent kind of ebbs and flows. And I can't tell, I think that the company right now seems like it's as successful it's ever been. Right? And it seems like wrestling, at least for you guys, the WWE version of it is the most successful it's ever been. I don't know how much of that is.

• 1:12:31Bill Simmons?

  How you've handled the behind the scenes the last five years, you and Triple H and some others? Or is it just a talent boom? Obviously, it's both, but what's the seesaw? Like, being smart behind the scenes versus like, if you had this much talent, it's probably gonna happen anyway, right? Like, what's the seesaw?

• 1:12:48Speaker 03

  I think, look, to me, it always comes down to the talent and the creative. That's what drives WWE. So if you think about it, Roman Ryans went through, you know, some illness.

• 1:12:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  And came out on the other side of that positively. CM Punk had left the company, as you know, 10-plus years ago, and it seemed like he would never return. He returns. Dwayne Johnson hadn't wrestled, you know, he showed up at the SmackDown premiere on Fox, if it was 2019, 2019, at what was the Staples Center, but he hadn't done anything, you know, long-term with us in a long time. Cody Rhodes had left to go elsewhere. And Seth Rollins sort of elevated himself on his own. Just a handful, Rhea Ripley, you know, pops. Liv Morgan comes along. So there's something definitely special going on with the talent right now.

• 1:13:39Bill Simmons?

  And Roman's crew, I think, was another one. Were you, that was one of the best crews. That's another 50, 60 years of wrestling, crews.

• 1:13:48Speaker 03

  I mean, that-

• 1:13:49Bill Simmons?

  You know, like, the four people, the five people, and it's like, oh, these guys might turn on each other. Oh, no, they're fine. No, they might turn it. Like, that's the legacy of wrestling.

• 1:13:57Speaker 03

  It's, the bloodline, to your point, it goes up there with DX.

• 1:14:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Speaker 03

  It goes up there with the Four Horsemen.

• 1:14:03Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:14:04Speaker 03

  It goes up there with any of those great factions that you said, oh, my God, this is special, and you know it's not gonna last forever. But as long as it did last, it was phenomenal, phenomenal.

• 1:14:13Bill Simmons?

  NWO, before they started letting everyone in.

• 1:14:15Speaker 03

  It had, what, NWO had what, 58 numbers?

• 1:14:18Bill Simmons?

  It's like, wait, is there anything special about being in this place?

• 1:14:22Speaker 03

  Full Soho House.

• 1:14:23Bill Simmons?

  It's just, everybody's getting in. It's like, oh, there's Virgil.

• 1:14:25Speaker 03

  Scott Norton, Vincent, not Virgil, and WCW, but yes.

• 1:14:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was, that was pretty rough.

• 1:14:31Speaker 03

  A lot, a lot of numbers.

• 1:14:32Bill Simmons?

  They kinda lost the narrative fast. Yeah, no, it seems like this is the best run, but you still needed the main guy. And it felt like the big thing this decade was just getting Cody Rhodes and get it, first of all, stealing him from your competition, but then also seeing that you could build him as like, the face of the company, which, I gotta be honest, I didn't see. I thought he could be like, one of the guys. I didn't realize he could be- The center of everything, which I think he is.

• 1:15:01Speaker 03

  I think what's really amazing about Cody's story to me is he saw it before anyone else saw it.

• 1:15:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:07Speaker 03

  And to ask to be let out of his WWE agreement, I guess it would be, you know, eight or nine years ago.

• 1:15:13Bill Simmons?

  It's a classic bet on yourself moment.

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  Classic bet on yourself. And by the way, to your credit, you leave ESPN.

• 1:15:20Bill Simmons?

  You don't have to bring me into it. I'm just saying, it's a bet on yourself moment.

• 1:15:23Speaker 03

  These things, when people bet on themselves and it works out, and as you know, it doesn't work out. For a lot of people, there's a lot of people who asked out of WWE and you sort of never heard from them again. A lot of people who left ESPN, you may never have heard from them again.

• 1:15:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:37Speaker 03

  You went, you built something, you monetized it, and now we're doing the podcast from your home. You know, eyeball test here, 24 bedrooms, this house. So that's a nice accomplishment. And for Cody, back to Cody, you know, he leaves. He doesn't like the Stardust thing. He thinks he can do much more than that. He leaves, he hits the indie circuit. Like, so whatever he was making at WWE at that time, he left that guaranteed money to go on a night by night basis. He took a full bet on himself. He went, he started part of another, you know, league. And then you sort of saw him fade out over there. And it's something that we talked about at WWE. It was like, well, this is interesting. It used to be, hey, this is about the wrestlers. This is about empowering the wrestlers. This is Cody's, one of the co-founders.

• 1:16:23Speaker 03

  And then that narrative shifted. And that's when we decided, when we knew contractually, we could make the call, to make the call and say, hey, why don't we get together and have a conversation? The deal was done in minutes and boom, he returned WrestleMania 2022 at AT&T Stadium just three years ago.

• 1:16:40Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:16:40Speaker 03

  And a year later was in the main event of WrestleMania 2023 at SoFi.

• 1:16:46Bill Simmons?

  To his credit, he's never really talked about what happened with those guys.

• 1:16:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't talk a lot of shit in a negative way, which is something I admire about him.

• 1:16:54Bill Simmons?

  He moved on and he's in a better spot. It, it felt like he probably got a little credit grabby over there. That was just knowing nothing, just from reading and following, following the breadcrumbs and reading stuff like Meltzer's newsletter and weird shit like that, where you're just like, ah, it seems like there's a lot of people in this kitchen right now claiming that they cooked the pot roast.

• 1:17:16Speaker 03

  You, you, you know this drill. I, I saw you do it at Grantland. I saw you do it when you replicated Grantland at The Ringer. Everyone knows who the founder is. You don't sit there saying, I this, I that, I this, I did Spotify, me, me, me, my. The people who do that, I've never really seen them succeed.

• 1:17:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  I feel like the actual leaders, they're the ones, they'll take credit when something's a disaster, which you should as the leader of a company. When something is success, give credit to everybody else. It doesn't matter.

• 1:17:49Bill Simmons?

  Compliments are currency. Another Dave Jacoby.

• 1:17:52Speaker 03

  Jacoby.

• 1:17:52Bill Simmons?

  James Babydoll Nixon too. That's one of his mantras.

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  Babydoll, one of the all time great characters in the modern history of the media business.

• 1:17:59Bill Simmons?

  Nice compliment. Nice currency. We, we're at the Masters. It's just a slew of, uh, it's like watching the anchorman fight with all the anchors, except nobody's fighting. Everybody's trying to get along, but it's all these different people with competing agendas being like, hey, what's going on?

• 1:18:12Speaker 03

  Everyone's friends all of a sudden.

• 1:18:13Bill Simmons?

  Do you miss that? Do you miss being an agent?

• 1:18:15Speaker 03

  Does Babydoll smoke at the Masters?

• 1:18:17Bill Simmons?

  It's like a chimney. What are you talking about?

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 1:18:19Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he was, he was on fire. Um, do you miss being an agent though?

• 1:18:23Speaker 03

  Listen, I loved being an agent when I was an agent, uh, but when I decided to stop doing that five years ago, that was the end of that for me. Uh, I have had the good fortune of sort of being a friend of court to a number of former clients. If they need advice or want advice, or just friends who may want advice from time to time, I'm always happy to give.

• 1:18:40Bill Simmons?

  Or you'll just hire former clients. Just put them.

• 1:18:43Speaker 03

  Put them on camera.

• 1:18:44Bill Simmons?

  Put them in. Or like CM Punk, who for some reason you were always kind of involved. And that was one of those where I was like, Nick's nuts. Like this guy's. This guy's a cancer. Like you can't let this guy. And it's been, seems like it's been great.

• 1:18:58Speaker 03

  By the way, it was so obvious to me that he wasn't a cancer.

• 1:19:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  I had, in having been an agent, assumed I had dealt with some personalities that were not the easiest, you know, from time to time.

• 1:19:09Bill Simmons?

  Sports media? I can't believe that.

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  That's part, that's part of the job. I'd always found him to be a gentleman. I always found him to be honest, responsive. And I felt if he was that way, you know, outside of the company, if given an opportunity to come back to the company, he would be that way. And he said that he would be, and he's been a gem to work with.

• 1:19:30Bill Simmons?

  I think, cause I, I certainly feel this way about myself back in the earlier days. Like, I think when people have trouble

• 1:19:39Bill Simmons?

  dealing with somebody who's not good or doing a bad job or has no, like, and I, for some reason, back in the day, I would take that really personally. It would make me upset. I would try to fix it. I would get all wrapped up in it. And I think as you get older, you're like, you know what? Most people are terrible. And once you, once you kind of realize that, it's like, I just got to navigate around it. It'll be fine. Once you realize that, it's, it's a different, different way of living. And I, for whatever reason, it took me till my mid 40s to realize it.

• 1:20:07Speaker 03

  I think there's a constant through line in it, Bill. I think for the supremely talented people,

• 1:20:13Speaker 03

  Punk, yourself.

• 1:20:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, thanks for putting us together.

• 1:20:16Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:20:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, two of the greats.

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  Two, two of the greats.

• 1:20:18Bill Simmons?

  Thank you.

• 1:20:18Speaker 03

  Two of the greats, right? Yourself, Triple H. The biggest challenge is to deal with mid-level management.

• 1:20:25Bill Simmons?

  Or, or lousy mid-level management. Yeah.

