Arch Manning, NFL Announcers, a New Deal for 'PTI', the Ballmer Scandal, and a Crawford-Canelo Megafight With Van Lathan Jr., Bryan Curtis, and Chris Mannix

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Van Lathan Jr. are joined by Bryan Curtis to discuss Arch Manning, college football, media storylines, and more (3:39). Then, Chris Mannix joins to talk about the Steve Ballmer scandal (51:40) and the Crawford-Canelo fight (01:17:05). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Van Lathan Jr., Bryan Curtis, and Chris Mannix Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Steve Ceruti 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

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  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

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  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast, presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables for you on Monday night. We did Legend of Billie Jean. It came out 40 years ago. It was a one for us, for me and Chris Ryan. It's an absolute cable classic. It was on for 25 straight years. You can find it all over the place on Tubi, other places. But we had a lot of fun talking about that movie because it created the internet. A lot of people don't realize. I was also on the Prestige TV Podcast with Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney, talking about episode one of Task on HBO, a show that we really like. It's a murder mystery, so we did- Recap, we made some predictions. So if you like that show, you can, you can check that

• 2:14Bill Simmons?

  out. Don't forget about all of our football content because football season started the Ringer gambling show going every day now, noon ET. You can watch it live on YouTube. And you can also listen to it as a podcast, The Ringer Tailgate with Van and Joel and Tate. We're doing that on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Saturdays live. McShay is going to be live on Saturdays too during the college football season. So we got a lot of good stuff going on. Coming on this podcast, Van Lathan is here. We tried something with the studio where he joined me almost, almost like it's a TV show. And we brought Brian Curtis on to talk about some college football, University of Texas, media stuff, the new NFL college, all the media storylines

• 2:58Bill Simmons?

  that are happening, non-players versus players. We talked about PTI, a whole bunch of media things. And then after that, Chris Mannix, we had to talk more, more Ballmer Clippers, aspiration, Kawhi, a scandal that I, I am now finding a lot of humor in, but Mannix gave us an update of where we're going with that. But then the, the big reason, Van requested this, we want to talk about Crawford and Canelo, which is, has a chance to be one of the biggest fights of this decade, if not the biggest, if it's actually a good fight, but a lot of great storylines with that. It's coming up this weekend. So this is an action packed one. Let's take a break. Let's bring in Pearl Jam and then we'll talk to Brian Curtis. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by Fanduel and

• 3:41Bill Simmons?

  the NFL is back and thank God. Fanduel has everything. They got an awesome app. They have SGPs. They have great futures. They have good prop bets, live betting, your way bets, clean app. It's great to use. Been using it for a few years. Every time I go back to Boston or any place that has Fanduel and I get to use it, I'm always excited. I'm on an airplane runway. You done the airplane runway?

• 4:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:05Bill Simmons?

  Airplane runway?

• 4:06Speaker 04

  There should be a button, the runway.

• 4:08Bill Simmons?

  I'm on the airplane runway. I gotta get this in. Get your bets in, build something bold, make every game feel bigger. Download the Fanduel app or head to fanduel.com/BS to get started. The Ringer committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-89777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut Paid endorsement.

• 5:10Bill Simmons?

  All right, we're taping this on Tuesday afternoon. We are in the aspiration studio. Van Lathan and I, our new sponsor. They just, Brian, they just gave me $7 million out of nowhere. I don't even have to do anything, but I decided to name the studio after them. It's really nice.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  You got a no-show job too out of this all day?

• 5:27Bill Simmons?

  I did. My no-show, I just have to remember to say the thing. This is your kind of season. Football just started. College football just started.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 5:36Bill Simmons?

  Announcers are back. University of Texas in the mix. Let's start with our guy, Arch Manning. Let's try to have a calm conversation. You're talking about this on

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Measure.

• 5:45Bill Simmons?

  Ring or tailgate all the time?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Measure.

• 5:47Bill Simmons?

  Curtis, what were your expectations going in and what are your expectations now?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, when I was at Texas, Chris Sims got recruited by the Longhorns. So this is actually my second Nepo quarterback. I've never felt older, you know.

• 6:03Bill Simmons?

  Double Nepo.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  This is the story. This Chris Sims comes over. A guy named Major Applewhite was the quarterback before from Catholic High in Baton Rouge, and they feel like they have to play Chris Sims because he, at that point, was the godsend Nepo QB. It's the second time it happened at Texas. He came out and he looked like Arch Manning did in his first game. He really did. He looked scared. He looked like he didn't know how to play quarterback, which was the weird part.

• 6:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  And Bill, of course, now that we're in the NIL era, we're watching Texas, Ohio State, and it goes to commercial and there's a Warby Parker ad starring Arch Manning. You're just like, wow, the world's really different now.

• 6:44Speaker 04

  He had like three commercials. At, at, at a, at a point, he had more commercials than he had completions. People were like, what's going on? He had, there was a couple of commercials that were coming on. You think he shakes back from it, though? You think that the best from Arch Manning is yet to come?

• 6:57Speaker 01

  I do. The only thing I'm worried about is, I don't know.

• 7:00Bill Simmons?

  That's very positive, Curtis.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do. I mean, I think, look, he's, he's got like three cream puffs in a row. So he's gonna get a bunch of stats and I think he'll get better as the year goes on. The one thing I want to make sure that conspiracy bill knows, Van, is about that videos that are out there. Cause there's like a bunch of Abrahams of Pruders of college football. And there was one of Arch throwing a pass this last week and he was grimacing like he had a terrible shoulder injury.

• 7:24Bill Simmons?

  Was it like an AI thing?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  No, it was real. It's from the, from the broadcast. And they asked the Texas coach about it and he gave this really weird defensive answer at the press conference. So that's kind of where Texas fandom is like, I think still in on Arch, high on Arch, but a little worried.

• 7:41Bill Simmons?

  What is the, what is the Texas football Reddit, Twitter?

• 7:47Bill Simmons?

  What are the other sites that Texas fans would go to?

• 7:49Speaker 04

  They got all kinds.

• 7:50Bill Simmons?

  Rivals, message board.

• 7:51Speaker 04

  Everybody's got message board.

• 7:52Bill Simmons?

  What, like, what's the number one, like, people go nuts post?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  I think it's, I think it's just the Arch, like, what, what the hell was that? You know, cause I think there was, with quarterbacks in college, you always think, you know, they're usually, they're off in 18, like Michigan. Last week against Oklahoma, you know, you was like, these are young kids, they're playing in front of the big lights. But Arch is a junior or he's been in the program for two years already.

• 8:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's not great.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  He played football last year. He had starts last year. People talking like it was his first start. It wasn't his first start. He played a lot last year. It wasn't against great teams, but he played. So there was just this little bit of like, are we sure? Are we sure he's the chosen one?

• 8:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Were we putting too much into the surname?

• 8:33Bill Simmons?

  Are we sure? Are we sure, Van?

• 8:34Speaker 04

  No, we're not sure of anything. But you know what? We're not just not sure of Arch. We're not sure of Arch. We're not sure of DJ Lagway. We're not sure of Drew Aller. This was supposed to be a quarterback class that had as much talent as any quarterback class in, in, in. Recent memory and we're watching these guys play not just Arch. Watching these guys play as I say this LSU has to play Florida so watch. DJ Lagway come out and throw for 4,000 yards or run for another 2,000 but. We're watching all of these QBs and a lot of it we're not seeing it show up quite yet. Which says two things. Number one, it's early in the season. Let everybody get into their offense a little bit. And figure out what it is that's going on. Number two. It's probably best to evaluate.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  A quarterbacking prospect on the games that they've played. And not on the trajectory of their talent. Now even K Club Nick who was supposed to be a QB. That by all for all intents and purposes figured out his game last year took Clemson to the playoff. He was supposed to come out there and light it up. Two games hasn't done it. So maybe K Club Nick is who he is. And maybe we should let these guys figure out how they're gonna be successful as football players before we make them the next John Elway.

• 9:47Bill Simmons?

  Raj didn't Texas recruit Raj's son?

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:52Bill Simmons?

  So and Arch might just stay all four years?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that was the plan all along. Yeah, I think that's what they were always planning on. And quarterbacks like I don't know that I didn't think Ohio State had a quarterback who win the national championship last year until. The national championship game was over.

• 10:08Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, like college seasons are weird. It's really long now. Texas also had all these hidden things like an offensive line with a bunch of new starters. Skill position players that were new or not broken in yet. And so there's like, it could be long. I still would bet on Texas long term because. Their schedule's not terribly hard for the SEC and I think they could be in the playoff.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Did you feel like you know Arch comes out and obviously they obliterate San Jose State? And if you look at the stat line, the stat line looks good, but if you looked at the actual game, if you looked at the tape, which. Now that I'm one of the foremost experts in college football in the entire world, that's what I do.

• 10:44Bill Simmons?

  That's what they're saying. I have Joel number one.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  But Joel is right there. I'm coming for a spot. I grind tape. If you look at the tape, a lot of those throws. Were into gigantic windows and those balls weren't really on the money. So there's still people asking questions about. Even in the game where he seemingly played well, whether or not Arch has.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, I looked like I was covering some of those Texas receivers like Parker Livingston on Saturday. I mean, it was, you know, I was, I wouldn't have been in the frame and neither were the San Jose State defensive backs. So, yeah, it's weird. I mean, it's college is a weird game. I mean, it's just like, you know, you get games like that. Like, what do we do with something like a win like that? You're happy if you're a Texas fan. You're a little relieved because if you'd come out and struggled in that, you're like, oh, my God. But you also don't really, it's very, very hard to project all the way through the season.

• 11:29Bill Simmons?

  It was funny how good the first weekend and how interesting all the storylines were. And then last weekend, they basically kind of punted on the weekend.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  See, this is the thing.

• 11:40Bill Simmons?

  I was watching.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  So this is.

• 11:42Bill Simmons?

  I'm casual college fan Bill. I'm just telling you for the casuals like myself.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  I wish that you guys could ever, I wish you guys could like be connected to Bill's college football fandom. I remember when Bill was the world's greatest Colorado football fan. He was really.

• 11:56Bill Simmons?

  I really enjoyed that. That was a really fun year.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  Last weekend.

• 11:59Bill Simmons?

  Bought a hat.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  Last weekend was the weekend for the diehard college football fan because you have to think about some of the stuff that happened. You had USF go on the road to Florida, beat Florida. You had Arizona State lose in Starksville to Mississippi State after.

• 12:18Bill Simmons?

  Some of these games weren't even on.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  I would have had to get like a new bundle subscription on ESPN.

• 12:24Bill Simmons?

  There was like an ACC network. I would have had to subscribe to.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  All of these games were on.

• 12:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. No, but they were on these bundles. I'm casual Bill only watches CBS and Fox and NBC.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  You saw the thing, Bill, with the ESPN app. They're trying to do college red zone or some form of college red zone.

• 12:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  For the casuals, college red zone is absolutely the thing you need because you'd be like, we're going to Starkville right now.

• 12:47Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I'll then start doing that.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. College red zone will work because like now, then you get to kind of see, you don't have to get into, I watch every part of it. I was upset that they did not televise the halftime show of the Grambling band at Ohio State. I wanted to see that matchup, the matchup of the Ohio State band versus the Grambling.

• 13:08Bill Simmons?

  Who won that matchup? Did we, did we ever find out?

• 13:10Speaker 04

  I didn't see it, but I'm telling you already that I know Grambling won. Um, but it just, I didn't have to see it.

• 13:16Bill Simmons?

  You're like minus 500 favorite?

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I didn't have to see it. But no, it, you know, it's a really, this is one of the more interesting seasons because at the top of the sport, there's no. Dominant team. There's no dominant program.

• 13:26Bill Simmons?

  Dare I say the playoff, which everybody hated and resisted forever is actually sucked in people like me. Cause I think it has.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  I think so. I was a little skeptical because I was, you know, the old school, the regular season is so cool. It's the only sport where you have to be perfect. Now I love it. I mean, it's like, there's so much and it was, it did feel a little long last year. It felt weird to have that final on a Monday after a huge NFL weekend, but man, there's the regular season felt great last year. There was so many big games and we're already off to a really good start.

• 13:57Bill Simmons?

  It's a, you know, I'm going to name drop. Um, you know, Larry David hates field goal kickers. And he hated that the Jets lost on a 60 yard field goal. He just doesn't, he doesn't think. He's talked about this on a million shows. He doesn't think those people should decide football games. And so we were talking about like. If they just got rid of kickers, people would be like, oh my God, they got rid of kickers. And then I think within like four weeks, people would be like, this is fucking awesome. Everyone's just going for it on every fourth down. I fucking love this. Why do we have kickers? And I think the college football playoff is kind of like that. Where people are like, no, we can't do this. It's going to ruin them. And now we're, now we're here and it's like, eh, it's pretty good.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  So much of the sport is about tradition.

• 14:43Bill Simmons?

  I get it.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  It's about, that's, that's, I think that this was the trepidation is what I'm saying. So much of the sport is about tradition. It's about rivalries.

• 14:49Bill Simmons?

  It's about, this is the way we've always done it.

• 14:51Speaker 04

  The way we've always done it. This is, these are cultural fights that are playing out on college football fields. This is parts of Alabama. So somebody told me something is like most graduates, most fans of. I was talking to a guy and he said, most fans of the University of Auburn, most fans of Auburn, they went there, right? And he goes, most fans of Alabama, they go to Walmart and QuickTrip and all of those places. Basically, that's, that's the rivalry between the two places and.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  There's no way to really talk about Michigan versus Ohio State. There's really no way to contextualize. It's about emotion. And people were wondering if those games and those moments would lose their emotional resonance if you had a playoff where essentially Ohio State could lose to Michigan and then win the national championship. What we didn't realize was it's extremely interesting to think about whether or not it's a successful season for Ohio State if they lose to Michigan and then win the national championship. It put their fan base and us as college football fans in conflict, conflict that we wouldn't have if we didn't have the playoff.

• 16:10Bill Simmons?

  It turned into a yeah, but.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:12Bill Simmons?

  We won the title, but. So what is your take that being immersed in this? So you're pro for the most part, but like now we've shit, the conference disaster and all the moving around seems like it's had. I think that's been what been the negative impact this bet.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw on Twitter today, Michigan State's playing UCLA. That's a conference game.

• 16:34Bill Simmons?

  That's crazy.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Just as a reminder, and it starts at 11:00 PM in East Lansing. A conference game starts at 11:00 PM at night.

• 16:42Bill Simmons?

  Are you serious?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 16:46Bill Simmons?

  So who give us the top three Texas rivals have stayed the same or has anything shifted?

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's Oklahoma, it's Texas A&M, and it's Arkansas. But because of all the conference moving around, they kind of got separated. Now they're back in the SEC and now they're playing more of their old rivals than they were before, which is kind of weird. Now we play all three. We weren't playing all three before.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  The one thing I am a traditionalist about is regional, is regional conferences. The conferences should be set up by region.

