Randy Moss, Eddie Hearn & Chris Paul Might Be Good

Speaker 1 Hey, pardon my take, listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

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Speaker 6 On today's part in my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have Eddie Hearns, awesome interview,

Speaker 6 founder of Matchroom Sports. He is basically the biggest promoter, boxing promoter in England.
Also starting to get pretty damn big in America.

Speaker 6 He will be, he put together the Canelo fight on Saturday night. Great talk with him, what it means to be a boxing promoter, everything behind the scenes.
Also, bonus accent.

Speaker 6 Accents always play on this show. Great accent from Eddie Hearns in studio.
And then we have our good friend Randy Moss. Randy Moss back on the show, Derby winners, Kentucky Derby this weekend.

Speaker 6 One of my favorite weekends where it's NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, Derby, and big fight on Saturday night. We're going to talk a little NBA, Fire Fest, everything on a Friday.

Speaker 6 And speaking of that big fight.

Speaker 8 Man, I'll tell you what. When you're hungry out there, you start acting like a rookie quarterback in his first game, making bad decisions, messing up the basics, being all out of sorts.

Speaker 8 That's where Snickers comes in, man. That thing is packed.
Roasted peanuts, nugget, caramel, milk, chocolate. It's like the MVP of candy bars.

Speaker 8 And when you bite into it, boom, it sorts you out, gets your head back in the game of life, satisfying your hunger. Remember this: Snickers handles your hunger so you can handle everything else.

Speaker 8 Snickers satisfies, man.

Speaker 9 That's a winning play.

Speaker 9 No place to hang out or washing.

Speaker 9 And then I can't blame all on the sun.

Speaker 9 Oh no, we're gonna rock it down to Electric Avenue.

Speaker 9 And then we'll take it higher.

Speaker 9 Oh, we're gonna rock down to Elite Track It's part of my take.

Speaker 1 There's another barstool sports.

Speaker 6 Welcome to part of my take presented by Dzone.com/slash barstool.

Speaker 6 That right there is the link to listen to myself, Dave, Robbie, Roan, and Caleb call the fight, Canelo fight live from Vegas on Saturday night. Use that link, tozone.com/slash barstool.

Speaker 6 It's going to be incredible. Today is Friday, May 6th.
And PFT, I think we got a problem.

Speaker 6 I think we've got a big-time problem.

Speaker 2 The fact that Chris Paul might be.

Speaker 6 No, Chris Paul might be good at basketball.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I think he's confirmed good at basketball. That's never been the problem about Chris Paul, big cat.
Chris Paul's always been good. In fact, the word good is the perfect word.

Speaker 2 That's a good word to describe Chris Paul. He's good.
I put out one of those tweets. I did one of these got to go, and I put LeBron, Kareem, Chris Paul, and MJ on there.

Speaker 2 People still think that Chris Paul is the one that's got to go. So he's good.
He's not great yet, but I mean, he looks unstoppable.

Speaker 6 What he did to the Mavericks in the fourth quarter last night was, and he's been doing it. He's been doing it all season.

Speaker 6 He's been doing it his whole career where basically the first half, he basically figures everything out, gets everyone else involved. And then in the fourth quarter, he's got it all figured out.

Speaker 6 He dices and slices everyone to like insane, insane precision.

Speaker 6 It was crazy to watch. They went into the fourth quarter last night.
The Suns had a six-point lead. There were 10 possessions to start the fourth quarter.

Speaker 6 The Suns went eight for eight on those possessions. Chris Paul personally went six for six with two assists.

Speaker 6 So he basically just demolished the Mavericks by himself by being Chris Paul in like a five-minute span. It started, like I said, they were up six with four minutes left.
They were up 24.

Speaker 6 it was like it happened like that and i'm starting to get nervous because everyone who listens to this show knows that we love takes more than anything and just because all the facts will show us something different doesn't mean we'll get off a take

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 6 i can enjoy chris paul because i did it was an incredible performance but i really don't want to lose this take i don't want him to win a championship and then we can't have this take that's very fun to to throw around and just pretend that it's all about rings even though we know in the back of our heads chris Paul is an incredible, incredible point guard and like top three, whatever, four point guard of all time.

Speaker 2 Listen, we will never apologize for a take on this show. We'll never make an excuse for it.
That's the part in my take difference.

Speaker 2 But I think that Chris Paul, in a weird way, I would kind of like him to destroy this take.

Speaker 2 In a weird way, I'm almost rooting for him because like, at the end of the day, I think we have always acknowledged that Chris Paul is an awesome basketball player.

Speaker 2 We just like rooting for the fact that there's a narrative out there against him, and it's fun to talk about.

Speaker 2 If I'm the Suns, I would think about doing load management in the playoffs, but not by load managing Chris Paul.

Speaker 2 I would start to worry about load managing all the other good players around Chris Paul so that they're less likely to get hurt, so that Chris Paul won't then have that excuse later.

Speaker 2 Like, it's almost time to be like, you know what, we're going to sit Booker and Ayton for this game because we've looked so dominant, and we just want to reduce the amount of time that they have to get injured and then give Chris Paul another excuse to not win a championship.

Speaker 6 It also is an issue. I love that idea.
It's an issue that comes down to, it's very relatable in sports fandom and especially in friendship.

Speaker 6 Ryan Rossillo has made it to a point where it's like, I want Chris Paul to fail because I know how much it matters to him.

Speaker 6 And that's really what like, if you break down like what male friendship is about.

Speaker 6 It's essentially like rooting for your other friends to fail in, not like fail in a terrible, terrible way, like their life ruined, but the thing they love in sports, you want to see it fail so that you can laugh at them.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, no, that's what it's all about.

Speaker 2 What we're rooting for is to have an ability to bust Ryan Rosilla's balls forever about something. It's really like, we will be 95 years old.

Speaker 2 Ryan will be, you know, still probably waking up at 6 a.m., chugging away protein.

Speaker 2 He'll make the retirement home install a squat rack in there for him.

Speaker 2 And we'll be 90 years old and still dropping in and being like, hey, Ryan, you remember when Chris Paul choked away a playoff series in 2022 after you called him your son?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it'll be like your son going to come visit you?

Speaker 6 And he'll do advanced analytics. He'll be like, and how many championships does he have? And it's no different than when, I mean, we talk about it when any of our teams are making a run.

Speaker 6 I think we all deep down root for our, you know, I root for PFT teams or Hank's teams or Billy's team.

Speaker 6 Well, the Jets don't matter, but Jake's teams to make a run, but eventually fail because that's the fun in it.

Speaker 6 Like, it's fun to see your friends happy for a little bit, but you also want to see them terribly, terribly upset at sports. And that's really what it all boils down to.

Speaker 2 I think it also has something to do with the fact that we know eventually, like, subconsciously, my friends' teams are eventually going to be good at sports.

Speaker 2 There's something good that will eventually happen to them. So, I'm almost like rooting for them to be miserable now, knowing that they'll get their shot in the future.

Speaker 2 Like, with Jake, I'm sure that the Panthers will win a Stanley Cup, but it's too early for him. The metrics have shown that already.

Speaker 2 So I want him to have to suffer through what I suffered through before he reaches that mountaintop.

Speaker 6 Right. And you want to build up everyone.
Like you almost want them to get so confident and then have it all come crashing down because those are the moments we live for.

Speaker 6 I mean, that's this is, again, this is like the, when you, when you just boil down friendship, you want your friends to,

Speaker 6 again, fail in a sport, not fail in life, but fail in this type of situation to a point where you can just laugh in their face face and they have no comeback.

Speaker 6 There's no better gift you can give your friends than have that happen to one of your teams. So really, that's so being selfish.

Speaker 6 He's selfish if Chris Paul wins a championship because he's robbing us of what makes us happy. So yeah, that would be a selfish human being.
I just described a selfish human being.

Speaker 2 But unlike us, who we're rooting for his team to fail, not because it makes us feel better, but because it would actually strengthen our friendship over the long term, because it's something good to bounce back.

Speaker 2 You know what it is? It's also an excuse to text your friends sometimes.

Speaker 2 Guys, we don't talk that much, but when one of their teams absolutely fucks up, it's an excuse to pop in and be like, hey, you asshole, you see what just happened?

Speaker 2 And that's our way of saying, I love you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you good? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Family good? Yeah. Dog good?

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 We should also talk about in this game, Luka Doncic. I've never seen anyone get picked on.
Star player get picked on the way he got picked on down the stretch. I think I saw the stat.

Speaker 6 I think they hunted him and pick and roll 50 times in that game. It was, and like they were so incredibly efficient every single time they went after him.

Speaker 6 At one point, I was like, because he went in the locker room. I don't know, you know, he obviously is dealing with his hamstring, but if I were him, I would have just said, I'm hurt and just left.

Speaker 6 You know, I mean, that's, you can't. It was so obvious what they were doing every single time.
And it was so obvious that Luca had no answer.

Speaker 6 And I will remind everyone, Mavs fans and Luca fans, he's 23 years old. So like to be like, hey, he'll never get better is crazy.

Speaker 6 But last night was, it was, it was essentially the Suns like were personally like, we are going to embarrass Luca on a national stage time and time again.

Speaker 6 We're not even going to take a possession off. We're not even going to give him like, ooh, this is actually bad.

Speaker 6 That was what it felt like. It felt personal and it felt very embarrassing for Luca.

Speaker 2 There's one team that can take advantage of him like that's the Suns too. That's like what they do best is they find guys and they do the pick and and roll.

Speaker 2 And then when I was watching Luca struggle to defend, he's back to like 20, 20 heavy legs, Luca.

Speaker 2 You remember that when he had that like one stretch when his legs just looked like they were his center of gravity shrunk by about like three inches? And he doesn't look healthy.

Speaker 2 He doesn't look like he's able to move around. He looks like he's trying to play defense in quicksand.
And yeah, the Suns, I do feel bad for him, but what are you going to do?

Speaker 2 It's not like you don't really have any other options if you're the Mavericks. The pick and roll, when done properly, is impossible to defend in the first place.

Speaker 2 And the Suns do it as good as any other team does it.

Speaker 2 And they just happen to be going up against maybe the worst person to defend the pick and roll. So they're just kind of fucked.

Speaker 6 Yeah, they're fucked. And the one spins I want to throw out there for Luca fans and Mavs fans, Luca has set himself up perfectly for a season or two from now to be in the best shape of his life.

Speaker 6 To be like, I've changed my diet. I got a new nutritionist.
I put a million dollars into my training.

Speaker 6 Like he, that it's actually, I'd almost, I'd almost be like sleeping okay at night if I were a Mavs fan. If Luca were like shredded right now and was getting shredded, I'd be very nervous.

Speaker 6 But it's clearly he can get in better shape. So you always have that in your back pocket.

Speaker 6 It's actually like a great lesson in life of why you should always stay a little bit, you know, overweight because you can always say, I haven't peaked.

Speaker 6 Like I, I can't, I can still reach my level of best shape of my life. And when I do, you all better watch out.

Speaker 2 And that's what Luca can do he should just have like day one of next season have Josh Allen drive his car and step out and be like oh my god Luca is so jacked up look at him right now he does look like Josh Allen with diabetes doesn't he yeah a little bit with the Josh has to get some tattoos Luca's tattoos are cool like Luca's tattoos I don't know why but I just I mean it's probably because he's cool to watch

Speaker 6 You know, when you do cool things with tattoos, you just immediately become a certified badass.

Speaker 6 So as long as he just doesn't have have to play defense, they actually switched to a zone for a little bit, which was so, so

Speaker 6 offensive. Yeah, but it was so offensive.

Speaker 6 It was, I know I brought up pickup on Wednesday, and obviously the NBA is not pickup, but that was very similar where it's like, dude, we got to switch to a zone because you can't guard anyone.

Speaker 2 You know what I would do? I would do the triangle in two.

Speaker 2 That was the best defense ever if you were playing like youth league basketball because every team would have one guy that was awesome. And then the rest of the team would stake.

Speaker 2 And so you'd say, okay, let's just put two dudes on this one guy, and then we'll do the other three in a low-post zone. And they aren't going to guard anybody or do anything.

Speaker 2 They're just going to hang out and stand around. Like, why not try the boxing one? Why not try the triangle two?

Speaker 2 Like, take it all the way back to when you were six years old and throw everything, every defense that you can possibly think at him.

Speaker 6 Yes, I agree. I agree.
Boxing one and have someone just, you know, get shredded personally that's not Luca by Chris Paul.

Speaker 6 Other series, I'm just not into this series until Embiid comes back. And I don't know if he will, but the Heat are just so much better than the Sixers right now.
And it's like, it's actually

Speaker 6 perfect for Doc Rivers and James Harden because James Harden's been bad.

Speaker 6 Doc Rivers has been bad because he continues to play not a small lineup and like be like, hey, maybe we can have a crazy variance game and win this.

Speaker 6 But they both have perfect outs because Embiid is out. And it's like, yeah, you lost

Speaker 6 what, a top three NBA player in a series. No one expects you to win this.
So it's, I watched that game last night.

Speaker 6 I was like, it was one of those games where the Sixers flirted with it every now and then, but

Speaker 6 it was never really a game.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I saw Hank shrug his shoulders when he said, nobody expects you to win this one. Hank, do you still have expectations for the Sixers?

Speaker 2 Like, would you consider it a failure if the Sixers lost this series?

Speaker 10 I just hate that excuse.

Speaker 10 Like, when they lose and probably get swept, like, I'm going to be dancing on their grave and Sixers fans are going to be like, oh, we didn't have Embiid, but I'm just going to be retweeting.

Speaker 10 There was a couple of times in the regular season. I was like, bring us Philly.
And they're like, you don't want that. You don't want that.

Speaker 10 you know, and when they got it, when they got hardened, people were like, Oh, they started playing the parade.

Speaker 10 So, if James Harden, you know, is supposed to be like your number two player, he had four points in the second half of game one, four points in the second half of game two.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 10 it's not, it's a five-man team. You know, there's more than one player.

