Part 1: An NBA Six-Pack, UFC 308, and the Yankees Are Back With Ariel Helwani and JackO
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Coming up, part one of a special two-part mega BS podcast next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking,

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Me, Sean Fantasy, Chris Ryan. You can watch it on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. And somehow there's a lot of laughs on this one for one of the most horrifying movies in the last 10 years. We were just chuckling it up. Can't explain it. Really fun podcast. You can also watch all the videos and clips from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. And you can listen to The McShay Show, which we just added this week on The Ringer and on Spotify. New podcast. I think there's going to be video for it too, but Todd McShay.

who you've heard him on, Rosillo. He's great. College football, NFL draft, NFL, anything with a football, he's going to be talking about it. So please subscribe to the McShay Show. It's really good. He even has a 617 in his cell phone, which I'm very jealous of. I wish I still had my 617. Coming up for part one of this podcast, I'm going to do an NBA six pack at the top six observations about the season through two games. Don't worry, I'm trying not to overreact.

And then Ari Hawane, old friend, UFC 308 this weekend, had to bring him on, had to talk UFC because my son demanded it. And then last but not least, everyone was demanding Jacko because the Yankees are in the World Series. So my old buddy Jacko, a BS podcast hall of famer,

Coming back on to talk Yankees. It hurts. I didn't want to do it, but I also love talking to Jacko and we ended up going 40 minutes. So that is part one of the podcast. Then part two, we're going to do NBA and million dollar picks and some other stuff that's coming later. This is part one. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. So

All right, now it's time for a special part of today's episode brought to you by our friends at Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the NBA. What an honor that is. The NBA season is here and Michelob Ultra Courtside is getting fans closer to the game than ever before. Closer to the players, the stories, the celebrations. All you have to do is check out MichelobUltra.com slash Courtside. That's easy.

to learn how you can get closer to the action. So what we're gonna do right now, I'm gonna open up a six pack. We're gonna unpack six major things going on in the world of basketball right now. It's also a sick pack, 'cause somehow it's day four and I'm still sick. That's fine.

I'm a grinder. I'm a gamer. I'm into 82 games. I'm not like Joel Embiid. I'm not sitting out opening week. So we're gonna do a little six pack right now. Just six things I noticed. I don't want to step on part two when we do the league pass ranking. So I'm trying to keep it a little separate of that. Six things I've noticed. Number one, it feels like Orlando officially took over Florida from the Miami Heat last night. So what does that mean? Well,

They had the swagger. They had the competitiveness. They have Palo in year three who is clearly undeniably the best player on the court. KCP was there. So defensively, they just felt like they went up a level and they just absolutely throttled, throttled.

Miami. And it was kind of a special night for Miami. They were honoring Pat Riley. The halftime ceremony was like a half hour. Didn't matter. Uh, 35 year old Jimmy Butler, three points in day one of his revenge season. I think I'm going to do really well in the futures that we did with for selling house. I'm already starting to worry about this Miami future, which we'll talk about in a second. But, um,

Orlando answered all the things that I was hoping I would see from them. You know, we talked about in the over-under pod to just, when you start going up from like, you're in the, you're in the twenties, then you go up to the high thirties, 40 range, then you're up to 47 wins. This should be the season that they go up into the mid fifties. And from what I saw last night, it's going to happen.

Miami, which I think the over-under was around 43, and the theory was, well, they're going to be healthy. Jimmy's going to actually play. He's motivated. Now I'm starting to wonder, is this the end? And

There's not a lot of doppelgangers in NBA history for this. I was looking at the late 80s, early 90s Pistons, which had, they were in the Eastern Conference Finals for five straight years. They won two titles, which is better than Miami did with this group. But same kind of thing, like a five-year run built around defense and veterans and just toughness and a really good infrastructure and some sort of culture that if you remember in the 92 playoffs, all of a sudden the Knicks won

beat them. And it just felt like within a year it was over. And in 1990, they went from 48 wins in 92, which was the year after the window to 40 the next year. And then there were 20 and 62 by 1994. And I'm starting to wonder, is that Miami's future unless they do something drastic? So what happens? We always wondered, all right, if this goes bad for Miami starting out of the gate,

Would Butler be available? What does that mean? He's pretty expensive. He's almost a hundred million dollars for two years. They did not give him an extension, which I think was smart from a trade standpoint. You go through all the teams and there's less Butler suitors than you would think. So the obvious team, and this ties into another lesson from watching league pass in a Mucinex Hayes last night for seven hours. Houston has too many guys.

And it's going to be a problem for them. And as Daryl Morey hates this theory, but I think this is a real theory, the too many guys theory. When too many guys think that they deserve between 30 and 40 minutes a game, you tend to have like some sort of rocky, it just doesn't feel right. The Houston thing didn't feel right to me yesterday. I like all their players, but I'm not sure they know which players to play. And they're like,

basically dying to make a three for one trade. Houston was the team that jumped out to me the most last night as a Butler home because that ties it with the Mayadoka. They have all the different assets. Like they could, they have a Steven Adams expiring plus Dylan Brooks expiring.

then you could move wherever you want from there with an asset. Like, could it be Thompson, the Thompson twin? I'm in Thompson. Could it be like a Cam Whitmore, Tate's expiring and a bunch of the picks that they have? Maybe it's not that many picks. Maybe Jimmy Butler doesn't have as much value as we think. But in my head, I was thinking Brooks and Adams and Thompson for Butler and

Made a ton of sense for both sides if Miami was like, it's reboot time. Because they would both stay a little relevant, but also be able to move on from this other thing. Because if it gets bad, which we'll see, it might have just been a one-game aberration. That's why you can't overreact to week one. But if it gets bad...

they don't have a lot of options and they got to move fast because what you don't want is an unhappy Jimmy Butler. And then you're, you're trading them for 30 cents a dollar. New Orleans is a possibility. That's, that's Brandon Ingram would have to be in that. Um, and maybe Jordan Hawkins, but I, if I'm New Orleans, I'm not even sure why I would be thinking about that. And then golden state would be the other one. Golden state, Steve Kerr's playing 12 guys. Um, and, and,

and proud of it, was bragging about my 12-band rotation. That's never worked in the history of the league, but I think he's trying to keep everybody involved because that team knows they're a three-for-one. So could that be just Wiggins, Kaminga, and Looney down the road? I don't know. I don't know what Miami's thinking with their future, but I'll tell you this. They're not in the class with Orlando anymore. And I think Cleveland, probably same thing. Knicks, Celtics, no way. They're just not good enough anymore. And this is what happens. You have these windows, the window ends, and...

And either they have to try to add to the nucleus they have, or they have to call an audible and maybe think about trading Jimmy. So that was my biggest takeaway last night. I was like, holy shit, Jimmy Butler might get traded soon. Second one on the six pack, AKA the six pack, the rookie of the year race, uh, is going to be the weirdest one we've had since 2017, which was Brogdon winning Sarich finishing second.

And then Joel Embiid, who played 31 games, somehow finished third in Rookie of the Year. So that was the weirdest. 2013 was super weird. That was Michael Carter Williams edging out Victor Oladipo and Trey Burke. And one of the Pumleys was fourth. I don't even remember which one. But you remember Michael Carter Williams just kind of putting up

decent stats on a terrible Sixers team. And none of us felt good about voting for him, but we didn't really have any other choice. And then 2001 was the other horrible one. That was Mike Miller, who I think averaged 11 points a game, won Rookie of the Year

Kenny Martin, second, Mark Jackson, third, not Mark Jackson, the announcer, Mark Jackson with a C the center who was like 26 that season. So those are the three worst rookie of the year races that we've had. This one, Zach Edie is still the favorite of plus two 90. If you watched him last night, uh,

Listen, I'm not panicking. I'm keeping my Edie stock, but that was last night was a disaster. He just fouled trouble immediately. He missed foul shots. They were going at him on defense and did not look great. Research is plus six 50. Hold that thought.

Reed Shepard, 7-1, and I'm not sure he's going to get enough minutes unless they trade him. Castle, plus 950 Spurs. We haven't seen him yet. And then Connect on the Lakers. I don't think he's going to get enough minutes. He'd have to have some sort of injury, but he's at least somebody that is going to be, seems like he's going to have an impact right away, at least as a bench guy. Reese O'Shea is the one I'm targeting here. Plus 650. It's dropped even from two days ago. I think it was 8-1 or plus 750. Now it's plus 650 on FanDuel.

Listen, I made fun of the research pick around the time when it happened. Just the concept of a skinny French guy. His name is Zachary Richer. What are the odds that somebody with that name is going to be good? All stupid stuff that I love to make fun of. But when you watch the clips from him overseas, hustler, good athlete, unafraid, good three-point shooter, there was stuff there that seemed like, oh, this will be interesting to see if it translates.

Watch them in the preseason house. And I talked about this on the over under pod, huge fan has really hustles runs the floor. Like there's certain rookies that would, uh, learn a lot. Um, just about the hustle that this guy has, including maybe a couple in the Lakers that aren't don't connect. Um,

But I think he, I think he's going to have a real impact for them. Even last night, his box score, he was like two for seven, two for eight, but he got good shots. Like he missed a layup where he got fouled. Um, he not afraid to shoot threes. He's a good defensively. And I just kind of liked that Hawks team in general. We went over on them. That was a lock for me. And I think this kid is good.

Uh, so that would be, that would be, I'm not allowed to bet on this cause I have a vote, but that would be, I think the odds are a little out of whack because especially like if Hunter got hurt, any of the swings on the Hawks got hurt. I think that kid's good. I think they might've nailed that pick. If you did the draft over again, I would probably, uh,

Still take him first. It'd be like him versus Shepard and Castle would be the three do-overs. And I still think he's in the mix. So somehow the Hawks, who usually screw up everything, did not screw up that pick. All right. Third takeaway for the six pack from just from last night. And this is a preseason thing too. We talked about in the over under pod. Well, Ben Simmons actually have trade value this year. So this is easily one of the strangest careers in the history of the league. He's only 28 years old.

He's only played 333 games and 22 playoff games. This is his ninth year. By contrast, Jalen Brown's 541 and 124. They were the same draft. In 2020, which seems like it was 100 years ago, he was third team all NBA and first team all defense. So that's both a million years ago and also not that long ago. That was four and a half years. He's been in witness protection for the last three years and nobody thinks he likes basketball. Literally nobody. And yet when you watch him, it seems like he'd be fun to play with.

So like if you watched the Nets last night, you knew nothing. And they had kind of a noble loss to the Hawks where they kept coming back, coming back and somehow covered miraculously might have a little action on that one. You would have three takeaways from that game, knowing nothing other than the salaries. One is that the Nick Claxton extension they gave was idiotic. And I mean, he, I don't even know if he's a crunch time guy for them anymore with Simmons, but,

You would think Cam Thomas is a Hall of Fame worst guy ever to play with. And this is something we talked about two weeks ago in the Over Under pod. I was saying how the 1980 San Diego Clippers were one of my favorite

Bad team, good stats guys. They had Freeman Williams and world be free. They just a bunch of dudes spend Nader 15 rebounds a game. Cam Thomas, it's going up. If he has it, there was a moment in the first quarter where it seemed like he was on pace for 60 field goals. He scored 20 plus on the fourth quarter. Every time he gets it, it's going up. If somebody else shoots in crunch time, he's furious and he just seems miserable to play with. That would be a second take away.

And by the way, that's the perfect guy to have on a bad team that's trying to tank for a top five pick. You want somebody that at least is going to put up stats and seem interesting and to the casual fan seem interesting and yet he's helping you lose. Ben Simmons is actually an asset, was the third takeaway. He could handle the ball, his point guard was size, he could get to the rim when he wanted, he was rebounding, he was playing defense.