• 1:20:28Speaker 03

  Correct, right? You, you had, I said, referred to at one point as like the khaki brigade.

• 1:20:33Bill Simmons?

  The blue shirt and khaki police.

• 1:20:34Speaker 03

  The blue shirt and khaki, correct. Those are more the mid-level.

• 1:20:37Bill Simmons?

  Coming in, coming in to sit in on a meeting and have some bad ideas and screw everything up.

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:20:42Bill Simmons?

  And then tell us to lead with the Lakers.

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  You were young and creative and had ideas, and many of them were great ideas. And when you come up against, no different than, than Phil, I E, CM Punk. And you come up against sort of bad mid-level management.

• 1:20:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:57Speaker 03

  They can stifle creativity and stifle ideas. And when you're young and, you know, you've got a little bit of chip on your shoulder, which I think most people who end up successful do, it can be stifling. It causes a lot of anger.

• 1:21:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, if you take incompetence personally, it's probably not a great way to be.

• 1:21:15Speaker 03

  It's, by the way, think about it, when you said-

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  It's a chapter in the book I'll never write.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  When you say, "Most people aren't great," it applies to every profession.

• 1:21:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  You know, servers in restaurants, executives at networks or buyers, it's the same thing, like-

• 1:21:29Bill Simmons?

  Like, club coaches in youth sports, like, it's, that's why when you find somebody that's actually really good, you like, treasure it.

• 1:21:37Speaker 03

  No question.

• 1:21:38Bill Simmons?

  Wow, this teacher my daughter has is amazing. I'm so happy this person exists, you know?

• 1:21:43Speaker 03

  It applies to everything. I'm with you.

• 1:21:45Bill Simmons?

  No, it is true. Uh, yeah, so it's been, I think Sam Punk probably got a little, little older, maybe put some stuff in perspective, tried a couple of things, had a couple of failures.

• 1:21:54Speaker 03

  All of those cliches apply. When you said you finally, like, my words, calmed down on it in your 40s.

• 1:22:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:00Speaker 03

  I'm sure Phil, I'm sure Triple H, as he got older, you have children, you get married, you realize sort of the "don't sweat the small stuff" thing, that maybe you may have sweated years ago. And it seemed once Phil and Triple H reconnected, in my brain, it was gonna be magic. And boom, he reappeared, or he, you know, surprised everyone at Survivor Series Chicago, a year and a half or so ago, and it's been magic since.

• 1:22:26Bill Simmons?

  And one of the other big things you did was splitting up WrestleMania, which I'd like to credit you, at least partially with that one. I don't know, you, you might deserve all the credit, but that was one of those things, that was an idea that was sitting there for years. The event was so long, you just, you almost needed like, an IV. You're seated for eight hours, my son would never move, he was in that stage, you're like, "I'm not going to the bathroom, I'm not going anywhere," and it was just these terminally long shows, and the audience would die over the course of the show.

• 1:22:54Speaker 03

  If the number one sport in the United States, as you know, is the National Football League, and they effort to have three-hour games and a three-and-a-half-hour Super Bowl, and yeah, of course, there can be overtime and longer games and all this stuff.

• 1:23:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Speaker 03

  Then why shouldn't we effort to do the same? So, you know, seven hours, eight hours of wrestling of WWE in one night is a lot.

• 1:23:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, especially the crowd is- Doing it. They're they're on a roller coaster during the thing. They're excited. They're they're intense. Like, you know, do you have breaks? You just it's really anything longer than four hours, I think, is really hard, right?

• 1:23:29Speaker 03

  It's really hard. This is also our first one, at least in the last five years. That's not on final four weekend. So

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  That was another thing. You were this is why I get mad with the NBA. You actually looked at the schedule and try it. We're trying to figure out weekends. That would be advantages for you guys.

• 1:23:46Speaker 03

  Totally. Even look, we've done the American only holiday weekends. If you think about it, fourth of July, there's such a lack of sports on that people and it's with no disrespect intended. We'll actually watch the Nathan hot dog eating contest.

• 1:24:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:00Speaker 03

  But why wouldn't we do a WWE event on that weekend? So we do. And Labor Day weekend, even though there's early college football, why wouldn't we have a big if people like, oh, well, you can't get butts in seats. Well, sure, you can internationally.

• 1:24:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:12Speaker 03

  It's obviously not a holiday there. And now that everyone can watch on their phone, it doesn't really matter what day it is, as long as it's not a cluttered sports calendar. I think you saw college football get into a little bit of a mess with their playoff system going, you know, right around the NFL games and coming out of compelling NFL weekends. Hopefully they reconfigure that, but it's something we put a lot of time and effort into.

• 1:24:35Bill Simmons?

  The good news, it's the only mistake college football made.

• 1:24:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:39Bill Simmons?

  They've nailed everything else. It's been perfect with having these giant ridiculous conferences and teams that are 3,000 miles apart. When kids are supposed to be in school, flying cross country.

• 1:24:49Speaker 03

  It's tough, right? When it's fragmented. Any of these sports.

• 1:24:53Bill Simmons?

  Makes me mad.

• 1:24:54Speaker 03

  The NBA is not fragmented. There's a league. The NFL, WWE, we're not UFC, not fragmented. There's a league. It's what even on the boxing side caused such destruction. Four different, you know, sanctioning bodies, interim champion, who's actually the champ, all these different weight classes. It's all chaos.

• 1:25:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:13Speaker 03

  Until there's sort of sent a central, you know, Holding a counter central boss, if you will, it's going to be tough to get any of that in line.

• 1:25:22Bill Simmons?

  It's one thing I love about UFC.

• 1:25:25Speaker 03

  It's a mess, dude.

• 1:25:25Bill Simmons?

  It's so much easier to follow for casual fans like me. I just want to watch the pay per views. I watch every pay per view. I love UFC. I'm not going to watch 52 weeks a year. I'll listen to Arielle's podcast sometimes. I'll, I'll read some stuff occasionally, but for the most part, I'll fully admit I'm a little better than a casual fan, but I'm a casual fan and it's so much easier to follow and there's not 95 fucking belts.

• 1:25:49Speaker 03

  By the way, look, look at what Dana and the Fertitas created. If you ask them, they'll tell you, we took everything we liked about boxing and incorporated that and all of the other nonsense that we hated, we made sure to get rid of that. So even if you haven't watched for a moment and you order a pay per view and you're like, oh, the number one contender is fighting the champion. Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:26:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Number three is fighting number eight and I know what the featherweight division is. Cool.

• 1:26:14Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:26:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:16Speaker 03

  Totally. They nailed it and you know, that's to their credit.

• 1:26:19Bill Simmons?

  I, well, so baseball did this almost out of necessity where they were like, we have a major problem. We have to fix this. And there's other leagues. Football is just a monolith at this point. They can do whatever they want. They're going to go to 18 weeks. You know, whenever they want, it's going to work and basketball is the one that it feels like is going to have to start to get a little more innovative with the schedule and everything. You, you always look at stuff like, why not? Why can't we do this? Like, all right, that I, I get that we did it that way, but why wouldn't we do it this way? Um, I don't understand why people that run big things like that, don't all just think that there's such a fear of, oh, well, that's the way we've always done it.

• 1:27:00Bill Simmons?

  We can't, we can't move from that. That's what the fans are used to. I don't feel that way at all. Do you?

• 1:27:05Speaker 03

  At all. Like what, one of the dilemmas in baseball, which was sort of fixed with the pinch, uh, the pitch clock, the pitch count clock.

• 1:27:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:13Speaker 03

  You know, you didn't know in Los Angeles, if you went to a Dodger game.

• 1:27:17Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:27:17Speaker 03

  Was it going to be a three hour affair? Was it going to be a seven hour affair?

• 1:27:20Bill Simmons?

  Like, would you ever have taken your son to a Dodger game with the old rules, your nine year old son? It's like, make me home at 1:30 in the morning.

• 1:27:26Speaker 03

  Brutal. How do you go to a nighttime game on a weekday? That starts at seven o'clock.

• 1:27:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32Speaker 03

  Why would you even do that? It's so hard to get in and out of there. By the way, my first year as an agent, which was in 2006, somehow I met the baseball Hall of Fame. I don't think we've ever talked about this story before. And that's, you know, Cooperstown and I went there and they said, you know, we're not making a lot of money. What do we need to do to fix this thing? I said, shut down this whole Cooperstown operation, move it to Vegas. Never heard from them again.

• 1:27:57Speaker 03

  Never heard from them again. But to me, it was like, that was what they should have considered. If they wanted it to be a year round engagement. But again, that's the way they had always done it and that's the way they wanted to keep it.

• 1:28:08Bill Simmons?

  That's a tough one because on the one hand, every baseball fan makes the pilgrimage to Cooperstown once. But you don't do it 10 times.

• 1:28:15Speaker 03

  Fun.

• 1:28:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:16Speaker 03

  By the way, travel it, do something with it.

• 1:28:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:18Speaker 03

  But don't do what you're currently doing.

• 1:28:20Bill Simmons?

  No, it feels, you're right. There should be a big version of it. But you guys, the WWE Hall of Fame was an idea that's sitting there forever. And that hasn't happened yet.

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  But it's happening this Friday. Stand, by the way, see you disrespect.

• 1:28:33Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean?

• 1:28:34Speaker 03

  Triple H is being, oh, the brick and mortar Hall of Fame, you're saying?

• 1:28:37Bill Simmons?

  I want the actual, I can walk into it. I can go around, there's videos, there's, I mean, maybe you could be the ones that finally did the Pantheon idea that I've always wanted to do with the levels.