• 17:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean, this is college sports and this is why we had conferences where all the schools were near each other. So student athletes wouldn't have to travel too far to play sports against each other.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:27Bill Simmons?

  And that has been just tossed out the window and not just for football, but all the sports. It's ridiculous.

• 17:31Speaker 04

  Even from a competitive standpoint, though, I remember I watched the game, I think it was last year when Penn State came to SC. If you watch the first half of the game, Penn State's walking in quicksand.

• 17:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  They just, they haven't adjusted yet.

• 17:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  And it puts them at a competitive disadvantage. I mean, you know, you have to travel for these games. Playing on the road is always hard to travel all the way across the country to play them. Right. And then SC, look at some of the losses they had last year. Some of those losses is because like, that's a lot of travel time and to get ready and to turn all of that stuff around. So that actually changes the game on the field as well to me.

• 18:06Bill Simmons?

  I don't like it.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  It was funny. Old ways, you used to get like, only get a big vacation to the West Coast if you made a bowl. It's like, we're going to the Holiday Bowl. This is awesome. We're getting to go to San Diego. Now it's a conference game.

• 18:18Bill Simmons?

  Give Van your top Texas moment of all time.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  My junior year, 1998, Ricky Williams was one class ahead of me and I was in the stadium when he broke the rushing record.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  That's crazy.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Against Texas A&M.

• 18:32Speaker 04

  Ricky.

• 18:32Bill Simmons?

  And then Mike Dick had traded this whole draft for him.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I remember that. I think, I think No Limit was the agency at that point. I think P was.

• 18:39Bill Simmons?

  I don't think they're still.

• 18:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think then Ricky left. Right, Ricky left, but he was, that, I know that's like a boring answer. Besides Major Applewhite, who came from Baton Rouge, watching him run the ball at Texas.

• 18:52Bill Simmons?

  Ricky, yeah.

• 18:52Speaker 04

  He was fantastic.

• 18:53Bill Simmons?

  Casual Bill was all in on the Ricky games.

• 18:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:56Bill Simmons?

  Give us the media overview of the college football scene, the, and then we can do NFL too. But college football, like the pregame shows, they've just beefed up now and they've tried to turn. And it seems like it's worked, whether you like what you're watching or not, but it does feel bigger.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's what a world where Lee Corso is escorted off the stage at game day and Barstool is brought on at the same time.

• 19:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  I mean, that happened the same week.

• 19:23Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  And in the same place because they're outside the same stadium.

• 19:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  In Columbus for Ohio State, Texas. I mean, that was weird. I feel like the whole thing is really in flux, but in a good way, like people are trying stuff, you know? And it's funny, you know, for game day, for people like me, watched that show for 20 years, the relationship on that show was Corso, the coach and Herbie, the player. And you know, Herbie was a young guy and then he got older and Corso got older and he was helping him on TV. And it was just, it was a very interesting relationship just to watch. And now that's been replaced on game day by Saban, the coach, and Pat McAfee, the young guy, or comparatively young guy. And that's obviously a completely different vibe. I mean, it's, it's a weird time.

• 20:06Bill Simmons?

  How, how are we feeling? You have anything on that?

• 20:09Speaker 04

  No, I was just saying, I cannot believe how good Nick Saban is on television. I would have never thought in a million years that he would have been as good on. And I think that's-

• 20:18Bill Simmons?

  What's the number one thing he's good at, in your opinion?

• 20:20Speaker 04

  To me, he is, he is good at teaching the game. The same thing that would have made him a great coach. He's good at giving the reasons that he feels like why a team will win, not just from a, like a X's and O's standpoint, but let me tell you about college football. And he's just a great ambassador for the game.

• 20:40Bill Simmons?

  It was the thing Belichick never totally figured out how to do in his one year media tour last year. Like clearly they, the same DNA and they're trying to do the same things, but Saban seems more accessible. Belichick always was kind of going to Ed Reed, who's unbelievable player.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, last year, Belichick didn't have any energy left over for that.

• 20:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, he's getting wiped out.

• 21:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's like up all night long, every night.

• 21:02Bill Simmons?

  Literally drained.

• 21:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, so like he's just going in there.

• 21:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, maybe Saban. Maybe if Saban had a 25 year old girlfriend.

• 21:09Speaker 04

  It's not too late.

• 21:10Bill Simmons?

  Could happen.

• 21:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:11Bill Simmons?

  You agree on Saban?

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't tell that to Miss Terry, by the way. Nick Saban, very happily married man.

• 21:17Speaker 04

  Apologizing to Miss Terry.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  I do, and I also think Nick Saban committed to being in television.

• 21:24Bill Simmons?

  Right, and didn't care about-

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Didn't want to be, Bill Belichick wanted a coach.

• 21:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Like, he was like, here's something to make me kind of smiley and happy for a year and then I can go back to doing what I want to do.

• 21:33Bill Simmons?

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• 22:14Bill Simmons?

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• 22:56Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket, my friend. NFL Sundays are back. You won't want to miss the action. NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, another friend of mine, lets you catch every game every Sunday all in one place. And now, get NFL Sunday Ticket month to month and cancel anytime. Head to youtube.com/BS and sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV, NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games and commercial use. If you cancel YouTube TV, you will lose access to NFL Sunday Ticket. Terms of bargos, device and content restrictions apply. Commercial use excluded. Renews every month during the 2025 regular season. Cancel anytime. Belichick leaves. Who's the big NFL media story? What's the number one thing? Last year, we had Brady joining.

• 23:40Bill Simmons?

  We had Belichick doing NFL and it was like, oh my God, look at this, look at this. What is it this year?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I think it's J.J. Watt after week one.

• 23:48Bill Simmons?

  On the number two team?

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you know, you know how this goes, Bill.

• 23:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  It's like the backup quarterback when your quarterback's struggling. Everybody looks over and we go, ooh, what about that guy? I mean, I was like, I was talking to Shoemaker on the press box and I was like, how soon are we going to get people calling for Tony Romo to be replaced by J.J. Watt on the number one team? And then I looked on Twitter and basically it already happened.

• 24:14Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  I was like, oh, I was like, it was like the first quarter of week one. Like, oh, this guy's much better.

• 24:19Bill Simmons?

  So you don't feel like Romo got righted the ship at all in the last two years or no?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  I'm not saying that's correct, but I just think when you put somebody in the number two slot, I mean, look at the Olsen Brady stuff and that's a different dynamic, but you're always going to have that. And this is some a network guy told me this when the whole Romo salary explosion happened. I was like, what, what did you take away from this? And he was like, always have a number two. Always have a backup plan so you don't get held up by your number one guy.

• 24:46Bill Simmons?

  Interesting. I, Olsen did the San Francisco, Seattle game. He's really good.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  He's did.

• 24:53Bill Simmons?

  He's just really, really good.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  So glaring though.

• 24:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Speaker 04

  That's so glaring. After a while, I was about to say, actually, I can't say that. I was about to say, makes me almost feel bad for Tom Brady. Nothing can make me feel bad for Tom Brady. But.

• 25:05Bill Simmons?

  Well, what about his wife dating a jujitsu instructor?

• 25:09Speaker 04

  That's what I'm talking. I mean, that's good for her. You know, he knows how to do all the different poses and stuff. But, but like for me, nothing can make me feel bad about Tom. But that's a glaring one. The, the Watt situation, that's interesting to me because I actually do think that Romo, who started off on fire and then kind of obviously became a character, caricature of himself. I think Romo's kind of got it back together now.

• 25:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I thought he was better last year. I definitely, he slipped. There's no question. But I, I thought, uh, thought he seemed a little more locked in. I thought Aikman and Buck are the best right now. And I don't even think it's arguable.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  You know, Brady was better week one.

• 25:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  I don't know how much.

• 25:50Bill Simmons?

  We didn't have the audio for that. I didn't hear any of it because we, it wasn't on our multi-view.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  That game was complete trash.

• 25:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Like, there was a moment right before the half. He just sounded like, first of all, he just knew what he wanted to say. He was making one point, said trying to make five points, which is the rookie announcer mistake. But he had this moment right before the half. Jayden Daniels, they're about to go in and score again. And he throws the ball away and Brady's like, that's going to be intentional grounding. 10 second runoff, half is over. And you could feel like Kevin Burkhart and Dean Blandino were like, wait, what?

• 26:18Speaker 04

  And then the ref comes in and he was right. And it was one of the first moments I've heard, because you know this announcers can give you good information, but what you really want is them to be in control and to be like five to 10 steps ahead of you as a viewer.

• 26:31Bill Simmons?

  Bring up something that I hadn't thought about yet.

• 26:33Speaker 04

  And that was one of the first moments Brady did that for me where I was like, oh, wow, he saw that way before anybody even in his own booth did.

• 26:43Bill Simmons?

  Were you surprised Inside the NFL basically died?

• 26:47Speaker 04

  Thought you mean it's on X?

• 26:48Bill Simmons?

  It's on Twitter as like a, like a short video show. I thought that to me Inside the NFL would last, I'll be dead and it'll still be on. It was one of those shows and then something started to happen with it and maybe, what is it? Do you think it's just the era we live in now where everything's so fast?

• 27:06Speaker 04

  I think a couple of things happened. Number one, the, I think the Fox studio show, market corrected Inside the NFL a little bit. I know that-

• 27:15Bill Simmons?

  And podcasts, I would throw that into-

• 27:17Speaker 04

  Podcasting as well. I know it's not the same thing, but when I was growing up, the coolest bunch of guys, the coolest football discussion was happening on Inside the NFL, the way those guys would talk about the game. Then it-

• 27:30Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't agree more.

• 27:31Speaker 04

  Then it moved to Howie and Terry and all of those guys. And that was the coolest one. And they had all kinds of other stuff. Jay Glazer was on there. What was the lady that used to come on there when it first started? It's like a really beautiful woman that used to come on there.

• 27:46Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Gillian Barberay?

• 27:47Speaker 04

  Gillian Barberay.

• 27:48Bill Simmons?

  Jimmy Kimmel? He used to come on?

• 27:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. So like all of that stuff, they became kind of the cool football show.

• 27:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  And that Inside the NFL to me was never the same. And it was still on HBO at that point, which also was different for a lot of people.

• 28:04Bill Simmons?

  You know what? I think part of what killed it was all the clips are just online now. Like I watched yesterday, last night after that Viking game with J.J. McCarthy throws the pick six, has this dramatic comeback as Caleb's cratering on the other side and makes some big throws. But they had the locker room. I love the locker room stuff. And Kevin, Kevin O'Connell giving him the game ball, being like, everybody in the-

• 28:29Speaker 01

  This locker room knew what this guy was gonna do and he did it.

• 28:32Bill Simmons?

  And then they cut to J J McCarthy and he's like, yeah, and he gets the ball and they're all mobbing him. And it's like, that's the kind of thing I would watch inside the NFL for on Wednesday nights because they would have those things. And now I'm getting them instantaneously on wherever. So once I think they lost that plus, you know, it just, the discourse is just constant. It makes sense it went away. I'm still surprised though, Curtis. I felt like that was a staple.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the NFL Films footage was always really cool. I mean, that's something that you really couldn't replace, even if you watch the whole TV game, even if you saw the clips on Twitter, it's still really awesome.

• 29:07Bill Simmons?

  The guys talking shit to each other, the wide receivers getting into it, the D backs, I ate it up.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  That still though, is better than anything that's coming out football related. It's seven o'clock in the morning at Commander Stadium or whatever. And then the guy, the music comes in and then all of a sudden.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  A player comes in, we gonna get round today, baby. We gonna take them all the way. And then after, and then the whole, the whole way that that would come out would be fantastic. There's nothing like that now, but it's, but even that now.

• 29:40Bill Simmons?

  Or there's too much of it now.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  What do you mean? Like there's no one that I don't feel like is putting that type of production value.

• 29:45Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:46Speaker 04

  That's putting that type of production value into covering.

• 29:49Bill Simmons?

  But does it need production value if it just exists all the time? If I'm getting it 24 seven, why do I need it to be a produced version of it?

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, we get.

• 29:57Bill Simmons?

  It feels like we're in no man's land.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  But what Vance talking about, that camera coming out of the tunnel into a stadium with the music, oh man, that's, I mean, that just, that gives me chills.

• 30:06Bill Simmons?

  There's certain things we just did and it's really weird because the technology is better, the people are smarter and the equipment's better. And yet like sometimes you'll see on Instagram, they'll have like, I don't know, they'll do an intro to the AFC title game from 1997. And it's like, this is fucking awesome.

• 30:24Speaker 04

  It's just got you more hype.

• 30:25Bill Simmons?

  Why? I don't know why we kind of peaked with this stuff 15, 20. Now it's like too elaborate. Well, Brent Musburger 40 years ago going, you're in game five, the Lakers didn't realize that they, you know, and they just, it would get you ready to go for the game.

• 30:42Speaker 04

  A couple of things have changed. Well, obviously, technology is one of them. Right now, we have a camera that's zooming all over. That's the draw. It's not the actual guy setting up the game for you anymore. It's the next gen stats say he's running at 25 miles an hour or whatever it is. All of that stuff is kind of the stuff. And I'm a little older. I'm a little older. So that was the way.

• 31:02Bill Simmons?

  You're nostalgic for the old days.

• 31:03Speaker 04

  I'm nostalgic for it. That's the way I consider football.

• 31:05Bill Simmons?

  Curtis and Aaron constantly nostalgic. Oh, my God.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  You know, the thing I miss that you're talking about is the tease before a big game. And Bob Costas was incredible at the tease. And I don't know why they don't do the tease anymore because like, if you are a casual fan coming in for the NBA Finals or for a big football game, you need to know who the players are, right? You need to know what the stakes are. But if you're somebody like us, the three of us, you're like, hell, yes, I'm even more fired up than I already was.

• 31:32Bill Simmons?

  I swear it used to be better. YouTube tried to cover a football game. How did that go?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Oh, not so well. We got, we got Derek Carr out of the deal.

• 31:43Bill Simmons?

  Derek Carr was good. Were you surprised by that, Ben?

• 31:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm surprised he's good at anything.

• 31:49Bill Simmons?

  Derek Carr was a good studio guy, like shocking.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Good for him. It'll take some time.

• 31:54Bill Simmons?

  Fans, yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  It'll take some time. I'm happy for him. I'm happy for his family. Everything went well. It'll take some time before I'm okay with it.

• 32:02Bill Simmons?

  What do you think YouTube learned from their first YouTube experience?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Well, it was weird because, you know, with Netflix, when they get to do these little one offs, they basically have their pick of any announcer, you know, so they can put like a cool team. It's like, what if we got, you know, Greg Olson and Noah Eagle and put them together? You're like, that sounds good. YouTube had a weird one because every NFL announcer had a job that weekend. So they could not go around and be like, let's pick a dream team. Let's put together who we want. So they just have to find people. So I think in a way, it's probably just a one off. If YouTube had more NFL and they probably will have more NFL when the NFL tears up these contracts in 2029.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  I think they'll be better at it. I think it was, it was just kinda weird, but it was, it was so strange. We're sitting on a Friday night. Everybody's focused on it, right? It's day two of the NFL season. It's kinda like, hmm.