They didn't play in crunch time, which I thought was interesting. I think they were just afraid of his shooting and his free throw shooting, especially, but it feels like he's healthy again. So then you start thinking, well, what does that mean? He's an expiring at 40.3 million. Could they trade him? I went through every team. I don't see it, but here's what I do see. I think he's has a chance to become one of the most fascinating February bio guys in a few years, because like,

He could be the center of New Orleans. He could be an absolutely crazy Draymond Green backup at Golden State. He could be a really fun heat culture reclamation project. He's kind of exactly what the Knicks need. And I'll talk about them. They're coming up later in the six pack. But I'm watching this Ben Simmons thing because if he can prove that he's healthy over the next three months in Brooklyn, they don't want to keep him. They don't want to be good. So either he's trade or he's a buyout guy. But I actually think he could have an impact

on the playoff race, playing 18 to 20 minutes a game for a really good team. The guy's a good basketball player. Maybe he gives a shit now. We'll see. The fourth thing, this is a brief one, but ESPN built a lot of their coverage yesterday around the Intuit Dome, which is the new Steve Ballmer thing that opened up that I have not been to yet. It's very cool, apparently, a really cool basketball arena. ESPN played it up like we were sending the astronauts to the moon in 1969.

And this is a recurring theme with TV networks, whether it's football, basketball, baseball. Viewers don't care about arenas and stadiums. They all look the same when you're watching them on TV. Maybe the ballparks outdoors look different. But when you're talking basketball, when you're talking football, they all look the same.

And it's like, oh, Jerry World. Oh my God, look at that jumbo trine. I can't really tell unless I'm there. Same thing for the Clippers. They're blowing this up. Look at this wall. And then the game starts and it just looks like every other game I'm watching on League Pass. So I would urge everybody to settle down and maybe scale back the Steve Ballmer reaction shots from 700 million during a two and a half hour game to maybe 10, just a thought. All right, this is my superior take.

Buckle up, get ready. Jason Tatum's MVP case. Oh yeah, you heard me. He fixed the hitch. He had a hitch in his shot. His shot, something weird happened with the shot. It's almost like in golf, like Tiger would have those moments when all of a sudden his swing was a little messed up. It happens to golfers, happens to shooters. Might be happening to Mikael Bridges right now, but he fixed the hitch. And I just want to thank Steve Kerr because I think Steve Kerr put a giant

throbbing chip on his shoulder by not playing him in the Olympics. And by the way, Tatum didn't really deserve to play in the Olympics. As I mentioned on previous pods, his shot wasn't going in. They needed him to be a knockdown shooter. And if the Tatum that we saw on opening night was there in the Olympics, Steve Kerr would have played him. So I don't care because this is great because this is a title defense season where everyone has a chip on their shoulders somehow. I love it. He made seven plus threes twice last season.

So there were real signs last year that the three-pointer or something weird was going on. In 23, he made it five times, 2022, five times. And his shot looks like, and I did this whole thing on my pod about how his shot, his rookie year, his second year, how smooth it was, the quick release. And then he developed this weird hitch thing and the hitch is gone. And he looks like Tatum again. His MVP ads dropped 13 to one to nine to one. I'm so mad we didn't talk about this in the over under pods because I

This would have been a great pick. And the reason none of us want to do it was because we didn't know what a shot was going to look like. And his shot just was better two, three years ago than it was last year. But now that a shot seems like it's back, you start looking at he's 27 years old this year.

And you're 27, guys, in general, this is usually the year. So you go back the last 40 plus years NBA history. 1983 Moses, 27 years old, MVP title. '84 Bird, MVP title. '87 Magic, MVP title. All those guys were 27. '91 Jordan, MVP title.

2000 Shaq MVP title, 2004 KG only MVP season, 2006 Dirk. That was his breakout season when he beat the Spurs and in game seven and went to the finals. 2006 Kobe. That was the greatest Kobe season. 35 points a game. He was unbelievable. He should have won the MVP.

2012, LeBron, MVP, first title, Miami. That was the year he put the chest hair on and killed the Celtics. 2016, Curry, 73 wins, MVP, finals. 2017, Harden, finished second in MVP that year, should have won, should have beaten Westbrook. I'm on the right side of history. Thank you very much. I voted for Harden. 2023, Jokic, title, second MVP, second in MVP, but won the title that year.

So this is the most important age for him being stars slash superstars. And even you think like Duncan and Giannis,

Duncan's greatest year was 2003. He was 26 and Giannis's greatest year was 21 when he won the title. Uh, so did Duncan, by the way, but Giannis was 26 that year, 22 Giannis, I think was the best ever version of Giannis. That was the year the Celtics miraculously beat him and ended up going to the finals. But Giannis was incredible that year. The point is 27 is the year.

And it should be the peak of somebody's career in a lot of different ways. And maybe this is going to happen in Tatum. So nine to one, again, I'm not allowed to vote on it, but it seems low to me. All right. Last one for the six pack. So New York and Minnesota took big identity change swings with that Towns for Randall and DDP trade. And I thought it was fascinating watching both of them on Tuesday night because they

the Knicks just felt different from last year. A big piece of that is Hartenstein.

They lost the offensive rebounding. They lost the defense and they lost the playmaking. He was like a secondary playmaker for them. And so that was, that had nothing to do with the trade because they'd already lost an OKC, but they really missed that. And then, you know, not having defense, with the Villanova four, with the, how, how, how well those three guys played together. Plus with bridges, the extra shooting, you felt that one too. And then conversely,

With Minnesota, no towns the size that him and Gobert and Nas Reed and just how suffocating and overwhelming the three of those guys were as a three-person combo. The spacing of the town's threes, the physicality,

It really felt like they missed that. Randall just looked horrible. The Randall Gobert minutes were really bad. And Randall, I didn't think he played that hard. It seemed like he really screwed up. It screwed up their spacing. Everything you felt kind of iffy about with that trade was on display for the first game. We'll say, you know, I'm giving them 20 games. I want to see how they incorporate all this stuff, how they figure out the lineups. So you had that. And then you had Bridges, who was the other big Knicks trade,

And OG and an OB and Tatum and Brown did whatever they wanted in that game. So you got those two guys, you're trying to build this team to defeat the Celtics and the Celtics demolish them. Um, and then the, the Randall piece, like I just didn't feel like Minnesota was better anyway. So how does this get fixed? Well, for the Knicks, uh,

they're going to have to get one more big guy at some point before February. Maybe it's just Mitchell Robinson coming back. I don't trust Mitchell Robinson to stay healthy, but maybe that's the answer. But they need defense and rebounding

And they need Bridges. They need more from him. They need him to figure out his shot. They really need playmaking from him. And you could see them trying to work him into stuff. But I've already had so much fun making fun of the Knicks fan friends that I have about Bridges, the hitch in his shot. It's like, whoa, do you know his shot was fucked up when you traded five first round picks for him? It's great. The Knicks fans have no response. They're just like, no, no, he'll figure it out. He's

39% career shooter. Uh, he had one good three in the Boston game where it's like, okay, maybe he'll figure it out. But, um, they just need more from him. You give up that much for bridges.

He needs to be in the offense more. He needs to be a 40% three-point shooter. He just needs to feel more impactful than he did in game one. That's not rocket science. Say that. So Bridges is the guy to watch for that team. Then Minnesota, I'd like to see more Reed and Randall lineups and Reed and Gobert and Les Towns and Gobert. I'd like to see them go smaller. And I want to watch whether Ant gets frustrated or not because the spacing was weird. You could see him getting frustrated during the game.

All of a sudden, Minnesota, such a feel-good story last year, 56 wins, and now seems like a work in progress. And what made them special last year

They just didn't seem that special. They seemed like a team that Anthony Davis was just running a mock on. So I'm watching them, both of those teams, identities, these first 20 games, will they be able to find their 24, 25 versions of them? So that's what we got for the six pack. We'll cover the league pass rankings in part two of the podcast, but that was today's six major things. And remember, Michelob Ultra Courtside gets you closer to the game than ever before. Check out MichelobUltra.com slash Courtside

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interested in, if you want to get totally random, I think Charlotte might be able to outperform expectations a little early in the season. I also think the Celtics, if you want to do, you know, Celtics minus 19 and a half, minus 20 for some of these games, they're going to have a couple of blowout wins early because their infrastructure is so good. You do you, but the next time you get a hunch on who's going to win, how many points a player will score,

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All right, our old friend Ariel Huwani is here because UFC 308 is coming up and because the Celtics beat the Knicks. Those are really the only two reasons. By the way, congratulations. You launched the Uncrowned Network on Yahoo. Uncrowned? What are we calling it? Uncrowned? Uncrowned Network? Yeah, Uncrowned. It's just Uncrowned. By the way, you know what?

It all makes sense now, Bill. It actually all makes sense. I can't tell you how happy I was when I got the text from you two days ago in the midst of the Celtics just absolutely laying the smack down on my beloved Knicks. A very depressing night. And I got this text and I knew you were probably watching the game and very happy about what was happening. But the text made my night because look, I'll be honest. The only question I got one question when, you know, we we we

you know, we, the new era started. I got one question. I swear on my life. I was at the Olympics. People come up to me. Does this mean no more appearances on Bill's show? And I said, listen, that was the question I got. It was the only question I got. Honestly, everyone was excited except for this. And I said, look, it's up to him. I'm not going to beg to be on a show. I'd love to be on. I always love to be on. Um, and then I got the text. I was like, you know what? Shout out to Bill.

And then, of course, you mentioned this right here and now about the Celtics. I'm kind of over it. It's all eyes on Pacers Friday night. And so now I just kind of feel like you invited me to rub it in. No, no. Well, I did want to make fun of Mikael Bridges hitch for like two seconds. We're good. We're good now. Did you see the end? You don't have a center. Yeah, you made one three at the end. Don't have a center. What are you talking about? We have one of the greatest shooting big men in the history of the NBA. You have a stretch five.

Yeah, would you have rathered that or Precious Ochoa? Imagine they don't make that deal and Precious is our starting center and he's injured. We're now starting games with Jericho Sims as our starting five. They had to have made it. Before you came on, I did on my pod. I'm not judging the Knicks or the Timberwolves until the 21 game mark. There's some things that I was concerned about for both teams, but I just don't think we're going to know for a while. I'm actually a little more concerned about

just with the Timberwolves, that their identity changed so dramatically. You guys had already lost Hartenstein and you knew it was going to be a little different this year anyway. But I, you know, we'll know 21 games in, we'll know. Who won the trade in your opinion right now? Who do you say will win the trade in the end? So I've changed my mind on this seven times. And heading into the season, I was like, I think Minnesota won the trade. And then I watched it

And Davis was just annihilating them. And I was like, man, I know he used to do well against the T-Wolves last year, but not this well. And just having these big bodies to throw at people like him and Jokic was such an advantage for them. And they just felt smaller to me. So I, and the spacing was weird. And I, so I, again, I want to wait 20 games, but I didn't love how they looked.

I didn't love how we looked either, but we'll be okay. No. We'll be okay. Well, the big thing, I said this at the top, you just need to figure out how to incorporate bridges more because I actually think he's a really...

really advanced like playmaker. I think he can create shots for people. I think you can run offense through him and they just kind of have to figure out how to get him more involved. So he was just like kind of standing on the side a lot of that game. That and Josh Hart just gives you nothing offensively right now. I feel like his confidence isn't there and I feel like he would be better suited off the bench. I don't want McBride to start because he's such a lightning rod off the bench. I don't know what the answer is. I can't wait for the Tyler Kolek era though to officially begin. Yeah.

He will be our eventual backup point guard and I think he'll be incredible. I love that kid. I adore him. Well, I knew the Celtics were going to be awesome these first two months because it's the history of after you win a title, you always have a jump the next year from a confidence. They brought everybody back. They had the same infrastructure. They're going to shoot even more threes. So they're going to look really good the first two months compared to a team that's

you know, just been thrown together in some ways. So, right. Any word on if Reggie's going to stick around as a broadcaster next year when all the changes happen, because he is just getting insufferable. I mean, he was horrendous. I mean, it's just like, Oh, they have a chip on their shoulder. Oh my God. There's no chip on anyone's shoulder. Calm the F down Reggie. Okay. Just cause, uh, Jason Tatum didn't play in the Olympics. The guy's doing fine. All right. This narrative that they're trying to build that the Celtics have some sort of chip on their shoulder. Tatum has a chip.