• 1:28:49Speaker 03

  Listen.

• 1:28:49Bill Simmons?

  If you're like your five level Hall of Fame and you get to the top level and it's just like Hogan, Sam Martino, like all the great, greats.

• 1:28:55Speaker 03

  Who's your Mount Rushmore for wrestling?

• 1:28:59Bill Simmons?

  Should we wait until my dog starts barking?

• 1:29:01Speaker 03

  Whatever, we can bring him in, whatever you want to do.

• 1:29:03Bill Simmons?

  Um, Hogan has to be in it. Sam Martino.

• 1:29:10Bill Simmons?

  John Cena.

• 1:29:13Bill Simmons?

  Ric Flair.

• 1:29:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I get that.

• 1:29:17Bill Simmons?

  Cena is probably the shaky spot. I think Hogan, Hogan and Flair have to be in it.

• 1:29:22Speaker 03

  No Austin for you?

• 1:29:24Bill Simmons?

  It's a, it's a pretty brief apex.

• 1:29:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a shorter run.

• 1:29:28Bill Simmons?

  Talking five years, you know? I think Rock potentially, but Rock is another one where the actual apex wasn't long enough. Like if you're going Hall of Famer. The career has to be part of it, like, like Flair and Hogan, how long they lasted was amazing. And even Sam Martino wasn't as long as those guys. Who do you, who do you think it is?

• 1:29:48Speaker 03

  Flair Hogan for sure.

• 1:29:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:50Speaker 03

  And then as you just sort of articulated in a different way, the final two are tough. Cena deserves some sort of recognition. They were talking about a 20-year run.

• 1:29:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:00Speaker 03

  What Roman's done the last couple of years.

• 1:30:02Bill Simmons?

  Thinking, yeah, I mean, he's definitely in the conversation now.

• 1:30:06Speaker 03

  Tremendous. And then you think back, you know, Sam Martino was just before me, but you would read in Pro Wrestling Illustrated, oh, he held the championship for this period of time and superstar Billy Graham, you know, came along and this and that. But definitely Flair and Hogan. Um, I would put Austin somewhere around there just because of the impact he had. I think if I'm remembering correctly, he retired at like 39 with injury and, you know, all of those things rocked left early to go pursue a different career and was doing movies like The Tooth Fairy and

• 1:30:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  was in the Get Shorty sequel, you know, paid, played like a butler.

• 1:30:42Bill Simmons?

  Rock didn't have his extra five years when he was just kicking ass, like basically Hogan's late eighties. I think the two, the two biggest apexes were Hogan and Stone Cold.

• 1:30:51Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. That was tremendous.

• 1:30:54Bill Simmons?

  I'm not just saying that as like a WWE homer. I don't know, WCW never had anything like that.

• 1:30:59Speaker 03

  It's, um, and by the way, and Rock obviously went on to monumental success.

• 1:31:02Bill Simmons?

  No, but the Stone Cold, his, his feud with Hogan, I mean, with, uh, with, uh, Vince.

• 1:31:09Speaker 03

  Oh, it's incredible.

• 1:31:09Bill Simmons?

  When that really hit, it's like, there's been, there's nothing like that.

• 1:31:13Speaker 03

  It was can't.

• 1:31:14Bill Simmons?

  It rejuvenated the entire company.

• 1:31:15Speaker 03

  Can't miss TV. And you think about it, you had Austin, Hogan, Rock.

• 1:31:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:20Speaker 03

  Triple H, DX, Mick Foley, and oh yeah, you had Undertaker, Kane and all those other guys as well. Just an amazing, amazing bench that all hit at once.

• 1:31:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, the other thing with, with Hogan and Stone Cold, it's the only two times they shifted the actual popular culture. Right. Hogan definitely in the eighties and he's part of this whole patriotism boom that's like Sly Stallone and Schwarzenegger and like we're Russians are the bad guys and we're like big USA like he was right in the middle of that. And then Stone Cold, right as we tried to cover this in the Vin stock a little bit, right as something was shifting in America and people were just getting edgier in general. And he just felt like he was one of the people, him and DX, felt like they were at the forefront of something. NWO was like that too, but he was at the top of it of like, it's okay to be the anti-hero. When you think about like him as an anti-hero,

• 1:32:14Bill Simmons?

  which hadn't really happened in wrestling before. I mean, there are pieces of it in different guys, but nobody had been like, I'm gonna just own this and I would have been a heel 10 years ago, but now everyone's rooting for me. Then it moves into the Tony Soprano.

• 1:32:27Speaker 03

  I was just gonna say that.

• 1:32:28Bill Simmons?

  That's kind of what TD became in the 2000s. He was like the first one.

• 1:32:31Speaker 03

  He's the precursor. So when everyone says, well, Tony Soprano was the first anti-hero, you know, that you rooted for.

• 1:32:37Bill Simmons?

  No, it was 100% Stone Cold.

• 1:32:38Speaker 03

  Correct. It was Stone Cold. It shows you WWE was ahead of the game. And sometimes, you know, Paul, Leveque and I will sort of, you know, semi-joke like life is WWE, WWE is life. It's our product is great when it's reflective of the times, which you just articulated through Hogan and the Reagan, you know, era with Arnold and Sly and all that. And then in the Clinton era with the proliferation of cable news and information and what was going on in the White House at the time and the Jerry Springer show and this then people, there was more of a populist movement where people who hadn't had a voice before were starting to have a voice. And I think to your point DX and Stone Cold both reflected that nail the time.

• 1:33:21Bill Simmons?

  Do you feel like, like you could argue now there would be a moment to tap into that, but where the UFC is seems to be the one that's tapping into this, this side of the universe, right? You could see all the people that were at UFC the other night and it's, it's been this side that was one of the reasons Trump won the election again. But this, this whole movement basically against the far left, but wrestling has avoided it this time around.

• 1:33:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, wrestling's avoided, but it was interesting because two weeks after, two weeks, give or take, after the Netflix Raw Into a Dome premiere, you and I were both at the UFC fight at the Into a Dome in the heart of LA. You and me there and it's as many, you know, LA is probably as left as it gets at this moment in time.

• 1:34:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:07Speaker 03

  Place was sold out and remember the main event, you know, fell apart, you know, a couple of days beforehand, boom, Dane and the UFC moved quickly. They put in, you know, another opponent. No one asked for a refund, packed house.

• 1:34:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:19Speaker 03

  Huge crowd, huge gate. I think their product appeals to everybody, just like the WW product appeals to everybody. It just happens to be that the CEO of UFC is a close friend of the president.

• 1:34:31Bill Simmons?

  And UFC definitely has an attitude of, we don't judge. We don't judge over here in UFC. Come in. If you like, if you like watching people in the octagon, welcome aboard.

• 1:34:40Speaker 03

  But by the way, that's, that's how Los Angeles used to be.

• 1:34:43Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:34:43Speaker 03

  It used to be, if you've been married 10 times, don't worry about it. Move here.

• 1:34:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Like Jerry Buss. We don't, we don't, we don't judge. The Lakers owner does his own stuff. We don't care.

• 1:34:52Speaker 03

  Correct. Who was the, uh, the producer on Karate Kid, Weintraub?

• 1:34:56Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:34:57Speaker 03

  Who had like two wives or something like that?

• 1:34:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, we Simpson and Bruckheimer. There's like a million of.

• 1:35:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. But like, I think this guy in particular, there was an HBO documentary on him. He had like two wives at once.

• 1:35:07Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:35:08Speaker 03

  Not like, hey, get divorced and this thing. By the way, it was like, hey, that's your life.

• 1:35:12Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:35:12Speaker 03

  I don't, and I still feel that way.

• 1:35:14Bill Simmons?

  We don't judge.

• 1:35:14Speaker 03

  I still, I have nothing to do with that. You have nothing to do with me. Live your life.

• 1:35:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:19Speaker 03

  And somehow LA shifted, you know, a little bit outside of that. I think UFC stayed consistent. If you like our product, we want you. And that seems to be a good winning hand.

• 1:35:27Bill Simmons?

  All right. Quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you. So they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 1:36:10Bill Simmons?

  So TKO right now has UFC and WWE.

• 1:36:14Speaker 03

  And PBR and IMG. PBR is professional bull riding, IMG and on location.

• 1:36:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm just talking from combat standpoint, but you don't have the boxing piece yet. But then, I mean, the last time you were on the pod, we talked about this and this is your favorite sport. And it feels like

• 1:36:31Bill Simmons?

  just me knowing nothing from afar, it feels like there's a boxing opportunities slash momentum for something, for somebody to corral at least a big piece of it. And you talked about it last time. Are you any closer?

• 1:36:45Speaker 03

  Well, I think, I think you caught the announcement, you know, Dana, myself, our partners, Turkey, I'll shake to create a new boxing promotional company a couple of months ago.

• 1:36:59Bill Simmons?

  I, I did.

• 1:37:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:37:01Bill Simmons?

  But nothing, nothing's, nothing's happened with it yet. You could announce whatever, but you still need, like to me, it's like, okay, they're going to do this. That means they're going to acquire something, but you haven't acquired the something yet.

• 1:37:13Speaker 03

  No, nothing, nothing to be acquired. We're, we're going to grow it organically, but I'd look for, if we're, you know, mid April now, I'd look for a big announcement on that in the next four to six weeks as to what our first card's going to be and who's going to be on that.

• 1:37:25Bill Simmons?

  So this is all going to be one-off stuff, not like something that potentially has a chance to be UFC, WWE.