• 32:51Bill Simmons?

  It's in Brazil.

• 32:52Speaker 04

  You know what I think?

• 32:53Bill Simmons?

  It's K. Adams and Cam Newton at halftime.

• 32:56Speaker 04

  I like that.

• 32:57Bill Simmons?

  You like Cam?

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think Cam is making a fantastic career for himself post playing days. I think he's a lightning rod. He's not fake. Afraid to stick his nose in there and give an opinion. I like Cam. Know what I thought that they should have, especially?

• 33:11Bill Simmons?

  Interesting, interesting take.

• 33:12Speaker 04

  I like, I like him. Fourth and one especially. Cam on fourth and one especially. Just watching him, he's, he's got a lot of charisma. It's gonna work out. It's gonna be great. Know what I think they should have? I think they should have us, since the games are gonna go to YouTube, we know that this is gonna happen eventually. They should have it where you can call the game on YouTube, like you and your friends.

• 33:35Bill Simmons?

  Oh, alternate stream, yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  From your house and then people can watch you call the game. You should be able to be, you should be able to, the NFL should have a system where they let you call the game.

• 33:46Bill Simmons?

  I think all this stuff's coming.

• 33:47Speaker 04

  And then like.

• 33:48Bill Simmons?

  I actually think we're gonna have all this in 10 years.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  People can watch, they can go, oh, I wanna go watch Van and Jomie call the game. And then me and Jomie call the whole game and then we build subscribers based upon us as a little unit calling football games.

• 34:01Bill Simmons?

  I actually think that could happen.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  Democratize it.

• 34:05Bill Simmons?

  You know, Van and I didn't, didn't play in the NFL. Neither did you, Brian Curtis. We're non-players. Are non-players qualified to discuss sports? Cause that kicked up again. Is this, there's these cycles of the same stories that happen with sports media. And we've had, what is this average? Like once every 18 months this happens?

• 34:25Speaker 04

  For the last 100 years since.

• 34:27Bill Simmons?

  It's like every 18 months this comes back.

• 34:28Speaker 04

  Locker room?

• 34:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  And said, and the player's like, how could you possibly understand? Cause you didn't play the game.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  I thought there were two layers to that. One is the whole, you know, you are disqualified. You don't get to have an opinion here because you couldn't possibly understand part of it, which, as you say, is like as old as time. But then, if I may infer a little bit, there's the, there's only so many reps to go around at ESPN, part of the equation.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  There's something under, underneath it, you say.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Well, and I don't know that. I haven't talked to Ryan Clark about that, but here comes this guy.

• 35:00Bill Simmons?

  New guy.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Who's, starts in the spring.

• 35:02Bill Simmons?

  My friend.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  And you're like, oh, he's getting run on Get Up, First Take.

• 35:06Bill Simmons?

  Shiny new toy.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 35:08Bill Simmons?

  He's getting on some shows.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I'll say this, and this is the question, if anybody cares to ask. We've seen this go back and forth. Like when JJ was on First Take, he never outright said this, but he did carry himself a lot of times with the air of, let me tell you what happened and how the game was actually played.

• 35:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 04

  Right? And you see guys.

• 35:34Bill Simmons?

  I understand this better than you because I played.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  I, there's got to be a level where that's true, right?

• 35:39Bill Simmons?

  By the way, that is a hundred percent true.

• 35:41Speaker 04

  There's, there's, it's maybe not in the way that Ryan expressed it to, to Peter right there, but at some point, the players are on these shows because they actually did it. I remember one time Kevin Durant, who is notoriously, he, you know, he's notoriously, he doesn't talk a lot to people on social media. He doesn't really use it that much, but it's a joke, but he actually said something that was very.

• 36:06Bill Simmons?

  It took me a second.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  He said something that was very funny on social media. He was like, you shouldn't be, if I can't, if you can't hit seven elbow jumpers in a row, you should not be able to talk basketball with me. And that seems like a dick thing to say.

• 36:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:22Speaker 04

  But I, on a level, I get it. Like on a level, I, I do kind of understand someone saying that if you're going to tell me what I need to be doing in the game and how I need to be moving the ball and getting to my spot, shouldn't you have at some point in some way?

• 36:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 04

  Even, either had enough skin in the game, covering it over the course of decades, or have done it yourself?

• 36:46Bill Simmons?

  I had this when the year that I did TV with Magic Johnson, where we'd be arguing, like you and I would argue. But at some point, he's Magic Johnson. And he's just, yeah, like, at some point, I probably lose if we're like diametrically opposed on an argument because he's just gonna know more about basketball than me. But I think the thing you can do is do as much homework as you, as you can, be prepared, come up with ideas and takes. What I didn't like about what Ryan did, and I don't know him, you know him.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's good.

• 37:16Bill Simmons?

  When you're on live TV with people, there's a, there's a nakedness to that. You really have to trust everybody you're with. And I've been in situations where you completely trust the people you're with, and it's great. And I've been in situations where I did not trust at least one of the people I was with. And it sucks.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:34Bill Simmons?

  Because if somebody tries to flip something on you, or make you look bad in some way, or screw you up on live TV, and either they're doing it intentionally or unwittingly, intentionally is worse, it's just fucked up. And I felt like that moment, whether Ryan intended to, to do that or not, he was doing it in a way to, to make, make, put Peter on his heels on live TV. And live TV is a we thing. It's not a, it's not a zero sum game. Like, you're on a show, everybody's gotta win if you're doing the show. And once you bring that element into it, I, I think it's really hard to put that genie back in the bottle. That was my take. I like, and he apologized for it, and he obviously knows, like, hey, man, that's

• 38:17Bill Simmons?

  not where I want to be when I'm doing television.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  Let me tell you what, another thing that I'm kind of about. And obviously, it's something that's regrettable, and he, he regretted that he apologized for. You know what else I'm about? Cause I'm this toxic. I'm about just sometimes having the fucked up interaction.

• 38:35Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 38:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm, I'm for actually, hey, I said the wrong thing, I did the wrong thing. Cause in that same, what people don't talk about, was Peter defended himself on live TV. He said, yeah, don't belittle me like that. Right?

• 38:50Bill Simmons?

  So, which I loved. I think he had to do it.

• 38:52Speaker 04

  So, in that situation, we could all say, hey, that's not what we want to do to one another. But I don't mind making the mistake and getting up right to the level of what's appropriate, and being able to set that boundary with a coworker. I think the real thing is, do you leave with more respect for that person?

• 39:11Bill Simmons?

  And that was the issue.

• 39:12Speaker 04

  And that's the, do you leave with more respect for that person and an understanding of why you shouldn't do something like that, or why it's not good for the viewers to see it?

• 39:20Bill Simmons?

  It was the, and the thing is, Curtis, like, I actually thought what Ryan was trying to say was pretty interesting. He was basically like, I see your point, here's why you're wrong, and I'm just saying this as somebody, like, there was a way he could have said it, where it was like, I'm just saying this to somebody who played. I don't care if I had a good game, if I made the play that fucked up the game for my team, that's all I would think about that night, and none of this other stuff would matter. It's just the way he said it. But I actually thought it was a really interesting point.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  You know what it reminded me of? Remember when Lamar Jackson and the Ravens lost to the Bills in the playoffs last year? And every smart football person, you know, got on Twitter and was like, this is not Lamar Jackson's fault. This is not, it's Mark Andrews' fault, it's not his fault. And then if you actually listen to Lamar Jackson in his press conference, he was like, I didn't play well enough to win today.

• 40:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Like, he wasn't thinking like that. He didn't want football nerds to be like, no, no, we're defending. Like, he's, he had a very personal reaction to the game, and I think that's what Ryan was actually trying to say, right?

• 40:16Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  C.D. Lamb balled out for 95% of the game, but he didn't for the last 5%, he's not going home looking at his stats being like, I did great today, you know?

• 40:24Bill Simmons?

  But.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  But again, I think it's.

• 40:25Bill Simmons?

  There was other baggage coming into it that had nothing to do with what they were talking about. It felt.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's TV. To Van's point, I think if it was a podcast, you would actually just lean into that interaction, be like, wait, let's talk about this for the next 20 minutes.

• 40:38Bill Simmons?

  Commercial. It's a good point. Well, and also, Mike Greenberg did nothing. He just sat there. Like, the, the host should actually be like, whoa, whoa, wait a second, guys, let's, let's, let's, let's rein this in, but, you know, you're.

• 40:49Speaker 04

  It's, it's funny. I do live TV every now and again. I go on CNN. Bill loves to see me on CNN.

• 40:54Bill Simmons?

  I get it. It drives me crazy.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  He loves it when I go on CNN.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  I do too. Abby Phillip, man, that's a great show.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  See, look at that. Look, look what he's doing for me.

• 41:02Bill Simmons?

  Don't encourage him, Brian.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  So, but.

• 41:05Speaker 04

  And there is a very delicate dance that you're doing with people, even at that table where we all have these opposing political points and points of view. There's still a way that you want to make sure you don't cut people off too much. You don't want to come across yelling at someone.

• 41:23Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  There's still, we're on TV right now, so let's try not to make each other look bad. We can try to make each other look stupid because we're throwing out intellectual points. But now let's not bully each other and make everyone look bad.

• 41:36Bill Simmons?

  Or undermine. It's so easy to undermine somebody when you're doing any kind of show with them.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 41:42Bill Simmons?

  You can undermine somebody's point in all these subtle ways. You can do it with how you're sitting, what your demeanor is, no selling. It's like, we always talk, it's like professional wrestling. You're doing your, you're doing your move, you're piledriver on me. I'm going to act like it hurt and then I do a move, you're going to act like it hurt. And that's how you do it. And some people on TV, especially now, as like the louder and louder you get on TV, the more people notice you. The professional wrestling selling part seems to be going out the window a little bit. And it's something I think Stephen A. is still really good at. When he's with the right people, like when he's with Mad Dog, he sells the shit out of Mad Dog. That whole thing, it's like really fun to watch because it's, because he gets it. And that's why Stephen A. is really good at what he does. PTI is another one.

• 42:28Bill Simmons?

  Kornheiser, the best person I've ever done TV with. They just resigned for three more years. Kornheiser is technically contractually signed to do PTI until he's 80 years old.

• 42:40Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 42:41Bill Simmons?

  And this show started, I think, what, 2002, Brian?

• 42:45Speaker 04

  2001.

• 42:45Bill Simmons?

  2001. It makes really no sense with anything else at ESPN at this point. It's on for a half hour. I don't even know who leads it in. It just seems like it's going to go on forever. They'll never cancel it. It's those guys' show. They should be the ones who decide whether it goes away or not. And Kornheiser's for 10 years is like, I'm too old. I called him today to make fun of him. I'm too old. I look like a muppet. I shouldn't be on TV anymore. He'll never leave that show. That show will go on forever. But what was your reaction when you heard he was coming back?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  I think the reason we're happy it's coming back is because it's one of the last links to old ESPN.

• 43:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  That company's changed so much over the last couple of years. And I think you can argue for the better. They had to change, you know, the world's changing like so rapidly, the whole media world. But you look back, it's like, it's 2001, right? That's what old ESPN counts as now, not the 90s, not the 80s, 2001. And, you know, what else? Maybe Berman, you know, doing primetime in the form it's in now. Vicky V still around, like, what are the other links to that world?

• 43:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh, 2001 was when I got to ESPN. It's 2001, people who were born the year that show existed are now getting married and having kids.

• 44:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, a little early. They need to go out and experience life more, but yeah, they could. It is good advice.

• 44:11Speaker 04

  But, you know, I look back at PTI or I look at PTI. PTI is the best version of the Sports Two Man. Because the Sports Two Man went from PTI and then it went to First Take. And First Take is a groundbreaking show, particularly the iteration of First Take that I'm talking about is Skip and Stephen A. It's a groundbreaking show, but we have to be honest about First Take. Insofar as First Take is a show that you can make an argument broke sports media in a way. Because it took this, it changed discussion from having a take and it.

• 44:55Bill Simmons?

  What was the, the slogan was literally embrace debate.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  Embrace debate and.

• 44:59Bill Simmons?

  People hated it for years.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  When you are always doing that, it becomes not the ethos of your show. It becomes the shtick of your show. Sometimes Kornheiser and Will Bond, they have completely awesome conversations about things that they agree on.

• 45:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  About things that they are, sometimes they're going against each other, but sometimes they're just yes anding each other. And it's in the curation of the topics and the actual them opining on sports culture that is the interesting thing. It's not the fight itself.

• 45:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know what's interesting about what you just said? They've earned that because you know they'll also disagree if it's time to disagree.

• 45:37Speaker 04

  When it's time to disagree.

• 45:38Bill Simmons?

  So when they agree, it's almost like what Siskel and Ebert had, where you're like. Oh yeah, these guys both like this movie. They're not gonna like try to take, try to zag against each other. I, I still think it's a really good show. I think it's the most important thing anyone created this decade or this century for, from a sports standpoint. It certainly is the most ripped off of any show, right? That, I mean, there's nothing, I don't think there's anything that comes close.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  You have to go back to 2001. Like, we're all kinda in the same business now in the media. We're all in the TV, audio, right? It was one business. Back then, it was not one business. It was writer or television.

• 46:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden, those two guys go do TV and everybody who's in writing, took us a while, but everybody's in writing is like, I could do something like that. That looks appealing to me. That looks like a version of what I would be talking about in the Washington Post newsroom or talking about at home with one of my best friends. And I think that's still the, the magic of PTIs. You can still look at it, be like, man, if I had a show like that, that would be the most fun thing in the world.

• 46:40Bill Simmons?

  I think all roads lead from Mike and the Mad Dog and PTI. For all the shit that everybody is doing with sports now. It's like, whatever, even like what we're doing right now, whatever, whatever that is of like, I'm hanging out with somebody I like and we're arguing about shit. It starts with that, with Mike and the Mad Dog and PTI. And PTI was way more structured and better and like tighter. Here are my opinions, they'll go back and forth. The format was just perfect. People could step in and host it for them, but it was never quite the same if they weren't on it. And I don't know, I was called them my uncles, but they're just like, the two of them together, I still get a fucking kick out of it. And it doesn't make sense, cause it's 20, it's almost 25 years of, you would think like,

• 47:24Bill Simmons?

  you would even get tired of like hearing your two uncles argue about sports after a while, right?

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Well, now they're, they're almost the only game in town doing it that way. So if you want what they do, you kinda have to go to them for it. So it's almost made them more valuable in a way now than even they were. Cause you know, at some point ESPN, it flipped. I remember PTI came out, PTI was this gigantic deal, hit from the beginning. But then at some point it flipped. At some point, you know, cold pizza, remember when it was cold pizza and all of these shows, they come along and PTI becomes more like the, the consistent show there. Well, now it's.

• 48:02Speaker 04

  A lot of these shows are going away. These personalities have changed and it exists and it's still kind of the only way, place you can get what it is that they're doing. So it's even more special.