Tatum has a chip. I don't think there's any question. What's the chip? He was MVP of the final. I know, but he didn't not play in the Olympics. I think it was a look at the mirror moment and he fixed his shot and he looked great. You know, so the thing with you, first of all, my son demanded that I had you on this. Love Ben. Second, people have been joking in my life with me about how

Is my son going to be my Bronny James where, you know, he graduates high school and then he's in college for a year and then he's vice president of the ringer. And I'm just like, here's my son. He's running stuff now. And I was like, my son's not working for me. He's going to work for Ariel in like five years. That's going to be his boss. Can I hire him right now? He probably could. But he's really pumped for this UFC 308. And I was trying to think of like a big picture question.

to start this. Cause as you know, I've really gotten into this the last few years. It feels like we have been talking for the entire 2020s. Who's going to take McGregor's spot? Who's the next McGregor? Who's going to be the face of the UFC? And now it's almost the end of 2024. We're in the mid 2020s and we still don't have the answer, but I do think we have two amazing candidates. One of whom is fighting in 308. The other who has become my favorite UFC fighter ever, Pereira, um,

And it feels like this is now Teporia versus Pereira. One of these two is going to become the face of the company. So who are you betting on? Wow, that is a great question. I think Teporia's longevity is on his side. He's a lot younger. You know, Alex Pereira had an entire kickboxing career before he became an MMA fighter. He was a two-division champion in glory. He's 37, I believe, off the top of my head. Teporia is still in his 20s. And so...

you would have to think, and undefeated. He's never been knocked out before. He hardly gets hit in his fights. So I would say him, obviously, he also opens up that whole market in Europe and in particular in Spain. Dana White said earlier on Thursday that they're now talking to Barcelona and Madrid to hold an event there.

in 2025, and he's been pushing for them to go to the Bernabeu, which is where Real Madrid plays, which would be a gigantic deal, like 80,000 people. And I think they can actually draw 80,000 for a Toporia title defense there. They're not having those discussions, if not for Ilya Toporia and how popular he has gotten. I said this...

on my show this week, and it's a very lazy thing to compare people to Conor. Oh, he's just like Conor. He's playing a Conor character. And Max himself has accused Ilya of being a copycat. But when you listen to Ilya speak, the confidence that he has, the way he talks about his opponents with no respect whatsoever, just like that he's going to flick them off his shoulder, it is very reminiscent of 2015, 2016 Conor.

Conor McGregor. He is not trying to be friends with these guys. He doesn't want to be respectful towards them. He's not trying to pay them any kind of respect, pay homage to them or anything. He is there to annihilate all of them and thus far he has. So the build has been great. If I had to pick one who's just going to be at the top longer, it's probably Teporia, but I would say right now, Pereira is...

No one dislikes Alex Pereira. A lot of people dislike Teporia. A lot of people want to see Teporia get his comeuppance, want to see the beloved Max Holloway shut him up. There is no one who feels that way about Alex Pereira. So it's a bit of a two-parter answer. Is Pereira the highest approval rating UFC fighter since who?

God, that's a great question. He's just absolutely beloved. I just can't believe how much I enjoy his fights. Just every piece of it from the walkouts to the ring to his Michael Myers stare down at the opponent when they're just showing him. It's like, it's just, it's the best theater we have in any combat sport right now. Couldn't agree more. That's MMA or boxing. He,

He's the male fighter of the year. And some of my friends are trying to say if Teporia wins, he'll be 2-0 with a win over... I was going to ask you about that. ...Konofsky and Holloway. If Holloway wins, we'll have the BMF win and then this win. Those guys are 2-0 and they're great wins.

Alex Pereja is not only the fighter of the year, male fighter of the year for 2024 for the UFC, he is their MVP. He has saved their ass three times this year. They didn't have a main eventer for UFC 300. He says, fine, I'll do it essentially on a month's notice.

They had Conor McGregor with a busted toe for this gigantic card in late June. They couldn't find a soul. The guy is in Australia doing a promotional tour 10 days before the fight. And he says, fine, I'll do it with his own broken toe. And he beats a guy who he had just beaten like eight months prior at MSG. And then he wasn't supposed to fight.

in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City was supposed to be headlined by Teporia versus Holloway, and the main event for this weekend was supposed to be Issa Makhachev against Armin Sarukin. Makhachev got injured. They didn't have a main event for Abu Dhabi, which is a huge market for them, so they pushed Teporia and Holloway to Abu Dhabi and left them without anyone for Utah. Now, you may say to yourself, who cares about Utah? Utah is paying a ton of money for the UFC

to come hold events there. The owner of the jazz and the hockey club, Ryan Smith, is leading the charge. He wants the UFC. So that's why they've had these three big shows there the last three years. They needed a big main event. So they called upon, once again, the MVP, Alex Pereira, to save the day. There's only one guy who is an open hater of Alex Pereira, and it's Jamal Hill. Jamal Hill is like his biggest hater, but that's just because he's trying to get another fight against him. Everyone else

to your point, you're a hundred percent right. It has been a very long time since there has been someone at the top like this who just doesn't seem to have any detractors whatsoever. So has this ever happened before? So I'm trying to, I'm trying to rack my brain. Cause even like McGregor. Yeah, no, no, no. He still had people bitching about him and you know, he was controversial the whole time. Yeah. If you just go through the list, like, like McGregor, a hundred percent had his detractors, even Ronda Rousey in her

in her heyday had many detractors. People said that she was overhyped or that she wasn't nice, this and that. Even George St. Pierre, who is from my hometown, who is like the nicest, most down-to-earth, respected guy and respectful guy, people would say sometimes that he was too boring. You can't say any of that

about Alex Pereira. Even Anderson Silva, in his heyday, people said, ah, you know, sometimes he doesn't take it seriously. He's acting crazy. He's not delivering when he should be delivering. He's kind of playing with his food. Demetrius Johnson is another one. People said, ah, he's not that exciting. He doesn't have a good personality. So it's a fantastic point. Like, you have to really rack your brain. There are guys like Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit who are just kind of like, you know, oh, you know they're always going to deliver. But

But they never had the stature and the title runs that Pereira did. So to have that and to also not be involved in a single boring fight, like even when he lost to Izzy, that was an incredible fight. He got knocked out. He's about to knock Izzy out and he got knocked out. He was about to knock. So he delivers whether he wins or loses. And these days, more often than not, he is winning. Yeah, he checks two boxes that I think are the fundamental boxes to have somebody be like a true champion.

A plus lister UFC. One is the intimidation piece where even before the fight starts, you're like, shit, we don't want to be this other person. Like Rousey had that until it got knocked the hell out of her by Holly Holm. But she, she had it where she would go into the octagon and you'd be like, oh man, I just wouldn't want to fight her. And that's, there's probably what, 10, 12 people in the history of UFC who have had that piece, right? But then the other piece is

He's just watching him solve that last fight, watch him solve Roundtree, where he had that crazy...

That, that lunging left hook. That was just, it was a little Ali Frazier ish. And you're watching like, oh man, it feels like he can get these three punch combos off whenever he wants. How's Pereira going to solve this? And then you just saw him between rounds three and round four. He started moving up a little bit, um, started figuring out how to, and then all of a sudden he solved the fight, which I think is the other piece you need. If you're going to be truly great at UFC, like, can you solve something that didn't go the exact way?

He thought it was going to go. And he, he has that too. A hundred percent. And the other thing is, is like, uh, it felt like in the fourth round, he was saying to himself, all right, enough of this. And he just took it up a notch and he is such a good striker. Again, he's a two division glory kickboxing glory is the UFC of kickboxing. So he is as elite as it gets. So it doesn't ever feel like it's fluky. It doesn't ever feel like it's just, you know, a thing. And, and, and, and, and what's even more impressive is he doesn't speak English, you

You know what I mean? So, so a lot of people can connect on you, like with you, if they, if they cut great promos or have great interviews, part of the magic, part of the magic with Mike Tyson back in the day, of course, was his interviews, whether he was talking crazy or acting crazy, like people were always captivated. Prayer doesn't give you much.

But it's, it's, as the kids say, his aura, his, his, his, his, his stare downs, the, the bow and arrow thing, just his whole vibe. People are just enamored with, and now he's starting to show us a little bit more of his personality. And then when you start to learn more about his story, 10 years ago, this guy was an alcoholic. He was working at a tire shop. He had nothing going on in his life. And so to turn it all around like this is, is truly one of the great stories in MMA and in combat sports in the last decade. Yeah. He's like a sports movie.

Yeah. I was thinking as you were talking about wrestling, who tries to do all these, we both love wrestling, the, these different characters and the hardest character to pull off is the mystery character. Like they probably did it the best with the undertaker. Um, but,

And there's been some other ones, you know, Kane was like that, but trying to have the person who to hide the fact that they don't have an amazing personality. You add this like eerie, scary, doesn't say much. Maybe the manager is talking for him. Yeah. And Pereira has it. Like I don't, I barely even, I couldn't even tell you what his voice sounds like. I know he does like interviews with the translator after the fights, but it just works for him. He's, he's Michael Myers. That's, that's the persona that he has.

And the way they shoot the stare downs like before the fight, the way they've now shot them cinematically like this is brilliant. His coach is also his translator, Plinio, and he's a great character too. So they have become, you know, like that Paul Bearer,

undertaker dynamic. Bray Wyatt was another good one who, you know, when he wasn't talking was, was a classic character who didn't speak and had that, had that intensity. One of my all-time favorites was Kamala, the first Kamala in our lives back in the day, not Kamala, Kamala, you know, the Ugandan giant with his, remember him? Like I was legit,

terrified of that guy. And Kim Chi would speak, I believe that was his name. He would speak on his behalf. So yeah, that's part of it. Now, most people you would say, oh, you need to speak English. Like Triple G, once he starts saying big drama show, even though it was like short,

sentences, it took his popularity to a different level. Khabib became more popular when he started speaking English. Anderson did as well. Junior Dos Santos did as well. Pereira doesn't need it. I've never heard him say anything in English other than maybe thank you. And no one is asking for it. No one needs it. No one wants it. He's my first favorite UFC fighter. And I've been watching for a while. He's the first one that I'm like, I just love this guy. I'm going to be devastated if he loses. I was really scared during that last fight. Have you seen him live?

Uh, I, I have actually, I saw like maybe like three, four fights ago. I can't remember who we saw, but I I'm the next one. I don't, when is the next one?

Okay, so here's the interesting thing. On this card is Magomed Ankhalaev against Alexander Rakic. Ankhalaev should have fought Alex Pereira two weeks ago. He is just a tough wrestler from Russia who is just that sort of prototypical tough wrestler from Russia who doesn't offer much in terms of showmanship. And it is very clear. I think he's unbeaten in his last 12. There's one draw in that mix. It's very clear that the UFC...

is not too excited about the prospects of a him fighting for a belt and also be him fighting against Alex Pereira because his skill set grappling is Pereira's weakness so to speak and so they have put him in there against Alexander Rakic who's an underdog but who if they were being honest with you in a rare moment behind the scenes they would probably tell you gosh we hope Rakic wins this fight so that you know Magomed goes away if Magomed wins I don't know how you deny him and

And that may be a tough, tough test for Pereira just because of how the skill sets match up. Well, that's one of the reasons this card's so good because that's one versus five. I think UFC's in a weird place where there's a certain type of fighter that succeeds. And we saw it in the last pay-per-view. That's just not that fun to watch. And I think...

As they battle between do we want the biggest audience possible or do we want to just have this be a competition between people that are awesome at fighting? Sometimes those two things are directly opposed to one another. And the worst kind of person to watch is just the person who's the takedown guy

who he just has you down. It's five minutes and he's just grinding them on the top. People want to see Pereira. So I can totally understand why they boned over Goliath with this last one because he should have had the last fight.