Speaker 10 Like, if you're supposed to be one of the best teams in the East, like one player going down, Marcus Smart didn't play for the Celtics, they still won. Defensive player of the year, so it's like

Speaker 1 Joel Embiid.

Speaker 1 No, that's fair.

Speaker 10 Well, yeah, Marcus Smart actually wins Elite NBA Awards.

Speaker 1 Joel Eve just comes in second.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 What about you, Jake? Where are you at?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, the Heat are rolling right now.

Speaker 12 This game, I understand it got kind of close, but they were never in danger of losing this game. I mean, in game one, Tyler Hero came off the bench and had a great game.

Speaker 12 Ola Depo is returning to Ola Depot form. He had 19 points.

Speaker 12 I'm feeling good.

Speaker 2 Are you taking sweep?

Speaker 1 Maybe.

Speaker 6 I just, yeah, I mean, the Heat deserve all the credit because they're a very good team and Bam is incredible.

Speaker 6 I just, I was watching that game being like, I'm not really interested in this because Joel Mbi not being here means that this is not, like, the Heat deserve everything they've gotten in the one seed.

Speaker 6 It's not taking anything away. I'm just not, I guess what I'm trying to say is the series does not feel like a threat whatsoever to the Heat without Joel Mbi'd.

Speaker 6 Like, there's no, it's a foregone conclusion. If Joel Mbi doesn't play, this would be a sweeper five games.

Speaker 2 It actually feels like it feels bad watching the Sixers play, and it feels bad watching James Harden play, because I think it's on us. Like, we know what James Harden does.

Speaker 2 We know James Harden actually isn't an elite player in the NBA anymore. He's not a number one option on any team.
No. He's just not, but he's going to still get paid like he is one.

Speaker 2 He's probably got another contract where he can like he can have a good offseason, trick somebody into giving him a big contract. But James Harden isn't good enough to win a series on his own.

Speaker 2 He's not even good enough to make a series competitive on his own. So yeah, it's just kind of sad watching it.
And I'm mostly sad because we talk about how much we love the narratives.

Speaker 2 I can't even chalk this series up to Doc Rivers. I can't, there's nothing I can do right now.
Doc Rivers, this is the, Joelle M.

Speaker 2 Bi getting injured is actually the best thing that could have happened to Doc Rivers during these playoffs.

Speaker 6 That's my point.

Speaker 6 It's robbed us. Like,

Speaker 6 James Harden, I want Joelle Biad to play. I want Joelle Mbiad to be dominating.
And then we can be like, oh, Doc fucked up and James Harden's a bump.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 6 Yep. Right now, it doesn't, we can't say that.

Speaker 2 Now I have to be realistic. I have to be like, James Harden isn't a number one option anymore.
I don't want to think like that.

Speaker 2 I want to be like James Harden is supposed to be the best number two in the league and Embiid is the MVP, so he claims.

Speaker 2 How come Doc Rivers can't get these two guys to win a second-round playoff series?

Speaker 1 That's what I wanted to do.

Speaker 6 I want a game seven, and Doc Rivers plays Joel and Biade 48 minutes, doesn't give him any any breaks, and he's like dying on the floor.

Speaker 6 And everyone's like, dude, give him like one minute, and then James Harden misses a wide open three to win the game, to end the game, and I can just run away with that and be like, that was awesome.

Speaker 6 We don't get any of that. No.
We just basically get, yeah, James Harden's not that good, not as good as he used to be, and he's not playing well. And Doc Rivers, well, his rotations are suspect.

Speaker 6 He doesn't really have any options because his best player's not there. We've been robbed.

Speaker 2 We've been robbed.

Speaker 2 Ideally, what would happen would be, it would be game seven in Miami, and like James Harden comes right over from Gold Rush Cabaret, and he's fat, he's sweating, his eyes are bleeding because he's drank so much vodka, and then Joelle Embiid like passes out from dehydration with one minute left, and he's just like laying on the court motionless, like his leg twitches, and Doc Rivers still won't stop out.

Speaker 2 That's what I want to have happen, and it's been robbed from me, and I don't appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 So, well, obviously, this weekend, I don't know why.

Speaker 2 well i do know why they're not playing tonight the nhl is king this is our our hockey fans better be celebrating tonight thursday night cinco de mayo as like the greatest achievement of of hockey versus nba rivalry they should be but the nba is not playing because nhl is on tnt tonight like the nhl won tonight i feel like hockey fans it's not in their nature though to celebrate that they're they're they're probably weeping because there are no more worlds left to conquer this is like everything they've wanted but then hockey fans most of their their fandom is tied up into being like hey you should be a hockey fan why are you a basketball fan now that they finally got that for a night it's like what do i do they're looking around and there's no more targets they're they're just going around on twitter right now trying to find people with uh lebron james avatars and just sending them digital handshakes they're probably like good good series out there boys they're probably just knocking on doors being like hey just in case you don't have the channel hockey's on right now just like randomly cold calling people I mean, good for the NHL, but also this is NFL is king.

Speaker 2 I can't believe we haven't talked about that yet because it's a big night for the NFL.

Speaker 1 Schedule announcement.

Speaker 6 Schedule announcement.

Speaker 6 What time is that?

Speaker 2 I think it's tonight.

Speaker 1 I think it's tonight. Oh, no, I think.

Speaker 6 I thought it was next week, too.

Speaker 1 Next week, too.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Can you check, Jake? Here, I'll do an ad.
You check, Jake.

Speaker 1 Raising King. Oh, yeah,

Speaker 2 okay. So here's the announcement for the announcement.

Speaker 2 It's one week from today.

Speaker 1 The NFL is fine.

Speaker 6 I can understand your confusion, PFT, because in

Speaker 6 typical NFL, they did the announcement for the announcement like two weeks ago. I love that.
Then they announced the

Speaker 6 international games earlier this week.

Speaker 2 I thought that was the teaser for the full announcement, but they're going to do another week.

Speaker 1 It's a three-week situation here.

Speaker 6 We're really dragging this thing out.

Speaker 2 You know what we got to do? When they do announce that, when they announce the schedule, we should grade the schedules. We should give schedule grades.

Speaker 6 Shout out the Jags. By the way, I just want to say, I want to defend the Jaguars.
So I want to defend the Jaguars.

Speaker 6 The Jaguars did the grades are in post where it was basically everyone, every website that graded the Jaguars draft, and they included our A-plus grade, which if you listened to the show on Monday, draft grades are the dumbest thing ever.

Speaker 6 So we made a mockery of it, and we just gave A-pluses and Fs, and the Steelers got a C.

Speaker 6 But the Jaguars included us, and a lot of people were like, I can't believe they included it. I think the Jaguars are in on the joke.

Speaker 2 Oh, of course they are. They're a million percent.

Speaker 2 Like, I right going back to like 2013, 2014, like between the Jaguars' main Twitter account, Jackson Deville, their mascot, they've been going back and forth with us.

Speaker 1 Right. Like, they get it.

Speaker 6 So people, people going after the Jags being like, how could they do that? They got God. It's like, no, no, no.
They get it. And I hope more teams understand.
Like,

Speaker 6 we will give you any grade you want. If you show us love, we will give you an A plus.

Speaker 6 You could go 3 and 14 next year. We'll say A plus for your season.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Use me, Daddy.
Do anything you want to me.

Speaker 6 Yes,

Speaker 6 we're a vessel. All right, real quick.

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Speaker 6 Before we do our interviews, we talk a little hockey. We also have an unbelievable takequake from Bob Ryan that we should shout out real quick.
Bob Ryan last night,

Speaker 6 I guess he was saying it on the round the horn and he doubled down.

Speaker 6 He said the three-point shot distorts the game at every level, discourages pivot play, and promotes a mindset that leads to stupid shots just because we never needed it.

Speaker 6 It's the gimmick of promoter named Abe Saperstein. Worst thing to happen to basketball in my lifetime.

Speaker 6 Whoa.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of bad stuff that's happened to basketball in his life.

Speaker 2 The game was probably a lot more simple before the three-point shot. I'll give him that.
I think. But this is a fight that I think he's been waiting to bring back up for a long, long, long time.

Speaker 2 Because I imagine the three-point advocates won, probably like I'd say that debate probably stopped on a national level around 1988.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah. It's well, it's one of those takes that's a take wake, but there is a kernel of truth because

Speaker 6 the three-point shot is good for basketball. Shooting is part of basketball.
To be like, it's a gimmick. No, you should award guys who can hit like incredible shots.

Speaker 6 But his better point is that, yeah, they're like the reliance on three-point shots, there is too much of that. And I think we, everyone's talked about this.

Speaker 6 Everyone knows that like the corner three is too easy. Teams only shooting threes or like dunks kind of makes the game a little bit boring.

Speaker 6 But to say the three-point shot is the worst thing to happen to basketball in his lifetime.

Speaker 2 I mean, Coach K happened to basketball in his lifetime.

Speaker 6 What the fuck? That's insane.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think if anything, you can just say like move the three-point line out, move it further out.

Speaker 2 you could have that same argument I think that's if that's truly what he's getting at that he's doing we've spotted a Steph Curry ruined basketball in the wild if that's his point then I think you can say move it back like three feet back it way the fuck up and you can get that Hank you like that idea Hank just gave

Speaker 2 a nice little nod there I I would like to see because then you'd you'd only have you know like the top players shooting threes still at that point right and then it would open up the mid-range game so much I think it might actually be a better product

Speaker 6 I got a crazy idea I'll throw out there.

Speaker 6 Have you guys ever watched like the, I think it's U.S. versus Canada softball games they play where it's like grown men playing softball and just hitting dingers.

Speaker 6 And literally every time they step to the plate, slow pitch softball, they could hit a dinger and they limit it. So it's like you can hit seven home runs this game.
and use it wisely.

Speaker 6 Use it when guys are on base. What if there was a limit to the amount of three-point shots you could take?

Speaker 6 So teams teams now have to strategize essentially like you get to take 33 pointers a game and it's like do you want to use them in the first quarter and get a big lead do you want to save them how do you defend them knowing that like they have 20 left or if they have like five left you can just basically pack the paint i don't know if the strategy it's a stupid rule i admit that this is like a crazy cockamame like what the fuck are you talking about But like when you actually think about it, it would be kind of cool to watch play out.

Speaker 1 I like that idea.

Speaker 10 It should do it for an all-star game. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or what if they made three-point shots worth not points for your team, but like worth negative three points for the other team?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't think that would make any difference at all in the final score, but it would be cool to see.

Speaker 6 And you could, by the way, you could, under my idea, you could still take a three-point shot after you hit over the 30. It just would count as two.

Speaker 6 So it's like you can still spread the floor, but you just don't get the benefit of it.

Speaker 6 And like, imagine going into a fourth quarter and being like, okay, the Suns have 15 three-pointers left and the Mavs have used all theirs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Billy, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 It would be automatic, but it would be fun.

Speaker 2 Billy, you're really distracting me. What are you doing?

Speaker 2 What's on your mind? You've been leaning. You've been getting closer and closer to the camera with a creepier smile on your face.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's muted.

Speaker 6 I think I posted a problematic tweet.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. Breaking mood.
What was it?

Speaker 13 Why are you tweeting during the pod, Billy?

Speaker 14 I'm doing a little blogging.

Speaker 6 Okay, wait, I found it. He said, I don't get what the big deal is with this Roe v.
Wade shit.

Speaker 14 No, that's not it.

Speaker 6 The government should absolutely decide what the

Speaker 1 body is.

Speaker 6 I posted a video of,

Speaker 14 I found, so I'm in these group chats where I get these insane videos. I post one of them, and it's not going well.

Speaker 2 What was it? Did you delete it?

Speaker 11 Oh, Jesus, Billy.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 15 What are you doing, dude?

Speaker 1 Billy, what the fuck? Billy. Billy.

Speaker 1 Billy.

Speaker 15 Billy, delete this.

Speaker 1 What the fuck?

Speaker 6 It's these wild hogs killing a leopard, and it's like...

Speaker 1 They're eating it in. Eating its bird.
Eating its neck.

Speaker 6 Dude.

Speaker 2 Why did you think that was a good idea?

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 6 I'm sorry. Billy, I'm all for like, I do think it's weird whenever someone watches like a video in nature and they're like, oh, these poor zebras, someone save them.
Like, that is nature.

Speaker 6 But you don't need to see that on your timeline.

Speaker 1 zoomed in.

Speaker 1 Ravel JFK.

Speaker 1 You're Ravel. You're Ravel.
You're the animal of Ravel.

Speaker 1 It's just

Speaker 2 like three wild hogs just curb stomping a leopard.

Speaker 6 It's just crazy. I'm crazy concerned.

Speaker 10 You were like,

Speaker 10 I was watching your face. You were like.

Speaker 1 Don't delete it.

Speaker 6 Don't delete it.

Speaker 1 That's how you delete it. I deleted it already.
Oh, Billy.

Speaker 2 Post it again.

Speaker 1 Post it again. Post it again.

Speaker 6 I'm tweeting Billy is canceled and let everyone figure it out.

Speaker 2 No, Billy, post it again and say, I'm sorry for deleting my tweet. Please continue roasting me under this new version of the tweet.

Speaker 12 Also, I like the parentheses of it says wild hogs kill leopard as if you didn't know what was going on at that point.

Speaker 6 No, but it's just crazy because usually the leopard kills the wild hogs, but now that we're seeing reverse, the wild hogs killing the predator.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true. In most videos that you've shown me, it is the leopard killing.

Speaker 2 This actually, it looks like

Speaker 2 Buster Rhymes and Dave Chappelle curb stopping that guy that got on stage. Which, by the way,

Speaker 2 did you see the gun that the guy had?

Speaker 1 I didn't.

Speaker 2 Tell me about it, though. It was a gun, but it was really a knife.
So you pulled the trigger on the gun and a knife came out the front.