• 1:37:32Speaker 03

  No, we, we want it to be UFC and WWE like, but you'll, you'll see an announcement with more to come. I, I don't mean to intentionally be cryptic on the whole thing.

• 1:37:40Bill Simmons?

  It could be as cryptic as you want.

• 1:37:42Speaker 03

  But we, we have a plan. Now it's.

• 1:37:43Bill Simmons?

  Cause I saw the first thing and I'm like, all right, they're just, just kind of planting a flag, but nothing is actually happening. But now you're saying something's going to happen.

• 1:37:51Speaker 03

  That's, that, that's the thought. That's the hope. We'll see.

• 1:37:55Bill Simmons?

  What are the opportunities in boxing right now?

• 1:37:57Speaker 03

  I think, look, as.

• 1:37:59Bill Simmons?

  Other than cohesion.

• 1:38:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. It's been proven, you know, with the UFC, people like to see a good fight. They just have to know, as with the UFC, who the fighters are. It's same with WWE. If you get invested in the fighters in UFC, which they've done a phenomenal job of doing, UFC has. If you get invested in the wrestlers in WWE, more likely you tune in, more likely you show up. It's the same thing in boxing. If, you know, Max Kellerman, who you and I have both known for a long time. He used to say, if you pull up to a four-way stop sign, on one corner, a guy's putting a golf ball, the other guy's throwing a football. The other guy's shooting a basketball, and the other two guys are fighting. What are you gonna watch? You're gonna watch the two guys fighting. He said, but the problem with boxing is, you pull up to that same corner,

• 1:38:43Speaker 03

  and it's Tiger Woods in his prime putting the golf ball, and it's Jordan in his prime shooting the basketball, and it's Mahomes throwing the football, and it's two guys you've never heard of fighting, then it's a different choice. That's the issue with boxing. It's a series of one-off events, where as soon as the fight ends, it's Dana White says it often, uh, it's a going out of business sale. Let's charge you the most we can for one night, let's give you the least in return. No good undercard fights, no reason to sit in your seat, other than 10 minutes prior to the main event. And hey, if the main event's bad, then if you feel that we stole your money at home on pay-per-view, no big deal, that's on you. If you do it the opposite way of all of that, then you have a chance of actually building a product that has some sort of viability.

• 1:39:29Bill Simmons?

  The Saudis, I think, have shown a little bit of the blueprint, because the cards are better. And the card they had in, what was it, February, was awesome, even though they had, you know, one fight fallout last minute. They had to fly out of shape, Bakoli, my guy.

• 1:39:43Speaker 03

  Hey, you're sad Bakoli got knocked out.

• 1:39:46Bill Simmons?

  Bakoli got paid, he took one hit, and his trainer's like, we're done, and, uh, you know, we escaped.

• 1:39:52Speaker 03

  Now, here's the good thing about what Turkey is doing there. He's bringing Bakoli back.

• 1:39:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:56Speaker 03

  Right? That's what you should do. If you step in on a fight on short notice and you lose the fight, give the guy another chance. You don't have to be 30-0 for it to matter.

• 1:40:05Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, that's what we grew up with.

• 1:40:07Speaker 03

  Of course. Everyone fought everybody. You and I. I didn't know Marvin Hagler as the WBA middleweight champion. We knew him as the middleweight champion.

• 1:40:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:16Speaker 03

  And he fought Hearns and he fought Duran and he fought Leonard and he fought some of them again. And the best fought the best. It's the same with Ali, Foreman, Frazier.

• 1:40:25Bill Simmons?

  I think of somebody like Ken Norton, like he fought everybody.

• 1:40:28Speaker 03

  Everybody.

• 1:40:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:28Speaker 03

  And by the way.

• 1:40:29Bill Simmons?

  He fought Ali three times.

• 1:40:30Speaker 03

  Think, think about that. By the way, he also fought, um.

• 1:40:35Speaker 03

  It was Foreman Lyle and then Foreman Norton? Or was it Cooney Norton where Cooney destroyed Norton?

• 1:40:41Bill Simmons?

  That was the end of Dorn.

• 1:40:42Speaker 03

  That was the end of Norton.

• 1:40:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was, uh, like nineteen eighty range.

• 1:40:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, and those are all heavyweights, obviously. Not, not the Hagler group, but the other group we're talking about. Like, just have the best, fight the best. It's that simple. It's what the Saudis have done. It's what the UFC and Dana White have done. If it can be replicated in boxing, hey, you have a winning hand.

• 1:41:01Bill Simmons?

  That sounds pretty enticing. How has Netflix changed your business?

• 1:41:06Speaker 03

  Well, the one.

• 1:41:07Bill Simmons?

  Scope of it.

• 1:41:08Speaker 03

  Number one, their default is yes on anything that you ask for. It's, yeah, sure, we'll get on it right away. Uh, I, I always say this about the executives I like the most. I don't have any of their office numbers. You, you call them cell to cell. It's sort of like with you. I call you, hey, I'll call you right back or give me an hour.

• 1:41:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:26Speaker 03

  Pick up and you know, we have the conversation. Do you even have an office number?

• 1:41:29Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:41:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, same. I, I don't have one. So they're phenomenal. It's also their, their power, their brand. And I know this is gonna sound really naive. I didn't realize globally that it's the same interface that it is at home. So you know, sometimes if you travel internationally, you're like, where do I find the NBA game?

• 1:41:46Bill Simmons?

  And.

• 1:41:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. You're looking and you can't find it. It's the same avatar that you have at home and your kid's avatar. And your wife's avatar and you click into it and it shows you, hey, here's where you paused and watching all the other things. It's the same exact interface. So I like the user accessibility. We certainly love three hundred million plus subscribers.

• 1:42:05Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:42:05Speaker 03

  That's just households, by the way. So assume that's seven hundred million plus people. And you've seen our international ratings go through the roof in a number of different countries because again, easily accessible.

• 1:42:17Bill Simmons?

  Were you surprised that you, it seems like every week you're trending as like the number one TV show for thirty six hours?

• 1:42:25Speaker 03

  I'm always pleasantly surprised by that.

• 1:42:26Bill Simmons?

  I was surprised by that.

• 1:42:27Speaker 03

  Here's why I say that. I feel like in anything in your business and our business, like the clock resets at midnight for a reason. You know, no matter how good or how bad the day was, the day's over.

• 1:42:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:38Speaker 03

  And you have to go and replicate it again and try to build something even bigger the next week or the next show. It's the same for you in what you do, same for us. So, you know, we're proud of that, but every week we're sort of anxious to make sure that it stays that way.

• 1:42:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think talking to the Netflix people, I think the pleasant surprise for them was people watching it, like the people in Europe waking up. Sometimes it's coming on their sleep, but waking up and watching them getting these pockets of viewership from when either people woke up or pockets of viewership from people they didn't expect would get up early to watch it or stay up late. And just watching how the different parts of the world interacted with it. Um, I know that there's some, some areas that they were probably hoping maybe you had a star that you could develop that would be exciting for that specific area.

• 1:43:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, look, it's part of our recruiting for the last year or so. It's, you know, you can't just pipe out American content globally and internationally. So, you know, if you look at Axiom, who's on the NXT roster, he's a Spaniard born in Spain.

• 1:43:46Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 1:43:47Speaker 03

  When he showed up at our show in Barcelona unexpectedly, two, three, four weeks ago, whatever it was, crowd went crazy. People like their own and that's good. Even if you look at the collaboration we're doing with TNA and Joe Hendry, he shows up at our Glasgow show. People loves that. Obviously Drew McIntyre, main roster for us on the Glasgow show. People love that. So it's the, the, the unique aspect about WWE is for our talent, it's as much about marketability as it is ability.

• 1:44:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:18Speaker 03

  If you can, if you're marketable and you have charisma and you have the it factor, we can sort of help with the rest. And then yes, every so often you'll get someone who has both John Cena, Roman Reigns.

• 1:44:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, there's a line you don't want to cross and which has been crossed a couple of times. It was like, we really want to get this part of the world going and watch this. And then if the person doesn't have. The chops gets a little dicey.

• 1:44:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, look, the, the, the height of what can work. And this is the obvious one. When you had Bret Hart and Owen, rest in peace, and the faction with British Bulldog and all of that. And you would see even like the Montreal Screw Job, if you will, like that was in Canada.

• 1:44:57Bill Simmons?

  It's unbelievable.

• 1:44:58Speaker 03

  That that happened.

• 1:44:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:59Speaker 03

  Unbelievable where Brett was and is a hero. And at that time, even if he was sort of perceived as the heel in the United States, you know, hey, I look down on what wrestling has become, which was all part of his character. You know, at that exact moment in that exact city, just phenomenal, phenomenal content.

• 1:45:17Bill Simmons?

  So if you were going to create stars from scratch, you could pick any part of the world. I would assume India and Brazil would be

• 1:45:25Speaker 03

  Top.

• 1:45:25Bill Simmons?

  Two big ones.

• 1:45:26Speaker 03

  Throw Mexico in there.

• 1:45:27Bill Simmons?

  And Mexico.

• 1:45:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:28Bill Simmons?

  Those would be your three.

• 1:45:29Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 1:45:30Bill Simmons?

  So anyone listening from those countries.

• 1:45:32Speaker 03

  Email Bill.

• 1:45:32Bill Simmons?

  Get your shit together.

• 1:45:33Speaker 03

  Hit Bill on Instagram or Twitter, whatever it is, since I'm not on any of those platforms and send your audition tape to him and he'll.

• 1:45:40Bill Simmons?