So a little bit of a tough stretch for them in that regard. And I understand what you're saying. Going back to July, Leon Edwards, who's becoming a huge star in the UK, he loses to Bilal Muhammad, who has that sort of style that people aren't in love with. Then we go to August, Israel Desenyev is fighting for the belt again. He's supremely popular. He loses to Drikus Duplessis, who isn't as popular. Then we get to September and Sean O'Malley, who

who connects with a lot of the young kids, who's very popular in his own right, loses to Murad Diwali Shvili in a fight that a lot of people didn't like. And so, yeah, I was saying to people before the Roundtree fight who, you know, I think Roundtree is an incredible fighter with an incredible backstory. He's just not quite there. People don't know him. They're not connected to him. If Pereira would lose, like if you just look at who's in the top 10 pound for pound, there aren't a ton of, you know,

Now, people like to bring this up all the time. Oh, the lack of superstars. Where's the McGregor? Where's the this guy, that guy? The UFC is so on fire right now as a brand. They don't necessarily need that person. Would it be nice? Yes. Are they searching for it? Yes, sure. But...

the three letters are the biggest star in the sport and the UFC, no matter where they go, they're selling out and they're breaking gate records. It's just automatic at this point. So I don't think it's as big of an issue as some people like to think. Eventually it's going to become an issue. It can't last like this forever. But right now it's, it's, it's a little bit of a, uh, of a talking point that people are making out to be a bigger deal. The bigger issue that, and I don't know, I don't understand this, like the one 10th of the level you do.

But as I'm watching, I'm like, why doesn't everyone fight this way? It just seems unstoppable. Why this, it seems so much harder to fight somebody like this than a striker. Like if you were just talking the best possible version of, of those guys versus Pereira, I like, I think he would be in trouble against Uncle I have, I do.

I mean, it's just the way they're brought up and not everyone has that skill set. There are just some guys who aren't good and, and they're at that. And there are some guys who just don't enjoy fighting like that to their detriment. Um, and there are some guys who can, you know, they can be strikers their whole life and just never pick up on it. Shout out to big Francis and Ghanu who came back on Saturday. I don't know if you guys watched that one, but showed off the offensive wrestling. And that was always his biggest Achilles heel. Like he went for a takedown, got Fajeda down, uh,

almost got submitted, thwarted that attempt, and then won via ground and pound all in about three minutes and 30 seconds. So some people pick it up, some don't, some want to be exciting, some don't. But then there are other guys who are just like, you know, excitement be damned.

I'm going to do what I have to do. And you see in the case of Mago Manon Kalai, even in the case of Bilal, Bilal had to win like 10, 11 in a row or at least be unbeaten in 10, 11 in a row before they gave him the title shot. And even as he was sitting there as the clear cut number one contender, they were doing everything in their power to give it to someone else. They offered Leon three different opponents or excuse me,

They tried to book Leon against three different opponents. Leon said yes to all of them for UFC 300. They couldn't figure it out. Hamza was one of them. Islam moving up from 55 to 70 was another. Shavkat, who's the guy Bilal's fighting in December, was another. Like they really didn't want to do this. But at some point you have to make the fights. Let's take a break and we'll talk about the rest of the card.

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and tools like Wealth Plan and the Chase Mobile app, which is very cool. They have options for every investor. So visit your local branch or explore the Chase Mobile app to get started. JP Morgan Wealth Management offers investment products and services through JP Morgan Securities LLC member FINRA SIPC. So we didn't talk about Max Holloway and what's at stake for him, where

I don't want to say his career was over two years ago, but you know, it seemed like maybe it was the end of the peak and he was going to move into that territory that a lot of these UFC guys move into. It's like, oh, I love that guy and maybe he'll win one, but he's kind of moving to a different phase. And that did not happen. And now if he wins this fight and becomes the first loss for Teporia, like this vaults him to some new level. He's also beloved.

Um, it's a great spot for him. Um, is there a chance for him in your opinion?

Oh, there's definitely a chance. And he's another one of those guys that very few dislike. He is just absolutely beloved. We met him when he was, I think, 20 years old in 2012. He took a short notice fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC 143. And it's amazing that he's still around, not only still around, but fighting for belts. What, 12 years later? It's unbelievable. And to your point, when he lost to Volk in that third fight,

It was very one-sided and I thought, yeah, this is probably it. This is probably the left turn and he'll maybe just have some fun fights and, you know, just kind of be on the roster. This is a guy who has been in a lot of fights, who has a lot of cage time, who has absorbed and dished out a lot of damage

And so everything was there for the fall off the cliff. All he has done since then is win, and against very good opponents, the likes of Calvin Cater, the likes of Arnold Allen, which blew me away because Arnold had been so good leading up to that point. And he takes a fight against Justin Gaethje at 155 pounds in April, which a lot of people, including myself, said was a mistake for two reasons. A, he was the number one contender at 45. Why are you fighting for some fictitious contender

WWE hardcore title-esque belt known as the BMF title, which means nothing. What is the point of all this? And B, the last time we saw him at 55 was against Dustin Poirier back in 2019 in Atlanta. And he was, you know, severely...

outmuscled. He was the smaller guy. He was moving up to 55 and it was one-sided traffic the entire way. He completely dominated Gaethje in a five-round fight. And not only that, produced one of the greatest moments in UFC history when he pointed to the ground and knocked him out cold with a second left. And so now here he is moving back to 45 on an incredible run, his confidence at an all-time high. You could tell he just has sort of that like, I've been here, nothing you say bothers me.

Nothing you say gets under my skin. And he's been giving it back to Ilya. Ilya said, Ilya laid out this challenge on my show to him. He said, fight is going to start. I'm going to walk to the middle of the cage. I'm going to point to the ground. You meet me there. I bet you won't. And Max just said, you're

you're just copying me. Like, there's nothing cool about that. You're being a copycat just like you copy McGregor. And that was the perfect answer. And so I feel like a lot of fans are now saying like, yeah, you are copying him. That's pretty whack as opposed to initially people being like, oh, snap, I can't believe he said that. So,

uh, nothing surprises me. Obviously, uh, to pour you as the favorite, he hits really hard. I would say, uh, Max hasn't fought anyone quite like to pour you in this, in this current run. But this to me feels like a 50, 50 fight. I have no idea what is going to happen because by the way, the detractors want to take away from to pour you, including Max, who has said this or as, as recently as Thursday, uh,

You beat Calvin Cater to get a title shot, and then you beat an Alex Volkanovsky who was damaged goods, who took a fight on short notice and got knocked out and came back too soon. You haven't done anything to earn this. And so we'll find out on Saturday if he's truly for real. Tupori is minus 265. I had another, I had a dopey NBA question. Who is the NBA equivalent of Max Holloway? NBA equivalent of Max Holloway. Is it Jimmy Butler? Well, maybe it's not because maybe Jimmy Butler's career might be headed the wrong way.

I like the Jimmy Butler comparison for this reason. Jimmy's cool, you know, like he's got his thing, he's got the coffee thing, people dig his vibe. The reason it doesn't work is 'cause he's not a champion. So everything, he's never been a champion, and Max was a champion. So there's a lot of similarities there,

what people love about Max so much is that he's cool. He's, it's all very effortless. He's Hawaiian. He's chill. He's laid back. He does his thing. He doesn't back down from a fight. Um, and, and he just kind of like walks the walk and talks the talk. So I'm trying to think of a guy that sounds a little more like Tim Duncan.

no, but Duncan wasn't cool. Yeah. No, you're right. Well, Duncan was, he was not cool. Like even killed, but I mean like cool, like he's got swag, you know what I mean? Like, like, like cool in the sense that people want to be like him. Um, this is a bad example, but I, I was just the name Al, her Al Horford came to mind if only because I'll like everyone likes Al, it seems like, and respects him. Um,

The other name that came to mind was Kevin Garnett in that I feel like a lot of people respected him. He talked some smack as, as did Max Holloway. And, and it felt to me like KG was always just kind of effortless, effortlessly cool. Um, you know, that's a good one because he won a championship. Yeah. And he, and he, and he won a championship. Um, so man, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to,

It's definitely not Paul Pierce because he is not cool. I'm kidding. How dare you? Shamaya versus Whitaker, middleweights. Only three fights in the last three years for Shamaya, who was one of the many this decade who was like, could he be the next McGregor? And it feels like he missed his window for super duper stardom. So where is he now? Where is he in the landscape? You want my hot take on this? Yeah.

There's a clip online, 2020. I'm doing a show with Daniel Cormier, DC and Helwani, may it rest in peace. And Hamza bursts onto the scene, Fight Island in Abu Dhabi during the pandemic. And he wins two fights in the span of 10 days. And then he comes back in September and he wins again in a higher weight class 185. And after that third fight, I said, if Hamza Chamaev is not a UFC champion by the end of 2021, something has gone horribly wrong.

I would have bet my life that he would have been UFC champion well before that.

guess what? Something has gone horribly wrong. He, he has not lived up to the hype for various reasons. Number one, no fault of his own. He got really, really sick with COVID and actually retired, um, briefly and said he was done trying to battle this. He was convinced not to retire, uh, by no less than Ramzan Kadyrov, the, the, uh, Chechen dictator, uh, which, which makes his presence at times a little bit uncomfortable, um, comes back,

And yes, it's been fine. He's won fights. The level of opposition has gotten tougher. But the hot take is he has lost that intimidation factor. He has lost that aura that we're talking about with Alex Pereira. He has lost that. And when I see- You know who agrees with you? Ben Simmons. The great Ben Simmons, my son. Robert Whitaker is an underdog. I think he's like a plus 260, 170, something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

I love Whitaker via decision. Whitaker switched on. Right now, his headspace is in an amazing spot. He took a short notice fight against Ikram Aliskerov back in June. He was supposed to fight Hamzat. Hamzat pulls out.

Ali Skerrov, everyone was saying, ah, this could be the guy. He could be a boogeyman. He could catch him. He smoked him. And I just think he is not intimidated. He is not bothered. And what is Hamza going to do? Is he going to out-wrestle Rob? I don't think so. Is he going to out-strike Rob? Absolutely not. Robert Whitaker has been sparring with Jai Opetiah, in case you aren't familiar with him, the best cruiserweight in the world, in the world of boxing, who is an unbelievable talent out of that region, Oceania as well, who's a beast and the hardest puncher

arguably in the sport right now. He just scored a knockout a couple of weeks ago in Saudi Arabia. Whitaker is, to me, when I see him, I see his physique. I see what he's been doing and saying.

I like Whitaker via decision or maybe a stoppage. I'm not, I'm not buying that Hamza gets by him. Hamza isn't fighting enough. He fights once a year. He's got some mysterious travel issue where he can't fight outside of the Middle East right now. Right. It's a huge problem. Even if he does win this fight, I don't know what they do with him because honestly, if he can't fight in the United States, how can he fight for a belt? Now, if, uh,

not to get political here, but if 45 becomes 47, if you get what I'm saying, that may help the UFC because he certainly helped them with some travel issues back in the day. But otherwise, I don't know what they do with him if he wins. The Simmons family agrees with you. It feels like the odds are out of whack for this one. As you know, the two things I hate the most in combat sports, UFC and boxing, are not fighting enough,

And then the guy who starts hitting like his mid late thirties and got knocked out once or twice. That's always like, it's never headed the right way after that. But in this case, like he's just, you're not fighting enough. And it does seem like he's had some physical toll with like, I think how many times did he have COVID at least twice. Right. But one time it was really bad. Like he was coughing up blood and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I don't know, just there's,

He had that fight last year against Kamaru Usman on relative short notice, and I wasn't blown away. And it was a fight that if it went five rounds, I thought Usman was gonna win. By the way, worth noting, this fight, and part of the reason why I like Whitaker via decision is this fight's a five-round co-main event. Whitaker has fought in five-round fights all day. Hamzat hasn't. Whitaker has gas tanked for days.

Hamza doesn't. We've seen him slow down against Usman. We've seen him slow down against Gilbert Burns. Whitaker never slows down. Like he can literally go for days. And so if this goes into four or five, I just don't see how Hamza gets it done. So if you're betting him, you're almost better off knockout in the first couple rounds versus like him winning a decision. 100%. And I just don't, is he going to take Robert down and ground and pound him? Like Rob's a vet, man. I just don't see it happening.