• 48:11Bill Simmons?

  Did you believe Burke Magnus when he said the show lasts as long as they want to do it? Like, I wonder, once they don't want to do it, does the show still exist?

• 48:22Speaker 01

  I believe him when he says as long as they want to do it. Cause I think they're, they're in that handful of people. At ESPN who have the lifetime contract. Like Hubie had it, Dick Vitale had it, Lee Corso had it. When they walk, they, they walk away when they want to walk away.

• 48:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  It's a really tiny list, as you know. Most people don't leave ESPN under their own power.

• 48:41Bill Simmons?

  I didn't crack it.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  But.

• 48:45Speaker 04

  I was about to go there and you beat me to it.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Do you want PTI to exist post?

• 48:49Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Tony and Mike?

• 48:50Bill Simmons?

  I think the show should leave with them. The show should, just like inside the NBA, like, they are the show. It's, it's, you can put other people in it and guest host it, but it's not the same.

• 49:01Speaker 04

  Is there anyone out there, anybody out there right now that you could see filling in for those two guys?

• 49:08Bill Simmons?

  Just create a different show. Just make it something slightly different and do it that way and keep most of the elements you like. That, that show should, that show should end with them. And they shouldn't, I, I don't know. I just, that's how I feel, but we'll see how it goes. Anyway, Tony's going to be doing it till he's 80. How old was Cosell when he lost his mind in the mid eighties? Like mid sixties?

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think he was that old. People looked older in those days.

• 49:34Bill Simmons?

  I'm excited for Tony to, to start getting a little like gamy on the air. Will be the next step. Be like, whoa, Uncle Tony. Let it fly. You know, a red mustard moment. Fly at the table.

• 49:46Speaker 04

  Everyone, but I mean, it's not like he hasn't gone to the edge of controversy before.

• 49:50Bill Simmons?

  No, he's, yeah, he's not afraid.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  It's happened.

• 49:53Bill Simmons?

  He's not afraid.

• 49:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:55Bill Simmons?

  All right, Curtis, anything else we have to cover? Are we good?

• 49:57Speaker 01

  I think we're good. We did it.

• 49:59Bill Simmons?

  It's great to see you as always. It's Curtis and I, this is our 15th year working together.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  That's insane.

• 50:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 04

  15th year, we're going back to Grantland?

• 50:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, 2000 hired Curtis in spring of 2011. So yeah, we're, we're my 15.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  How has Bill changed?

• 50:16Speaker 01

  God, I think almost less than anybody.

• 50:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  I mean, like build a person.

• 50:20Bill Simmons?

  Pretty stable, yeah. Well, Curtis interviewed me for the first time. What was it, oh, four? He did a piece on me. That was when we met. You reached out.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Red Sox book came out.

• 50:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah. I don't even know if that piece is on the internets at this point.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  I, I think it is. It's called The Bard of the Red Sox.

• 50:40Bill Simmons?

  Oh, interesting. Yeah, that was how I met Curtis. And then always kind of monitor him. And then when I was thinking about Grantland, I had this list of writers and I was like, if I ever, they ever let me do this site, I have this person and this person. And he was always on that list. And now we're still working together. And he's also in the press box with your guy, Joel Anderson. You share custody.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I did.

• 51:02Bill Simmons?

  And with Shoemaker as well, but with Joel as well.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  I did press box with Joel. It was fantastic. Me and Joel, you have to listen to Ring your Tailgate. Me and Joel's dynamic. Me and Joel might be the new PTI with, with Tate there as a referee.

• 51:15Bill Simmons?

  Joel is, uh, any worries about Joel being comfortable on the show were erased in about five minutes.

• 51:21Speaker 04

  Done.

• 51:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  He's into it. He's, and he's, he's aggressive with it.

• 51:25Bill Simmons?

  It's a great show.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, he's the best. And I'm, I'm fortunate enough because Joel just, just trolls me all day. Don't a college football Saturday, just text me all this shit over and over again, especially when the Longhorns look bad. And I'm like, he's a natural for this.

• 51:37Bill Simmons?

  Guess you didn't make that thread.

• 51:38Speaker 04

  Excuse me, I like this. I'm, I'm good to know that he's not just doing it to me.

• 51:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Speaker 04

  Cause he, this is just his personality because the first time.

• 51:47Bill Simmons?

  He shares the wealth.

• 51:48Speaker 04

  The three, the three of us were on the podcast and we're all talking about college football. And Joel comes out at the end, he goes, you know, fuck LSU. I'm like, what? Why are you talking, why would you fuck me? Why, why did you say this? And now I know, cause this is what he does on Ring your Tailgate. Now I know he does it to you too. And that makes me feel better. I thought he had some kind of problem with me. I was gonna go let the air out of his tires. Every week.

• 52:09Bill Simmons?

  He loves it. Curtis, a pleasure as always. Good to see you. Hook 'em, Bill. This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible, the workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetraids. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly

• 52:50Bill Simmons?

  trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FTIC. Hey, I'm a big fan of FanDuel's new Thursday Touchdown Jackpot Promo, available every

• 53:31Bill Simmons?

  Thursday night football game. Here's how it works. Place a $5 anytime TD bet on the game using the promo PBT. In addition to the chance to win your bet, you can win a share of the 2 million in bonus bets FanDuel is giving away if your player scores the first TD or the last TD. Fun things to root for. If your player scores the first TD, you split 1 million in bonus bets with everyone that bet the same player. There's another $1 million jackpot for the last TD scorer. So I would go Tucker Kraft for both. I think he scores a touchdown in this game. Just double up. Do first TD, last TD. If you can only put him on the first TD, maybe put like Terry McLaurin as the last TD because I think the Packers are going to win this one going away. Be sure to check out the TD jackpot

• 54:14Bill Simmons?

  promo for Thursday night football this week and each subsequent Thursday over at our friends on FanDuel Sportsbook. All right, we're taping this. It is Tuesday afternoon Pacific time. Here with Van Lathan. We have Chris Mannix on the TV. I feel like this is like a real TV show, Van.

• 54:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, bring in Chris.

• 54:31Bill Simmons?

  Van, Van called for this. Van texted me last week. He said, I've been studying Crawford and Canelo nonstop, and I just want to go into it on the pod. I'm like, okay, that's fine. But first, we have to talk about this Clipper scandal, which I know you've covered a bunch. Did you get up to speed on this, Van? I have. Okay. Mannix, you have been on the side of, maybe this is the Massachusetts in you, very suspicious of the Clippers story. I would, I would describe you as a skeptic of the Clippers being like, ah, I don't know, how did this happen? What have you learned the last few days? And are you still as much of a skeptic?

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Well, my skepticism, it, it really flows from the idea that if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, chances are it's a duck.

• 55:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  And it also flows from the belief that stuff like this is not, you know, uncommon in the NBA, that we see teams doing some kind of deals that provide sweeteners to players. What, what has astonished me and what's astonished most of the league types that I've talked to is the sheer magnitude of it, the amount of money that appears to have been, well, that was given to Kawhi Leonard and may have been directed his way. I mean, $7 million per year is not nothing. I mean, I don't know what Kawhi's deal is with New Balance, but is it

• 56:05Speaker 01

  $7 billion per year? Like, and Kawhi's up there doing commercials for New Balance. He's wearing New Balance gear.

• 56:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  For this company, he did absolutely nothing. So I wouldn't say that I've learned anything new over the last few days. It's just that every NBA person I talked to is deeply suspicious that this is some kind of, you know, rogue outfit that on its own paid Kawhi Leonard $7 million per year to do nothing.

• 56:37Bill Simmons?

  And that's the key, Van. He didn't do anything. He didn't even do like local ads.

• 56:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I guess the question is, that part of it, everyone knows. But I saw Cuban, he went on Pablo's show and they duked it out for what Pablo said was three hours that they cut down to like an hour and 15 minutes or whatever. And the question, the central question is, how much of this did Steve Ballmer and the ownership of the Clippers know? Right? There is a world where you could make up a scenario where this is Uncle Dennis going around trying to get what he's trying to get from the Raptors.

• 57:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  And then from the Clippers. But if that's not the case, then what you're saying is that all of this is taking place, somebody runs it up to Steve Ballmer as Steve Ballmer goes, yes, go ahead and do that. Which I could believe, but it does seem like Ballmer is going to have a lot of space between what happened and him being involved in it to say, I didn't know anything. And what is the smoking gun to prove that?

• 57:38Bill Simmons?

  Can we talk about, you know, this has been such a-

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Dick, I just, one thing like, the one thing that gets, and I think Howard wrote about this on The Ringer today, like, there doesn't need to be a smoking gun for there to be punishment. Like, there, you don't, this is not a court of law where they have to have an email from Steve Ballmer that gives like the thumbs up emoji to go and do this underhanded deal between Kawhi and Aspiration. The NBA just has to believe it. There has to be enough circumstantial evidence-

• 58:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  For the NBA to believe something like this app. I think that needs to be taken into account. This is what I've been hearing from, from execs being like, it, it, look, I think Adam Silver would love to have that smoking gun. Remember the Minnesota situation? There was the smoking gun. There were actual emails between the two agents-

• 58:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like a written thing. Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  It was all down on paper. But as much as Adam would like to have that, he doesn't need that to bring the hand of God down on the Clippers.

• 58:33Speaker 04

  Can I say something real quick just to that? So- Let's say he doesn't have it. Think about how destabilizing it's going to be to enact a punishment against the Clippers. It's almost to me, it seems as if you didn't have that smoking gun, you'd almost want to punt on it because the hand of God that comes down on the Clippers for engaging in this type of malfeasance would have to be so severe.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:58Speaker 04

  But if you don't have the smoking gun, would you even want to do that based upon circumstantial evidence?

• 59:05Speaker 01

  I, I don't know that this league office is going to have the appetite for it. Because-

• 59:12Bill Simmons?

  Especially with the All-Star game coming in February.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of variables, a lot of variables. I don't know if this league office is going to have the appetite for it, but Ben, use the word destabilizing. How destabilizing though is it to do nothing? Like theoretically, there are people that wholeheartedly believe that the Clippers skirted ironclad rules. And if they did, look what they were able to do with it. Number one, they were taking some money out of owners' pockets because if they had paid Kawhi the full max the second time around, then that would have added to their tax burden, which would have meant more money flowing out of, of the LA Clippers. They also were able to do things, you know, cap wise or signing players wise, like guys they were able to pick up because they had more flexibility.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  So I would turn it back to you on this, Ben, like how destabilizing it would it be for a league to have the richest owner in the NBA allegedly, theoretically, just flock the rules in order to keep some money in his pocket, but more importantly, be able to build the kind of team he wanted to?

• 1:00:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, there seems to be common knowledge that everybody's doing this. Like I haven't heard about it on this level.

• 1:00:22Bill Simmons?

  Not at the number that this got.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Not at this number.

• 1:00:24Speaker 04

  So, so this is, so, so this is why I'll say, I definitely believe, I don't think this anyway, and it was interesting to hear Cuban and Pablo go back and forth because Cuban almost seemed like he was defending his own reputation, like these are my guys. Right? Like remember Blue Chips?

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Speaker 04

  Tony's my guy, my guy.

• 1:00:41Bill Simmons?

  No man, he wouldn't do that.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  He wouldn't do that. Tough ass kid from Chicago, that's what Cuban was doing. It seems to me very unlikely that, that Steve Ballmer didn't know about this. It seems impossible, right? That he didn't, that he didn't have any knowledge.

• 1:00:54Bill Simmons?

  Chris made the big point though. This, the, the suspension or whatever, the, the, whatever can happen, losing draft picks, voiding the contract, whatever it is. This is basically the OJ civil trial versus the OJ trial. You only need to kind of think something happened and have enough evidence to be like, I think that happened. So we're doing this.

• 1:01:13Speaker 04

  The question is how much evidence.

• 1:01:14Bill Simmons?

  This isn't an actual trial where like, we are proving this indisputably that you did this. I don't think they have to do that for the lead to crack down and be like, dude, something smells with this. You gave 50 million to these guys. He's getting 28 million to do nothing. Like you can say there's no smoking gum, but something happened here and we're punishing you. And I think that's how this plays out.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  It's the 28 million and it's the nothing. Like if he had just got out there and done one of those stupid HEB commercials that the Spurs did back in the day, or if he had posted once a year about his love for eliminating the carbon footprint, we would not be having this particular conversation. I think it comes down to, to, it either has to be a Timberwolves like hand of God punishment, because they believe that the Clippers circumvented the cap, or it's gotta be nothing. They cannot find a middle ground. There can't be like, okay, we're gonna dock you.

• 1:02:08Bill Simmons?

  I disagree. I think they can still punish them for some piece of this.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Like a second round pick?

• 1:02:13Bill Simmons?

  No, I, I think it's, I think it's somewhere between Joe Smith and nothing would be my guess on this. It's too.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  It's gotta lean closer to Joe Smith though, to me.

• 1:02:21Speaker 04

  But if they do that, then it's, it's like them trying to say that you can get a little bit pregnant. Right? Because either, because either you did it, and if you did it, it's such a shot at the competitive balance in the league.

• 1:02:34Bill Simmons?

  Can you imagine them not doing anything now?

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  Well, that's what I'm, what I'm saying is it, the choice is for the league is whether or not to make this story right now, which is a huge, a huge sports story.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  The choice is whether or not to make this the biggest sports story of the decade, which is what, is which is what you.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  Like a Donahue level type thing. Donahue is way worse.

• 1:02:56Speaker 04

  Which is what you do.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Let me, let me put it on something like the. One thing that Stern did well, it's always going to come back to what would Stern do? We are barely going to make those.

• 1:03:05Speaker 04

  It would be a secret two year retirement.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  Sir, well, Stern, Stern liked to make examples, right? He liked to throw an elbow, you know, in 2000, you know, the Timberwolves did it. He came down with the harshest punishment he possibly could. Malice in the palace, he said to Ron Artest, you, you're out. You can't do this. This is the harshest punishment we could possibly come up with. Even something on a smaller, I remember when the Spurs were like benching guys DNP old and stuff like that. Like they handed out one of the largest fines ever for, for something like that. Like old NBA was willing to throw an elbow and to come down with swift punishments and severe punishments to make an example of someone. It remains to be seen whether this version of it is willing to do the same.

• 1:03:52Bill Simmons?

  Can we talk about how funny this story is? I know it's not supposed to be funny, but let's be honest, nobody got hurt. Rules were broken, but it didn't help the Clippers. Nothing really happened. They've won three playoff series in six years. First of all, aspiration, is that, that's what it's called, right? Aspiration.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  I've lived in LA this whole decade. They were allegedly a sponsor for Clipper games. I'd never heard of the company. I don't, I'm not saying I have to hear about everything, but it was like this, we're trying to make the environment safer, but they're somehow funneling all this money and it's basically a Ponzi scheme slash, let's just try to take as money, money, as much money as we can from people. Kawhi getting 28 million for four years to do nothing. And then my favorite part of this, Uncle Dennis.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Bill Simmons?