  Really start smart. Stay off social media, not great.

• 1:45:43Speaker 03

  Better.

• 1:45:44Bill Simmons?

  What are any other big predictions for the year for WWE?

• 1:45:48Speaker 03

  So our deal with Peacock is coming up in 11 months. They've been phenomenal partners. Again, WWE, as you know, was on our, what were called pay-per-views became premium live events. They were on WWE Network until 2020, when we did the deal with Peacock.

• 1:46:04Bill Simmons?

  And they have a bunch of your library.

• 1:46:05Speaker 03

  A bunch. They've outperformed our expectations. We'd like to think we've outperformed their expectations and now we'll sit down together and see if there's business to be done moving forward.

• 1:46:17Bill Simmons?

  Is it better to even have stuff on a streamer like that versus like, how do you, your YouTube, you guys were one of the first people to blow out a YouTube presence and now you have what 15 years of. YouTube videos at this point, one of the biggest channels anyone has, like, is it just sometimes you think the way YouTube has grown and skyrocketed, does it just make more sense to double down on that?

• 1:46:40Speaker 03

  Well, look, we love YouTube. We have 110 million subscribers.

• 1:46:44Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:46:45Speaker 03

  10th most subscribed to YouTube channel. That's not sports channel.

• 1:46:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:48Speaker 03

  That's channel. So you have, you know, ahead of it, you know, Cocohellen, Mr. Beast, some Indian music channels, but nothing sports oriented. So we're number 10 there, which is phenomenal. We're also on CW, which is a broadcast network. We're also on USA Basic Cable in the United States. We're on Netflix streaming globally. We're on Peacock streaming domestically. We want our product to be available to everyone, everywhere, depending on how they like to receive it.

• 1:47:16Bill Simmons?

  Isn't that funny how different that is when, like, when they launched the network, what was that, 10 years ago?

• 1:47:22Speaker 03

  It was in 2014. Yeah, 11 years ago.

• 1:47:24Bill Simmons?

  I think that was when I did the pod with Triple H, right around there. And it was, it was the right move at the right time to do that. And it was like, we're gonna go on demand. We'll own our rights. People will pay for this. We'll be able to, but we'll make more from it this way. Now the mindset is completely different. We want as many people to see our stuff as humanly possible. And we want to be tied to platforms where anyone can see our stuff.

• 1:47:50Speaker 03

  Totally. Look at it. First of all, in 2014, when WWE went to WWE Network, which, just so we're clear, obviously I had nothing to do with.

• 1:47:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you were.

• 1:47:58Speaker 03

  And that was, you know, brilliant, brilliant decision. The biggest scam that I've ever seen in television was the fee that in-demand Dish and Direct would take for pay-per-view. So just to plug you in, anywhere from 30 to 60% of a WWE event, of a boxing event, of UFC at that time. And then WWE got out of that business. And UFC got out of that business and took it exclusively.

• 1:48:23Bill Simmons?

  It was an all-time big. Maybe the biggest vig ever. Now, Apple probably leads the way with vigs where they get 30% on apps.

• 1:48:31Speaker 03

  Thirty percent on apps.

• 1:48:32Bill Simmons?

  The number one big person.

• 1:48:33Speaker 03

  These guys were taking a vigorish of 50 to 60%.

• 1:48:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, at least.

• 1:48:37Speaker 03

  And in demand was all the cable companies together. It was like a legal consortium.

• 1:48:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43Speaker 03

  That would just come down on you. And if you said, no, I don't want to do it at that fee, great.

• 1:48:47Bill Simmons?

  What were you gonna do? Then you wouldn't be able to show what you wanted.

• 1:48:50Speaker 03

  Totally. So streaming also fixed that. And it got you out of the volatility of, well, what pay-per-view numbers are we gonna do this weekend? What are we gonna do this weekend? What are we gonna do this weekend? So you knew with consistent subscribership, you could actually plan for a publicly traded company on what, you know, financials would be coming in.

• 1:49:07Bill Simmons?

  I want to talk about the TV business in one second, but um, do you feel like you have a rival? Cause like two years ago, could make the case. Last year it seemed like no, now it just seems like you guys are all powerful again. And AW is not a rival in the same way. It's their kind of moment. Just, I have no dog in the race. I don't really care. But it's just from a, from afar, it seems like their moment came and gone and they're like just firmly number two now.

• 1:49:35Speaker 03

  Well, look, we're, we're always the underdog at WWE. We, we always feel that people underestimate us, that we're looked down upon. And we like it that way. Like, bet against us. We, we prefer that. And allow us to show you what we can do.

• 1:49:49Bill Simmons?

  Short our stock. Go ahead.

• 1:49:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't know about that one.

• 1:49:53Bill Simmons?

  You can literally do it. Go ahead. Bet against us.

• 1:49:56Speaker 03

  Bet against us. You know, if, if you look at the stock price now, um, it's far in excess of what it was when we all started together five years ago.

• 1:50:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:05Speaker 03

  And, you know, we're quite proud of that. And at the same time, we gotta keep, you know, re-earning our keep on a daily basis here. So we feel like it's a good moment, but we still feel like there's a lot of room for growth in terms of the other wrestling promotional company. Uh, they have a lot of talented wrestlers, uh, and we're happy about that. When contractually, you know, they're available to be, you know, talked to and have conversations with, assume a number of them will come over. And, uh, nothing but respect for the father who.

• 1:50:34Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that was way too nice.

• 1:50:35Speaker 03

  Finances it and owns the Jaguars and all those other things.

• 1:50:39Bill Simmons?

  That was very pleasant. Look at you.

• 1:50:41Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:50:42Bill Simmons?

  So magnanimous.

• 1:50:42Speaker 03

  I'm 50 now, so different than we were, much younger. Yes.

• 1:50:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, your biggest issue is sometimes you don't want too much talent because you only have so many spots to put people and you end up just kind of wasting people.

• 1:50:53Speaker 03

  Look, that's something we won't do.

• 1:50:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:56Speaker 03

  We won't sign.

• 1:50:56Bill Simmons?

  I think that happened in the past, though. Maybe before you.

• 1:50:59Speaker 03

  Perhaps, but we won't sign and bench people. You know, we sign people who we want to use.

• 1:51:04Bill Simmons?

  I'm not saying bench people, but you sign somebody and then within a couple of weeks, you know, they're barely being used because you have too many people.

• 1:51:12Speaker 03

  I was saying if another entity signs and benches people now, like that's not something we would do.

• 1:51:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh, because that is a thing that happens.

• 1:51:18Speaker 03

  That's, that's what I've been told from time to time. Not us.

• 1:51:22Bill Simmons?

  Not awesome.

• 1:51:24Bill Simmons?

  From a TV standpoint, you're one of the world's most astute media watchers. And we always end up talking about ESPN when we do this stuff, but since the last time we talked, Netflix is in sports in a huge way, as you personally know. Amazon's in. We had this whole basketball deal shake out and it feels like everything is moving toward streaming stuff.

• 1:51:48Bill Simmons?

  And the networks are kind of holding on for dear life and overpaying to keep, keep up the fight, most notably ESPN, which I think has had a really rocky couple of years. And for what they paid with basketball especially, there's probably going to be some repercussions with that in other parts. And it seems like they've moved behind like big talent contracts, a couple of big write fees, and then try to cut costs elsewhere, almost like a movie where you're like, we want to get our four guys for the poster and we'll get a really good director, but maybe we can save money over here. What do you see the future of, of the networks that you used to work with?

• 1:52:25Speaker 03

  I think, look, you know, Netflix was saying years ago, we're not going to get in sports. We're not going to get in live. And I think anyone who was following it, who had a reasonable point of view, knew that was just a temporary position. And obviously Netflix knew that. They went in with the unscripted shows, the after shows live. They went in with the Chris Rock comedy special, you know, live. And I think they saw the power of it, so much so that when Gabe Spitzer got hired to run sports, I don't know that they had any sports rights. And all of a sudden they wake up with the Mike Tyson fight and WWE and NFL games and their own hot dog eating contest. And hey, more and more is coming. Uh, and that's my understanding. So immediately overnight, they become an impact player.

• 1:53:10Speaker 03

  I thought they did a phenomenal job with even with the halftime show for the two NFL games. They go all in. Uh, it's one of their superpowers.

• 1:53:18Bill Simmons?

  And Amazon does the same.

• 1:53:20Speaker 03

  Totally. And you saw Amazon again, this sort of a tease. Amazon went into tennis in the UK and parts of Europe early.

• 1:53:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:27Speaker 03

  Let's see if we can do it. Let's see what it looks like. And then boom, hey, we're going all in with the NFL. And then boom, the big NBA deal. So you're seeing, you know, the power of live, you know, the power of sports. You know, you're at the top of the heap in the media business in terms of your knowledge about all of that. What about, what happens when more folks get into it? You saw YouTube with their Sunday ticket, you know, deal. So I think for the traditional buyers, they need to have run smart businesses. At the same time, they have to be competitive. And they can't expect that, hey, you know, years of doing it one way. They, well, this is how we've always done it. As you said earlier, you know, here today. So we've always done it. Why would we do it any differently?

• 1:54:09Speaker 03

  If the universe has changed, you better change with it. If not, you're going to be left behind. So we'll see who gets left behind.

• 1:54:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, they, they missed on UFC for a while and then belatedly got into it and that's been okay. Although those rights are coming up, right?

• 1:54:22Speaker 03

  Well, think about it. HBO Sports years ago.

• 1:54:25Bill Simmons?