There's two other fights in the main event. Megamedov is fighting. This is a quote from my son, Ben. Oh, okay. He's what the UFC casuals want to watch. Flashy spinning kicks, stand-up fighter. I'm not sold on him. Wow. You're talking about Shara Bullitt here. He's got an incredible look to him. He's the pirate. He's the guy who has the glass eye and he looks the part. But to your son's point,

has fought only sort of like a certain level of competition. He is fighting a great striker, kickboxer named Armin Petrosian. Uh, so this will be an interesting test, but it's still not quite like higher caliber. Um,

I don't know if this is the referendum on him that some are thinking it is, but I could see what your son is saying. I can see what Ben is saying. I could, I could, I could see it. I don't know what it is. My son feels burned by Sean O'Malley is really what it like. That was like, he's just popping his cherry for don't trust fighters like this moment. Yeah. The cool, the mystique though. Oh my God. Like look at these little six second Tik TOK clips of some movie data. And he just fell for it.

I mean, he shouldn't have, I mean, that was a tough matchup for him. And Sean did fine, but in the end, you know, Murab wins. This isn't the fight that, you know,

Shire Bullet will get exposed. I think it's actually going to be a tremendous fight because of their styles. But yes, that is sort of like the hipster take right there where the casuals will be like, this is the guy. And the knowledgeable ones will be like, nah, this isn't the guy. He's going to get figured out. The other thing is, by the way, he's another guy who has a bit of a ceiling on him because he has an issue with his eye. His eye is completely not working properly.

He can't fight, it appears, in the United States. So because no commission is going to sanction that. That's what we're being told. Now, maybe he gets it figured out, but that's another guy who could only fight in these Middle Eastern shows, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi. So a bit of a weird one. You like the other fighter now, Murphy?

Oh, I love that. I mean, Lerone Murphy's in Lerone. Murphy is one of the most amazing stories. And if this guy can go on a run, uh, he can, he can be a huge superstar. He was walking outside of a barbershop one day and literally got shot in the face. And, and the, the bullet went through his cheek and out the other side, which is just like mind blowing. So his nickname is the miracle, uh, Lerone, the miracle Murphy representing the UK, uh, has looked very good in the UFC. Uh,

really good in his last fight, which was a nice test for him against Dan Ige, who you'll recall took that fight on like four days. No, sorry. Four hours notice. Four hours. Yeah. Yeah. Against Diego Lopez back in June when he replaced Brian Ortega fought valiantly, but like, you know, really tough test. Um, this is a nice step up for Murphy and, uh,

I don't know what the odds are, to be honest. I don't look at the whole time. Minus 260 for Murphy. My son is convinced that they're mad that Ige made UFC look bad because he took a fight on four hours notice. So now they're just setting him up to get demolished.

It's a conspiracy take from my hipster UFC son. Okay, I love Ben, but that one doesn't make any sense because he actually helped the UFC. That's what I told him. Like, he actually did it. I can't help you with UFC hipster teenagers. That's his conspiracy take. He did them a solid. If anything, they should reward him and love him and not give him someone like Lerone Murphy because he is so good. But I agree with the lines. Lerone should be the favorite. You did boxing...

By the way, I forgot to mention UFC 308 is an earlier card. I think it comes out at 11 a.m. PT, which is the fucking best. I love when that happens. You've done some boxing recently. Didn't you just do an awesome fight

Yes, I was at the Anthony Joshua Daniel Dubois fight at Wembley. Holy shit. 97,000 people. AJ's my kryptonite for betting. I bet against him because he was my least favorite fighter. I bet against him, bet against him. He won, he won, he won.

And then finally I was like, all right, fine. You got me. I'll throw you in a parlay. And then of course he gets absolutely demolished by Dubois. Demolished, demolished, man. What? I've never been to Wembley and there was legit 97,000 people. It is so fun being in the UK for a big fight because the way in which they treat boxing is so like their main sports talk radio channel there is called talk sport.

It's only football as in soccer and boxing that they talk about. So like right in the, in a taxi midday and they're talking about like mid-level boxing. You would never get any radio station here in America talking about boxing or MMA midday, right? There's just too much going on. So it's such a big deal. And AJ was on such a role and he was trying to become heavyweight champion again, um, for the third time. And here's Daniel Dubois, who's very awkward.

and shy and was a complete afterthought in the build-up, a fellow Brit, and he just absolutely starched him. Well, he'd never fought like that before. I mean, that was... He was building, building, building, but not like... That was almost Buster Douglas-y. Yeah, that was crazy. Not quite, not quite Buster. I'm just saying, it was, come on. It was a big freaking deal, but because, of course, AJ has been caught before, so we've seen him crumble, but

the whole narrative was AJ's going to win this fight and then he's going to get the winner of Fury Usyk on December 21st and then it's going to be one of the great you know comeback stories in boxing history and it could still happen that we get Fury Joshua that's the biggest fight in the history of UK both of those guys are at different points in their career there's a guy so my favorite as I told you is Pereira for UFC yeah

But Coley is my favorite boxer in a while. Did you go to that card? The one in LA? I'm so mad I didn't. I just, it was a complete fuck up. I should have gone. And now he's hit that point that boxers rarely hit where I just don't think anyone wants to fight him.

There's no win fight. That guy's basically George Foreman in 2024. Um, great story too. And I don't know how it goes with him, but that's to me, the number one fighter I want to watch. Wow. That's high praise. Yeah. I, I, I thought he was unbelievable. He, he is so scary and he's one of those rare boxers that you watch and you're like,

I don't know what you do. Like he's just coming forward and he's does the 70s foreman thing.

and he just overpowers everybody. So I don't even know really what the answer is. I'm sure if you fought Usyk, I'm sure Usyk would probably figure it out. Yeah. I mean, he's not quite there yet. The, the, the, the fight that I suggested for him next was Joseph Parker, who's an amazing story in his own right. Yeah. Um, and, and he's been on an incredible run. He's coming off a very impressive win over G. Le Zhang. Um, and, and he's just kind of the odd man out. Um, so,

So we're getting Fury Usyk. Dubois is out there. Some people would like to see Fury Usyk fight Dubois next, like me, if the winner of that fight. Other people want to see Dubois AJ2. I think that's absurd. Why should Dubois have to do that again? And then there's Joseph Parker and there's Martin Bacoli, who in a BMO field where the LAFC team plays, he beat Jared Anderson, who was supposed to be like the next great American heavyweight. Destroyed him.

destroyed him, just absolutely starched him. - But also the kind of fight that doesn't happen anymore, but now that all this weird money has come into boxing,

You have somebody like Anderson, like, all right, how much are you paying me? I'll fight Bacoli. And then it's like, no, don't fight this guy. This is a disaster. That's literally what happened. Like to a T, there's Turkey Al-Sheikh, who's the head of the operation over there in Saudi Arabia, who's making all these fights happen. It's great for boxing fans because it's very UFC-esque and that we're seeing the best fight. Totally. He offered Jared a boatload of money. He made him an ambassador. Bob Arum, who's his...

Anderson's promoter for top rank said, don't take this fight. And afterwards said, this was stupid and we would have never booked this fight if you were fighting for us on this night. He wasn't. It was a Turkey fight. And so Turkey as in Turkey, I'll shake, not the country Turkey. And look what happened. So now Jared Anderson takes a step back. I will say this though, look at MMA fighters and look at some of the most popular MMA fighters. They all have losses. Some of the most popular MMA

have double digit losses. And I hope that boxing fans and boxing pundits look at that and stop putting so much emphasis on the O and just are so quick to write people off when they suffer a loss. Because when you do that, you are encouraging them to not fight the best. Ultimately, what we want is fight fans is for the best to fight the best. And on this night, I give Jared credit. You fought one of the best.

You lost, dust yourself off, get back out there. Give me that any day over another fight against the guy who's eight and 11 and you beat him in six rounds.

The problem is that was almost like a PTSD kind of knockout. Like he got absolutely eviscerated. That's a tough one to come back from. Whereas like Joshua could be like, ah, I took Dubois lightly. I didn't realize he had that in him. This was like an absolute demolition. I just worry sometimes with boxers versus UFC, it seems like you can get knocked out

And just come back. And in boxing, like, like you have the wrong knockout. You're just not the same after like, like think about Pacquiao. The last time Pacquiao got knocked out by Marquez, that was it. Like he was never the same after that, you know? So,

Um, he was older and also to your point in MMA, you can use other tools to win a fight, right? So let's say you're not, you're not feeling good about your striking next time out. You use your, you know, wrestling and jujitsu, but we saw with Volkanovski, Volkanovski was never getting hit. He got knocked out by Islam. He comes back four months later and he gets knocked out by Teporia. So it happens, especially with the older guys in MMA too.

Ariel, great to see you. So great to see you. I'm glad we got to talk UFC. Good luck with Uncrowned. Thank you so much Uncrowned.com. Thank you. I appreciate it. It means a lot. Keep a spot for Ben Simmons in like five years. Anytime. And don't worry, you don't have to mention first place Buffalo Bills. It's no big deal. No interceptions, Josh Allen. We don't have to talk about that. We can save that for the next time. It's not...

I have too much respect for you to pump up the bills in October. Listen, we're doing okay. Listen, we don't want any pumping up. We're good. We're good. Just leave us alone. Stay under the radar. That's where you want to be. We'll see you in January. Well, not you, not the Patriots, but we'll see everyone else in January. You will definitely not see the Patriots in January. They'll be watching you in January. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by Origin. Y'all know how much I love my guy Murph, my dog.

He has his own Instagram account. I take him on hiking trips and that's why Origin is great. They don't just make pet food. Their food is made with whole prey ingredients that nourish your companions and give them the energy they need for all your adventures together. And I have a lot of adventures with Murph. With nutrient-dense animal ingredients like fresh meat, poultry, and fish, there's less need for synthetic supplements.

Feed your dog good food. Visit Origin. It's spelled O-R-I-J-E-N, petfoods.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season and Uber Eats is dropping undefeated deals on all your game day favorites. This week's score, buy one, get one, free spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy's.

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All right, we're taping this on a Wednesday. I haven't been sick in, I think, three years. And over the weekend, I started to feel a little under the weather. And then full-blown by Monday night into Tuesday, I was in bed all day. And I think it's because the Yankees are in the World Series, and I knew I had to have Jacko on.

Baseball's just been ruined for me. My body's literally rejecting a Yankees World Series appearance. I know you're about as delighted. You're like a pig in shit. I can't stand it. It's true. This only makes me happier. Not that I would ever wish you to be ill, but the fact that nature or the gods or whomever is not only putting the Yankees in the World Series, but has rendered you incapacitated. That's just that sweetness to me. Let me tell you, that just sweetens the pot.

That's what's happened. Um, I, it really makes me mad. I don't like that. The Yankee fans, I talked about it on Sunday night, how the Yankee fans had their chest puffed out again. And then all the Yankee fans were upset that I said that because it was just like the Celtics where the Celtics had an easy road to the title. The difference was the Celtics were a historically great regular season team. You guys, you complained about this team for four and a half months.

You were so mad. You hated this team. You hated the manager. You hated the GM.

And now you're wearing Yankees paraphernalia. And it just, it just bothers me, Jacko. All, all is forgiven. Victory, victory is the ultimate bomb for everything, you know, that fixes everything. So yes, all my dislike of, of, I didn't hate the team per se. I hated the organization. I hated the ownership, the general manager and the manager that still holds true. It should not have been a 15 year drought. So all that I stand by, but yeah,

But listen, they made a run. And your notion of, well, they played cupcakes or whatever. Yeah, they didn't have to face the Astros. They didn't have to face a legendary Red Sox team or any other juggernaut. But you're not giving your ring back because you played the Indiana Pacers and the number five seed Dallas Mavericks.

You play who's on the schedule. That's all you can do is play who's on the schedule. And the Yankees stepped up to the plate and they won. And Cleveland, you know, Cleveland was a number two seed in the American League. It's not like they were a sixth seed. They were number two. They had a legendary bullpen. They had an all-time closer. People were comparing the closer to Mariano Rivera. And now we're supposed to apologize for beating that team. I'm not going to do it. I'm not apologizing. That's true. That's your one good part of your case is that you ruined the closer.