Speaker 2 I can't think of any scenario where you would want to have a more illegal thing

Speaker 2 that isn't actually functional and it turns into a less illegal thing.

Speaker 1 That's

Speaker 11 a syringe of like weed.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I also saw the like the store, the headline was

Speaker 6 aspiring rapper. That's got to be brutal because that means that like someone listened and was like, okay, yeah, yeah, he's aspiring.
He's not a rapper.

Speaker 2 Not there again. He's aspiring.

Speaker 6 He's trying to be a rapper. Billy, you're canceled.
I just, I just tweeted Billy's cancel. So you might as well put it back up.

Speaker 14 Okay, but I'm putting why I really deleted it is that I didn't want to get my account reported.

Speaker 6 So I put it on my burner. So I'm going to post it from the burner.

Speaker 2 That's why you really, that's why you really deleted, not because everybody was roasting you.

Speaker 14 Well, I don't care about them.

Speaker 14 I think it was the wrong time because it was lunchtime and everyone's on their lunch break.

Speaker 2 And they're like, I'm eating lunch.

Speaker 10 Everyone on Twitter is on the same time zone.

Speaker 2 You got to blame it on PC culture, Billy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 12 Oh, I love the definition.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Predator becomes prey.

Speaker 1 We're like having a conversation.

Speaker 10 If you're watching the YouTube,

Speaker 10 Billy's watching Billy come to the realization that he posted a problematic tweet. It was an all-time visual.

Speaker 1 You got to watch the YouTube just for that.

Speaker 10 You could tell he was not listening at all. And he was just,

Speaker 10 yeah, like PFT said, he was just getting closer and closer to his computer, like with a wider and wider smile.

Speaker 6 Oh, my God.

Speaker 6 Oh, my God. All right.
Anything hockey? Let's just, let's just move on. We'll do Randy Moss and Eddie Hurds.
Anything hockey?

Speaker 6 The maple leaves, I'm starting to feel.

Speaker 1 No, the Leafs are fine. That was bad.
Leafs.

Speaker 2 Leafs are fine. They'll figure it out.
It's the Leafs year. I'm still confident in the boys up north.

Speaker 2 I just still feel bad for Rangers fans. They're down so bad.
Even if they win tonight, it wasn't really even worth it.

Speaker 2 Like, it's not even going to replace half the pain of what they went through earlier this week.

Speaker 1 They're going to win tonight. I hope so.
They're going to win tonight. I really hope so.

Speaker 2 Although, there is a big part of me that would really like to see Penguins' caps. I would love to see that one more time.

Speaker 6 They're going to win tonight. I'm going to put my

Speaker 6 No, I'm not going to do Game of the Year. I almost did that.
They're going to win tonight.

Speaker 2 They're going to win tonight. I'm also thinking that tonight, Jake, I'm going to graciously allow Jake to beat the Capitals tonight.
I think tonight is the Panthers night, so congrats, Jake.

Speaker 12 We'll see some rats on the ice.

Speaker 1 That's what you guys do?

Speaker 12 They throw rats on the ice after a win.

Speaker 2 You throw rats like actual rats.

Speaker 1 Toy rats.

Speaker 2 If it was actual rats, I'd be impressed. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Let's get to. Let's do Randy Moss first.
Kentucky Derby picks, and then we'll go to Eddie Hearn.

Speaker 2 We're going to get to Randy Mm.

Speaker 17 The Pro Football Football Show is presented by the Chevy Silverado. Built for the hustle, ready for the game, Chevy Silverado is America's most dependable full-size truck.

Speaker 17 Whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, the Silverado is one ride that's always game ready. Just like football, it's about grit, grind, and getting it done.

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Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on our very good friend, one of the longest recurring guests in part of my history. He is? Yes.
It is the one and only Randy Moss.

Speaker 1 You can see him all weekend on TV, the Kentucky Oaks on Friday, the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, live from Churchill Downs. Best time of year.

Speaker 1 Let's get into it. Let's just do it.
How are we feeling overall? How are the vibes? Because I know we had weird COVID stuff the last few years. How are the vibes feeling?

Speaker 1 Like this will be the first, like everything's back to normal derby.

Speaker 7 Vibes are great. Full house house expected.
You know, they limited the attendance last year to 50,000. So no limits now.

Speaker 7 It's going to be just like the old-fashioned Derbies, elbow to elbow people, half the people drunk. You know, it's going to be just like it's always been.

Speaker 7 The only problem is the freaking weather, right? I mean, we see this all the time at the Derby.

Speaker 7 I don't know what goes on with Mother Nature in the Kentucky Derby, but last week it was just gorgeous in Louisville. Next week, it's going to be gorgeous in Louisville.

Speaker 7 Monsoon season hits on Friday and Saturday, apparently. Wow.
So

Speaker 7 we could have uh it's a pretty dicey weather so so how does that affect the races are there any horses that you that you see that you're like that guy that guy likes to run in the mud typically what happens in a situation like that guys is you want the horses that are going to be up close to the lead if the track is wet right if there's standing water it's called sloppy in in thoroughbred racing but you want the horses that are going to be going to be up front because they're kicking all the muddy crap back on the horses behind them right into their faces.

Speaker 7 And, you know, horses aren't the smartest animals in the world, but they're smart enough to know that's not good. And a lot of them just check out when that happens.

Speaker 7 So watch for the frontrunners in that case.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I actually, so a friend of mine sent me a stat today that I wanted to share with you.
And I guess it makes sense intuitively because we've had some incredible derby winners the last

Speaker 1 decade or so. But the stat is the last eight years,

Speaker 1 the horse that has crossed the wire first, so obviously there's been some disqualifications, has not had a trip that has dropped below third during their entire trip.

Speaker 1 So that should fit into what you just said as well with the mud, that you need a horse that can get out in front right away and stay in front and not have to play from the back.

Speaker 7 There is a reason for that stat. There's a very good reason for it.
Before 2013,

Speaker 7 Churchill Downs ranked the horses for the Kentucky Derby based on total lifetime money one.

Speaker 7 So what happened, all owners want to run in the Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 7 So what happened was you would get these horses that would make all kinds of money as a two-year-old racehorse in short races, in sprint races, really fast horses.

Speaker 7 They couldn't go a mile and a quarter in the Kentucky Derby, but their owners wanted to run in the Kentucky Derby because they had enough money.

Speaker 7 And so you get a bunch of these horses that would wind up in the Derby and the early pace would get out of control. And so all the come from behinders would benefit from that.

Speaker 7 Then in 2013, Churchill changed the protocol to get into the Derby, and now it's based on success in major prep races, long races, as a three-year-old mostly.

Speaker 7 So you get all that cheap speed that no longer gets to run in the Kentucky Derby. The pace is much more manageable, and therefore horses near the front have done much better.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 That's a great explanation for that stat.

Speaker 2 It's interesting that you mentioned kind of like the unproven speed in this race, because that's one of the big stories.

Speaker 2 I've actually been reading articles about the Kentucky Derby for the last like five days.

Speaker 2 I got an early jumpstart on my research this year. And there's one horse that fascinates me because

Speaker 2 he's dominated all the races he's been in, but he's only raced against like six horses. A lot of people are calling him like the Mickey Mouse horse.
He's got Mickey Mouse titles.

Speaker 2 And now we're going to see if it translates to the Kentucky Derby. He's one of Bob Baffert's old horses, now I guess has a new trainer.

Speaker 2 Is it Taba or Taba?

Speaker 1 Taba. Taba, yeah.

Speaker 2 So does Taba, right now I think he's 12 to 1 or something like that. Is that a horse that you think can actually translate to the big show?

Speaker 7 Well, here's the situation with Taba.

Speaker 7 No horse in more than a century has won the Kentucky Derby with only two previous lifetime starts. I don't care about that stat.
Times have changed in thoroughbred racing.

Speaker 7 Horses are running less and less often than they used to. So if you like Taba to win the Kentucky Derby, don't pay any attention.
to his inexperience.

Speaker 7 It certainly didn't hurt him in the Sandonita Derby in his last start that he'd only had one lifetime start. I mean, he won very, very impressively.

Speaker 7 What I don't like about Taba and why I'm not picking him is since the Santa Nita Derby, I have not been a fan of the way he's looked in his training.

Speaker 7 It looks to me like he may have gone a little downhill since the Santa Nita Derby and maybe too much too soon, possibly.

Speaker 1 Fame got too horse.

Speaker 1 Willie Beeman.

Speaker 1 And he had a work this morning, a final workout this morning that wasn't particularly impressive uh so i'm gonna try to beat him all right so uh along those same lines there are the big story obviously is that bob bafford has been suspended and his horses were transferred to tim yakteen who is a former uh assistant of bob bafford do we get value on these horses knowing they're bob bafford horses but they don't have the b squared next to them that everyone looks at when they you know everyone in the world bets the kentucky derby they see bob bafford's name and they're like oh that guy's good i know him and i'm gonna bet him and then the price comes down so do we have like a very unique situation where we get bob bafford horses at a discount because it's not bob bafford's name right next to him you know it's a great point miquette and i haven't heard many people make that point and it's a valid point because the name bob bafford definitely affects the market for the horses, right?

Speaker 7 You get a lot more people betting because they are Bafford's horses.

Speaker 7 And nobody, none of the casual fans are going to know who the heck tim yak-teen is so that probably will drive the price up on those horses and the fact that bafford is not here physically and has not been training the horses since the second week in april really doesn't make any difference to these particular horses because bafford trained the horses all the way up until that point He developed them.

Speaker 7 He picked them out, helped pick them out as young horses, and then developed them through their two-year-old year up until April. Once his suspension started, all they did,

Speaker 7 these two horses just moved a couple barns down at Santa Anita and changed stalls. They got the same groom.
They got the same exercise riders. They got the same assistant trainer.

Speaker 7 They got the same workout regimen.

Speaker 7 Nothing really has changed. for these horses, except the name in the program and on the racing form says Tim Yak Teen instead of Bob Bapper.

Speaker 1 This is like one of those situations where if you're betting on football and you're like, hey,

Speaker 1 if you change the helmet of Notre Dame, Dame, you probably get a better line.

Speaker 1 It's a rare situation.

Speaker 1 You can't predict the future, so who knows if these horses are going to do well. But you'll probably never get another situation where you have Bob Baffert training horses up until

Speaker 1 a month and a half before the Derby, and then his name isn't next to them when you look at the racing forum on Saturday morning.

Speaker 7 It is unprecedented in thoroughbred racing.

Speaker 7 It's unprecedented in the Kentucky Derby to have this type of situation. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so I I want to talk also.

Speaker 1 I love the stats of the Kentucky Derby because a lot of them, you know, who knows, it's horse racing, but some of them have some merit to it.

Speaker 1 So I wanted to quickly talk about the Japanese horse, Crown Pride. And

Speaker 1 it basically, you know, the stat goes, if a horse is raced in the Middle East as their last race, just throw them out.

Speaker 1 They won't finish anywhere near the top. Like, don't even worry about it.
But this year specifically,

Speaker 1 and maybe you can give us some insight on it. Japanese horses have been like dominating.

Speaker 1 So is this the year that we finally get a horse that's coming from overseas that can finish at the top, you know, maybe not even win, but you know, second or third on Saturday?

Speaker 7 Every day in the last two weeks, Big Cat, it is looking more and more possible.

Speaker 1 Whoa, I love it.

Speaker 7 When I came to Louisville,

Speaker 7 well, actually, I got to Lexington last Friday. Friday.
I thought that Crown Pride, who was the Japanese horse, was a legitimate 30 or 40 to one shot.

Speaker 7 His race in the UAE Derby was good, but it wasn't great. The competition that he beat was suspect.

Speaker 7 And, you know, I had some serious question marks about it.

Speaker 7 He has been sensational here at Churchill Lounge. And this morning, He had a workout, his final workout, that every one of the competing trainers in the Kentucky Derby has been raving about.

Speaker 7 Everyone that Jerry Bailey and I went to talk to this morning, we're like, holy crap, did you see that Japanese horse work this morning? I mean, the horse looks great.

Speaker 7 Whether he's good enough or not, we'll see, but he is definitely a horse to put into your exotics. And even, I would even play him on top.
Okay. In in some of my bets, because he's good.

Speaker 7 He's not going to be 30 to 1 now

Speaker 7 because the cat's out of the bag kind of yeah but he'll probably be about 20 to one and one more thing about the japanese horses you kind of alluded to yeah um

Speaker 7 last fall in the breeders cup you know the japanese horses had never won a breeders cup race and they had two horses in the breeders cup that looked like they had zero chance on paper right and both of them won that looked a lot worse than crown pride looks on paper at the saudi cup in saudi arabia tons of money at $20 million race at the Saudi Cup.

Speaker 7 Japanese horses won four of the stakes races on the undercard. They won five of the stakes races on the Dubai World Cup undercard in March.
Japanese horses are kicking ass

Speaker 7 worldwide everywhere they're going. So I wouldn't be surprised at all to see other horse run great.

Speaker 1 What's that for? Like, is there a specific reason or is it just, have they done anything different recently? Training, money, whatever it may be.

Speaker 1 Because I'm just very curious about how, like, the year of Japan, like that's all you see when you're looking at the big races over the course of the year that Japan has arrived and they're kicking ass.

Speaker 7 It's been gradual, okay, for a, for a pretty long period of time.

Speaker 7 You can trace it back to a horse that I know you're familiar with, Big Cat, even though it was a long time ago. A horse named Sunday Silence.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 Sunday Silence won the Kentucky Derby in 1989. He had a huge rivalry with a horse named Easy Goer.
He won the Derby. He won the preakness.
Easygoer beat him in the Belmont.

Speaker 7 Sunday Silence came back and won the Breeders' Cup class. His owner had a big farm in Kentucky, Stone Farm.

Speaker 7 Needed, financially, needed to sell the horse to keep the farm. Okay, farms are very expensive to run.