  That's the biggest miss. Yeah.

• 1:54:27Speaker 03

  Ari Emanuel set up a meeting for Dana White and the UFC with HBO Sports when HBO Boxing was still booming. And for whatever reason, I think it was ultimately the UFC's decision not to go there. UFC, it was HBO wanted to produce the events. Dana wanted to make sure he controlled his own production. The deal didn't make. And you've seen what the UFC has gone on to do. HBO Sports doesn't exist anymore. So at one point, as you know, they had Wimbledon years ago, and I think other tennis tournaments, then the Kings of Boxing.

• 1:54:59Bill Simmons?

  Hard Knocks documentaries. They had a foothold of something.

• 1:55:03Speaker 03

  Correct. And then I think they sort of got comfortable. And by the way, if you ask the folks at the NFL, some of the folks at the NFL right now, what's your biggest concern? They'll quietly tell you to make sure that we never think like Major League Baseball thought in the seventies, which is, hey, we're the number one sport.

• 1:55:18Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:55:20Speaker 03

  Lucky us. It's sort of what do we keep needing? What do we have to do to make sure that we stay number one? And like you said, hey, there's an 18th game coming and hey, let's take the combine out of Indianapolis and hey, in Philly for the first time, six, seven, eight years ago, whatever it was, let's take the draft on the road and let's monetize that. Everything they do is constantly evolving that product. I think it's the same thing with the UFC and their business model. I hope that WWE is perceived in the same light. Sometimes if we get it wrong, Triple H and I talk, or Lee Fitting, or Chris LaGentile, other senior executives at WWE, it'll start with, hey, I think we fucked this thing up. It'll be one of us saying that.

• 1:56:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:01Speaker 03

  And then, okay, how do we fix it moving forward? And the most important thing is to identify the problem and realize you have a problem. If you're trying to avoid it, or you're trying to say it's someone else's problem. By the way, much like the last presidential election, and you and I are not overtly political, but what I saw was one person saying, I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna look out for you. And another party saying, don't vote for this guy.

• 1:56:25Bill Simmons?

  Right. And with no message at all.

• 1:56:27Speaker 03

  I've just never seen that work.

• 1:56:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:28Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't believe-

• 1:56:29Bill Simmons?

  Vote for, vote for us because you can't vote for him.

• 1:56:32Speaker 03

  Absurd. Like, how, how do you make that decision? You and Running the Ringer, when you bring talent over here, it's let me tell you what we can do together. It's the same thing at WWE. It's not, don't go with the other guys. That, maybe it works on one or two deals, but it doesn't work long term. You gotta figure out that problem is and change the messaging.

• 1:56:52Bill Simmons?

  What is ESPN five years from now?

• 1:56:55Speaker 03

  Look, I think it still continues to exist in a meaningful way. The sub-loss has obviously hit them hard, but I think they've actually made some good moves with a lower subscription audience. So as you said, they fixed their NFL talent issue. They fixed their NFL relationship. At least that's my perception.

• 1:57:16Bill Simmons?

  I think, I, I would agree with that.

• 1:57:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and look, they went in on retaining their NBA rights, the finals being quite meaningful to them. They don't have their first Super Bowl if I might-

• 1:57:27Bill Simmons?

  A lot of college football.

• 1:57:28Speaker 03

  A lot of college football, right? They went all in on the S E C. They went all in on the playoff and the championship. They went all in on certain talent as you just articulated. And hey, it's sort of reflective of the U. S. Economy, if you will, relatively speaking. The middle class there got squeezed.

• 1:57:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:45Speaker 03

  The people making a lot of money made more money. And hey, if you want to make, you know, entry level money, there'll be a spot for you. Again, relatively speaking, reflective of the U. S. Economy.

• 1:57:55Bill Simmons?

  It's a weird one because I think that thing that's changed from

• 1:58:00Bill Simmons?

  maybe fifteen years ago was the sense of like, we also want to do great stuff. Like there was a bar for

• 1:58:09Bill Simmons?

  we at least a couple of times a year want to be looked at as as a place that did an awesome thing. Or like, you know, inspired somebody in some way or did some piece of content that could really impact people. And I don't know if they still feel that way.

• 1:58:25Speaker 03

  Look, I think as soon as budgets shrink, those tend to be the first things to go.

• 1:58:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, well, I think they've just kind of

• 1:58:34Bill Simmons?

  we're showing games. We got games and highlights and that's kind of what we are for the most part. And, you know, they'll still do some other stuff, but maybe maybe when to have ambition like that when you have a company in the size of that, I think maybe it's too hard to juggle everything.

• 1:58:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it could be that, or it could simply be, you know, hey, we had a hundred million subs at one point. What is it now fifty four or fifty five?

• 1:58:56Bill Simmons?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 1:58:57Speaker 03

  It's crazy, but as soon as the bundle went away and people actually, you know, had a choice in terms of what they could subscribe to. I don't think it's a reflection on ESPN. I think it's it was bundled in and people sort of had to have it. And when they didn't have to have it, the people who still wanted it kept it. So if you're dealing with smaller numbers, those then tend to be the things that go first. If you have, you know, a surplus year, you got to be careful because next year may not be as good. For this WrestleMania coming up, coming off of the success of WrestleMania Philly, twenty twenty four. We have W. W. E. World, a partnership with Fanatics. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, all day event. The two night WrestleMania, which we talked about already.

• 1:59:41Speaker 03

  We have SmackDown on Friday. We have Raw on Monday. We have the Hall of Fame standalone show Friday night after SmackDown. We have the Undertaker one dead man show. It's sort of one man show, if you will.

• 1:59:53Bill Simmons?

  Jesus.

• 1:59:53Speaker 03

  Right after WrestleMania Saturday. And then we have Tony Hinchcliffe roast of WrestleMania.

• 1:59:59Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:00:00Speaker 03

  After WrestleMania Sunday. And then, by the way, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, we also have an after party with our partners, Medium Rare at the Fountain Blue. You'll see WWE stars there. You'll see other celebrities there. It's all day, all night. That's coming off of the success. We think all of these will be successful. All indicators are they're going to be hopefully phenomenally successful. And then next year, we got to go build something bigger. That's just the way it is.

• 2:00:25Bill Simmons?

  So you think for ESPN, it's the grind of, you know, where Amazon and Netflix can just parachute in and out of stuff that they want. Look, ESPN has a 365 day responsibility still at this point to have stuff. And I think they have way more competitors than they used to. I remember when FS1 got theirs, you know, 2013 and like, here comes FS1. And ESPN's attitude was like, how dare you? We're going to, and I felt the same way. I was like, we're going to crush these guys. Come get us. Now there's, you know, seven, eight different people with real money coming at you. And it's, it's really hard to stay on top.

• 2:01:03Speaker 03

  Look, I remember the FS1 thing. ESPN was so dominant.

• 2:01:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, you remember the FS1 thing because you made a lot of money just parlaying the two networks.

• 2:01:13Speaker 03

  Those are the clients.

• 2:01:13Bill Simmons?

  For a lot of people.

• 2:01:14Speaker 03

  Those are the clients who made a lot of money.

• 2:01:15Bill Simmons?

  You remember that as the heyday.

• 2:01:16Speaker 03

  Those are the clients who made a lot of money.

• 2:01:17Bill Simmons?

  Nick Khan, the greatest year in Nick Khan's life. So, oh, you're like at a school auction, getting the two drunk parents bidding, do I, do I hear 20K for the trip to Mexico? 22.

• 2:01:30Speaker 03

  Listen, I was just right place, right time. What can I say? But ESPN was so dominant that it was, okay, we're going to keep our 11 o'clock Sports Center and we're going to bring back Keith Olbermann to put him on ESPN2 to make sure just in case you're thinking of, eh, I don't want to watch SportsCenter. We have something else to offer for you. And oh yeah, we got Grandland programming and what was the name of your, your unsanctioned NBA show? The Great Basketball Show?

• 2:01:55Bill Simmons?

  The Grandland Basketball Show.

• 2:01:56Speaker 03

  The Grandland Basketball Show.

• 2:01:57Bill Simmons?

  We did 10.

• 2:01:58Speaker 03

  Right. So it was like even unsanctioned, we're going to have, you know, high end content here. And again, that. I would say the first 50, 30 for 30s, if you will, like amazing, shockingly, like just the quality off the charts. And then over time, like there are only so many-

• 2:02:16Bill Simmons?

  We had some stinkers, to be fair.

• 2:02:17Speaker 03

  Early on?

• 2:02:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, I was, I'm so happy everyone remembers them all finally.

• 2:02:24Speaker 03

  Maybe the, maybe the Colts one wasn't as good as-

• 2:02:27Bill Simmons?

  No, I wasn't gonna name names. I'm just saying.

• 2:02:30Speaker 03

  I thought you winked at me and said, let's name names.

• 2:02:32Bill Simmons?

  It's like anything else. As the years pass, people remember the best 10 or 12 and think-

• 2:02:37Speaker 03

  How about when you had to spike the Marion Jones one? No one talks about that.

• 2:02:41Bill Simmons?

  Oh, there you go. Um, yeah, I don't know. Well, so the WB, all that stuff, any predictions?

• 2:02:48Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 2:02:49Bill Simmons?

  Any predictions for anything?

• 2:02:50Speaker 03

  What do you mean the WB?

• 2:02:51Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. You always have the Warner Brothers, like everything that they're trying to like work around the fringes now with, uh, they didn't get NBA, but now they're, I can't tell. There was a big piece about them this week.