They went into the playoffs thinking that they had one of the best closers of the generation. And by the end of it, he was an absolute shell. He was like our friendship cane in college after three Bart visits just being carried out. This class A, I'm sure he's a fine guy. But when you're relegated to going on Instagram and showing your collection of trophies...

awards and closer of the month. I mean, that was the most, that was the saddest thing I've ever seen. If I was a Guardians fan, I wouldn't show my face in public again. I would have burned my class A jersey. I mean, you cannot go on Instagram and say, well, sure, the Yankees lit me up, but look at all these, look at my closer of the month award from

June. I mean, that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. I don't mean to kick Cleveland fans while they're down. They were a fine, spunky team, but that was abject misery right there. That was the worst thing I've ever seen. On the other hand, it epitomized the trophy generation.

He's like, we might not have made it to the world series, but here's some of the trophies I collected over the last couple of years. Check out how nice these are. Enjoy that Caribbean baseball league final ring or whatever that he was flashing. Yeah, absolutely. No question. I think you owe some apologies before we keep going, because these people are going to be in your life for the rest of the decade, at least now.

Aaron Boone, you weren't a fan of the strategic thinking. You weren't a fan of the press conferences. He was somebody who had been in your life. Unlike when I had second row Joe, second row Joe got thrown into a Celtics season right before the season. Just ripped in. He was our fourth assistant and he was overwhelmed. And the only excuse for him through the year was like, all right, this was kind of an unfair spot for this guy.

And then, you know, he rebounded year two. You've had a long, long, long look at Aaron Boone. So what happened? Like a long one. What happened? Is he a good manager now? Or is this just, this just went well for two months? It just went well. It went well for a couple of weeks. Let's not go crazy yet. It's gone well for a couple of weeks.

I mean, yes, I dislike him as much as any Yankee fan. And believe me, I'm not alone in Yankee fandom and my non-love, let's say, for Aaron Boone. But I got to give credit where credit is due. I mean, he did a wonderful job with the bullpen. I don't have any criticisms of anything he did. And the modern manager, that's all you have to do is you have to manage the bullpen. And so far, knock on wood, and this will come back to bite me in the ass, I'm sure.

in horrible egregious fashion. But for so far, he's done a great job with the bullpen. The one quibble I would maybe have is they should have moved Stanton to the four hole a lot sooner and gotten Austin Wells out of there or jazz Chisholm out of there. But,

But I'm not sure Boone gets to make those decisions. That's a front office cashman algorithm thing. So I can't criticize Boone. As much as I dislike him, I'd still dislike the press conferences. I dislike his general demeanor. I dislike a lot about him. But he's had a good couple weeks, and hopefully it continues for another week and a half or more. So that's all I can ask for at this point. But I'm not suddenly in love. I'm not buying a Boone jersey. I have not done a 180. It's just...

you know, we'll see how it goes here. We'll see how it goes.

We're like a divorced couple giving it another chance. You sound like the Republicans talk about Trump right before the election. Well, you know, he's had a good couple of weeks. We'll see how it goes. I wish. Now, the Republicans are wholeheartedly in love, unfortunately, with Trump. So I wish that was the case, that they were more more reticent, let's say. Let's say their relationship, my relationship with Boone, I wish their relationship with Trump was similar. But unfortunately, it's head over heels in love. Yeah. So can you explain the Luke Weaver thing to me?

This was the guy that bounced around. I looked at his stats. They're shockingly bad career-wise. Shockingly, no question. He was on a couple teams last year. I think he had like a 6.7 ERA. Yeah. He gave up like 25 more hits than innings pitched and just seemed like a runner-mill dude. As you know, I'm in that AL Keeper League.

He was not somebody people were scampering to get even by like late July. Although you could feel like somebody was going to get innings with the Yankees bullpen and it was like, who's it going to be? And then it, it, it's inexplicably became him and he now pitches every game and he's lights out. So what happened?

Well, I mean, he did give up a home, you know, a big home run in game three that almost murdered me. But yes, he has been very good. It's amazing how much confidence I have in him, given everything you just said, which is accurate. I mean, I suffered through the Clay Holmes experience as the closer as we all Yankee fans did. And he was brutal, brutal. And that was another classic boon and management where they would not. They were so stubborn. They wouldn't say, no, this is a mistake. We have to switch it.

until it became glaringly clear to everybody you had to get Clay Holmes out of there. So Luke Weaver kind of became the guy by default, and I don't know what it is. He's caught lightning in a bottle or some magic, or I'm not sure what it is, but he doesn't seem...

Yeah. Not literally in a bottle. Take it easy. Cause I saw your text about my steroid dealer or whatever, like guy weighs 150 pounds. Give me a break. Anytime anyone on either of our teams inexplicably starts doing well, we have to get off our round of HGH jokes, but yeah, he is 150 pounds.

Of course, but I don't know. So I don't know if it's just that the league hasn't seen him. He's figured something out. You know, he's developed some magical pitch. I'm not sure what it is, but the, and the guy, the thing is like the guy doesn't seem to shrink from the moment. He seems confident. Right. So that's what you like to see. Like he doesn't, he's got the intestinal fortitude for it, you know, so knock on wood. And this is all kind of come, these jinxes you're working are magical. This is going to come bite me in the ass too. But

He's been lights out and, and miraculously the aforementioned clay homes, who was brutal. He's been good in the playoffs, except for the other day when he gave up his classic two run home run to tie the game. Um,

But otherwise, he's been miraculous in this postseason, too. So is the run of the bullpen guys that you don't count on, is that going to that have come up big? Is that going to continue? I don't know, but I hope so. Like, maybe it's one of these things where you just, you know, they get on a hot streak and they carry it through. I don't know. We'll see. It does happen. It is a recipe for success.

unexpected baseball playoff success where you just have one reliever to reliever who just all of a sudden become light lights out. There's no explanation for it. You know, there was some criticism of boot I saw in some corners that would that they brought in Weaver, I think in game two when they had a fairly good lead or try to get a five out save. And he did. And then the next day he gave up the home run and they're like, well, he's overworked and they've seen him too much. I

I can't kill Boone for that. You got it. When you're trying to get to a World Series, you got to go for the jugular and you got to put your best guy in there. So I'm not going to kill him for that. And, you know, did the Guardians see him too much? I don't know. They couldn't solve him after that. They had the they had the one game three against them and he was lights out after that. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, let's hope he keeps it up.

Well, I've seen enough. I think he's lights out. I mean, you might as well call him Rivera Jr. Okay. Good try. Thanks. Thanks, buddy. Good job. I have full confidence in him because I think I'm going to bet on the Yankees just as a complete spite bet. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. I've been thinking about that. But as you know, I was telling you and JJ that

My dream was for you to get to the world series for the chest to be puffed out again for the Yankee hats and the shirts and the jerseys to all come out and to be like, here we go. It's just like the seventies. We're going to beat these guys. Just like we did almost 50 years ago.

And then the Dodgers just whip your asses and then you're just left a shell of yourselves. That's my dream. That's fair. I would feel the same if the shoe was on the other foot and it was the Red Sox. That's totally fair. But here's the thing. I'm not going to be a shell because this is what it's come to and this maybe makes me a shell going into it.

it's been 15 years since the Yankees have been at a world series. So I I'm like happy to be in the world series. It's crazy that that's what I have to say as a Yankees fan, but that's what it's come to. Like, I think just hearing that as a win, I'm so happy. I know. I think winning the pennant was a successful season for them. And the Dodgers have, you know, a big, huge payroll team, not like the scrappy Yankees with Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe and guys that came up

through the system. You know, the Yankees can't go by players like can't go by players like the, you know, they don't have the budget of the Dodgers, you know, Yamamoto 300 million and Otani, you know, a billion or whatever his soundtrack is. So, you know, the Yanks are just there and they will try to do the best against this LA juggernaut. You know, can you explain the body switching judge Stanton thing with the regular season into the playoffs? Why that happens? Cause judge is one of the worst postseason stars ever.

Probably in the modern era compared to what his regular seasons are. And at this point, you probably trust Stanton in a big spot more than Judge, which is insane. Stanton has made an all-star team in six years.

Completely insane. It's completely insane. And Stanton is postseason Stanton. I mean, I was talking to JJ yesterday and, you know, they show these stats, which are a little hokey because Babe Ruth only played in World Series. There wasn't three playoff rounds, but Stanton has the same number of postseason home runs as Babe freaking Ruth. I mean, it's crazy. You know, I know it's inflated, obviously, with the stats, but anytime you're mentioned with Babe Ruth and home runs in the postseason, it's impressive regardless of the additional rounds.

So for, you know, Stanton is a parent is a not apparently he's a, he's a post-season guy. He comes through and, you know, I've, I've been right there with everybody killing Stanton because of his contract, because he runs like he has not one, but two pianos on his back. He swings wildly. It strikes out. It's just everything. But he has been everything and more for them in the post-season.

And not only the hitting and the home runs, but like the leadership after they won the ALCS, he's like, this isn't a big deal. We're not done. We will want one more ring. And, you know, I think somebody, I forget who it was, Volpe or somebody said, you know, Judge is the captain, but Stanton is like Captain 1B. Like he's a leader there and they all look up to him and they love him. And, you know, he's been the guy that carried him and Judge, you know,

who I love. I yield to no one in my love of Aaron Judge, but he has not showed up this postseason in two rounds now. He has been missing in action. He had a big home run in game three. I'll give him that. But other than that, he has been extremely, extremely quiet. And I am hopeful in my Yankees soul that he will wake up in the World Series. He's been dying to get there since, you know, that's the one piece that's missing for him.

now he's on the big stage and you know yankee icons yankee legends are made in the postseason so now is his time to step up do i have confidence he will no but i hope he does so i'm hopeful stanton 36 playoff games 16 homers yeah it was very good yeah absolutely judge 53 playoff games 15 homers he's batting a crisp 203 in the playoffs 311 on base

He struck out 79 times in 202 at-bats. It feels worse. It does feel worse. It does feel worse. And that's the thing. Like, you know, the Yankees beat the Guardians in five games and they beat the Royals in, what was it, three games, four games. And they haven't really played well, quite frankly. Yeah. They hit like 230. Soto.

Soto is great. Stanton was great. Glaber has been great getting on base and Anthony Rizzo. They should break his fingers more often in the regular season because he apparently bats better with two broken fingers. He's been good. But other than that, I mean, Judge has done nothing. Verdugo has done less than nothing. Jazz Chisholm has done less than less than nothing.

They still can't get hits in big moments that would open the game up. So, you know, my blood pressure in this series was generally about 300 over 200 because they can't get a big hit in a big situation. You're never comfortable with anything because they can't get a lead. And then somehow they, you know, they can't run the bases to save their life. It's not a game unless they make at least one base running mistake.

They're not good defensively. And yet here they are in the World Series. So I don't know. It's magic or the other team's ineptitude or whatever it is. But, you know, I'll take it. Here we are. And I hope, you know, maybe they can flip the switch in the World Series. And, you know, that's what they need. The bright lights and the big stage and guys like Judge step up to the plate metaphorically. I really like where you are. I like where you are mentally. This is great. Yeah, because you're not reverse jinxing. I don't it feels like you don't trust this team.

It feels like a guy who has his guard up because like deep down has his guard up a little bit. Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I after 15 years? What, like what, what in their history in 15 years would lead me to be like, yeah, we got this and swagger around the room. Like,

I wish I could, as you know, I'm pessimistic by nature anyway, but you know, this team for 15 years, they've come up small and in big spots. So this has been an amazing surprise to get to the world series. Like I'm happy. I I'm happier than I thought I would be. But you know, I have a, my older daughter's away at college. I have a 13 year old daughter and she came down the other night and was watching me watch the game. And she was there when Soto hit the home run.

and watched me jump around my living room and fist pump and laughed at me. And then she went back upstairs and I texted her because I didn't want to wake her mother. And I said, Bridge, you got to come back downstairs. You got to watch the final three outs. You're the lucky charm. And she did. And then I fist pumped and jumped around the room and she gave me a hug. She wasn't even born the last time the Yankees went to a World Series. Right.