Speaker 7 Sunday Silence was worth a lot of money, and they needed to sell him, retire him to stud, and sell him to the breeders. American breeders didn't seem to have much interest in Sunday Silence.

Speaker 7 His pedigree was average. He had a crooked leg, I think, as a young horse.
They were all about easygoer, but they really didn't care that much about Sunday Silence.

Speaker 7 And the Japanese stepped in and outbid the Americans for Sunday Silence, took the horse to Japan, where Sunday Silence has been one of, if not the greatest stallion.

Speaker 7 in the second half of the 20th century worldwide.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 7 That horse has completely revolutionized the breed in Japan. And all those horses that I ticked off that won the Breeders' Cup and it's Saudi, Dubai, every one of them traced back to Sunday Silence.

Speaker 1 It's incredible.

Speaker 2 I remember that Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 2 That's like my first sports memory is actually Sunday Silence beating Easy Goer at the Derby.

Speaker 1 That's incredible that it goes all the way back to that.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 7 You know, that's the genesis of it. Now, horse racing in Japan is gigantic.
I mean, you see shots of the Kentucky Derby. You know, it's like that almost every weekend in Japan.

Speaker 7 It's crazy, Japan and Hong Kong, the amount of people that come out to the racetrack and the amount of money that is bet. They do a great job training horses.
So it's a top-class operation in Japan.

Speaker 7 And now they're just really, really clicking on also.

Speaker 2 So when it comes to the crowds like that, do you think that the, like, is there any measurements that you can take to say like horses actually race faster when there's a loud crowd around?

Speaker 7 Like, do the horses get energy off a big audience compared to, you know, the Derby a couple couple years ago when there was nobody there you know that was a question that often came up during the pandemic kentucky derby it uh because some people would say they would ask me uh you guys didn't but other people would you know so how are the horses going to react without the adrenaline of all the people and all that horses hate crowds well thoroughbred race horses are extremely high strung They like peace and quiet and tranquility.

Speaker 7 They don't like loud noises. They don't like a lot of cheering.

Speaker 7 So the question always in the the Kentucky Derby with 150,000 people is always, you know, how are the horses going to handle all the noise?

Speaker 7 Some of them, you know, can flip out occasionally and can mess them up. There's a horse in the Derby this year called Cyberknife that is notoriously unpredictable around people.

Speaker 7 And around, you know, he threw his rider in the post-parade of the Arkansas Derby and everything. So no, horses do not like big crowds.

Speaker 2 So would that mean that they would run slower or would they run faster to get away from the crowds?

Speaker 7 They would typically run slower because they would be nervous. They would be, you know,

Speaker 7 some horses are laid back. Some thoroughbreds are very laid back.
Doesn't bother them at all. Most of them are pretty high strung.
Occasionally you get ones that are extremely high strung.

Speaker 7 And those are the ones when they get all the loud noises. They just fall apart mentally.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 7 And so they just completely lose their race.

Speaker 2 So 20 horses in the field. Is 20 horses too many? That seems like a lot of horses.

Speaker 7 It's a lot of horses. It's more horses than you would see in any race uh

Speaker 7 in america any given year no other race has 20 horses in america and people complain all the time about it right and it's a bogus complaint don't believe it when people say you need to you need to reduce the kentucky derby 20 horses too many it's a cavalry charge it's a crap shoot it's all luck That's BS.

Speaker 7 It is not all luck. If you go back historically and look at the Kentucky Derbies with 20 horses, okay, and you look at them in hindsight and you say, okay, this horse won the Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 7 Was it proven in later results and later racing that that was the best horse in the race? And it's like 75, 80% of the time. Yeah.

Speaker 7 S horse wins the Kentucky Derby. What it takes to win the Kentucky Derby, the patience.

Speaker 7 the acceleration, the ability to hit the holes when you need to hit the holes, the overall talent to beat the best horses of your generation.

Speaker 7 The Derby is probably the best litmus test of greatness of any race in America. So the 20 horses is part of that.

Speaker 1 So along the same lines of the 20 horses, I know the gate changed a few years ago and it became a uniform gate across. So

Speaker 1 let me ask you this.

Speaker 1 It used to be like, hey, if you're in the rail position to start or the first three, it's a bad spot. You don't want to be there.
Has that gone away because of the gate change?

Speaker 1 And really specifically, I love the horse Epicenter who's starting out of the three. And I mean, he's just a fast fucking horse.

Speaker 1 Does it matter that he's near the rail now with the gate change?

Speaker 7 Well, first of all, the new starting gate alleviates a lot of the problems.

Speaker 7 that horses from the number one post position would have having to move out a little bit after the start to avoid you know the inner rail uh that's no longer the case so that helps horsemen still don't like inside post positions in the derby they have an unrealistic phobia about inside post positions because they're afraid their horses will get trapped on the rail for some reason when it comes to the kentucky derby horsemen forget physics they forget geometry really they they forget that it's the shortest way around the track running next to the rail.

Speaker 7 And that's a huge advantage in a race like the Kentucky Derby with so many horses often. Epicenter is the perfect horse to take advantage of an inside post position because he has tactical speed.

Speaker 7 He's not going to be in the middle of the pack with a ton of horses to his outside and have to worry about getting out, getting off the rail when it's time to go.

Speaker 7 He's going to be up either in front or near the front early where there's not any traffic and he'll be racing on the rail and saving ground.

Speaker 7 And it's, I think, it's a great post position for Epicenter.

Speaker 1 Okay. That's probably why that's why I'm picking him.
Yeah. Oh, okay.
There you go. There's the pick.
I love it.

Speaker 1 We should also, we should mention, obviously, the favorite, Zandon, Chad Brown on Zandon. I watched that race that he had,

Speaker 1 what was it, like a few weeks ago.

Speaker 1 It was incredible, through traffic, great finish.

Speaker 1 The Kentucky Derby recently has been. The favorite has won.
Do you see any value if he goes off at 3-1, 2-1?

Speaker 7 Value, no.

Speaker 7 His prep race in the bluegrass, I thought, was the most visually impressive of any of the prep races, right?

Speaker 7 In my eyes, it's either going to be Epicenter or Zandun, unless the Japanese horse completely freaks and does what Japanese horses have been doing lately.

Speaker 7 I got to focus on those two horses. The difference to me, they're very similar on paper, is that Epicenter is going to be up near the front and Zandun is going to have to rally.

Speaker 7 from farther back in the pack and potentially have to deal with traffic issues that epicenter won't have to deal with but zandon is a very good horse as well and either one of those horses could be you know deserving kentucky derby winners and the irony here is that uh epicenter is trained by steve asperson uh no trainer in the history of north america has won as many races as steve aspenson and he's never won the kentucky derby and zandon is trained by chad brown

Speaker 7 who has been the champion trainer in America. He's a fantastic trainer.
He mainly deals in grass horses. He's never won the Kentucky Derby.
So it's kind of an interesting subplot.

Speaker 2 That is interesting. So his name is what? You said Asponson?

Speaker 7 Asmunton.

Speaker 7 A-S-M-U-S-S-E-N. Steve Asponson.

Speaker 2 This is his like legacy. This is his legacy race.

Speaker 1 Like, imagine. Kind of, yeah.

Speaker 2 Imagine if he were to get a Kentucky Derby finally, that's like the last check mark in an otherwise great career.

Speaker 2 I bet he probably hates Bob Bafford, huh?

Speaker 7 No, he's actually very, very close friends with Bob Bafford. Yeah.
We've had many

Speaker 7 conversations about Bob Bafford.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Is there any unusual tradition for the owner of a winning horse after the Kentucky Derby? You know how in golf, if you get a hold in one, you've got to buy the clubhouse drinks.

Speaker 2 Is there any unusual thing behind the scenes that the owners do kind of like as a tradition that's been passed down through the years?

Speaker 7 Yeah, go out and get wasted the night of the Derby.

Speaker 1 I love it. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Yes. I love it.

Speaker 2 Rich guys, they're just like us. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 There you go.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so I had one last question.

Speaker 1 You always give us an Oaks pick for Friday. You got to tune in.
Like,

Speaker 1 if you're someone who's just getting into horse racing and you love the Derby, you should also love the Oaks on Friday. It's awesome.
There's some great, great horses. You get two full days.

Speaker 1 I think it's 28 races total over the two days.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 give us a pick, any race on Friday that you got a. I think you've basically hit this every single year, no pressure.
But who's your favorite race and horse on Friday?

Speaker 7 This is is the best Kentucky Oaks.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 I've been to

Speaker 7 the Kentucky Derby every year since 1980. I missed the pandemic year.
I missed one other year. This is my 41st Kentucky Derby.
So it's my 41st Kentucky Oaks.

Speaker 7 This is one of the best Kentucky Oaks that I've seen since I started coming here. But I love Nest.

Speaker 7 Nest is the program favorite, which surprised me. I expected Echo Zulu to be the program favorite.
And Echo Zulu is a good Philly. She's undefeated.
She was the two-year-old Philly champion.

Speaker 7 I think Nest is an absolute standout to win the Kentucky Oaks.

Speaker 7 And on Saturday, I'll give you a couple horses to bet on. Yes.

Speaker 7 There's a race called the Churchill Downs Distaff Turf Mile. I think it's the fifth race on Saturday.

Speaker 7 There's a horse in there that Jerry Bailey and I have been texting each other about for a couple of months.

Speaker 7 You know, last time she ran, I texted Jerry and said, here's a horse we can bet on Derby weekend.

Speaker 7 Her name is Wakanaka. W-A-K-A-N-A-K-A.
Waka Naka. And then in the race right before the Derby, they call it the Turf Classic.
It's on grass.

Speaker 7 There's a horse that Chad Brown has in there called Adhamo, A-D-H-A-M-O.

Speaker 7 And I like him hooked up in X-Actas with a horse called Ivar, I-V-A-R, who ran in the Breeders' Cup mile last year and finished third and probably should have won.

Speaker 7 He's got a great post-position first start of the year, but he's training really well and back and forth in X-Actas. I like those two.

Speaker 1 I love it. Let's win some money.
Any other questions? Let's do it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, I'm good. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Let's do it. So we just to reiterate, Wakanaka in the

Speaker 2 turf mile, and then we've got in the distaff turf mile, correct.

Speaker 1 Distaff turf mile.

Speaker 2 And then in the turf classic,

Speaker 2 you've got Ivor and Adamo.

Speaker 7 Adamo and Nest in the Kentucky.

Speaker 2 Okay, everybody, when those win, make sure to tweet at Randy Moss and say, thank you, Randy.

Speaker 1 Either Randy Moss, with a football player.

Speaker 1 Yeah, either one. Doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 Tag both of them them just to be sure that you get the right one.

Speaker 7 We are interchangeable. It doesn't matter at all.

Speaker 1 It's the best. We love having you on.
I mean, it's so funny.

Speaker 1 The longtime AWLs, we've grown, you know, a ton in the last six years, but it's so funny because the longtime AWLs remember the first time we had you on and everyone was like, oh, they got Randy Moss the wide receiver.

Speaker 1 It was like, nope, we got Randy Moss who's going to win you money. And

Speaker 1 you're one of our favorite guests. And we'll talk to you before the preakness, too.

Speaker 7 All right, right, let's do it, guys. Apologies for not wearing my recurring guest t-shirt.
I'll try to correct that when we get to Pimlica. All right.

Speaker 2 I think you're the only person that has that shirt, actually.

Speaker 1 You're the only one. Yes, yes.
Appreciate it. And we'll see you on TV on Friday and Saturday.
All right. Take care.

Speaker 1 Randy Molly.

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Speaker 2 Completely different.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. It is British sports promoter, the promoter, boxing promoter, darts promoter.
He is the chairman of Matchroom Sport. It is Eddie Hearn.

Speaker 1 We are very excited to have you on. We have a partnership with DeZone.
We got the big fight coming up, the Canelo fight coming up May 7th.

Speaker 1 You're here because there's also a big fight in Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. This is going to actually sound stupid because it's in the past, but we're excited for you to be here.

Speaker 1 Let's start with the fight on May 7th.

Speaker 1 Your promoter, this is like having a comedian come in and be like, tell us a joke.

Speaker 9 Promote this fight. Well, I mean, firstly, you have, we talked about GOATs off air.

Speaker 9 You have the current GOAT, which is Canelo Alvarez, pound for pound number one, the biggest star in the sport, the undisputed super middleweight world champion.

Speaker 9 This guy, he just fluctuates up weight classes and just basically wants to fight all champions.

Speaker 9 Well, May 7th, he fights the light heavyweight world champion Dmitry Bivo young fresh undefeated huge puncher great feet and a really really dangerous fight and this guy Canelo Alvarez is incredible because he literally doesn't care who he fights.

Speaker 9 He just and he's got like a strict rule champions only. You know, he just wants to take belts for the collection.
And you know, he's the guy who's come up from well to weight.

Speaker 9 He's now fighting light heavyweight world champions. He's massively undersized against these guys, but he's also one ruthless motherfucker.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 Like just, I've never been around anyone with so much confidence, so much belief. He's incredible.

Speaker 1 And Canelo has definitely reached that point where a boxer gets to a certain point where his pay-per-views become just like must-buys because you know there's going to be a show, you know it's going to be a great fight night, and there's nothing quite like a fight night.

Speaker 1 Now, as a promoter, are you rooting for either side? Do you just root for a great fight?

Speaker 9 You know, I represent both guys.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 9 At the same time, people do take the Mickey out of me in boxing because of my affection towards Canelo Alvarez. Right.
One, because he's the biggest star in the sport. Two, because he's a great guy.

Speaker 1 Three, because he's a great.

Speaker 9 Right. And there's nothing like being around a great.
And when you're around Canelo Alvarez, you feel like a great because he's infectious.

Speaker 9 You know, you watch him, you watch his confidence, the way he fights, the way he lives his life. He's a winner.