  Who was a hilarious character in 2019. We all heard these stories. It became like that Bill Brasky SNL sketch where it was like, I heard Uncle Dennis asked for a yacht and an elephant. And you just never knew what was true and not true. And now Uncle Dennis is back in our lives just asking for shit. I just think, I think this is almost a funnier story than, than like, like people are taking this so seriously. And it's like, yeah, if they did it, they're going to lose all these picks. But this is like crazy that they thought they could get away with this. I'm almost like in awe of how stupid this is. You know what I mean?

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm interested more though, in the ripple effect. Effects of what a punishment could be like if I knew the punishment was just going to be some money in a second round pick, I probably wouldn't care. Quite as much or be quite as invested in finding out exactly what the truth here is. But the reality is that the outcome could be a catastrophic for the Clippers. And B in like the nuclear scenario could put like a top 10 player on the open market to be signed by somebody. If they decided to void the contract of Kawhi Leonard. So that to me is the most interesting angle of all this, what the. What the fallout could be if the NBA determines the Clippers did this.

• 1:05:52Bill Simmons?

  Is that like the worst thing in the world if they void it though?

• 1:05:55Speaker 04

  And have him go back. I mean.

• 1:05:56Bill Simmons?

  They don't have to pay him $50 million a year. I don't even know if he can play 50 games. I mean, I know it's not great. They have title aspirations.

• 1:06:02Speaker 04

  You're talking about it from a basketball.

• 1:06:04Bill Simmons?

  I would say losing the draft picks would be the thing that killed me.

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  But there's also something else that's going on here and it's like a social thing, right? Steve Ballmer is one of the richest men in the world.

• 1:06:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 04

  Right? And so when you watch these interviews or watch these, these people talk, it seems like. This is a situation where there are some people that are looking at this. It's like, shouldn't he have to follow the rules too? Shouldn't Steve Ballmer have to follow the rules too? There are rules that are put in place so that mega rich guys can't just go spend whatever they want on any player that they want. So that there is some balance, you know, I get deeply into way too deeply into Twitter, much to the chagrin of a lot of people around here.

• 1:06:44Bill Simmons?

  Including this guy.

• 1:06:44Speaker 04

  There you go. But there are people who went, yo, man, I just want to let you know. This Ballmer Clippers situation, this is a microcosm for our whole society where rich people feel like they could just do whatever they want. And make whatever rules they want and the rest of us just have to go along with it. So there are people that are looking at this, they're saying, hey. If Kawhi is on no show jobs or if he's getting no show jobs to the tune of what is it 50 million, 30 million dollars?

• 1:07:11Bill Simmons?

  28 million and 20 million dollars of worthless stuff.

• 1:07:13Speaker 04

  Dollars.

• 1:07:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:14Speaker 04

  To circumvent the cap, they want to see their basketball gods like rain their hand down on this and kind of nip it in the bud.

• 1:07:22Bill Simmons?

  I almost want it to be more money than it was. It's right in that. Middle zone of like the 28 million. Sure, that's great, but Kawhi was making 50 plus million a year, right? And it's, it's like, alright.

• 1:07:36Speaker 04

  It's a lot of money to the rest of them.

• 1:07:37Bill Simmons?

  No, but you gotta grease him up with extra money. But it's not worth, it's not enough money to risk like his reputation for the rest of his life. Ballmer being suspended with seven draft picks. It's not like he's funneling $200 million worth of stock or some crazy thing. It's like, it's like he's wetting his beak. Here's a little extra for you, Kawhi. Here's, here's 8% extra on top of your salary. Um, that I'm gonna funnel your way so you'll stay with us. But here's one of the things I don't understand. Kawhi was hurt when this happened. He tore an ACL. So why did they have to pay him beyond the salary cap to make sure he stayed on the Clippers? Where was he going? He was hurt.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Well, I, I'm not focused on that first contract. I, I'm more focused on the second contract.

• 1:08:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's what I mean though.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  The one, the three year. Well, that was less than max. Was he hurt then, like three?

• 1:08:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he was hurt.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Three years ago?

• 1:08:27Bill Simmons?

  And it was less than max, but it was.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  He's been hurt so many times.

• 1:08:29Bill Simmons?

  It was very.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  But it's less than max, but what, but what does that less than max allow them to do, Bill? Like, what did that less than max? Did that open up avenues for them to do certain things?

• 1:08:38Bill Simmons?

  It got them Russell Westbrook, who helped them lose in round one. I mean, it didn't really do that much.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  I'm not saying their decisions were.

• 1:08:44Bill Simmons?

  That's why I think the story's funny. Like, first of all, if they did do the, do it this way, where they're like, hey, we, Uncle Dennis wants more money. Ballmer's like, alright, let's use that aspiration, that weird tree site. We'll all give them money and just have them give half of it to Uncle Dennis and then, and, and nobody will find out. This fucking random company. What's the worst thing that could happen? Oh, nothing, this will never come out. Like, that, I just think this is so stupid that that would be, it would actually happen and yet it might be what actually happened.

• 1:09:14Speaker 04

  The funniest thing about the story to me is the, the two people that could give a shit less about any of this are Uncle Dennis and Kawhi.

• 1:09:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:24Speaker 04

  Dude, I would be so surprised if Kawhi Leonard's heart rate or blood pressure went up one beat or one point.

• 1:09:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, is he gonna apologize to his fans?

• 1:09:35Speaker 04

  None of this.

• 1:09:35Bill Simmons?

  I'd like to apologize to all the Kawhi.

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  Nah.

• 1:09:38Bill Simmons?

  Kawhi believers out there, I'm sorry. Never.

• 1:09:40Speaker 04

  He, he, he's the, the, the, the one in the middle of this. It's all about and over him and I can guarantee you, he couldn't give a shit about any of this that's happening. In the worst case scenario, if he is back on the, the, the free agent market, him and Uncle Dennis get to go to another team. And asked to be environmentalist somewhere else. So like

• 1:10:02Bill Simmons?

  Maybe he could go to another city and he could teach him about climate change.

• 1:10:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, help him clean up the city.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Well, do you, do you even blame Kawhi?

• 1:10:08Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  In these circumstan- no, because guys ask for stuff all the time. Like, that's been something that I've had conver- even just a couple hours ago with the GM. Like, guys ask for things constantly. It's like, if, it's almost, the analogy would be like, if you have, like, a, a young, you have a young kid who is up at 10 o'clock at night, says, hey, can I get a candy bar? Right? I want to go, I want a Snickers bar before bed. You don't blame the kid for eating it. You get blamed for giving it to him, right? Like, the kid, it's the kid's job to ask. It's almost, it's Kawhi's job. It's even Frank the Uncle Dennis's job to ask for as much as you can possibly get. It's the general manager's job, the owner's job, to say no. And if, it is a possibility, at least, that they didn't say no.

• 1:10:53Bill Simmons?

  Mannix, how many, if, what's, what's the over under players, owners and front office executives who are sweating fucking bullets this last week? With all the chicanery that happens in this league and all the, yeah, use our team plane to go to wherever and then just make sure you bring it back. And, oh yeah, you, your buddies, you guys want to go to Vegas? Take the plane. Oh, here's this. Oh, here's this little endorsement thing. Like, there's, it has to be people sweating bullets.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  It, look, if over the last 10, 15 years, your star player took less money, you know that if the Clippers get punished, you're going to wind up in somebody's crosshairs. You're going to wind up,

• 1:11:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  You, you could wind up being investigated. Look, that's the, the humorous thing to me about the Cuban defense. And, and I have no knowledge of what was going on with, with his teams, but like, you know, who in the history, in the last 20 years, has taken less money to stay with a team than Dirk Nowitzki did years ago? Like, I mean, it was a, it was a huge

• 1:11:56Bill Simmons?

  Dude, I was on this podcast when Dirk had that documentary and Cuban's company bought it. And I would, made multiple jokes on multiple pods about how he spent like Iron Man level money on the Dirk doc. Here's 48 million for your doc. Like, who knows what he spent, but it was technically legal, whatever he spent, right? Magnolia buys the doc.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:12:17Bill Simmons?

  It's like smart business.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  There's just a lot, there's a lot of things that you can do that Maybe don't necessarily pass the smell test. So I

• 1:12:24Bill Simmons?

  How about the season tickets? How about like the guys, the best friend of the guy who's always sitting courtside? I wonder how he got those tickets or that's the suite or just whatever. Like, what do people think happens?

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Look, it's they think this stuff happens. It's just this would be

• 1:12:41Bill Simmons?

  Not 28 million dollars.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Well, this would be, again, that's the big thing, the number, the number and the fact that he did nothing. That that keeps coming up. The fact, you know, stuff like this, like you remember the Deandre Jordan stuff from 10 years ago? That was like 200 or 200 grand or something like that. Some kind of endorsement deal that the NBA caught them trying to do. Like those kinds of things I'm sure happen on a regular basis. Here, borrow my jet. Here, stay at my private estate in Aspen, whatever, whatever that may be. 28 million dollars is a number that people can't seem to come off of.

• 1:13:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then the other thing that's funny is Bombers Defense is basically, I have a bunch of idiots working for me and I guess I didn't fully realize it. Yeah, and I got scammed and I have a bunch of dumb asses. That's, that's your defense.

• 1:13:27Speaker 04

  The funniest part to me is imagining, just like, you remember the Sopranos episode where they're all sitting around, all the mobsters are sitting around? And Finn walks up and they tell him, Finn, sit down. You don't have to do anything. We're just hanging out. You know what I mean? Before he gets sexually harassed by one of the capos in the family. And just imagining Kawhi in that situation. Kawhi, essentially a part of, uh, illegal by the NBA standards scheme, no show job. He's a part of the scheme. He's a part of the racket. That's hysterical to me. That's funny to me.

• 1:14:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, how about aspiration?

• 1:14:03Bill Simmons?

  Nobody at any point during any of the meetings is like, I mean, he's got to film a commercial for us, right? And they, no, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. Just, just make sure the check clears to Uncle Dennis. Yeah, I mean, they didn't even try to fake some sort of like, uh, like the flower shop in the town. It's like, yeah, Kawhi opened a flower store. Kawhi opened a karaoke place in Koreatown. Like, none of that.

• 1:14:25Speaker 04

  It's lazy. All he would have had to have done

• 1:14:27Bill Simmons?

  It's so lazy.

• 1:14:28Speaker 04

  Was take one flight, build one basketball court. I'm Kawhi Leonard for us. All he would have had to do is one thing and it'd have been like he earned the money.

• 1:14:36Bill Simmons?

  And the fact that it's him of all athletes.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  I think you're even overestimating what he would have had to do. Just tweet one time like a season. Like, give yourself some plausible deniability here. Like, that, you know, that is one area where it looks like, if it plays out like it looks like, that Kawhi might have screwed the Clippers over there by not doing literally anything for this company and having a contract that spells out that you don't have to do anything. Like, it's just, it's so implausible to believe that this is not what it looks like.

• 1:15:09Bill Simmons?

  So, the only case that I could come up with for Ballmer, and I think Michael Rosenberg at Sports Illustrated made some variation of this, but basically, this place is trying to hustle Ballmer. They're trying to get as much money out of him as possible. And they think, if we just give Kawhi this huge thing, that'll tie Ballmer to us even more. He's already given us 50 million. We'll give 28 back to Kawhi, and maybe we'll be able to get like 300 million from Ballmer. And this was like some sort of long-play Ponzi scheme thing. I was like, alright. I test drove that for a couple of minutes and was like, that's interesting, but it doesn't add up to the him not doing any work whatsoever for 28 million dollars. I just can't figure it out.

• 1:15:51Speaker 04

  The thing that makes the most sense, which is always how these things are litigated in people's minds. I don't know, the investigation that the NBA will do will have all these different steps. But the thing that makes the most sense is that Steve Ballmer and the Clippers tried to go around the salary cap to pay Kawhi Leonard more money. That's the thing that makes the most sense.

• 1:16:11Bill Simmons?

  It's like that Amy Bradley where she falls off the cruise ship, that Netflix thing. And there's like 17 theories of what happened. It's like, oh, maybe she just fell off the cruise ship.

• 1:16:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Bill Simmons?

  And that might have been what the answer was. Well, we'll find out. I have reached the, I think, a lot of this has been pretty funny. Like, even ESPN yesterday, they were talking about it and they were going through all the sponsors that, like Joel Embiid, well, he, I think McMenamin was doing it. Joel Embiid, the team had to deal with this and Joel Mc... He also did a thing. It's like, no, but none of those people were making 28 million dollars to do nothing from a team sponsor.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  And they did something. That's the whole thing. Like, Jason Tatum's got a deal with a Celtics sponsor. Like, he's in all these commercials. Like, they're all doing something. It comes back to the fact that he did absolutely nothing, got paid 7 million dollars per year. That, I don't know how you explain that away. That, to me, is gonna be the hardest part of it.

• 1:17:01Speaker 04

  You're saying that Tatum's involved in something.

• 1:17:02Bill Simmons?

  Hey.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:17:05Speaker 04

  Made some calls. Tatum.

• 1:17:08Bill Simmons?

  That's a war with me and Pablo.

• 1:17:10Speaker 04

  I want to see part two.

• 1:17:12Bill Simmons?

  If he goes after Tatum.

• 1:17:13Speaker 04

  I want to see. I want to see, that's, that's the franchise that we really need to be keeping our eye on.

• 1:17:18Bill Simmons?

  No, that's not true.

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  Someone that regularly appears, regularly appears on NBC Sports Boston, there are lots of Tatum commercials doing that stuff. So he's, he's providing services.

• 1:17:27Bill Simmons?

  He's putting in the time. All right, we're taking a break and then let's talk about the fight. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off Plus as the official beer sponsor of the NBA. Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026, ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry. Entry deadlines, prizes and details.

• 1:18:11Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. And now it's time for a special part of today's episode brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I know technically there's no such thing as too much NFL. But on 1 PM on a Sunday ET, 10 AM in the morning, uh, on the, on the Pacific coast here.

• 1:18:56Bill Simmons?

  You're flipping through the channels, you're trying to follow these games. You don't need to do it that way. It's the whole reason NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV is basically a must have from September to January because of multi people. We'll get to that. It's the only way to impose order on the chaos. Get every game, every Sunday all in one place with features that help you stay on top of all the NFL action. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games. Excludes digital only games and commercials. Terms and bargains apply. No refunds. Okay. So we have week two. We have nine. Early games, as we call it out here because it comes out of 10. And I'm gonna give you the four to put on your multi view. I think Jacksonville Cincinnati weirdly is a must. Cincinnati's offense needs to get going.

• 1:19:40Bill Simmons?

  Jacksonville's offense might have a chance to get going against Cincy's defense. I'm in on that one. I'm in on Chicago, Detroit.

• 1:19:48Bill Simmons?