It was two years before she was born. And now she's old enough to be cognizant of what a lunatic her father is and join him in his celebration. So it's like, you know, that was a nice moment for me. It was great. But I'm like, you know, you weren't even born the last time they went to a World Series. It's crazy to think of because, you know, she's on the verge of going to high school. So given that history, why would I have a lot of swagger? Really? You know, I'd like to. It sounds like this was your fault.

You didn't incorporate your daughter enough. Daughters are good luck charms. I know. I tried. She has a lot of Yankee stuff, but you know, she's, she's more into Taylor Swift and a teenage girl. Isn't really clicking with baseball. Yeah. Shocker. Isn't it? Yeah. Shocker. She's not that into it. She was into it the other night just for the joy, but yeah, joy that brought her father. But other than that, uh, no, not so much.

It's funny reading the previews of the series because a year starting pitching is in better shape, right? Yeah, absolutely. The Dodgers have had a bunch of injuries. They basically have three starters and they just have their fingers crossed. They're mixing and matching. And sometimes the breaks can help with the bullpen. But just in general, like, I don't even know what that means anymore because nobody throws seven, eight innings. Just in general, you watch these and

Part of me just doesn't like baseball as much, even though they've done a lot of good stuff with the, with the pitch clock and the playoff baseball is as fun as ever. But I don't know if I, we're both old now. We're, I think we've, we've, I've aged out of the 18 to 54, uh, CB, the demo where the advertisers care about you. I've now moved into the Chicago fire, Chicago PD demo, and you're coming in July. Um,

I, the thing I think that makes me the maddest about baseball and it's nobody's fault because they have better, you know, better ways to understand pitcher injuries and arm stuff. I just really miss watching starters go deep into games.

Me too. And just be like, oh man, he's got to get through this lineup one more time and set up the eighth night. Then it's just gone now. Nobody like literally nobody has it. And it's this mixed match of just bullpen changes and guys coming in and, and righty lefty stuff. And I just don't like it as much.

I mean, it's nuts when you when you look at stats now or they reference somebody who pitched like, you know, eight or nine innings in a postseason game, you know, Nolan Ryan or somebody, you know, I think of some great, you know, Randy Johnson or somebody. We watched a Jack Morris game together. Right. Yes, exactly. Seven when he just pitched the whole game and it was fucking put the whole team on his back.

And now when you look at a stat like that, you might as well be talking about like Mordecai Three Finger Brown in like 1918. You know, it's like such an ancient stat, like this archaic ancient stat. Analytics has ruined the game and that's the part that they've ruined the most.

I'm so happy that base, I mean, the pitch clock has really made a difference that the game is so much more watchable now without, with the pitch clock and with the shift being banned, like, thank God they got the analytics away from that. Not the stepping out of the, out of the box, but the shift was a total analytics thing. But the one analytics thing is the pitching. And like,

you know, the notion of you would ever have a, you know, a bullpen game, you know, or Weaver Casey Stengel would have keeled over and the notion of that, you know, Billy Martin would have keeled over at the notion of that because he liked to run starters in the ground, but it's such a different game now. And you're right. I do miss that. And like, you know,

Back when you guys had Pedro, you're like, well, Pedro, we're good with Pedro for seven innings. And then we get into the bullpen, you know, where the Yankees, you know, we have David Cohn, we'll get, we'll get six or six on a cone. And then we're going to go to Romero Mendoza. And then we're going to go to Mariano and then we're going to go to wetland in 96. So it was like the Yankees kind of shortened games to a six inning game.

But now starters, it's like a four inning game. And they're like, oh, Rodan went four and two thirds. It's a good start. Like what? Oh, standing out. We got 14 outs. Right. The old days, they would have like laughed him out of the building. And now it's a big thing. It's crazy how much that's changed. No doubt. Yeah, that's right. So the Dodgers, like, I don't feel like it's as big of a deal that they have like this ravaged starting rotation. Whereas 20 years ago, you'd be like, oh, they're fucked. They only have three pitchers. Right. And like the Yankees would like the one advantage the Yankees have is their starters are better on paper.

But you're right. Like, that's not that much of an advantage anymore because one, the bullpens find a way to make it work if you're the Dodgers. And two, the starters don't go as deep. So regardless, you know, Cole's not going to pitch, you know, eight inning, one hit shutout game. You know, they won't leave him in that long because they're like, well, we got to have him fresh for game four. You know, they should. I saw some stuff the other day of the late Fernando Valenzuela. Rest in peace. He just died. He had like 149 pitch game. They talked about.

about in 1981 in the World Series. Now, guys now don't pitch 149 pitches in three games, let alone in one game, you know?

Yeah, there was this famous, Louis Tion died too recently, who was the first star pitcher I can remember when I started watching baseball. And he had some game against Jim Palmer in 1975 where they both just pitched complete game, 10 inning games. I saw that game. It's just like, there's a 0% chance we're ever seeing that again. But we would have said that in the 70s about some of those Cy Young and

Right. Mordecai, Richter, all those stats from guys throwing 400 innings. Right, right. Yeah, all those old pitching stats like Cy Young's wins are certainly untouchable, but like any complete game records or anything, those are never, ever getting touched. Ever, ever. So Juan Soto, great trade.

You gave up a lot, but not enough to offset how awesome it is to have Juan Soto on your team. And he's at a good point in his career. And I was making fun of that long at bat on Sunday, but it was pretty cool. Like watching whatever his OCD nodding thing that he does where he's like getting locked in. It's like, oh, this is fun. He almost looks like a bouncer at a bar ready to like kick somebody's ass. Do they have to keep him now? Like what plays out with him? Yeah.

Well, I they have. Well, yes, from my perspective, they have to keep him and money would be no object. I mean, any amount of money he wants because Boris isn't going to let I think he's happy with the Yankees. He seems to be they love him, but I don't think he's going to do a quote unquote hometown discount. I know it's not his hometown, but I don't think he's going to give them a discount.

So it's going to cost a lot of money. And, you know, the Yankees, Hal is a bean counter. So, you know, I'm, I'm, I think I would like him to stay very desperately. I would like them to resign him and, and at any cost, it's not my money, except, you know, it's my money when I go pay for games and pay $35 for a beer and $20 for a hot dog. But yeah, I would like them to resign him. But, but two things worry me in that regard. And that Hal Steinbrenner was on the stage the other night when they handed him the trophy and,

and sounded about as excited as somebody who gets a new computer at work, like from their office and was like, Oh, it's good. Yes. This is wonderful. This thing. It's like, how can we have an ounce of passion? Like just one heartbeat. It's a trophy. Oh, it's heavy. Look at that. Oh yeah. No, no passion whatsoever. I made a joke about it on Twitter. It was like such a downer. He was like,

honest to God, no, no feeling whatsoever. So that worries me. And what also worries me is that the Mets had a magical run this year and, you know, or maybe a piece or two away and hasn't have an owner who were money is no object for him. And he's like, I'll throw one soda, a billion dollars. He doesn't have to leave New York. It's the same thing, just a different team. You're still in the big city and the bright lights.

you know, I'm not sure how's going to pony up for that, you know, if it gets to be a bidding war. So I think they have to keep him. He's 25 years old. You can't make the argument of, Oh, well, you know, he's going to be old and decrepit at the end of this contract, but you

you know you're going to get five to six to seven great years out of him presumably at 25 years old he's only getting better and the guy's one of the best hitters in baseball and a lively player who brings life to the team i mean the team's not that different from what they had last year not making the playoffs and now they're in the world series you got to look at him as a difference maker so just be you pay soto whatever he's going to get and then it's soto and judge going forward

Yeah, I mean, as much as I love Stanton's pro season performance, if you could find a way to shed yourself of some of that contract, that would save you money. How many more years is that? That thing was like, it's like three, I believe.

I could be wrong. So those three years are painful. But, you know, he's done great this postseason, so I'm not throwing him under the bus. Gleyber Torres is going to be a free agent, and they're probably not going to re-sign him. And he's been a postseason hero, too. But that's going to save you some money. Rizzo clears the books. I don't think he's a fortune. But they save some money a little bit. So, you know, you go with an outfield of Soto and Judge and Dominguez going forward, and

Judge is a little bit older. Yeah. We're still excited about him. Well, I am. The Yankees don't seem to be because they, they don't want to play them ahead of Verdugo because Verdugo is better defensively. Dominguez was kind of a hack in the outfield when they brought him up late, but they waited forever to bring him up after he was healthy. They, they seemed down on him. And the guy was like,

he was great in a small sample last year and everybody got excited about him, but the Yankees brass doesn't seem very excited about him. So I don't know what that means for his future, but he's cheap. They like that. So, you know, he's under control. They like that. So, you know, he's a serviceable option to give you Soto and save some money there. What's the Yankee fever situation in the tri-state area?

Oh, humongous. This was like, this was like such an exhalation of relief. Like this was so like 15 years of pent up tension and anger and disappointment. I know like for myself and every Yankee fan, I see like my aforementioned daughter had a cross country meet on Saturday and

and I'm sitting around waiting for them to run. And there's a guy in a Yankee shirt and I'm like, Hey, big game tonight. And we chatted up for like 10 minutes, a complete stranger. Cause he was wearing a Yankee shirt. So it's like that kind of magic. No, totally back. And I saw, I've seen a lot more like Yankees sweatshirts and jackets as always happens. You know, I used to be living in Connecticut. I'm right on the borderline here. And it was always, you know, the last few years has been a lot of Red Sox stuff. And

the Red Sox stuff has been put away for the winter and the Yankee stuff has been brought out. So yeah, definitely. There's a lot of peacocking going around in Connecticut. No question. I wish we still had a good Red Sox team so we could have duke this out.

And sadly, we just decided not to have one anymore. That's too much for me. That's too much for me. I could barely survive this after 15 years. Maybe if the Yankees, you know, the Yankees win this one, hopefully knock on wood or make a, you know, make a serviceable effort in the world series. And then maybe they're good again next year. Then maybe I'll, I'll think about the Red Sox and I can take it because the Yankees will have had a little bit of success. So yeah, I was trying to think of the stages of when you go through this with the baseball team.

You know, because like when we're that when we're your kids, it means the most. Right. You're just irrational. Then in your 20s, it also is still irrational and crazy. 30s, you're a little older, but it's still irrational. But then we're at a stage now where it's really taxing to go through this for a month because we're fucking old.

It's like Sal was talking about that. It's like Sal needed like a vacation from the Mets being in three plus playoff rounds. Like he needed to like regroup mentally and physically afterwards. Every day there's an off day. I'm like, oh good, I can go to bed early. I need my rest. I need to rest up. And it's like, I'm not actually playing in these games, by the way. I'm just sitting on my couch watching it. And I'm like, oh God, that was a taxing game. I need to recover. Yeah.

It's true. It's like, you know, I'm the old guy go, why do they start these so late? You know, so that's me. And then it's like, you know, the Yankees game when they won the other night, I was like, I was up till one in the morning. Thankfully that was on a Saturday, but it was still like, oh God, thank God I got a couple of days to recover from that.