• 2:03:03Speaker 03

  Yes, I read it. I read it.

• 2:03:06Bill Simmons?

  Which is weird. It was one of those, I have a lot of information going in all these different directions and the reader is just gonna have to figure out what to make of this. But the, the basic premise was Warner Brothers stuck between these two worlds, this world that used to exist and this world that's about to happen, kind of feeling like that maybe is a strategy. Thought that was pretty interesting.

• 2:03:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I think-

• 2:03:28Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if I agreed with it.

• 2:03:30Speaker 03

  I think like any company, you know, maybe they made a couple of mistakes, you know, here and there. Um, but I think they now see that. And if they can figure out, okay, what's the programming to build, bring in post NBA? That it's tough, right? When there's so many mouths to feed. TNT, TBS, Max, HBO, oh, True TV, oh, this, oh, that. Like, it's a lot.

• 2:03:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:52Speaker 03

  And those are still generating revenue. So you think to yourself-

• 2:03:55Bill Simmons?

  Which one is Dr. Pimple Popper on? I can't remember.

• 2:03:57Speaker 03

  Dr. Pimple Popper, I don't remember which one that was.

• 2:03:59Bill Simmons?

  It's one of those.

• 2:04:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, but I still have DirecTV, so I see it on the grid, you know.

• 2:04:05Bill Simmons?

  You still have DirecTV?

• 2:04:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:07Bill Simmons?

  Who do you call when something goes wrong?

• 2:04:08Speaker 03

  It's brutal.

• 2:04:09Bill Simmons?

  Do they even have people working?

• 2:04:10Speaker 03

  Listen, it's brutal. I tried to order the Terrence Crawford, Errol Spence boxing match off of DirecTV. They said I was at my pay-per-view limit. I called someone, spoke to someone overseas. I said, what are you talking about pay-per-view limit?

• 2:04:23Bill Simmons?

  How is there a limit? I just want to spend money on your service.

• 2:04:27Speaker 03

  Am I up to date on my bill? Yes. Then how is there a limit? And what am I ordering on pay-per-view that would put me past that limit? There's no UFC on DirecTV pay-per-view. There's no WWE. It's a mess, but I still have it.

• 2:04:38Bill Simmons?

  That's one.

• 2:04:39Speaker 03

  And YouTube TV and Apple TV.

• 2:04:40Bill Simmons?

  I can't wait to explain DirecTV to my great-grandkids 50 years from now. Yeah, so they used to come in, they would put a dish on top of our house. They would give us a receiver. If you canceled DirecTV, you would have to mail the receiver back or it would cost you $500. You couldn't, nobody would answer if there was an issue. I can't wait to.

• 2:05:00Speaker 03

  Bill, how about this part of it?

• 2:05:01Bill Simmons?

  It's a documentary.

• 2:05:02Speaker 03

  So we, we connected on me coming on your podcast.

• 2:05:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:05Speaker 03

  What if you said to me, um, show up somewhere between 8 a.m. and noon and, uh, you know, hopefully I'll be there, which is what the cable companies and DirecTV said. They'd give you this window.

• 2:05:17Bill Simmons?

  Eight at noon? How about like eight to three?

• 2:05:19Speaker 03

  Right. And at 11:59, you'd call and be like, hey, my guy hasn't shown up yet. Like, what's going? Oh, we're so sorry. We have to reschedule for 10 days from now. You wouldn't allow your doctor to do that? You wouldn't allow your accountant to do that?

• 2:05:30Bill Simmons?

  Can I just put you on hold for one second, sir?

• 2:05:32Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 2:05:32Bill Simmons?

  Please don't. No!

• 2:05:34Speaker 03

  Please, no.

• 2:05:34Bill Simmons?

  Don't put me on hold.

• 2:05:35Speaker 03

  How about when they'd hang up on you after a while?

• 2:05:37Bill Simmons?

  And then you're just started, started the process over again.

• 2:05:40Speaker 03

  Start the process over.

• 2:05:40Bill Simmons?

  One of the happiest days of my life was, was moving to streamer stuff full-time and not having DirecTV.

• 2:05:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, by the way, again, like the in-demand dish direct vig that we were talking about. Too much hubris, too much arrogance with their product.

• 2:05:55Bill Simmons?

  Cause they have football. They felt like they could do anything they wanted.

• 2:05:58Speaker 03

  Correct. Instead of, by the way, as you know, it was a big brag in like 2000, 2001. If you had DirecTV, you were like, you were the guy.

• 2:06:07Bill Simmons?

  It was like one of the first things I ever splurged on.

• 2:06:09Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 2:06:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:10Speaker 03

  I don't have cable. I got satellite.

• 2:06:12Bill Simmons?

  I can get all the football games and then I get all the basketball games.

• 2:06:16Speaker 03

  And they took full advantage of the consumer, as did the cable companies, the traditional cable companies. We'll be there between eight and noon. We'll be there between noon and five. Like it was a joke. The whole thing was a joke. And then, hey, someone came along with a better product and, you know, ate part of their lunch.

• 2:06:32Bill Simmons?

  Who buys, who becomes the next, uh, Iger successor? Who takes over? Who's your money on?

• 2:06:39Speaker 03

  I would say 60% chance insider, 40% chance outsider. So I'm a little more.

• 2:06:44Bill Simmons?

  Interesting. Cause they have the four, it's really three candidates coming from inside. Matt Bellany wrote a really good piece for Puck, our guy Matt.

• 2:06:52Speaker 03

  I read it.

• 2:06:53Bill Simmons?

  About, uh.

• 2:06:54Speaker 03

  Also very rich like you now, Matt.

• 2:06:55Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he's loaded. It's crazy. He's, he's on TV shows now. He's doing great.

• 2:07:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. He's a scripted actor now.

• 2:07:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. He's on the studio.

• 2:07:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:03Bill Simmons?

  But he had a whole piece about, could Disney go after Serendos? Which A, I was really jealous of. Great idea. I, I don't know how I, I'm just so mad that I didn't come up with that. B, really interesting idea. Like if you're going to do an outsider, why not do like a Maverick outsider? And, and one of the things I was wondering was like, would Iger even want that? Would you want your successor to be somebody who would actually be a little more cutting edge? Maybe than you are, and maybe somebody that could reinvent some things and modernize your company in some different ways. I don't know. I, I thought that was fascinating. And then if you're Serendos. Would you want to do that? Are you already in the Disney of now? Do you even need to leave Netflix?

• 2:07:46Speaker 03

  Well, think about his career arc. You remember when they split, what was it Netflix and Quickster?

• 2:07:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Quickster almost ended his career.

• 2:07:53Speaker 03

  Almost ended his career, but then quickly they realized, like we were talking about, no, we made a mistake here. We better change this and we better shut that down and we better hyper focus on the fact that people aren't going to be really renting DVDs for that much longer.

• 2:08:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:08Speaker 03

  And they nailed it. And then early on, okay, let's put on the Kevin Spacey show and Orange is the New Black. Let's cater towards, you know, the critics, if you will. Sarandos came out and said, we need to be HBO before HBO becomes us. Which he corrected six, nine months ago in the New York Times Q and A, where he said, what I should have said was, we need to become HBO, CBS, the BBC, and all of these other things before they all become us. And to his credit and Netflix's credit, they did do that. Right? There's something for everybody there globally, not just domestically. So when you turn it on, you're like another Menendez Brothers documentary, like, yeah, people watch it.

• 2:08:49Speaker 03

  They also realize like, I've always thought a lot of people lie about their taste in things. That even if it's anonymous polling, people lie. I think to me that the first sign I saw, you remember like in the late nineties, early two thousands, the radio ratings were done off writing it down in a notebook, what you listened to.

• 2:09:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:09Speaker 03

  So you'd see classical music on FM radio, smart talk on FM radio. And as soon as the rating metric shifted to the PPM, the portable people meters, and they could actually tell what people were listening to, no one was listening to classical music. No one was listening to smart talk. But when you're put on the spot of like, hey, Bill, do you like smart talk? What are you supposed to say? No, I like dumb talk.

• 2:09:31Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:09:32Speaker 03

  But oh yeah, of course I like smart. Do you like classical music? Yeah, I love classical music. Netflix realizes like, people like all kinds of programming. I think Bravo realized it years ago also with the Housewives franchise.

• 2:09:43Bill Simmons?

  MTV realized, yeah, a couple, a couple ones got it.

• 2:09:46Speaker 03

  But by the way, think about Jersey Shore, its first season.

• 2:09:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:48Speaker 03

  Like people not in LA, LA, you could always say what you're watching. There's no such thing to me as a guilty pleasure. If you like something, like it. But in other parts of the country where that kind of program was looked down upon, people be like, oh yeah, I watched Jersey Shore. I just don't admit it. In LA, you admit it. It was great TV.

• 2:10:05Bill Simmons?

  Listen, algorithms don't lie.

• 2:10:07Speaker 03

  They don't lie.

• 2:10:08Bill Simmons?

  Algorithms are a window into your soul. It's like, do you like true crime documentaries where somebody got kidnapped and they couldn't find the killer for three episodes? I do.

• 2:10:17Speaker 03

  But by the way, think about.

• 2:10:18Bill Simmons?

  You're gonna love this Gabby Petito doc.

• 2:10:20Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 2:10:21Bill Simmons?

  She's a blogger and she disappeared and her boyfriend might have done it. Great. I'm in.

• 2:10:24Speaker 03

  I'm in. How about Netflix did another OJ documentary?

• 2:10:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're just running back. I'm ready for Bundy again. They haven't done Bundy for five years.