  What are we getting from Caleb? Two own one teams. Whoever loses that game is in a lot of trouble. I think I'm in on Buffalo and the Jets. The Jets looked good last week. Buffalo, obviously coming off an amazing game. And then last but not least, Seattle, Pittsburgh. Two teams that I think both have a chance to be playoff teams. Seattle probably not if they lose this game. Notice how I didn't put the Pats and Miami in there because I'm an honorable guy. And it's not one of the best four games. Sorry. Sorry, Pats fans. Just remember with NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV, 1pm. Should be the best part of your Sunday. You're in the driver's seat. Pick every game, every Sunday, all in one place. Control that chaos. Trust me on the multi view.

• 1:20:29Bill Simmons?

  For a limited time only, get $36 off NFL Sunday Ticket using BS36. At checkout, new users only while supplies last, ends 9/22. Go to youtube.com/BS to sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games of commercial use. Device and content restrictions apply. Terms and embargoes apply. No refunds. All right. Canelo Crawford. Van texted me last week and he's like, I gotta talk about this fight in your pod. You've only invited yourself on the pod like three times. Yeah. And you're like, I'm watching these clips. I have real takes. And I was like, well, I'm gonna talk to Mannix about it. So we'll do it, the three of us. I'm gonna start here.

• 1:21:13Bill Simmons?

  The biggest fights of the 21st century, which I was like, oh, I'll be able to rattle these off. Like, like if I go back to when I loved boxing in the 70s and 80s, I could just rattle off all the biggest fights. Like instinctively. The 21st century gets a little bit hazier. Right? Like, I felt like.

• 1:21:31Bill Simmons?

  Mayweather Canelo was like a, like a big fight.

• 1:21:34Speaker 04

  Mayweather De La Hoya.

• 1:21:35Bill Simmons?

  I mean Mayweather De La Hoya, I'm sorry. Mayweather De La Hoya was, was big fight. The kind of press that like Hagler Leonard or Hearns Leonard or the kind of fights from the eighties. We've had some heavyweight stuff. Tyson Lewis was, was big, but um, from an interest standpoint and a legacy standpoint, this might be the most interesting of the last 25 years. And I don't know if I'm in the minority on that, but that there's so many ways this could go. And yet I don't feel like anyone's talking about it.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  I don't, I wouldn't say it's the most interesting, like top of my head, like my list of.

• 1:22:12Bill Simmons?

  Let's hear it.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  Roy Jones, John Ruiz was I think in oh three.

• 1:22:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and he moved way up.

• 1:22:17Speaker 04

  Moved to heavyweight.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Way up to fight at heavyweight.

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  Ruiz wasn't like George Foreman, you know?

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that had never been done, I think, at that time before. That was like the real test of Roy's greatness. I remember buying that on pay-per-view back in the day. De La Hoya Mayweather, of course, De La Hoya Pacquiao, not quite at that level, but it was still pretty big. De La Hoya, or I'm sorry Mayweather Canelo was big. And then the biggest is Mayweather Pacquiao. Like that was the, was a cultural event. I mean, that had, you had CNN that was there. You had CNN, ESPN, The New York Times, everybody that covered sports, even on a nominal basis, was, was there covering that. This is, this is up there in terms of marketability because you have two very different fanbases. And you have the Netflix fire hose involved, which is going to lead to the biggest viewership number that a traditional boxing match has, has ever seen.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  But it, it's, it's on a very short list of the biggest fights of the 21st century.

• 1:23:10Bill Simmons?

  You know, one thing I love about it? It's, it's a good fight to argue about.

• 1:23:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:15Bill Simmons?

  Where you could really make strong cases for each side. And you could, like, I still don't know who I'm betting on. I have a sense, but I, I could still be swayed four days in.

• 1:23:26Speaker 04

  It's, it's a fight to me where the traditional wisdom and the boxing knowledge, the traditional boxing wisdom and the boxing knowledge hardcore are like butting heads. The traditional wisdom says. The bigger skilled man wins this fight if you're jumping up two weights and that's Canelo Alvarez. However, most of the hardcore boxing people are so amazed at the skill and toughness of Terrence Crawford. That they really feel like he can beat this version of Canelo Alvarez. They really feel like he can.

• 1:23:58Bill Simmons?

  And that's the key thing, this version of Canelo Alvarez.

• 1:24:00Speaker 04

  Right, and that's the tension in the fight. I guess for me, it's also an interesting fight because it's a fight between two guys that are all time greats in their sport.

• 1:24:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:12Speaker 04

  But in my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong about Canelo Alvarez, it seems like they failed to become all time cultural, pop culture greats as sports stars.

• 1:24:22Bill Simmons?

  Do you know why that happened? Cause neither of them really had the awesome fight. Like Leonard had the Hearns fight, right? And he also had the two Duran fights. And by the time he got to 1982, he felt like you, you still have to have like the memorable something. Even in the NBA, you still, like Bird and Magic needed the 84 finals to elevate that. Like if you ask somebody like, what's, what's the most amazing Canelo fight? They'd list stuff, but it's, it's not something like you would be watching 50 years from now.

• 1:24:53Speaker 04

  Crawford has that fight.

• 1:24:54Bill Simmons?

  He's been Crawford has that fight.

• 1:24:56Speaker 04

  Crawford's just.

• 1:24:57Bill Simmons?

  Crawford killing Spence.

• 1:24:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's one of the top performances I've ever seen before.

• 1:25:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but Canelo doesn't, do you think he has a fight like that?

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  I'd argue that the second Golovkin fight was up there. Um, I, I think most people believe Golovkin was going, you know, most believe Golovkin won the first fight. He was going to win the second fight. And then Canelo not only won, but the way that he won, taking the fight to Golovkin, who at that time was the predator. At 160 was at or near the peak of his powers. I, I, it's just, it was such a long time ago now. What was it? Six years ago, seven years ago? At this point that we, that we kind of forget. The, the Crawford stuff is interesting to me. Because I think a lot of people are looking intently at Canelo Alvarez's last fight, which was lackluster. I was there in Saudi Arabia for that fight. But they're not looking as intently at Crawford's last fight.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  And look, you bring up Spence, Ben, and that was awesome, but that was two fights earlier. That was at 147 pounds. When Terrence Crawford made the jump to 154, mathematically, he was life and death with Israel Madrimov. Israel Madrimov is a good fighter, but I encourage people to like to look at the statistics of Terrence Crawford as a welterweight versus the statistics that he had at 154, the one fight he had there. At welterweight, he was a volume power puncher. He was a guy that hunted you down. Against Madrimov, the number of right hands he threw dropped precipitously, the punch output per round dropped precipitously, the landed punches per round dropped precipitously.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Like, he was a very different fighter at 154 against a good, solid BB+ level opponent. Now, he's jumping up two more weight classes. And look, people have done this in the past. I mean, Sugar Ray jumped up two weight classes to fight.

• 1:26:48Bill Simmons?

  Down in the line. Yeah. It's a big one for us.

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  It was sort of, they did something kind of in-between there. He did it for Hagler, sort of. He was kind of a welterweight.

• 1:26:56Bill Simmons?

  Hearns jumped up two divisions.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Hearns did it, of course. Roy did it against John Ruiz. But more often than not, size ultimately matters. And look, I'm not trying to compare Terrence Crawford to Jermell Charlo, but Jermell Charlo, because Terrence is a better fighter, I think. But Jermell Charlo jumped up two weight classes two years ago against Canelo and got blitzed. Didn't win a single minute of a single round, got knocked down. Now, I think Crawford can have more success, but I think it's wildly dismissive of what we saw from Crawford the last time out to not take that into account.

• 1:27:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the other thing. He's only one fight a year for five years.

• 1:27:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's getting older. What I would say about the Madrimov fight, and what I think some of those people would say about the Madrimov fight, is while Madrimov is a B to B+ fighter, that he does present to Crawford, who is jumping up. I thought- The matchmaking was bad in that fight. As far as if you're gonna move up to 54. The first fighter that you fight should not be a fighter that's as awkward. And stylistically as hard to figure out as Madrimov was. And there is a boxing part to that, like. The weight is one thing, but then when you look at the style that Madrimov. Uh, presented to Crawford, he muted a lot of his offense because I think it took Terrance a while to figure him out.

• 1:28:15Speaker 04

  Right? And maybe he figures him out easier if he can overwhelm him at 47. Or one of the light, the, the, the, the lighter weight classes. Maybe it wouldn't have been as big a deal, but at the higher weight. With there being more on the line, more that can come back at him, I think it took him a second to kind of figure Madrimov out. The question that a lot of people are asking is. The fact that Alvarez right now is so meat and potatoes. I mean, he is now, he still has great head movement. He's still very tough, but he is a seek and destroy boxing machine. There's not going to be a whole lot of movement from him. Like even in the skull fight, when we talk about people's last performances, he could not cut the ring off against him, which in past versions of Canelo Alvarez.

• 1:29:01Speaker 04

  Would have cut the ring off against that guy and put him to death. But he seems to not be able to do that anymore. He seems to be meat and potatoes. And if Crawford shows up. And the size is less of an issue for him. It seems like. He would be able to fight his way to a victory. That's what I think a lot of people are thinking.

• 1:29:17Bill Simmons?

  You agree with that?

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Well, no, um, I, I, sorry, I did not.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  The, the, the school fight had a couple of things going for it. One. You had a guy that ran. As much as any fighter at a championship level fight I've ever seen run.

• 1:29:33Speaker 04

  It's pretty upsetting.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  He was on, he was on his bike from the opening bell. And could Canelo have done more to cut the ring off? Absolutely. But this guy was a Cuban trained. You know, undefeated boxer who fights like that. I mean, he was, he was on the move. The other variable that doesn't get talked about enough is the fact the fight was at 6 a.m. Like the fight was early in the morning in Saudi Arabia to make it prime time in the US. And yes, Canelo did everything he could to acclimate his body towards that type of start time. But there's only so much you can do when you're talking about getting up at midnight. He told me he got up at midnight, jumped into a cold plunge to get himself awake to get ready to go to the arena. These are all things that you don't see a fighter do

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  ordinarily to get ready for a fight. I also think there's a lack of motivation there in fighting Williams School. Like Canelo, he wanted to fight Jake Paul that week. Like he had, was on the one yard line with Jake Paul to do that fight on that day before. Turkey Alashik came in with all that money and said, you gotta make this fight. We want to be undisputed against Terrence Crawford. You gotta do it. You gotta do it. So I think all those played into the fact that Canelo didn't look as, as good as he did. That's a long way of saying, I don't think he's anywhere near as bad as he looked that night in Saudi Arabia. Maybe he's not the guy that was running through super middleweight between 2018 and 2000 and what, 22. But I think he's maybe 80, 85% of all that. The other part

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  with Crawford is, and I've said this a lot about Canelo opponents, to beat Canelo Alvarez, you have to throw right hands. Look at the guys that have either beaten or were successful against him. Gennady Golovkin threw a ton of right hands. Dmitri Bevel threw a ton of right hands. You cannot jab your way to success against Canelo Alvarez. Many have tried.

• 1:31:21Speaker 04

  You wouldn't say that Bevel jabbed his way to...

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  Oh, no. Bevel, Bevel, look at the numbers. Bevel, Bevel boat raced him. Bevel pressured him. He was bigger. He was stronger. He was in his face. He backed him up all night long. That's what Bevel did.

• 1:31:33Speaker 04

  I know, but the jab in that fight was, I can't believe I'm going back and forth with boxing with Chris Mas. I'm having a great time. The jab in that fight was, was Bevel's, to me, Bevel took a couple of rounds to really jab, use the educated lead hand to put Canelo where he wanted him to be. And then later on in the fight, when he saw that Canelo wasn't gonna give him anything, that he had him figured out, that's when he started opening up against Canelo Alvarez with... With Crawford, I'm fully expecting him to come into this fight and fight it southpaw. Like, to me, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for him to come in and fight this fight orthodox. I'm fully expecting him to fight the southpaw.

• 1:32:15Speaker 04

  So it's gonna be the lead hand that we're gonna see kind of whether or not he can use that to mute Canelo a little bit and whether or not he can use his feet good enough to stay away from him and maybe tire Canelo out a little bit.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  I think you made the point, though, that Bevel did eventually open up, right? And that was a big reason why he came out on top of that fight. The guys I've seen jab and then not open up. Caleb Plant for the undisputed championship. Sergey Kovalev, who threw a million and one jabs that night. Buddy McGirt was like, in training camp, Buddy McGirt was literally tying Kovalev's right hand to his body to make him throw jabs out there to keep throwing it over and over again. Like, there's a belief that you can score on Canelo with a jab, and you can. But I don't believe you can beat him without throwing right hands. And the Crawford that I saw against Madrimov statistically did not throw a lot of right hands, or at least nowhere near the number of right hands, or I should forget the right hand, power shots.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  Let's go with that, the power shots that he was throwing in that context. He did not throw anywhere near as many as he threw against Errol Spence. So I think that's gonna be a problem. If Bud comes out and tries to jab his way to success, yeah, he'll have some moments there, just like Kovalev did. Kovalev was in that fight, it was close, until he got knocked out. I think he'll have some moments, but I have yet to see someone then jab their way to a victory over Canelo Alvarez.

• 1:33:35Speaker 04

  So, well, I will say this real quick. Somebody did, and they robbed him. Golovkin jabbed his way to a victory over Canelo Alvarez.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  No, not even that, but he was throwing rights, too.

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  If you go back and look at the fight, he controlled that fight with the jab, like, and even the second fight.

• 1:33:49Bill Simmons?

  That's a bad decision.

• 1:33:50Speaker 04

  Even the second fight, I'm gonna be honest with you, man. I think Triple G won that fight.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  It was close.

• 1:33:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think Triple G won that fight, but anyway, I digress.

• 1:33:59Bill Simmons?

  So Crawford's only gone above 147 once in the Abramov fight. Now he's jumping 21 pounds past that. I always like, I've been watching boxing a long time. I always get nervous when the guys jump 20 pounds.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  Should.

• 1:34:16Bill Simmons?

  That just seems like a lot of weight, man.

• 1:34:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:20Bill Simmons?

  I it's just, there's a physicality that you just have met like Canelo is supposed to be around the weight like what's he gonna come in at like 175, 174? He might gain 10 pounds. Yeah, yeah. But he's kind of naturally built that way. I did now I I've read all the stuff about Crawford's been gradually trying to add and he's doing it correctly. He's not just.

• 1:34:41Speaker 04

  What do you think Crawford weighed fight night against Majorma?

• 1:34:44Bill Simmons?

  What was it?

• 1:34:45Speaker 04

  169.

• 1:34:47Bill Simmons?

  He looks slow in that fight though for him.

• 1:34:50Speaker 04

  I'm just I'm I'm I'm, by the way, this is not me saying that Crawford will will will be Canelo Alvarez. This is not me saying that. But what it is me saying is that like it if Canelo was going to lose a fight of this magnitude, this would be the guy that he would lose it to. This guy is a dog. He has tremendous power. He's got skill.