So do you want to apologize to Cashman or that's never coming? Never, ever. No, never. God, no, ever. No, nobody in the front office. I said on JJ's podcast last night, I said, you know, I'm not, I think the Yankees, like, I'm not sure they really like so much excelled this year as the rest of baseball maybe came back to them. Like, yeah, like there was no, certainly the American league, right? Yeah. There was no, there was

There was no 100-game winner, at least in the American League. I don't think the Dodgers won 100 games, did they? Or if they did, they just won 100. 98. So nobody won 100 games.

which is kind of crazy because usually in most years there's a team that will win 100 or 105 or something, you know? So not to have a 100-game winner. There was nobody like when you say, well, the Yankees didn't play anybody, and I grant you that to some degree, but like who in the American League was there that was like that they should have played that would have made it tougher? Houston, I guess, but I mean... Baltimore, I think, was... That was the big... They just, you know, gagged, but Baltimore was set up for them, and Texas just had the year for...

hell Baltimore was the darling pick of everybody though and I'm not sure Baltimore ever really lived up to the hype I mean they had some bad injuries no question about it but you know I'm not sure and this will come back to haunt me too I'm just throwing caution to the wind with these jinxes

I'm not sure their prospects really lived up to the hype. Like, you know, no, you're right. Rutschman and Carlson and these guys, like, you know, they had this, I saw this poll before the season started and baseball writers were like, Oh, the Orioles are going to win the AL East. They're going to win the AL. Who's the player you're most excited to see? It was like Rushman, like nothing about Soto. Oh,

And like everything was Orioles, Orioles, Orioles. And I'm like, you know, they had a good season for them until the place at playoffs. But I mean, well, actually they didn't really have a good season. I mean, they're picked by everybody to win. They never were really a huge threat in the division. And then they did nothing in the post season and all these prospects, you know, all these baseball prospectus guys, they love these prospects and we overrate everybody and everybody's the next Jeter or the next, you know, whoever. And it's like,

Like, I don't know. Maybe they'll live up to the hype. Again, that could bite me in the ass too. And I'll be like dealing with the Orioles for the rest of my life. But I don't know. So far, I'm not that impressed. Like your guy Volpe. No offense, Mallory.

Your guy Volpe, what did he hit, like 230? Yeah, he's been good in the postseason, and he's good defensively. He won a gold glove last year. But, I mean, again, you know, yeah, Volpe was the second coming of Jeter, and the Yankees couldn't go out and sign Machado or any other shortstop or infielder because, oh, Volpe, you know, he had the lane blocked for everybody, and he doesn't light the world on fire either.

at all. Although he's been decent in the postseason. I'll not throw him under the bus either. But he is not, you know, he's not Jeter. He's not close. These prospects. Fool's gold. A lot of the time. The Red Sox have a bunch of them coming up that we're all super excited about. And my dad, like, he watches the Worcester box scores and shit like that. Sure. The Woo Sox. But we know it's like probably a one in three chance.

that one of them actually like really crushes and is awesome. You know, it's a lottery baseball goes. And then the pictures, I don't know how you get excited about a minor league pitcher. No, remember that guy we drafted first. Yeah. His, his elbow came off.

He's having triple Tommy John surgery. Remember we were in college and the Yankees had been, you know, the stump Merrill years were mediocre. I was fired up because they were 81 and 81 and they had the number one pick because they were so bad and they took Brian Taylor. Brian Taylor has got a 98 mile an hour curve ball.

and throws 120 or whatever, not literally, but he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And then he kicked around in the minors, got in a bar fight, blew out his arm, and it was nothing. So it's like I was ready to go buy his jersey number, waiting for him to get a number. I don't know what he's doing now, but he's not pitching for the Yankees and never did. So, yeah, those prospects are diving. That same year Chuck LaPosta and I were trying to hunt down Phil Plantier rookie cards.

Right. I still have some in case you, if you're interested, can sense of your way. All right. So Yankees Dodgers, who, who do you hate the most than the Dodgers? Have you worked up some sports hate yet?

No, and that will come I'm sure after the game, but you know, I don't watch a lot of, I don't watch a ton of Dodgers games. Um, I can't really think of anybody that I, I hate. There's going to be a couple you're going to hate. Oh, I'm sure. Hey, Kiki Hernandez. Well, you'll hate his guts immediately. He's a, he's a postseason menace and a, and a pest. I get that. He always has big postseason numbers. And I did tune in sporadically to some of the Mets Dodgers and he was always in the middle of something and he was always doing something. He's pesky. Um,

I can't hate Mookie Betts, who's a generational player that no team would ever, ever let go from their team. So, you know, he's just phenomenal. All-famer. It's good that he's going to start and finish his career at the Dodgers. I don't really, you know, there's nobody I hate. Ask me again. Ask me again in a couple of days, and I'm sure I'll have a litany of people that I hate, but nobody yet.

Um, before we go, I need your, and I, frankly, before, before, let me just interject this and this will come back to bite me too, but cause the Dodgers will probably steamroll them. But I like the history of playing the Dodgers. Like there's a lot of history, Yankee Dodgers back to the Brooklyn days. And good for you. I like,

I like the history. I like the history of it in the New York baseball thing and going back, you know, Jackie Robinson and Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle and, you know, thinking of all the games and everything else. And, you know, I remember being a kid. I was seven and eight in 1977 and 78. So,

That's when I first became interested in baseball and a Yankee fan. So I remember those World Series to some degree. So I'm excited for this. I'm excited for this. Yankees Mets obviously would have been interesting, but Yankees Dodgers I think is interesting from a historical perspective. Well, I was an only child like you, and I remember watching all of those games. And Reggie's three-home run game against the Dodgers felt like the most important thing that literally had ever happened. It just was so incredible and unbelievable.

- Just like judges for a home run game will be, for the kids of this generation. - Well, that might happen. I know who you're gonna hate are the celebrities sitting in the first few rows of the Dodger game. I think that those are the people

You know, you, you'll see like Judd Apatow, Rob Reiner. We don't have Larry King there anymore. God rest his soul. No, he's coming. They're going to, they embalmed him. He's going to be in there. What about Mary? Is Mary Hart from entertainment tonight? Is she still with us? Cause she used to sit next to Larry King. She's not still with us. Mary Hart.

I haven't seen her in a game. I don't know. She's probably still with us. Maybe they're saving her for the World Series. Yeah, she was always there. And like Rob Lowe will be there like in a Dodgers hat or something. Jason Bateman. Yeah, yeah. That's true. There'll be a lot of stars there. That's true. I won't care for that. I'll tell you this. Impossible ticket, especially because it's the Friday night, Saturday night here. Sure. I think it's the single hardest ticket ever.

since I've lived in LA for anything because of all the New York fans. Because there's so many New York fans, Yankee fans, transplants that are in LA that want to go. So I don't think there's ever been a pricier ticket. It's basically like $2,000 to get in the building.

I know the Yankee, even the Yankee stadium games. It's like a grand first standing room. Only ticket does like stand in the outfield. Yeah. It's nuts. Baseball has to love this because baseball, you know, they had Texas and the diamond backs last year, you know, God, God bless them. No offense to them, but not exactly a marquee matchup to the national baseball fan, but you know, Yankees Dodgers, like I said, with the history and, you know, the uniforms and the, you know, New York and LA, there's a lot to like about this from a casual fan perspective. Yeah.

A history that you can also do the whole thing. Like the only time you beat us was during the strike year. Didn't really count. Yeah. They beat him in 1955. The Dodgers did. Yeah, but I'm saying like LA versus New York. Yeah, LA versus. Yeah, not Brooklyn, LA. Yeah. Well, LA beat him in 63, but they had Koufax and Drysdale. It was like four nothing. And Mickey Mantle was on the downside. Oh, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that. Yankees got swept. Yeah. Yeah.

swept, but they Koufax and Drysdale, you know, and Whitey Ford at that point, I think was on fumes and Mickey was on more than fumes. And, um, it was the Yanks. That was like the downside of the Yanks dynasty. Although then they went back and lost again in 64 to the Cardinals, but yeah, that was the downside of it. So yeah, 63, 55 and 81, the Dodgers have won and the Yankees have won eight other times. So history is on my side because I forgot about 63. Yeah.

It's eight to three, Yankees. Mickey's had a little bit of a resurgence in the social media era. There's good clips every once in a while of him at a roast, just destroying Billy Martin. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm glad social media was able to appreciate how funny Mickey Mantle was.

They, uh, you know, it always pops up, you know, you're on Facebook and they have these random reels that pop up or whatever. And there's always one of him, him and Billy Martin on Letterman where they tell the story about when they went hunting and the farmer and the farmer or whatever. So yeah, there's a lot of good Mickey stories. I'm like, yeah, I'm sure that was a good night after the two of them went on Letterman. I'll bet they went home and went to bed after that. I'm sure. Who's the oldest? Oh my God. That must've been crazy. Who's the oldest famous Yankee now?

Well, that's a good question. Um, well, cause we saw Bob Cousy for the Celtics. Like when they had the banner night, he was there. He's 96. That's fantastic. Holy cross. Thaders, baby. Um,

The older, that's a good question. Like, you know, all those guys. Is Yogi alive? No, Yogi died a couple of years ago. No, he's gone. Whitey Ford is gone. Mickey Mantle is gone. Billy's long gone. Yeah, all those dudes are gone. Billy Martin's long gone. You know what the problem is? You said we're getting old. The guys who are the old guys now are the guys from like the 70s teams. Well, like Fernando and Louis Jackson. Yeah. Right. Pete Rose died. Exactly.

Pete Rose, right. There's nobody from like the 60s teams. Tony Kubik may still be around. I'm not sure. Is Tony Kubik? We've got some people need to, I wanted people to respond on Twitter. Is Mary Hart still alive? You should just put out a series of tweets to freak people out. You know who's still alive is Yaz. I know, it's great. And the funny thing is, didn't he smoke like a pack of cigarettes at game? Yaz was doing darts in the dugout. And he's still kicking.

And drinking like, I think he had vodka in his locker and he was smoking cigarettes every game. Let that be a lesson to all you health nuts out there, you know? So kids, if you're listening at home, you should start smoking and drinking vodka. Smoking gets to come back. Right. Yeah. So, yeah. So the oldest, yeah. I mean, it's probably like, you know, I don't feel like the Yankees really utilize the grades like they used to anymore either. Like Nick Swisher, who, you know, I have a long and storied history of Nick Swisher.

he threw out the first pitch in one of the games. And I'm like, I don't understand like when Nick Swisher was voted into the Pantheon of great Yankees. I don't, I was not there for that vote, believe me. But so, you know, they don't utilize like the core four anymore. Jeter's on TV. So he probably can't do it, but they should bring back Pettit and Posada and guys like that. The great Mariano. And again, maybe they're saving them for the world series, but we're guys from the seventies, Willie Randolph, you know, Chris Chambliss,

I think I know Chris. Yeah. Chris Chambliss. Absolutely. Guys that had some Reggie, although Reggie works for the Astros now. So that's a little, that's a little, you know, that's a little rough, but yeah, those are the guys that should be the old guys that used to have like the whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle role for the Yanks back in the day. Chambliss had the greatest walk-off Homer of all time. Cause he had to fight off.

probably 2,500 drunk Yankee fans. What an era that was. We were like, hey, just everybody run on the field and be crazy. That and a complete game are two things we'll never see again. True. 20 second prediction on the election. I had

I think Trump's going to win. If you had asked me that a month ago, I wouldn't have said that. But I think the way things are trending, I think Trump is going to win. And I'm I'm as amazed by that. Well, I mean, this whole election, thank God I've got this World Series because this whole election is just a depressing outcome either way for me. It's just so it's just these are this is the best we can do. Like this is the third election in a row. I've been like, this is the best we can do. Really, this is the best we can do. But I think if you if you ask me right now, I think Trump's going to win.

Jacko, worst of luck with the World Series. It all played out how I wanted. Yeah, I'm not going to root for the Yankees. And you know, I hate them. And you wouldn't root for the Red Sox. You never rooted for the Red Sox in any World Series. No, I love you, but I'd root against you and vice versa. We've navigated this since 1988. We've been able, we've been fine. I'm going to root against the Yankees. I do like that. I do like the fact that your daughter turned out to be a good luck charm. Like if there's,

If that becomes a theme, it's going to be hard for me to root against that. Perfect. Good. That's good. She's going to be the mascot. That's good. I'll cling to that and her. Thanks for coming on, Jacko. Thanks, buddy. Always fun. Good to see you. All right. Bye-bye. All right. That's it for part one of the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti. As always, thanks to Jacko. Thanks to Ariel Hawane. Thanks to...

Me, I guess I was the first guest. I soloed, so I'm going to thank myself. That's it for part one. You can watch all the clips on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. And don't forget, part two is coming late night after the Thursday night football game and some of the basketball games. We'll be putting up part two. So stay tuned for that. See you then. I want to see them on a way so safe. You live with me. I'm a Bruce Allen.

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