Speaker 9 But a rematch, if he lost, and then a trilogy, you've got to be thinking that is a promoter right i know this sounds really sort of uh you know on the fence but it's literally when you have two guys who fight each other it's made a best man win for dimitri bivol he gets the opportunity to become a great himself he gets the biggest payday of his career good luck to you son yeah and for canelo alvarez this is the fight he wanted you know he said get me a champion get me a light heavyweight world champion i said i've got dimitri bivo He's undefeated.

Speaker 9 He punches very hard. He's got great feet.
He may be the best in the division. And Canelo went perfect.

Speaker 9 It's not something we see in boxing today. And like you said, a Cinco de Maya weekend in Las Vegas promoting Canelo Alvarez doesn't get any bigger.

Speaker 2 Are there certain fighters that are easy to work with? Like you'll pick up the phone, give them a call, and you know that they'll say, yes, I'll do it.

Speaker 2 And then certain guys that you have to like massage into it or kind of like work your way around with concessions and things like that.

Speaker 9 Eddie Reynoso is Canelo's trainer and manager and they're like, they're inseparable.

Speaker 9 You know, they have been through his whole career, but they're fearless right and when you work with those kind of fighters they don't they're not looking for the easy touch they're not worried about the easier fight they're just like yeah him fine he'll do you know and once they give me that instruction when you're dealing with a great like canado alvarez like a pound for pound great he should be difficult to work with like that's just the way sports works right the bigger the star the bigger the problem But this guy is so easy to work with.

Speaker 9 And what we've got him doing, he's speaking more English because he never really believed that that his English was good enough.

Speaker 9 Now he's speaking in English in interviews, he's growing his profile to a bigger audience, and he's hilarious.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I feel like Large here at Barstall has done a pretty good job of getting Canelo out of the shell a little bit because we, I think we had Canelo on, what, like three years ago, yeah, and he was just starting to like you know feel comfortable expressing himself and being himself.

Speaker 2 But like, you get him in a room with Large, and it's like, oh, this is my buddy, this is my like safe space that I can open up to.

Speaker 9 But Canelo, we call him Canelo, Sal,

Speaker 9 he's one of the lads.

Speaker 9 So if you relax him, he's amazing to be around. He's hilarious.
Listen, I've been to his house in Guadalajara out of camp, and it was a lively night. There was a lot of tequila drunk.

Speaker 9 He's great company, but he's also any star is just a little bit

Speaker 9 standoffish. But like you say, Large does a good job.
You've got to go in there and

Speaker 9 you've got to be relaxed around him. You've got to be yourself.

Speaker 9 You have. And that's why, you know, when Large does turn up, he actually goes, all right, I'll do it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because he's a relaxed guy, right?

Speaker 9 But it's been seeing the progression of him over the last few years. Once people get to know him, you know, he just gets bigger and bigger.

Speaker 1 So, the promotion game, I love it. I'm fascinated by it.
I've always loved it.

Speaker 1 I grew up a wrestling fan, boxing fan.

Speaker 1 We have our own fight league. I don't know if you're aware of it.

Speaker 1 It's whatever your level you're at, we're minus a million. It's called Rough and Rowdy.
It's like a tough man

Speaker 1 contest. So we promote fights

Speaker 1 and it's a thrill to promote a fight. Is there ever in promotion, has there ever been a moment where you had to tell the guys like, hey, chill out, you cross the line?

Speaker 1 Or is it truly like do whatever you want? Cause like everything sells here. That's why I love boxing promotion.
Peep, anyone, any storyline gets more eyeballs.

Speaker 9 You always want a promotion where there's beef.

Speaker 9 So I can't lie. If two guys come together at the way, and I'm always in the middle.
Yep. And it's only meme.
Yeah, but it's only, I am.

Speaker 9 But it's only when we get to a bigger weight class that I have a big problem.

Speaker 9 Because if it's like the featherweight division or the lightweights, I can like, you know, I'm six foot five and 220 pounds. I'm not that tough, but I can at least get in the middle.
Right.

Speaker 9 With the big boys, like, if I could take one punch, if I just take a punch that wasn't even meant for me, I'm getting knocked clean out, you know?

Speaker 9 And when we did Dillian White against Derek Chezora, it was very famous. Chezora picked up a table, you know, and threw it actually at me.
But it was at Dillian White, but it hit me.

Speaker 9 And, but it was massive. Right.
You know, so at the same time, it doesn't really.

Speaker 1 Like, you'd probably take that every time. Yeah, like, like you said, I mind a table around the head if it has a couple of million vitamins on pay-per-view.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what I love about the fight people.

Speaker 9 People love that. Yeah, absolutely.
But I always think as well, like, there are some people that say, you know, the head to head.

Speaker 9 Do this and do that. I don't like that.

Speaker 1 Do you ever push them? I do that in our rough people. Yeah, if they get head to head, I kind of give one of them a little nudge.

Speaker 9 Sometimes before a press conference, I go, look, you know, obviously you two, I'm going to ask you both questions. And I look to one of them and just say, just to let you know, he did say that.

Speaker 9 You know, he's talking about your mum.

Speaker 9 But I actually did, I did Logan. I did Logan Paul against KSI.
Yep. Right? That fight at the Staples Centre.
And the banter was so bad. Like, I'll never do another one.

Speaker 9 I really love both guys. They're so smart, these guys.
But I'll tell you what, I did the press conference. I stood up and I was like, you know, guys, massive fight at Staple Centre.

Speaker 9 Well, you know, your mum's down there. And I was like, oh, my God.
Where are we going with this?

Speaker 1 So that fight specifically you got some blowback because it's not traditional boxing and you know we did something with Jake Paul in Cleveland last summer and there's a lot of people who are like this is a sideshow this isn't real from my perspective I'm like anything that gets more eyes towards a boxing like combat sport is good but where what what did you like how'd you feel when you had that blowback

Speaker 9 you saw the numbers yeah you know we were doing press conferences I think there's like over a million watching live the press conference you You know, I could do

Speaker 9 the world heavyweight title, and we won't get half of that, you know. So

Speaker 9 as a boxing enthusiast, it's hard to watch sometimes. Jake's a little bit different because he's at least boxing now.

Speaker 9 He thinks he can be a world champion, never in a million years. But there are actually some boxers that are worse than Jake Paul.
And it's putting the time in, he's putting the effort.

Speaker 9 Yeah. I mean, he's

Speaker 1 a fifth or a fifth party. Yeah, there we go.

Speaker 9 But Logan against KSI was two YouTubers. Yeah.
So I promoted a YouTube fight in that respect. I will never do it again.
It wasn't a bad experience. I made a lot of money, but my heart weren't in it.

Speaker 9 But with Jake, Jake can fight a little bit. And at least he's getting to the stage now where he's going in with either fighters or combat.
guys

Speaker 9 and I give Jake respect and listen he's just co-promoted the fight with me with with Taylor Serrano and he's been a great partner so you're right anything that brings additional eyes to the sport I just feel that when you bring those eyes to the sport you need to give them the beauty of the sport and the reality of the sport not two guys kind of like yeah yeah scrapping away when it comes to you promoting a fight where both the fighters are essentially you're working for both of them you're you're representing both of them is there like a trust issue that comes with it yeah always an argument and you know the worst thing is

Speaker 9 you sit front and center you can't show any emotion either way because i've been involved with fights before you know and someone's knocked someone out and i represent both guys and i've just stood up and clapped it's like next day you get a text going i see you stand up and clap when i got knocked out it's like no i just you know so i hate it because i'm the guy i love to scream and shout and jump in the ring and celebrate and you can't really do that when you've got two guys it's difficult so generally when you have two guys you represent two guys both guys in the fight you fall out with one of them yeah generally the one that loses yeah do you ever that makes sense you ever fall outs with with other promoters like is there any what promoters

Speaker 9 what promoter would you want to step in the ring with no they're all old you know they're all there i can't you know i mean i can't fight but they're all like you know they have problems standing up after a round yeah Yeah, you had a beef with Bob Arum, right?

Speaker 9 Bob Aram's 90. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You can beat him up, right? I would hope to make that fight. Yeah, I would hope that.
Like, call him out. That would go right down really well.

Speaker 15 Yeah, Bob, you 90-year-old guy.

Speaker 1 I'll bash you up. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 A lot of people are saying you're afraid to fight Bob Arum. I was saying that you're not, but really, yeah.

Speaker 1 Apparently,

Speaker 9 he said something else. He said something about, you know.

Speaker 1 No, I think I said. He said something about your grandmother.
Yeah, he actually knew her. Bob Aram.
He did. Bob Aram said that Eddie Hearn

Speaker 1 was born on third and thought he hit a triple. That's what he said.
He said he's a daddy's boy, and that's the only thing that made him. That's true.

Speaker 1 No, but seriously, so your history, I was, that probably hit too close home, but I'm trying to make a fight. I'm about to knock you out in a minute.
I'm trying to make a fight.

Speaker 1 No, I was listening to an interview, though, and it was. Yeah, I've got a rich dad.
Yeah, go on. No, but it was very interesting.

Speaker 1 I mean, I just made the fight right there between us, probably.

Speaker 1 But you said something interesting about, you know, your dad and being in his footsteps and him instilling in you

Speaker 1 the work ethic that you have and that it wasn't, you know, even though you did grow up with some means because your dad, you know, has been very successful, that he was able to

Speaker 1 keep you, you know, grounded and humble. How did he do that? Because that's very hard to do.

Speaker 9 It's first generation. So like my dad came from nothing, made a lot of money.
I was born.

Speaker 9 As you would with any, with your child, you want to give them a great life. But growing up, the person that my dad hated the most was the sport rich kid.

Speaker 9 So he always made sure I was never a sport rich kid. You know, winning was everything.
You get given nothing without hard work. And, you know, I have a working-class mentality.

Speaker 9 He takes the piss out of me and calls me a silver spoon kid. And I tell him that I turned it gold.
And the only way I could make a name in my own right was to outperform him. Yeah.

Speaker 9 So he did really well. I've taken the business to whole nother levels.
And, you know,

Speaker 9 I'd love to give a sob story about, you know, I'd like, I'm a bit jealous of him because he come from nothing and made it from nothing.

Speaker 9 Whereas I could never do that but at the same time you know i lived a great life but you told a story that you know when growing up everyone was like oh there's barry's kid and you thought it was great when you were a kid and then eventually you hit a point where like wait i want to be i want to be eddie it was there a significant like when i was 12 13 walking around mgm grand and madison square garden at fights i would tell the world that I was Barry Hearn's son because it used to get me wherever I needed to be.

Speaker 9 But I guess you don't realize subconsciously that, you know, you get a bit of a chip on your shoulder that no one actually knows your name right that you're just barry's son so i don't know we've sport has been everything to us like we i grew up with all the fundamentals of sport and i think young people today actually i worry that they're not playing enough sport because sport teaches you everything winning losing discipline respect manners everything and with us like he was the dad where you could take 10 penalties and you might have missed nine but every other dad jumps over the last one to let you score.

Speaker 9 He's the one that tips it around the corner and celebrates after, you know, so, and I'm like that with my kids. And sport, business to us is sport.

Speaker 9 So we're always competing, whether that's against each other or whatever. So it's been a big part of my life sport because it gives you the winning mentality.

Speaker 9 And, you know, when we were young, he always said that

Speaker 9 when I got to 18, he would take me in the ring and we'd fight because he wanted to sort of show me that I was just a rich kid and, you know, he'll show me what it's like to be a real man.

Speaker 9 But I got to 16 and I was like six foot foot one. Oh.
So we brought it forward two years. And he came out in the first round.

Speaker 9 But it's hard to tell this story because people don't really understand my background.

Speaker 9 And I just remember covering up and I just saw his face, you know, and he was winging him in around the side of my head. And three rounds in and I dropped him to the body and he didn't get up.

Speaker 1 And he was so proud.

Speaker 9 Like normally you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? He told everyone. See my son? Oh, he knocked me out to the body, soaked it up.

Speaker 9 And like, that was, you know, that was like his stamp of approval to go, my boy is is all right you know um it's got to be weird as a kid like what were your emotions like you knock your dad out are you proud in the moment or are you initially like oh my god i fucked up i'm gonna get my ass no i wanted him to get up so i could give him more like that was that was that was us you know now the important question is you have kids now will you be doing the same i have two daughters okay

Speaker 9 but listen they were you know

Speaker 9 I just the same problem I, you know, we talk about first generational success, which I was, like, they're second, it's even harder yeah with them and I want to spoil them I work as hard as I can every day and I want to try and give them everything that they want but at the same time there's a couple of key fundamentals that every parent should try and install in their kids which is discipline manners respect

Speaker 9 understanding the value of money, you know, being kind, you know, all these things and having a passion for something.

Speaker 9 Because I see so many of these kids today and they just mope around with no passion. And that's when it comes back to sport.

Speaker 9 So I'm like, you know, play netball play hockey play cricket just trying to push them into all sports but as we know every kid now is looking at the phone they're tick-tocking I mean it's like drives me absolutely berserk but I can't give them a normal life if you like but what I can is make sure they're real people yeah

Speaker 2 most important do you ever like subconsciously find yourself setting up fights between them

Speaker 9 but I do do that with other kids and actually my daughter my daughter my my sister has twins who are five and just every now and again, I'll just go, just like when there's no one around, just look around and go, guys, just out of interest, who would win in a fight between you two?

Speaker 1 Well, you're a little bit taller than the other one, aren't you? That's right. Actually, you're not as tough as your brother, are you? The next thing they're rolling around, I'm like, go on, go on.

Speaker 9 And then my sister will come in and go, what's going on here?

Speaker 1 So I don't know. So are you constantly, whenever you walk somewhere, like sizing people up? Like, all right, that could be a good fight.
That would be a good one right there.

Speaker 9 That's a good matchup.

Speaker 1 What do you think about this guy right here?

Speaker 9 He's a big lump. Yeah.
I saw him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, pointing to Billy.