• 1:35:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Spence thing, that's the Spence thing is his resume because that was a violent, vindictive fight, like just really wanted to like snatch the guy's soul. And that's why. So one of the things I wrote down, because this reminds me of the Hagler Leonard fight. But if Crawford was both Hagler and Leonard, he's moving up, he's moving up weights, right? Like Leonard did where it's like, oh shit, you're gonna go all the way up there? Oh, man, I'm nervous for you. But then he has the Hagler side. He's got that kind of fuck you to him that I don't know if Canelo has. And Canelo is like, he's he's cemented. He's one of the most famous fighters of this century. I don't I I know Crawford

• 1:35:58Bill Simmons?

  is in the boxing community, but like my mom doesn't know who he is. I don't know if he's had his moment yet. And I wonder like, I hate to do the first take, you know, like the the the morning sports show thing, but because obviously the fight means more to both, but it really means more to Crawford, I think. Oh, but way, way more. A more important fight for him legacy wise, everything.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  Way, way more. He could become the first three-time undisputed men's champion in the four-belt era. That would be something. And he would also, I'd argue, add the first Hall of Fame fighter to his resume. Look at Canelo's resume, loaded with Hall of Fame guys.

• 1:36:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's that awesome.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  Some he won, some he's lost. Crawford, like, what's the best opponent on the resume of Crawford? It's Errol Spence, right?

• 1:36:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, fought Shawn Porter, Jeff Horn.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  But none of, I mean, I think you can make a case that Spence gets in the Hall of Fame. It's an arguable one. I don't think it's a first-ballot Hall of Fame case.

• 1:36:58Bill Simmons?

  Did you feel like Spence was damaged goods in that fight?

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  I did, I did. But that takes nothing away. I don't want to take away from Crawford there because, you know, he tried to make that fight for years. He tried forever to make that fight happen.

• 1:37:07Speaker 04

  Well, and a lot of the guys that you would, that in terms of like at 47, a lot of those guys were with Hayman in them. And like, he'd had problems, like, getting to those fights. So it's, but I'll also say this, man.

• 1:37:19Speaker 04

  So Canelo's Hall of Famers, we would say are Miguel Cotto, we would say they're Sergey Kovalev, we would say that they're Triple G, all of these fighters, I could look at all of them.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  Lara, I'd say maybe, uh, yeah.

• 1:37:32Speaker 04

  Maybe, well, if Lara's a Hall of Famer, then.

• 1:37:35Speaker 01

  I don't even know who Kovalev is. Kovalev's kind of.

• 1:37:37Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, but Kovalev and Bivol were like guys. I don't know if they're gonna be Hall of Famers.

• 1:37:41Speaker 04

  But Bivol, he lost, but by the time he fought, by the version of Sergey Kovalev that Canelo Alvarez fought, like, the name mattered.

• 1:37:50Bill Simmons?

  I lost money on that name. I still believe in the zombie Kovalev.

• 1:37:54Speaker 04

  Sergey Kovalev that, like, that Canelo Alvarez fought, we're not talking about Kovalev of 2014 or 2015.

• 1:38:00Bill Simmons?

  But he's been fighting relevant guys now, really. And he fought, when he fought Floyd, he fought Floyd pretty early. You know, in his career. He was like, I went to that fight, ironically. And he just felt like he was two years away from it, but took it anyway because it made sense for him to take it. But he's been taking big fights for 12 years. I don't, some of this isn't Crawford's fault necessarily. Because like you said, he was trying to make that Spence fight forever. Sometimes there, he just didn't kind of have his class that came with him. And he's 41 and 0. He's 31 KOs. And I was thinking, like, if you're talking best fighters of the last 25 years, there's been all these last 25 years lists. And Floyd has to be the best fighter, I think, of this first quarter century, right? I think everyone would be like, it starts with Floyd.

• 1:38:45Bill Simmons?

  And then you could kind of talk about all these different people, but Usyk, Andre Ward and Crawford, I think would be two, three, four for me in some order because none of them ever lost. And then you move into that.

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't like the lost part, like, you know, Canelo lost, but he never lost at a low level. He'd lost to elite guys.

• 1:39:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, those guys have to be after Floyd mentioned. I would have them two, three, four, but they have to be.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Right now, I put Canelo ahead. I'd put Canelo ahead of Crawford at this point, just based on resume alone.

• 1:39:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but that's why Crawford needs to fight.

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  He needs it. Like, the, the, the two things that you guys touched on there that I think most, one thing is you've touched on is the most important is the weight. Like, muscle is heavy and Crawford looks fantastic. He looks like a bodybuilder. But this will be his first time ever fighting of 168 pounds. It'll be his second time ever fighting above 147 pounds. I have this argument with Sergio Moore all the time. I feel like I'm on crazy pills where he doesn't think it's that big a deal.

• 1:39:42Bill Simmons?

  He drives you crazy, that Sergio. He really, he really bugs you.

• 1:39:45Speaker 04

  I'll listen to it. It's very, you guys are a good crew, man.

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, we try. But he's like, the weight doesn't matter all that much. You can't convince me of that. Like, the second half of the fight, when Crawford is moving as much as he's gonna have to move, trying to be as reflexive as he's gonna have to be, that the added muscle isn't gonna matter. Muscle is heavy. Muscle's gonna wear on you as a fight progresses. And Canelo, well, me neither. And Canelo has been fighting at this weight for, for so long. He's fought 12 rounds at this weight so many times. He's not gonna have any problems. We don't know yet what kind of issues Crawford's gonna have with that extra weight. The other reason I like Canelo is that Canelo can be kind of a spiteful body puncher. And one of the little areas of weakness that Crawford has had over the years

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  has been some of those body shots. We saw Agas Kavaloskas at 147, catch him with a body shot that bothered him. Madrimov in that fight caught him with a couple of body shots. I thought they bothered him. One of the reasons guys do not let go of their power hand against Canelo is because they know what's coming back. They know that if you overextend on that. Power hand, you're leaving yourself open to a big body shot. I guarantee you Canelo, Eddie Reynoso, their entire team, they're looking for counter to the body against Terrence Crawford in this fight. If they land it, that's gonna be the first time, Ben, that Canelo gets hit, or Crawford gets hit with that kind of speed and that kind of power in this kind of weight class.

• 1:41:12Speaker 04

  The thing that bothers me the most from the Crawford side of it is his fight tendencies, the way he likes to fight, even when he is the clearly more talented fighter.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:25Speaker 04

  He enjoys a firefight. There are times when Crawford doesn't use his athleticism and his feet to get out of situations like he should. Crawford will take a couple of shots. He likes to show you the dog a little bit.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  He's a Philly fighter, even though he's not.

• 1:41:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  They always say that about the Philly fighters.

• 1:41:44Speaker 04

  He has a fight tendency to engage in firefights and to feel his opponent a little bit and want to return, one, because that's his mentality, but also because he believes in his power. He's not just a powerful puncher, but he's an extremely precise puncher. The coordination and the quick twitch of Crawford is insane, and he believes in that.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:12Speaker 04

  I don't think that that would be smart to do in this fight. I don't think it would be smart. He would have to fight this fight, to me, a little bit more like a Floyd, a late-stage Floyd would fight a fight, which is be there, not be there, punch, punch, get out. Yeah. And if he, I don't know if that's in him, but I'll tell you one thing, I don't know why.

• 1:42:34Speaker 04

  I have a feeling that he's going to win. And I know I'm on one of the biggest sports podcasts in the world saying that it's, I have a feeling that he is going to win.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  I was shocked by the, by the line.

• 1:42:48Bill Simmons?

  Cause I'm with you. I was leaning a little toward Crawford. Canelo, at least on Fanduel, was like minus 190. It's like almost a two to one favorite and Bud's like plus 152, something like that. I wonder if we get closer to the fight, but were you surprised by that? I know the Lions, they put them, you know, they're trying to balance the action, but you weren't surprised.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  No, it's, to me, it's about respect for Crawford and everything he's done. And a belief that after the skull fight, Canelo has lost a step. I think that's what, what everyone right now is looking at. I'll tell you the, the, the good bet so far is Canelo by decision. That's at like plus 130, I want to say, when I looked at it there.

• 1:43:27Bill Simmons?

  He hasn't had a knockout since, what, 20 or 21?

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  And I don't think Crawford's gonna get knocked out. Like I think Crawford's even jumping up this much in weight is too mentally tough and too skilled to get knocked out in a fight like this. I, I just think that Canelo's, I don't think Canelo's lost as much off his fastball as people think. Also getting a decision against Canelo Alvarez in Vegas.

• 1:43:48Speaker 04

  It's not gonna happen. Like it's, it's, I mean, one of, one of the judges, one of the judges in the Mayweather fight.

• 1:43:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:55Speaker 04

  Scored the fight.

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:43:56Speaker 04

  For Alvarez, which, or, or the, you, which is impossible. It's impossible if you, if you watch, it was a draw. No, he scored a draw, right?

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  I think it was a draw. It was a majority decision for.

• 1:44:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. So he scored the, that's impossible if you watch that fight at all. Question for you.

• 1:44:13Bill Simmons?

  That judge also had stock and aspiration.

• 1:44:16Speaker 04

  Same thing, right? Do you think that Alvarez, you say he's not gonna knock him out. Will Alvarez hurt Crawford?

• 1:44:24Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I'm gonna vote yes.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm gonna say yeah.

• 1:44:26Bill Simmons?

  The body punch, he, he always gets at least one body punch in.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  Even though he hasn't knocked out anybody over the last, what, five or six fights? He's hurt everybody during those fights, or at least knocked them down. Like John Ryder in Guadalajara had a busted nose in the fifth round. Jaime Mungia was knocked down and I thought he was out cold in the final round. Canelo just kinda carried him all the way to the stretch. Edgar Berlanga, you know, had a parade because he went the distance with Canelo, but he got knocked down in what, the third round of that fight? So he always, especially early on, he always has some moment because guys don't. Really get the speed and power combination that he brings to the table. He cruises a lot more than he used to. And you could even go back to the third Golovkin fight to where you started to really

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  notice that. Like, he was up six zip, seven zip on Golovkin, then Golovkin mounted a little bit of a comeback in the second half of that fight. So that's, that's eroded from his game. But the first half of a fight, he's dangerous. And I do think he's going to catch Crawford with something that buzzes him.

• 1:45:29Bill Simmons?

  Could you give us the, because I'm sure you've spent time around Crawford?

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:35Bill Simmons?

  Give us the vibe. You've been around a million NBA players. You've been around a lot of famous athletes. What's, what's the vibe with them? How would you describe him?

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  I mean, he's ruthless. And I say that in a complimentary way. Like, he's singularly focused on, on winning and believes that there's nothing that can stop him from, from doing it. And I see that in some of the all time great NBA players. And Kobe, he's got a kind of a Kobe vibe to him, if we're being honest. Like, he's got that, that relentlessness, that the belief that he can do, do anything. He's also, I don't think Kobe had this, because Kobe wasn't really around as much during the, the social media age. But Crawford's got rabbit ears. Crawford, Crawford sees and hears everything people are saying about him. He claps back on Twitter, not quite in a Durant-like way, but he's, he's been known to get, jump on Twitter and, and fire back at his skeptics. Like, he and I

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  have had issue. He and I started to have an issue after I scored the fight close for him against Madravov. He was upset at how I scored that fight. So he sees everything.

• 1:46:36Bill Simmons?

  He actually got upset with you online? Or like?

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  Not online, but like when I see him and run into him, and I've run into him several times. It's fine. Like, it's not acrimonious, but it's, you know, he, he, he sees skepticism and he puts that in the old fuel tank and, and absorbs all of it, no matter where it's, it's coming from. That's the difference. But in terms of like the The comparison, I think Kobe's a good one. Like, he's relentless, he's a killer. He believes that his talent and his willpower is enough to do anything in the boxing ring.

• 1:47:07Bill Simmons?

  I'm into him. I actually just really like him as a character. I don't feel like he's gotten his just due.

• 1:47:14Speaker 04

  Of all the fighters that I've loved at the lower weights, Rigandau.

• 1:47:20Speaker 01

  Loved Rigandau?

• 1:47:21Speaker 04

  Loved him.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  Wow, that's, I've never heard that before.

• 1:47:24Speaker 04

  Loved him. You know why I loved him? I just, he was not an aesthetically pleasing fighter to watch. He was not. That's not what he did. However, do you remember him against, whatever, I don't want to start going back through all fights. But I loved Rigandau, I loved Lomachenko, the guys at the lower weights that I really liked. I used to like Paul "Puncher" Williams. He was one of my high-volume puncher at like 6'1" at 47.

• 1:47:52Bill Simmons?

  And then he got knocked the fuck out.

• 1:47:55Speaker 04

  He did.

• 1:47:56Speaker 01

  When he went, when he went up in weight, right? Wasn't that at 160?

• 1:48:02Speaker 04

  By the way, him going up to 160 was what was supposed to happen.

• 1:48:06Bill Simmons?

  Same after that, right?

• 1:48:07Speaker 04

  Well, he got into a motorcycle accident and that was, that happened. But that was, by the way, he got knocked out in, I think it was the rematch against Martinez, if I remember. No? Was it not?

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  I was there, it was in Atlantic City. I was there and you could, you could see the eyes open on the canvas when he got knocked out kind of face first like that. That was, that was one of the best knockouts I've ever seen.

• 1:48:28Bill Simmons?

  You only have one of those. You can't, you're never the same. I don't feel like Pacquiao was ever the same after he got sent to next year by Marquez.

• 1:48:36Speaker 04

  What I'm saying though is of all the guys at the lower weights that I've liked, obviously Lomachenko in his heyday was like a ghost. He was, he was an apparition. He was there, he wasn't there, he was all around you. It was something like I had never seen before. Crawford is the one that carries himself to me more like a heavier, I'm gonna throw my weight around the ring and impose my will on you type of fighter. He's the guy that steps into the ring with you and like every single part of that ring, it's like you're in a lion's den. Like he is a stalker, like a freak. And so I think there's a mentality there to that. What he did to Arrow was actually like tough to watch after a point.

• 1:49:22Bill Simmons?

  After a No, it was like Ali Cleveland Williams type, like Floyd Patterson, like torture, torture boxing.

• 1:49:28Speaker 04

  Everywhere.

• 1:49:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:30Speaker 04

  Just, he could do nothing. We're gonna see how far that goes. And that's what I love about boxing. What I love about boxing is always when everything that the fighter has, not just their skillset, but their cultural presence, their identity, who they think they are. When, when you're, when a fighter is fighting and you get to see the moment in the ring that he realizes he's not who he thinks he is against this particular guy on this particular night. And does he run from that or does he push past it? That is why this fight is so interesting to me because that's the type of challenge that Canelo Alvarez presents to Terrence Crawford.

• 1:50:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, the funny thing is Netflix had that horrific Tyson fight. I mean, one of the worst, worst events that's been put on at least this decade, right? Now, this is the opposite of that. Like this is a gather together and this, this could be like a generational fight potentially. I don't know.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  That's, that's the, that's the thing too. Like I think it's an incredible fight. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not aesthetically pleasing in the ring.