• 2:10:32Speaker 03

  They gotta come back.

• 2:10:33Bill Simmons?

  Reimbed Bundy as a sitcom.

• 2:10:35Speaker 03

  So by the way, how about the Dahmer scripted series?

• 2:10:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're back.

• 2:10:38Speaker 03

  Tough to watch on an airplane.

• 2:10:40Bill Simmons?

  Manson.

• 2:10:41Speaker 03

  Tough to watch Dahmer on an airplane, the hooking up with the mannequin thing.

• 2:10:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I'm, I think I'm good with Dahmer for a while. Manson, I was like, I gave it a, you know, I like Manson stuff.

• 2:10:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:10:52Bill Simmons?

  Um, but it was one of those. It was like, all right. I don't know if, how much I learned from that, but yeah, they're rerunning the hits now.

• 2:10:59Speaker 03

  Did you like the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Manson storyline in that movie?

• 2:11:03Bill Simmons?

  That movie. So yeah, yeah.

• 2:11:05Speaker 03

  Love. I feel like people like, didn't love it the way I thought they should have loved it.

• 2:11:09Bill Simmons?

  Happened. I was just talking with fantasy and Chris about this. Covid happened. It came out. It had its whole run through 2019. We, we were at Sundance. We did a live, uh, we did a live rewatchables of that movie. Maybe beginning of February.

• 2:11:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:11:28Bill Simmons?

  And then it was about to have this whole run with the Oscars and, and, um, all the way through and it just would have moved it. And then Covid happened. And Covid messed everything up.

• 2:11:40Speaker 03

  That really did.

• 2:11:40Bill Simmons?

  Like convert, just people didn't have the same conversations about anything. So I always felt like that was weird because it's, it has been five plus years since that movie came out.

• 2:11:50Speaker 03

  Phenomenal.

• 2:11:50Bill Simmons?

  Now they're making a sequel.

• 2:11:52Speaker 03

  I just read that the other day. That's.

• 2:11:53Bill Simmons?

  Fincher is gonna direct.

• 2:11:54Speaker 03

  Pretty new, right? Yeah.

• 2:11:55Bill Simmons?

  Tarantino written movie.

• 2:11:58Speaker 03

  When was the last time he wrote a movie that he didn't direct? True Romance or something after that?

• 2:12:04Bill Simmons?

  There's probably something since then. Yeah. It's, it's pretty rare.

• 2:12:07Speaker 03

  I just watched True Romance with our 13 year old daughter for the first time.

• 2:12:11Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 2:12:12Speaker 03

  The couple.

• 2:12:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. That's one you have to really know the movie and fast forward.

• 2:12:16Speaker 03

  The early Gary Oldman stuff, you gotta skip a little bit, but after that, even the Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper scene, you can watch it.

• 2:12:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:24Speaker 03

  With your kids. It's no problem.

• 2:12:25Bill Simmons?

  Bathroom bra with Tony Soprano and Patricia Arquette is pretty brutal.

• 2:12:28Speaker 03

  Pretty brutal.

• 2:12:29Bill Simmons?

  It's a great movie though.

• 2:12:30Speaker 03

  Amazing. Amazing casting.

• 2:12:31Bill Simmons?

  All right. Thing you're most excited about for WrestleMania this weekend, if you had to pick one thing?

• 2:12:36Speaker 03

  What's gonna happen in Cena, Cody? Where does that go?

• 2:12:40Bill Simmons?

  You think that's the number one? I haven't watched wrestling all year, but this is the one thing I should care about storyline?

• 2:12:46Speaker 03

  I think it's very close with Roman Punk and Seth. Because with Roman Punk and Seth, there's an argument that's to be made as to why each person should win. And, you know, do you see Roman getting pinned when he got pinned last year?

• 2:12:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:59Speaker 03

  By Cody, you know, how's that gonna turn out? Roman's still at his peak. He's not on the back nine, not even close to it from our point of view.

• 2:13:07Bill Simmons?

  How old is he now?

• 2:13:08Speaker 03

  What happens at Roman, I think is 36.

• 2:13:11Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:13:12Speaker 03

  36, 37.

• 2:13:13Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow. He's got, yeah, he's got at least five peak physical years left.

• 2:13:17Speaker 03

  No question. He takes phenomenal care of himself. It's sort of like the Floyd Mayweather thing.

• 2:13:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:22Speaker 03

  Floyd never got fat, never drank, you know, always kept himself ready to go, which I always respected. Roman, Cody, these guys who keep themselves in that top sort of physical shape.

• 2:13:33Bill Simmons?

  Brady, just eating almonds.

• 2:13:34Speaker 03

  Amazing. But the baseball people, and I'm not a huge baseball guy, would tell me, hey, the stats show you past the age of 39. That's the furthest you can go as a prime athlete before the drop. And then you see Tom Brady and what he did and the time he put into maintaining, you know, where he was.

• 2:13:51Bill Simmons?

  Maybe LeBron, we'll see with him, but it's these guys are, they're such aberrations, you can't even.

• 2:13:57Speaker 03

  By the way, we got lucky with this Golden State loss the other day. So WWE WrestleMania does not go up against Lakers, Golden State this Saturday.

• 2:14:06Bill Simmons?

  Right, you have Lakers, Minnesota instead. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm coming Saturday, I'm gonna be at the triple threat.

• 2:14:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm glad you're gonna be there.

• 2:14:12Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna be.

• 2:14:12Speaker 03

  Who wins the NBA finals this year?

• 2:14:16Bill Simmons?

  I sure hope the Celtics, OKC is gonna be really good. There's artists, nobody believes in us building with them.

• 2:14:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:14:22Bill Simmons?

  The Clippers are excellent. Cleveland's really good. There's like five teams that could take it this year. It's unusual.

• 2:14:27Speaker 03

  Is Celtics, Lakers still the, the best?

• 2:14:31Bill Simmons?

  That's.

• 2:14:31Speaker 03

  The highest rated?

• 2:14:32Bill Simmons?

  The wet dream of all time for the league.

• 2:14:35Speaker 03

  I was looking at the matchup.

• 2:14:36Bill Simmons?

  Although Knicks Lakers would be bigger. It's not gonna happen this year, but I think if you had New York, LA, the Knicks not having one since 73, and then generations of Knicks fans, that's probably bigger.

• 2:14:48Speaker 03

  Lakers make it to the championship?

• 2:14:49Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 2:14:50Speaker 03

  Who makes it from the West?

• 2:14:51Bill Simmons?

  No. Um, OKC, maybe the Clippers. I'm not, I'm not gonna rule out the Lakers, but Clippers are in there, Lakers. Um, OKC is a heavy favorite.

• 2:15:02Speaker 03

  How about Clippers with the hot hand late?

• 2:15:05Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable.

• 2:15:05Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 2:15:06Bill Simmons?

  I can't, I can't, I know all the Clipper fans are just nervous that the rug's gonna get pulled out with Kawhi again, but they've been, they've been awesome. And then, you know, you can't count out Denver just because they have Jokic, but I can't see them winning three rounds in a row. But this is, they're in a spot a little bit like you guys where they just have a shitload of talent right now. You said these matchups where you're like, cool, Clippers, Denver.

• 2:15:27Speaker 03

  Sick.

• 2:15:27Bill Simmons?

  This is like, you know, four of the top 25 guys in the league are in this series.

• 2:15:32Speaker 03

  Who's the best player in the league right now? You know basketball, obviously far better. Can't be stopped.

• 2:15:37Bill Simmons?

  Jokic is yes.

• 2:15:38Speaker 03

  And not afraid of anybody.

• 2:15:40Bill Simmons?

  SGA, Giannis, Tatum, Luka.

• 2:15:44Speaker 03

  Tatum's sick.

• 2:15:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:45Speaker 03

  Luka's sick.

• 2:15:46Bill Simmons?

  Bronson. Um, all right. Well, I'll see you in Vegas this weekend. Thanks for coming over and doing the ride.

• 2:15:50Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me on.

• 2:15:50Bill Simmons?

  Good to see you.

• 2:15:51Speaker 03

  I love this mansion. This is at least 45,000 square feet minimum. That's my take. Thank you for having me. Always good seeing you. Appreciate it.

• 2:15:58Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it. Thanks to Nick Khan. Thanks to Kirk Goldsberry. Thanks to Gahow and Jesse as well. Thanks to Sirudi. And, uh, we will be back on Thursday. I have a fully fledged, action-packed podcast for you. So I'll see you on Thursday.

• 2:16:27Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline MA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures, WildHorse9, John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner.

• 2:17:13Bill Simmons?

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• 2:17:49Speaker 04

  Having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis, or E O E, can mean you're stuck in many ways, like cutting your food into tiny pieces.

• 2:17:59Speaker 04

  Or stuck, chewing food for a long time.

• 2:18:03Speaker 04

  Dupixent Dupilumab, a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least 33 pounds, can help with that. It's a breakthrough treatment that can reduce inflammation in the esophagus and improve swallowing.

• 2:18:16Speaker 04

  How about this? Dupixent is not a steroid. It proactively treats E O E, so you can get ahead of it.

• 2:18:21Speaker 05

  Severe allergic reactions, including skin reactions, can occur. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or wheezing, or swelling of your face, mouth, tongue, or throat. Tell your doctor of new or worsening joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection, or asthma. Don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor.

• 2:18:36Speaker 04

  Feeling stuck with E O E? Start treating with Dupixent. Talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about Dupixent. Learn more at dupixent.com or call 1-844-DUPIXENT.