Speaker 9 I saw you on the Canelo Alvarez tape. You were taking some...
No, Bivol was hitting you to the body, right?

Speaker 1 Bivol was hit. Yeah, what did you think?

Speaker 9 Did you rate that power?

Speaker 13 I got punched by some heavyweights in my day, and that was just as jabby.

Speaker 2 When heavyweights in your day, plural.

Speaker 1 He thought Jose Conseco.

Speaker 2 And also, when is your day?

Speaker 1 He thought Jose Conseco. I don't know.
Jose Conseco took a dive.

Speaker 12 He did not take a dive.

Speaker 1 He might have. He quit.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 But Bivol, Bivol's a good fighter. I mean, it's going to be a great fight.
You know, you were around him. Nice guy.

Speaker 13 The way he moved and his size and power was insane. I think Bivol's going to shock the world.

Speaker 1 Ooh. Whoa.
That's my thing. Whoa.

Speaker 9 A lot of people do.

Speaker 1 Wow. Okay.
So.

Speaker 9 Is that after feeling his power? Yeah. Because I reckon if Canelo Alvarez hears you, you know, you saying that you felt Bivo's power and you think he's going to win, I think he'll be very concerned.

Speaker 1 No, not at all.

Speaker 1 So the fight-promoting game, when you are coming up,

Speaker 1 I mean, I would imagine it's one of the only professions where it feels like if you're cutting corners or getting one over on your competition, it's like applauded.

Speaker 1 Were you always looking over your back like, all right, this guy's trying to fuck me, this guy's trying to fuck me.

Speaker 9 In terms of other promoters?

Speaker 1 Yeah, other promoters. It's the worst business in the world.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 The worst business because everyone wants you to fail. Yeah.

Speaker 9 You know, and like when you start out, you know, I sort of, I've always had a passion for boxing, but probably 12 years ago, I started going at it hard, taking over the UK. Then we come.

Speaker 9 When I came to America, oh my God,

Speaker 9 I just thought.

Speaker 9 Because in the UK, brash, loud, and I thought to myself, you need to come into the US and basically tell everyone you're going to end them.

Speaker 9 Right? So I turned up at the press conferences.

Speaker 9 We're going to take over boxing, all these other pro, and basically it was a bad move because they all just got together and went, right, fuck Eddie Hearn. Let's just freeze him out.
Wow.

Speaker 9 And it took me, you know, a couple of years really to actually find our feet. And obviously, the growth of the zone as well.

Speaker 9 When I came in, you know, I'm sitting down with fighters and I'm like, you know, we're with the zone and it's this new app. And these fighters are going, what, what,

Speaker 9 what's going on? You know, we're with ESPN, we're with HBO.

Speaker 9 and obviously once the brand of the zone and people saw how serious they were and obviously saw how serious we were and we started breaking down the barriers with Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin it took us two or three years to gain the position we're in now I mean we're the only global promotional company in the world everybody else just promotes in their own markets and right now we're in a straight race in in America with PBC and and Al Heyman and Bob Arriman top rank and the SPN.

Speaker 9 So what a great place to be in just some mouthy kid from the UK who's come over to to take on the world. And that's the attitude we got.

Speaker 2 You were talking about when you first started out in the UK, when you first went fully into it, and admittedly, I don't know much about boxing.

Speaker 2 I don't know that much about boxing in the UK especially. But I did read a little bit about you before you came in.
And there was a lot of talk about the Harrison Fay fight.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Harrison. Hey, yeah.

Speaker 9 So I used to do all the major poker TV shows. So I'll produce them.
So I created all of the sort of major TV programming for poker.

Speaker 9 And I was playing in Vegas in in the World Series and there was a guy called Audley Harrison. Now this guy won Olympic gold for Great Britain,

Speaker 9 heavyweight and great personality. Like everyone knew who Audley Harrison was, but everyone thought he was useless.

Speaker 9 But I sat down with him at a poker table and he went, look, you know, his career was over, really. And he said, you know, could you bring me back? I wasn't even promoting at the time.

Speaker 9 I was doing poker. I was like, yeah, I'll bring you back.
Of course I'll bring you back. You know, we'll go out, we'll win a few fights, we'll come back, I'll put you in for the European title title.

Speaker 9 And then we'll fight David Hay for the world title. And before you know it, you could be world heavyweight champion.
And he was like, yeah? And then I went outside and went, oh, shit.

Speaker 9 And then he phoned me and he went, let's do it.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh, no.

Speaker 9 So he went out, won a few fights, put him in for the European title. He got beat every round.

Speaker 2 He didn't throw a punch, right?

Speaker 9 No, this is for the European title. There was one minute to go.
He knocked the guy clean out in the 12th round. In fact, I remember so clearly.

Speaker 9 Five seconds before the knockout, my dad turned to me and said, I know you're disappointed, son, but when you, after the bell goes, just get in and commiserate Audley Harrison and take it as a man.

Speaker 9 I went, fuck that, I ain't getting in the ring. I said, I can't believe it.
Anyway, he knocked the guy out. I couldn't get in the ring quick enough.
I was hugging him. You're the greatest of all time.

Speaker 9 Next thing, I've made the David Hay fight for the World Heavyweight Championship in Manchester. I've sold this fight like you wouldn't believe.
Sold out Manchester Arena, pay-per-view box.

Speaker 9 All my friends have bought ringtie tickets. I told them Audley Harrison was going to shock the world, become the new World Heavyweight Champion.
He didn't throw a punch.

Speaker 9 For three rounds, he just stood there and then he got knocked clean out.

Speaker 2 It's crazy. Everyone said to me, you're a joke, Hearn.

Speaker 9 You're a joke. And I went, I'm done in boxing.
I said, that was great fun. Next day, every fighter's calling me.
Wow, I saw what you've done with Audley Harrison. You've got to sign me.

Speaker 9 And it just went crazy from there.

Speaker 2 What was that like after that fight, though? Because you had put your nuts on the line.

Speaker 1 Horrendous.

Speaker 2 And this was your name. And you have a guy that literally does not try at all in the ring.
That's got to be a pretty low feeling for you.

Speaker 9 Like before that fight, he's a great salesman, Audley Harrison, right? You believe everything he said. We stood in that changing room.
Everyone got in a huddle.

Speaker 9 You know, he said, you know, the Lord, Audley Harrison said, they told me I would never get an education. And I came through and I got a master's degree.

Speaker 9 They told me I would never be an amateur boxer. And I went and won Olympic gold.
And tonight, I will become world heavyweight champion. I mean, I was in tears.

Speaker 9 I was like so convinced he was going to win. Come out, didn't throw a punch, sat in the changing room with him after, and I said, Audley, what was that?

Speaker 1 What happened?

Speaker 9 And he he went, I thought the ref jumped in a bit too early. I was like, Oh my god, so like I was, I was done.
The next day, I remember going to a sandwich shop by my office, right?

Speaker 9 You know, when it's like really loud in there, and then you open the door, and it's just like, yeah, you know, and everyone just looked at me and went, Prick, you know, and I was just

Speaker 9 seriously, I just thought, I'm done in boxing. I never even wanted, I saw the shit that my dad went through in boxing, and I just thought, no.

Speaker 9 And then everyone started calling me because all the promoters rolled. I mean, back then, I was 30 and I was just a young kid just talking a lot.

Speaker 9 And people just looked at it and went you know what it's different and we signed everybody in the UK and I got the exclusive deal with the biggest broadcaster within like six months and we just took over UK boxing and obviously America was the next challenge and signing Canelo Alvarez was is just massive yeah for our business you know it's got to be I mean again we're on a very very very small scale with our rough and rowdy but when there's when a card doesn't pan out it's the worst feeling in the world because you know people are paying good hard money to watch this and they want to be entertained my dad said it best he said you know social media is is so good and bad in terms of promoting because back in his day you would just put posters up under train stations whereas i've got the ability to hit a couple of million people in their hand with information about a fight he said but the downside of social media is you can finish a show you know and go yeah that was all right i'll go for something to eat now you you have to read the criticism yeah and you can say i don't read it and i try not to but of course you do and you you want to put on a great show people have paid money People have tuned in.

Speaker 9 And there's no better feeling when you put on a great show. And people go, what a night.
Because we're there to give people a great night. I want people to leave T-Mobile Arena.

Speaker 9 I want people to turn off the zone or listen to your commentary and go, that was a great night. That put a smile on my face.
And that's my job as a promoter. So it hurts.

Speaker 9 when it doesn't, you know, you guys can, even at your level, it doesn't matter. You can do a show and go, what a night this is going to be.
Look at this fight. Look at the card.

Speaker 9 And it doesn't play out. And everyone goes, that was shit.
And you go, oh, and you're deflated.

Speaker 1 yeah because i i heard you doing another interview where you you basically were saying and it struck me because we're obviously diehard sports fans and those moments that's what like that's what we live for the moments where you walk out of an arena and you're like i saw something i never thought i'd see before well even when we did anthony joshua against andy ries at madison square garden it was my first show at msg it was the world heavyweight championship aj was a massive favorite you know he lot he got dropped five times and stopped, I think, in the sixth round.

Speaker 9 I felt like my world was about to end. They're still talking about it today in New York.
That was one of the greatest nights ever. The biggest upset in heavyweight history.

Speaker 9 I'm like, actually, yeah, we did that. I mean, it didn't work out how we wanted it to.

Speaker 9 But when you've got a great fighter like Canelo Alvarez, it does take the heat off because you know, like, you know, we talked about Bivo. I know this fight's going to be special.

Speaker 9 It can't be anything but. It's not going to be a one-sided fight.
It's not going to be an easy fight.

Speaker 9 It's going to be a thrilling fight and it could just be one for the ages and if it is fantastic because you're a small part of that yeah yeah which what's the best fight that you've ever promoted

Speaker 9 I mean probably Anthony Joshua against Vladimir Klitschko at Wembley you know he's Anthony Joshua is the Olympic gold medalist superstar in the UK around the world world heavyweight champion Vladimir Klitschko was the longest reigning world heavyweight champion

Speaker 9 AJ dropped him dropped Klitschko in the fifth round he got dropped in the sixth round He was out on his feet. He came back to knock Klitschko out in the 11th round.

Speaker 9 That was in front of 90,000 people at Wembley. Wow.
And it was, you know, it was just epic. And it's only when you look back on the pictures and you go,

Speaker 9 I don't even remember being there, let alone, you know, seeing those sights. And you're so engrossed in the fight.
You're sitting there next to the ring. And, you know, there's nothing like it.

Speaker 9 We work across, I think, 12 different sports. Boxing's so unique.

Speaker 9 Even MMA, UFC, I was at the one in London.

Speaker 9 There's something about you know combat sports the brutality of it the the excitement of it it's not for everyone but it's for me yeah our guy patty though you saw our guy patty the batty that's our guy i was there yeah no the first one and molly the meatball she's here

Speaker 9 too yeah well she was there doing the taylor serrano stuff so two great characters yeah two great characters that's what you need you need characters in sport and you know i enjoyed it because i started to understand um mixed martial arts yeah uh tyson fury do you think he's actually retired no Yeah, because every boxer, like no boxer has ever retired.

Speaker 9 Tyson Fury beat Dillian White the other day. He FaceTimed me half a dozen times the next day asking for Anthony Joshua's number.
You know, so he ain't retiring for nothing.

Speaker 9 I mean, look, he just wants to make as much of it. Tyson Fury, who the way is a great fighter and actually a great personality.
Don't believe a word he says.

Speaker 9 I was watching his interview the other day.

Speaker 1 He's like, you know, I don't care about money.

Speaker 9 I drive a Volkswagen passat or something like that. He's got about four Rolls-Royces.

Speaker 1 You know, he goes, I mean, I have got a couple of Rolls-Royces, but I'm not bothered about them.

Speaker 9 No, not at all. You know, you just have selfies in front of them all the time, you know.

Speaker 9 But he's a great character, great fighter.

Speaker 9 I think he will always be there. But he may go to WWE and do a bit.

Speaker 9 Francis and Ganu, you know, talk about a UFC crossover fight. So I just hope he has those big fights against AJ and Usik because he's in his prime.
Right. And he could be a generational great.

Speaker 9 You know, he's very good, but maybe he won't be.

Speaker 1 And it is like very unique to boxing that retirement for boxers is used as a ploy. And I feel like boxers retire all the time, and then they're like...

Speaker 9 He just says what he wants at that specific moment. And then he has to roll with it for a few weeks.

Speaker 9 It won't be my last fight. And then obviously, as the fight wins, it goes, so is that your last fight?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 9 Yeah. Thinking, no.

Speaker 2 Have you ever considered doing that and using that ploy?

Speaker 1 Retire? Yeah.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I did say the other day that I would retire at 50 from boxing, never from sport. And I probably will.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 1 I just see like Bob Bob Aram yeah for example who you're gonna kick his ass oh what September 12th

Speaker 9 Madison Square Garden September 12th is a Monday okay so we'll have to do it on the 10th okay because obviously we need the big gate for that one I love it so but the thing is is I look at Bob Aram in interviews like

Speaker 9 frothing you know I look at his blood pressure's through the roof normally talking about me oh and that hern he don't know shit about boxing you know it's like

Speaker 9 I'm looking at him going what are you doing what are you doing i mean one how you're even alive i don't know but two

Speaker 9 at your age like at least like be on a beach like have a cocktail and a cigar you know i mean i admire the passion and i admire that you know the the durability that the man has but what at what point do you look at your life and go don't need that shit anymore yeah yeah but i i guess in the promotion game you have to be competitive and that's not something that i think turns off the second you turn 50 in all business no but in all business you have to be competitive but boxing is very different you know know I could I could do our other sports till I'm 120 if I lasted that long boxing's different boxing's sleeping with one eye open right and it there comes and it's fun

Speaker 9 I still love it but I think to myself you can't you can't go it's about a day not on your phone you can't go five minutes not on your phone because if you don't get that call if you don't take that opportunity one you've missed the opportunity or you're about to get fucked right so you have to if you're going to be in boxing if you want to be the best you have to live and breathe it for every second of the day and that's a lifestyle that not many can can live what's the most ridiculous request that you've ever received from a fighter or from their camp um

Speaker 9 blind me i mean just generally like the the arguments come

Speaker 9 Sometimes you'll make a deal for a fight and it will fall through down to like the most ridiculous arguments. And a very common one is, I want first choice of changing rooms.