• 1:50:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:33Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't, I don't believe that you're looking at Hagler Hearns. I don't believe you're looking at Hagler Leonard. Like I think you're looking at two guys that have proven to be judicious with their punches, especially Crawford as he's moved up in weight. You know, more selective with his shots as his career has gone on. Both these guys are kind of information seekers in the ring. They feel guys out over the first one, two, sometimes three rounds before they really start to engage. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a very cagey fight with kind of limited spurts of action in between.

• 1:51:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, you left out two pieces with that. One is one guy's 35, the other guy's 37. So it can't be high grounds. The other one is both guys have been a lot of money boxing, which which changes the desperation variable a little bit.

• 1:51:21Speaker 04

  You brought that up. That's good. Crawford notoriously slow starter, like legendarily slow starter. Can he afford to do that in this fight?

• 1:51:30Speaker 01

  I don't think so, because I think the longer this fight goes, the more it favors Canelo for all the reasons I laid out there. The weight, the physicality of it all. I think he's got to try to find a way to build that early lead. And Canelo has given opponents opportunities in the past. Like, there have been a couple of rounds of fights of Canelo that I've called where he hasn't landed a punch, he hasn't even thrown a punch. Canelo Callum Smith first round didn't do anything. Canelo, Billy Joe Saunders first round didn't do anything. Like, he just, he eases his way into a fight. I think Crawford and his team have to find a way to take advantage of that and at least, you know, squeeze out some statistical wins in these early rounds.

• 1:52:12Bill Simmons?

  Can you sell us on the co-main event?

• 1:52:15Speaker 01

  I have no problem with it. It's probably not the kind of sexy co-main event you're expecting to see on a Netflix show. I mean, last time, last time we saw Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano as the co-main event of the Tyson Paul fight. This one, look, I think it's going to be really entertaining. I think both these guys are bangers. Like, I think Fernando Vargas is one of the Vargas brothers. I'd probably put him at like number two or three on the list of the top Vargas's out there. I think Emiliano Vargas is probably the best of the bunch. You know, Callum, Callum's a good fighter, shown he's a banger, shows he's willing to engage. So I think it's going to be a really fun fight. If that's what you're looking for. I don't know. If you're looking for high level, meaningful,

• 1:53:00Speaker 01

  impactful, championship level stuff, this probably ain't it. If you're looking for a banger, you're probably going to get it between these two guys.

• 1:53:07Bill Simmons?

  I don't know why they did the co for that.

• 1:53:10Speaker 01

  I do.

• 1:53:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, you may know. Um, all right.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  I mean, Callum, I mean, look, well, Callum is, you could say it. Callum's a TKO fighter. Uh, Callum is effectively co-managed by Dana White. He's been fighting on UFC Fight Pass for, you know, his last six or seven fights. So it's all, it's all who you know, Bill. It's all who you know.

• 1:53:26Speaker 04

  Real quick, as far as that, just big picture, where are we? There was a thought that, we talked a little bit earlier about the Mayweather De La Hoya fight. I remember when that fight came out, that was, when that fight came out, when that fight happened, that was the fight to save boxing. After a lackluster couple of fights and you're gonna put these two guys in the ring, Mayweather then becomes the A-side for the rest of his career in a big, big way. And he carries boxing through the next decade. He leaves and then the sport's in the wilderness for a little while as the business changes, as the zone comes around, HBO Boxing leaves and then everybody runs to different promotions, have different relationships with different streamers.

• 1:54:07Speaker 04

  We have some really interesting fighters right now. Usik is on an all-time run.

• 1:54:12Bill Simmons?

  He might be done soon.

• 1:54:13Speaker 04

  Right now. Like, we have some guys, a lot of different personalities, but it's hard to gauge like where the sport is right now. Turkey the last couple of years has really come in and consolidated the matchmaking, but is the sport healthy with all of this stuff happening? It seems like there's a new business move made every week. It seems like there's a new app you have to get. Is boxing healthy right now?

• 1:54:38Speaker 01

  I, I think it's in a challenging spot right now. I think there are healthy aspects to it. Um, but I think overall, it's still challenged. The, the Saudi effect has had positive and negative effects, right? Like, the positive impact is that we're getting fights that we either were never gonna see, or we sure weren't gonna see twice. Like, Bevel Betterbeav is a great example. I can tell you, we were never gonna see that fight. There was no money in it anywhere. Both those guys have no fan bases and no ability to sell pay-per-view. So you needed Turkey Alashik and the Saudis to come in, pay for that fight. Getting Fury and Usik twice in the same year is the kind of thing you, you.

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  You'd never get. So you get a lot of, of great mega events as a result of the Saudi influence in boxing. Among the problems, though, is that a lot of these fights are taking place in a different part of the world, which means that people are being asked to watch it in the US at like 3 o'clock in the afternoon, often when college football's on, or the NFL is on, or whatever's on on Saturday. You're going to the beach in the summertime. So there's a challenge. And I think a bigger issue is that because these Saudi purses are so, so big, fighters are willing to wait around and not fight with the hopes that they'll get one. I'll give you a quick example.

• 1:55:59Speaker 01

  Teofimo Lopez, still one of the bigger names in boxing. By all rights, Teofimo Lopez should be fighting a guy named Richardson Hitchens at Madison Square Garden in November or December. Two New York area fighters, 140 pound title holders, the both of them. That is an excellent fight to make at MSG. Instead, Teofimo, who would probably make like 2 or 3 million to fight Hitchens, is sitting around hoping that Turkey Alashik will come forward and give him 6 million to fight someone like Shakur Stevenson, you know, over in Saudi Arabia in January of this year. So I, I think that's-

• 1:56:33Bill Simmons?

  And aspirations are for him 7 million not to fight at all. Trying to give him a check.

• 1:56:38Speaker 01

  We always, we always come back to that. But it's, the, the point is, like, for boxing to thrive, it needs activity. UFC thrive because it put on great event after great event. Boxing still puts on great events, but you can't have a great event and then four months of nothing. You need to be putting on great events twice a month to get some momentum for the sport.

• 1:56:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, the, I mean, look at Crawford and Canelo. Those guys are fighting once a year now.

• 1:57:03Speaker 01

  Well, Canelo's different. Canelo's been pretty active for a guy of his status.

• 1:57:07Bill Simmons?

  But how many fights has he had in the last four years?

• 1:57:10Speaker 01

  He's at least two fights a year.

• 1:57:12Bill Simmons?

  All right, two fights a year and Crawford's one fight a year, and these are two of your four biggest stars. Usyk will- He'll pull this, he'll, he'll, he'll still get out there hopefully at least once. Wait, maybe two ti- two times a year, maybe, hopefully? No?

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  I, I think, I think Usik's probably got one fight left. If Joseph Parker beats Fabio Wardley, I think that's the fight he'll take. And then, look, if I'm Usik, like, then I'd call Jake Paul. Like, I think then, if I'm Usik, then I'd try to go get the bags.

• 1:57:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:40Speaker 01

  Why not? He's fought so many tough ones over the years. He deserves a bag.

• 1:57:43Speaker 04

  He cleaned out his whole, he earned it. He cleaned out his whole division on an all-time run. Why not get the bag?

• 1:57:48Bill Simmons?

  So if we go, if we go Mount Rushmore for the century before we go. And Floyd's on there and Usik's on there. Who are your other two?

• 1:57:55Speaker 01

  Andre Ward would have to be on there for me.

• 1:57:57Bill Simmons?

  For sure.

• 1:57:57Speaker 01

  He was to be the fighter of the decade between 2010 and 2020, even though he retired in 2017. He had a tremendous run. And Pacquiao's gotta be on there. So that's.

• 1:58:05Bill Simmons?

  So that's your four?

• 1:58:06Speaker 01

  That would be for the, for the 21st century.

• 1:58:10Bill Simmons?

  First 25 years of, of this century in boxing. So that's your four.

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  That would be my four, yeah, with Canelo looming right there.

• 1:58:18Speaker 04

  Probably those I would think about Bernard Hopkins.

• 1:58:22Bill Simmons?

  I looked at him.

• 1:58:23Speaker 04

  I would, I would, I would think about Bernard Hopkins in that situation. And maybe even, maybe even on an outside level, just honorable mentions, Tyson Fury would be there as well. Tyson Fury, however his career has played out since then, ended one of the greatest runs in heavyweight boxing history. Like, when he, when he beat Klitschko. People will underrate Vladimir Klitschko because it, talking about guys that didn't have a lot of, you know, gigantic names because of the era that they fought in. He was the most consistent, technically pure fighter at heavyweight for that long run.

• 1:59:04Speaker 04

  Always came in in tremendous shape, added more levels to his game, changed it up, stayed relevant. And the guy who ended that run was, was Tyson Fury. And then, you know, he had it for a little while until, you know, Usik came along. So I give Tyson Fury a little bit of, of, of a.

• 1:59:20Bill Simmons?

  I have the Klitschko's on a different list.

• 1:59:23Speaker 04

  What's the list?

• 1:59:23Bill Simmons?

  The you guys ruined boxing list. It's like 20 people.

• 1:59:28Speaker 04

  The Klitschko's? Vitaly Klitschko?

• 1:59:30Bill Simmons?

  It's a heavyweight Klitschko. The heavyweight division just felt like it was.

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  They had nobody to fight. That was the problem.

• 1:59:36Speaker 04

  The one they fought.

• 1:59:37Bill Simmons?

  I know. I just, I look back at that era now. I'm like, I don't even, I don't remember anything positive.

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  I can give you this, hey, Van, Van, I'll tell you this. I'm not convinced Vladimir's done. I'm not.

• 1:59:48Speaker 04

  What?

• 1:59:49Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my lord.

• 1:59:50Speaker 01

  Look, Vladimir, Vladimir, I think, is extremely happy for his countryman, Oleg Zanussik. But if Usik had been beaten by Tyson Fury in one of those two fights, I think Klitschko would have come out of retirement and fought Tyson Fury. And I still don't take that off the table. I still don't.

• 2:00:07Bill Simmons?

  But he would never fight AJ.

• 2:00:08Speaker 01

  No, no, he wouldn't do that.

• 2:00:10Speaker 04

  Yo, you know what fight would go hard right now? A Klitschko AJ rematch. Why not? AJ's got, why not? Why not? That's a winnable fight for.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  Bill hates AJ. Bill's down. Bill's not betting on AJ.

• 2:00:22Bill Simmons?

  I've lost on one side or the other of this last 13 fights.

• 2:00:25Speaker 04

  But see, here's the thing, though. I know we're going long, but here's the thing about AJ, though. AJ gives you a good example of kind of the precarious situation that boxing gets into. AJ was a draw, is a draw, remains a draw. If he was as dominant a fighter in the ring as he was a personality, as sort of a business machine outside of it, you might have seen, if he could have won a couple of these fights, he doesn't lose to Andy Ruiz. Like, you see in that situation, somebody who could become a major worldwide boxing megastar, but it just doesn't happen for the sport.

• 2:01:00Bill Simmons?

  Was Anthony Joshua the Joel Embiid of the heavyweight division? We'll discuss that next.

• 2:01:07Bill Simmons?

  Is Bakoli, can I get a Bakoli update before we go? You mean, oh, no, I mean?

• 2:01:13Speaker 01

  Oh, Bakoli. The texts I get from Bill, there's usually, there's at least two. It's Celtics related, or it's Martin Bakoli.

• 2:01:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, he loves him. It's his guy.

• 2:01:24Speaker 01

  It's not over. He's dealing with some promotional issues over in the UK. His promoter, Boxer, lost its TV deal, and I was kind of sort of getting one back. But he's, like, he'll be back. He's in the Saudi pipeline, and because he did Turk Alashik the favor of taking that fight against Parker on, like, 24 hours' notice, you know, flying in from Africa to take that fight, there'll be another opportunity for him to.

• 2:01:51Bill Simmons?

  There's a weight limit that he cannot go over. That's it. It's I don't know whether it's 277, 280, whatever it is. He cannot go over that weight. If he goes over it, he can't fight.

• 2:02:01Speaker 04

  When he fought Anderson.

• 2:02:03Bill Simmons?

  He was in the shape and he was a monster.

• 2:02:05Speaker 04

  The best version of himself.

• 2:02:07Bill Simmons?

  That's it.

• 2:02:08Speaker 04

  You know.

• 2:02:09Bill Simmons?

  That's the weight.

• 2:02:09Speaker 04

  There's still a lot of questions on the table for McCollough, but when he fought Anderson, he looked like just a pure force.

• 2:02:16Bill Simmons?

  Do we see Jason Tatum next season?

• 2:02:18Speaker 01

  Oh, shit, no. I I just think they're gonna be.

• 2:02:21Bill Simmons?

  See how he stopped?

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  So they're gonna be so mediocre that there's probably gonna be people wondering, why bring him back? Right? Like, they're like, they're like one three week stretch injury from Jalen Brown of being, you know, way outside the play in mix. Like, who's the starting center right now? Who's the starting power forward? Right now, as bad as the East is, they're, I just think there's gonna be no appetite to bring him back.

• 2:02:45Bill Simmons?

  Good.

• 2:02:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think honestly, I think they should just contract the whole franchise.

• 2:02:49Bill Simmons?

  About this.

• 2:02:50Speaker 04

  I think they should just get rid of the franchise.

• 2:02:51Bill Simmons?

  You just went to Boston and talked about how great it was.

• 2:02:53Speaker 04

  I loved Boston. I loved Boston.

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  And Bill, like the, the, the, yeah, what people have to keep remembering is that they have control of this draft pick. Like, what, what is the best thing in the, what's long term interest of the Celtics? What's the best outcome for next season to get a lottery pick?

• 2:03:09Bill Simmons?

  The coach, and I say this in the most complimentary way possible, is an absolute psycho. And I don't see him rolling over during a season and be like, yeah, whatever. He's a maniac. He's not doing it. There's no way.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  I just don't have the horses, though, man.

• 2:03:23Bill Simmons?

  I he'll figure, he'll be like, well, shit, 73 is the game.

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  We have guys that can do it.

• 2:03:28Bill Simmons?

  Chris Mannix, good luck at the tables in Vegas. Say hi to our guy, bud. So your pick is Canelo.

• 2:03:34Speaker 01

  Canelo decision, would be my pick, yeah.

• 2:03:36Bill Simmons?

  All right. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on.

• 2:03:38Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 2:03:39Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Van Lathan for sitting here the whole time. Thanks to Brian Curtis. Thanks to Chris Mannix. Thanks to Gahow and Eduardo and Sarudy. And I will be back on Thursday on this feed. We'll have a guest and then we're gonna do some Ringer 107, which did not go well in week one. This might be my worst idea ever because we're one and four heading into the second week. So I'm gonna be trying to turn it around. I will see you on Thursday night.

• 2:04:21Bill Simmons?

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• 2:05:06Bill Simmons?

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• 2:05:51Bill Simmons?

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