Speaker 9 And it's like what and then you go to your guy and you go just let you know like we've done the deal but he wants first choice of changing rooms fuck off he ain't having first choice of changing rooms there's no fight no no no no what are you talking about you're about to make 20 million shut up and use whatever changing rooms available no

Speaker 9 i know that venue and there's a specific changing room i want oh for fuck's sake i'm sitting i've worked on this fight for three months you know so different things the way they travel to get there the gloves that they want to use drug testing for the fight specifics of it.

Speaker 9 You know, it's just, it's never ending. It's very difficult.
That's why, to be fair to Jake Paul,

Speaker 9 he's not been tarnished with the sort of bitterness brush of boxing. So when we did our fight, Taylor Serrano,

Speaker 9 people keep saying to me, do you like Jake Paul? I go, I've not even really thought about it, to be honest with you. But he's great for the fight.

Speaker 9 And we just got together and said, let's make this fight as big as can be. And we're all working in the same direction.
But in boxing, it's like, I don't like him. I'm not helping him.

Speaker 9 Oh, i hope he fuck i hope he fails i'm it's like in the end it's so draining yeah because actually when you work with jake although he's a little bit out there like it's quite refreshing right because he's like let's make this fight as big as possible yeah right like it's just common sense he's a promoter as well yeah he is but he's also like him logan they're geniuses yeah they're content creators they're smart kids they're not just

Speaker 9 you know pricks who have got big mouths they're very smart individuals that they know how to interact with their followers and their fan base and their platform.

Speaker 9 And they've built platforms that enable them to do whatever they like. You know, a lot of people in boxing are bitter about the fact that Jake Paul can walk into boxing.

Speaker 9 You hear fighters go, I've been grinding in the gym for 25 years and I can't make it. I said, because you haven't built the platform that he has.
He's built that platform, that opportunity.

Speaker 9 He can do whatever he wants. Right? And Logan, Logan's super smart.
Like, Jake's smart, but Logan is on another level. You know, very smart guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So if it was just about boxing, where would Jake be ranked? You said that he's better than some.

Speaker 9 No, he's better than like some that you'd give to a young prospect in the tomato cans.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 Tomato cans. But I don't want to disrespect him like that because

Speaker 9 he may be a little bit better than I give him credit for, and that will show in time. But you know, boxing,

Speaker 9 boxing, you've got to be tough. I don't know how tough he is.

Speaker 1 It's hard to do road work in silk pajamas.

Speaker 9 That's a Marvin Hagler line, and that's a great line.

Speaker 9 And again, sorry to keep, you know, sort of praising Canelo Alvarez, but

Speaker 9 when you have more money than you ever dreamed of,

Speaker 9 when you have more belts than you ever fantasized about as a kid,

Speaker 9 how do you want it more than ever?

Speaker 9 Right? In a sport as brutal as boxing. And that is why Canelo Alvarez is a pure winner.

Speaker 9 Because when he was growing up, in Guadalajara and he was selling ice pops on the road, he dreamed of having all the things that he's got now.

Speaker 9 But now he's got it. He wants it more than ever.
And I love that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it really is the best part about boxing because that's the rise and the fall of a lot of fighters where you get to see that story arc where they get to the top and then you know it's Buster Douglas Mike Tyson and like these things where guys get everything and it's hard to be as hungry as a guy on the rise.

Speaker 9 But when the punches are raining down on you and you're in the clinch, right?

Speaker 9 When you have nothing and you know that if you get through this moment, you could change your life forever.

Speaker 9 When you've changed your life forever already and you're back in that same clinch and you're fighting someone that wants to change their life forever, but you have still got the competitive edge and the stubbornness to bite down on your gum shield and say, no, not tonight.

Speaker 9 That makes you a true great, especially in a sport like boxing. So for Canelo Alvarez.

Speaker 9 You know, he still has that in him. And that is a unique fighter.
That is a winner. Because so many great fighters get to that level.
And they're not the same person. And I don't blame them at all.

Speaker 9 Nazim Hamed, you know, a great fighter from the UK years ago. Great example.
One of the most gifted fighters of all time. Made a load of money.
Ended up fighting Marco Antonio Barrera.

Speaker 9 Went to training camp in Lakinta. He was laughing.
He was looking up at the mountains, laughing at the Big Bear Mountains, going,

Speaker 9 Barrera's up in the mountains.

Speaker 1 What? Look. And he was in the pool.

Speaker 9 You know, and they come on fight night. He got he got destroyed.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the Rocky storyline, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 but that's but boxing's so unique and it's it's hard to explain if you're not in it but how can you be that same individual that you were when you had nothing in a sport like that yeah and that's very you know that's why canelo is is a hero to so many people still the same individual still the same kid from the streets of guadlajara yeah i think i feel some people have to keep inventing reasons to get mad in order to spark themselves to keep training and some people just absolutely love the sport yeah it sounds like canelo falls into that

Speaker 9 you have to love whatever you do for longevity and consistency because otherwise you get lazy like complacency is the biggest you know problem in in business in sport and everything once you become complacent once you lose that drive you're not the same individual but that should happen in boxing because it's horrible sport really brutal tough to just brutal you know get punched in the face and still love it even though you're making money

Speaker 9 yeah and you've got like a ranch in guadlajaro you've got a huge house in san diego you're sitting there you've got people working for you bringing you food out and you now and someone goes you've got to go and do 12 rounds of sparring with some 21-year-old kid who had nothing.

Speaker 9 Yeah, you go, No, I'm all right, thanks. I'll have a game of golf.
But what he does is he does the 12 rounds of sparring and then plays a game of golf.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, yeah, unique.

Speaker 2 Uh, we were talking the other week about some of the fighters that Tommy Hearn has faced over the years, and it's it's funny to like look at Tommy Fury.

Speaker 2 Sorry, sorry, Tommy Fury, that Tommy Furious face. Looking at their combined records, I think it's like 12 and 174.

Speaker 2 Where do you find, as like a boxing promoter, where do you find somebody who's like one in 40 lifetime?

Speaker 9 Like, I mean,

Speaker 9 they're out there.

Speaker 9 You know, and it's, but you know what? Like, Tommy's doing that because

Speaker 9 he's actually not good enough to fight other opposition. But those fighters do nothing for the progression of a young fighter.
But Tommy's fighting bad opposition because he's actually not that good.

Speaker 9 I don't mean that disrespectfully, but he's just not. Like, if we sign a kid out of the Olympics, you've got to build them and you've got to test them.
Matchmaking is a skill.

Speaker 9 It's a science to actually develop a fighter and mold him into a champion. Whereas with Tommy, the process is more like, is there anyone out there he can beat? Yeah.
You know, oh, there's this bloke.

Speaker 9 You know, and like. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's basically just fighting whoever he can fight until Jake Paul takes him.

Speaker 9 Yeah, and Jake Paul payday for him. That's why Jake's in such a great position because there's no fight out there for Tommy Fury that can pay him anywhere near that kind of money other than Jake Paul.

Speaker 9 And I think Jake knows that and he quite enjoys it.

Speaker 1 Right, oh well. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 15 And to be fair to Jake Paul, they made the fight, and Tommy Fury pulled out two weeks before the fight.

Speaker 9 So he gave him his chance.

Speaker 1 Jake Paul would, yeah.

Speaker 1 When I went to Tommy Fury, he fought on the undercard against one of Jake Paul's. Our smart partners.

Speaker 9 He was pouring out one.

Speaker 1 What the hell?

Speaker 1 Real quick, darts. You also do darts.
Oh, mate.

Speaker 1 How can we get darts huge in America because I love watching Barstall.

Speaker 9 There's been a lot of meetings with Barstall and the PDC, which is a professional darts corporation, which is our governing body and our business we run.

Speaker 9 Darts has so much potential in America because, let me tell you, it is the greatest night out that you will ever witness. Go on to YouTube, look at the events.

Speaker 9 We're doing 20,000 crowd for darts in Germany, 15,000 in the UK. You know, it's growing at such a rapid pace.
And coming up in June...

Speaker 9 For the first ever time,

Speaker 9 Madison Square Garden. Oh, I got it.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 9 I'm going to go right now. Bastall, I know know you're going to be there because I've been talking to Dazone and those guys.
You guys come to the darts. I swear you will not believe what you see.

Speaker 1 Oh, I believe it.

Speaker 2 I mean, the clips that I've seen on TV are just, it looks, you know what? It's mental.

Speaker 1 It is.

Speaker 9 It's mental, but so up your street because these are ordinary people.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Right? A bunch of fat guys can be.

Speaker 9 Yeah, but like, but it's changing because there's so much money. Oh, I don't like that.

Speaker 1 Wait, are you got guys who are looking like they do CrossFit?

Speaker 2 Are they working out?

Speaker 1 Do you have to do like sit-ups to be able to throw a dart?

Speaker 9 Yeah, but you've got these guys. You need weight classes.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You test the success.

Speaker 1 There's a heavyweight darts championship. Is there drug testing involved? They're heavyweight darts.
But you know what as well?

Speaker 9 It's like these guys are coming from, honestly, like normal jobs. Like it could be a builder, could be.
Next thing, they're making like a couple of million bucks a year.

Speaker 9 And it's just, the fans love it because there's not like this territorial, I want my team to win. And if we lose.
So everyone just goes and enjoys it. Everyone dresses up in fancy dress.

Speaker 9 Like the amount of pints, you know, lager consumed is like through the roof. It is unbelievable to watch and it will crack America.
And that's the first little step in June.

Speaker 1 I like that too because like everyone's going for drama, not like, oh, my team versus your team. It's like, we just want a great

Speaker 9 a lot of the time they don't actually know who's playing.

Speaker 1 Right. But that's great.

Speaker 9 I hope he's playing. I know him.
Yeah, he's got the funny Walcon music. You know, I like him.

Speaker 2 So what do you get dressed up as?

Speaker 2 Are you wearing tuxedos or wearing

Speaker 1 costumes?

Speaker 9 Whatever you want. Bart Simpson, Spider-Man, Batman.

Speaker 1 You know, it doesn't really matter. That was spoken like a true Englishman being like, what should the Americans dress up as? Bart Simpson.

Speaker 1 I didn't really know any of us, to be honest with you. What is America? Oh, yeah.
Bart Simpson.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 18 This season, transform your space into an entertainer's dream with Wayfair. Everything ships fast, right to your door.
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Speaker 1 Briefly, it was a one-off. I caught it.
So Canelo wins on May 7th.

Speaker 1 Triple G Canelo?

Speaker 9 That's the one. That's the one.
Canelo Alvarez beats Dimitri Bivo in Las Vegas September 17th. You'll see the trilogy.
Canelo against Triple G. Okay.
Triple G did his part.

Speaker 9 He went to Japan, you know, after being out of the ring for 400 days and beat the world champion there. He'll be in Vegas next week, I'm sure.
And if he wins, as I said, you'll see the trilogy.

Speaker 1 Now, are you a little nervous, though, because the trilogy will be a week after you fight Bob Aram.

Speaker 9 Well, this is something we have to consider. Yeah.
And maybe we'll move the Canelo Triple G fight because of the size of Hern V. Aram.

Speaker 2 But yeah, you're not going to move that one.

Speaker 9 No. That's locked in.
But the problem is, at 90 years old, how long can we wait?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You got to give him first choice of dressing rooms, right?

Speaker 1 Maybe whatever he wants.

Speaker 2 Maybe one has the special toilet head.

Speaker 1 I love you, Eddie, because you are like, being a boxing promoter has to be just so thrilling because everything you say, you can walk out and be like, I was just promoting.

Speaker 15 Like, you could talk shit to anyone.

Speaker 1 By the way, that's promotion.

Speaker 9 But I'll build a fight, right? So one of our guys will be fighting someone. I'll be going, you know, this is a tough fight.
This guy can really punch.

Speaker 9 You know, I think this, this, you know, this is a 50-50 fight. And then our guy will win.
And I'll be like, go up to him and go, well done.

Speaker 1 He's like, no, fuck you. Yeah.
I heard what you said. You said he could knock me out.
I said, I was just building the fight, man. I'm just selling it.
Don't take it personally.

Speaker 2 I imagine you take a lot of pictures with fighters.

Speaker 1 That's like half of it. I'll do that one.
you know. Yeah, so do you do the point?

Speaker 1 The point. Do you ever do the point? You don't do it with the fist.

Speaker 9 You get criticism for the fist.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because you're not.

Speaker 9 Which you think you are a fighter. You're not a fighter.
So now you do the point. But then, guess what? You get criticism for the point.

Speaker 2 I like the point, though. You got to do something.
Sometimes I tried to bring the thumbs up.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Number one is good.

Speaker 2 Thumbs up.

Speaker 1 You got to do the free stuff.

Speaker 9 I think if you're going to give thumbs, it's that one.

Speaker 1 Double thumbs. Double thumbs up.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But this has been great, and we appreciate it.
We're very excited for May 7th. Go buy the fight, zone, d-a-z-n.com.
You can hear me and and Dave on the broadcast.

Speaker 1 It's going to be awesome. Nothing better than Vegas for a big fight.

Speaker 9 Absolutely. See you there.

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Speaker 6 Okay, Firefest of the week.

Speaker 6 Henry, would you like to lead us off? Sure.

Speaker 10 I got a couple Firefests. This is just a general one.
I just,

Speaker 10 Apple products are the fucking worst things in the world.

Speaker 10 Like the fact that you need to use adapters just to use, like, I mean, it's probably a little bit niche, but like, if you need an SD card reader, you have to have an extra adapter.

Speaker 10 If you want to plug in an HDMI, you have to have an extra adapter.

Speaker 10 The chargers aren't USB chargers chargers anymore you need the specific like usbc chargers uh it's just it's just annoying as

Speaker 10 i hate apple has nothing to do with the fact that maybe you forgot one of those items no i have all these items but i don't have the proper like i only have a certain amount of the usbc adapters i had to give big guy one for his microphone and it's like i was trying to plug in my computer whatever whatever whatever whatever uh the real firefest was i was in the austin airport yesterday.

Speaker 10 I was in Austin for a day filming an exciting announcement that will be coming out Monday, but I was in the Austin airport coming to Vegas and I was walking through and I got, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Speaker 10 There was a vending machine that just sold cupcakes.

Speaker 10 Never seen it before. It was like, whoa, like this is a vending machine, but it's just for cupcakes.
And I was like,

Speaker 10 I got to get one of these cupcakes.

Speaker 10 get a cupcake walk over to my gate my flight's boarding so i didn't eat it before i got my flight i was like i'll just hold it and then eat it when I get to my seat.

Speaker 10 As I'm getting onto the plane, there was a sassy male flight attendant who was like, basically, call me a little boy. He was like, oh, like, you got yourself a nice little, nice little boy dessert.

Speaker 10 And I was like, what? He's like, I see that little cupcake. Like, that looks good.
I was, and

Speaker 10 he was just so rude to me.

Speaker 1 Sounds like it's like, sounds like he's being really nice, Hank. No, no, no.
He's like,

Speaker 2 look at the big boy with his big treat.

Speaker 1 That's exactly what he said, pretty much.

Speaker 10 He's like, you got yourself a little treat there, buddy. And I was like, what?

Speaker 10 Yeah, like, and I just, and then I went to my seat so rattled, but the cupcake was, was fine.

Speaker 10 But it was just like, it was, it was demoralizing, if we're being honest.

Speaker 2 Hank's just not used to people talking to him that way. He's used to, please, sir, knocks on the door.
May I enter? Schedule an appointment to talk to me.

Speaker 2 Not so much the face-to-face guy he used to be.

Speaker 6 Yeah, Hank, I thought your firefest was going to be when you had to address the entire barstool sales team. And I was standing in the back, and Hank was like, please get out of here, Big Cat.

Speaker 6 I was just smiling ear to ear and he knew that I was going to start taking pictures.

Speaker 10 Yeah. Like we saw that, yeah, they asked me to do a little, there's a national sales conference.
They asked me to do a little presentation, you know, naturally.

Speaker 10 And I'm luckily not that nervous of public speaking. I would probably credit this show and getting roasted on it for six years as

Speaker 7 a reason for that.

Speaker 10 So I'm like not nervous whatsoever.

Speaker 10 and then as I go to stand up big cat like finished his little thing and I thought he was leaving and then he was just standing in the background like yelling like basically like Chris Jenner holding the phone like you're doing great sweetie and I was so I literally had to ask him to leave I was like please leave like please please leave uh so yeah that was yeah it's just been a fire week fire ass week how was the cupcake though

Speaker 10 cupcake was was decent, not worth the shame that I received for it.

Speaker 2 I also just feel like cupcakes are that food item that has gotten, it's the ultimate example of like Instagram meets real life, where it's like cupcakes have become their own thing, their own thing that like people think are just like cute and pastel colored and something cool that you can take a picture of.

Speaker 2 But as far as eating a cupcake, I can think of like five or six other desserts that are handheld that I would rather eat than a cupcake.

Speaker 10 Yeah. Yeah, I don't like all the frosting.
Like, I like the cake, but sometimes it's too much frosting.

Speaker 1 Sometimes there's not enough frosting.

Speaker 6 Yeah, cupcakes are like

Speaker 6 five times a year. Ooh, that's nice.
Cupcake.

Speaker 6 It's not something you like. I'd much rather have a cookie than a cupcake.

Speaker 10 I need someone in the Austin airport to also, this is the other thing. The cupcake comes out of the vetting machine before you can take it, it starts playing a song.
Like,

Speaker 10 you just got a cupcake. You just got a cup.

Speaker 1 It was wild.

Speaker 11 It was like, it was one of those things that were

Speaker 10 kind of like a novelty drink for PFT. Like if I see a vetting machine.

Speaker 1 Don't bring me into your big little boy cupcake treat. That was the blues-blues theme, right?

Speaker 10 Yeah, it was, yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 10 It wasn't that exact jingle, but it was if someone, if someone's in the Austin airport and can get the cupcake and take a video of it, it will give a lot of context to how just

Speaker 10 how much I regretted doing this.

Speaker 6 Hank, uh, last year, my son's for my son's birthday. I don't know what my daughter's cupcakes could be, but his were Elmo's.
So I'll bring in some extra after this year.

Speaker 6 You can get your little cupcake, pat you on your head.

Speaker 7 Thank you. Yeah, no problem.
Probably be Paw Patrol. That's delicious.

Speaker 6 All right, PFT.

Speaker 2 My Fire Fest, it happened last night, actually. So I was on the stream.
I was doing Ghost of Manhattan stuff, and I had memes.

Speaker 2 Memes hit me up and told me before I started the stream that just FYI Castellanos, he just had a kid, but he's not going to take the day off.

Speaker 2 Instead of going to be with his family, he's going to go to the ballpark. He's going to play.
You guys know that I love to bet on NFL players to score a touchdown if they had a baby that week.

Speaker 2 And so he was giving me a heads up, which I appreciate, memes.

Speaker 2 So I'm playing the game. I'm taking out bandits left and right.
I'm going after Putin hot on his trail. I get a text from Memes.

Speaker 1 All caps.

Speaker 2 Castillanos just hit a home run.

Speaker 2 Put a bet in on him, which was plus 440. I was super pumped.
I was like, oh, hell yeah. Castillanos just went yard.
Memes was giving me a heads up about it.

Speaker 2 And then I find out later on that night after I log off and check all the box scores, they reviewed it. They said it was fan interference and they took it away.

Speaker 1 I got Castellanos.

Speaker 10 You got John Sterling. I got John Sterling.

Speaker 2 I got Castellanos by Castellanos.

Speaker 2 I'm his most recent victim now for that.

Speaker 1 That's crazy.

Speaker 2 It was the right bet. It was the right bet.

Speaker 10 What you were going to say is when you said you were going to come up Putin's ass during the stream.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, I did. I said that,

Speaker 2 but I meant it in a violent way.

Speaker 1 I was going to come inside him violently, not in a sexual way. Nice.

Speaker 2 Nice. With a missile.
I was going to fire a heat seeker right up his tailpipe.

Speaker 2 I was going to put my rocket in his tailpipe and then explode. And I did it.

Speaker 6 Oh, that sucks, the Castellanos. Yeah.
Fan interference.

Speaker 2 Fan interference after you go out of your way to put a sizable wager on him that would have paid out nicely. And then you hear about it.

Speaker 2 So you, I mean, I got, I guess, memes, thank you for telling me because it did give me like 30 seconds of pure joy that I'll never be able to take back. Like, I, that was real to me.

Speaker 2 I experienced that moment, and then just later I had to find out, oh, shit,

Speaker 1 it's TJ Watt, MOB rigged. Yeah, yeah, it's TJ Watt.

Speaker 6 It's TJ Watt. Um, okay, my Fire Fest, it's one of those ones that's very, um, it's, it's like a personal cringe moment.
Uh, so on Sunday,

Speaker 6 Sundays are usually, Sunday mornings are usually when my brain activity is at its absolute lowest because it's like been a full weekend of parenting and it's just, I'm, I'm exhausted that my brain doesn't work.

Speaker 6 I was out walking. This guy comes up to me.
He's like, big cat. He's got an accent.
And he's like, oh my God, I can't believe I ran into you. I'm from Sweden.
And this is my first time in America.

Speaker 6 And I ran into you.

Speaker 6 And I just, for some reason, I don't know why, I was like, congrats. And I've been thinking about that moment like non-stop for the last six days.

Speaker 6 Telling someone, congratulations for seeing me is like the douchiest thing you could possibly say.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's like you, you basically treated it like he won the game of life.

Speaker 1 You did it.

Speaker 6 I don't know why I said it. I was just like, hey, congrats, dude.
And I was just like, afterwards, like, what the fuck did I just say?

Speaker 6 Thankfully, I don't know if he really like, maybe he thought that was like an American, because he was Swedish. So I'm hoping he thought like, we just say congrats instead of hello.

Speaker 6 But yeah,

Speaker 6 you know, when you have those interactions, like,

Speaker 6 or like, you know, when you go to like an

Speaker 6 air airport and your your Uber driver drops you off as like, have a good flight. You're like, you too.
Yeah. You're like, what the fuck did I just do? Those moments are just, they're tiny killers.

Speaker 6 They don't mean anything, but they just, they stick into your head for a week.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 10 I said that when I checked into the hotel, she was like, have a good stay. I was like, thanks, you too.
And then as I was walking away, I was like, fuck.

Speaker 1 Are you ever calling?

Speaker 2 They might live there, though. Or if like your teacher's talking to you and you're like, all right, I love you.
When you leave, and you're like, oh, no, I should.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I thought I was called my mom for a second.

Speaker 6 Yeah, you call your teacher mom. There's, I mean, everyone had that moment in like first grade, and you're like, oh, fuck.
That's the worst thing ever.

Speaker 2 I don't think it's that bad of a thing that you did, though, because if this guy's like a big, big cat fan and he came to the United States from Sweden, seeing you, like, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 He must think, like, I did hit the jackpot. You were probably right to congratulate.
Like, it would be like if I went to Italy and there's Mike Tarico.

Speaker 1 I would want him to be like, he got me.

Speaker 6 Got him.

Speaker 1 Boom. We went to France and Rudy Gobert was there.

Speaker 6 Yeah, exactly. Bombing out of the playoffs.
Damn.

Speaker 1 Love you, dude. He's there.

Speaker 2 He's coughing up a storm.

Speaker 6 Billy, you got a fire fest or you just canceled it for life?

Speaker 1 Billy reposted it.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I got to own up to it. So, retroactive Fire Fest.
I couldn't talk about it before, but now that it's out, you can go see it.

Speaker 7 I hopped in the ring with Dimitri Baval,

Speaker 14 who's going to be Canela's opponent on the broadcast this Saturday on dezone.com dash barstool for our stream. And it's on video.
Check it out on the barstool blog and YouTube.

Speaker 14 But I hop in the ring with him with a couple pads on, and it was one of the scariest experiences of my life.

Speaker 6 He also had my first Fire Fest. He also got, oh, what's your second one? Sorry, uh, the hogs.

Speaker 1 Oh, the hogs.

Speaker 6 Okay. Um, Dimitri Bival, like, that was great when you went up to see him and you're like, Do you remember me? And he's, what do you call you?

Speaker 14 He says,

Speaker 14 He's got a really good sense of humor. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What'd he say?

Speaker 6 He said, He said, John,

Speaker 1 It's a great movie.

Speaker 14 It's actually hilarious because I can tell that the way he's been trying to like learn English better is watching comedy.

Speaker 14 So like he's picked up a great sense of humor.

Speaker 2 What if you just watch Borat?

Speaker 2 That would be funny if somebody learned English by watching Borat and they thought that was like how we actually communicated over here.

Speaker 6 It'd also be funny if he just starts like if he's watching comedy and he just picks up only the most controversial bits.

Speaker 6 He's like just talking about jerking off in front of people like Louis CK or like he's got, he's got like real hot takes about trans people like Dave Chappelle.

Speaker 6 He's like, yeah, I've just been watching Netflix.

Speaker 10 There's no way Baval is going to win, Billy, right?

Speaker 1 Dude, Baval, like

Speaker 14 you can, you can't not root for Baval. The guy is just...

Speaker 6 Well, you could be Mexican.

Speaker 7 I will.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I'm going to root against...

Speaker 1 Baval.

Speaker 6 You could be from Mexico.

Speaker 15 Yeah, but like, Baval, he's like...

Speaker 14 so the second episode is actually coming out by the time you're hearing this. It's on the Barstool blog.
Probably check my Twitter. I've tweeted it by then.
But he's just the chillest dude.

Speaker 14 Like, I went to a barbecue with him, and he like makes really good steak.

Speaker 2 So it was like a really great time.

Speaker 1 As opposed to Canelo, he's going to win then.

Speaker 10 I take it back, though. There is a way he's going to win.

Speaker 1 If he's chilled, then he might win.

Speaker 6 Well, if he just cooks him a steak and just gets him off his gate.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Billy. He's like here to eat this steak.

Speaker 2 If you think his steak was good, you should eat Canelo's steak because canelo you remember he the steak that he eats is actually

Speaker 2 a stronger steak than the steak that baval eats you'd like that a lot better

Speaker 14 uh no but i mean he like he has one of the most efficient jabs i've ever seen but like i have a very small yeah so between him and i've heard that from but i've heard that

Speaker 14 no no no but i've heard that from like actual experts i've been hanging around with a lot of experts and uh baval cuts the ring off in like like ways like that people say hasn't been seen since like, you know, like Ali, but in the way that he moves.

Speaker 14 So it's going to be a good fight. It's not just, he's not going to just let Canela walk all over him.
And in order to win, he really needs to just knock him out.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 14 because if it goes to a decision, Canelo is winning.

Speaker 2 So it's going to be a slug fest.

Speaker 6 Well, make sure you buy it to zone.com slash barstool. It's going to be awesome.

Speaker 2 And make sure you use that URL, right?

Speaker 6 Yes, because then you can listen to us.

Speaker 6 Jake, finish this off.

Speaker 12 Yeah, the other day my glasses were on the couch and I accidentally sat on them and they cracked.

Speaker 1 So I've got a new one coming on. What a nerd.
Those? What a nerd. Yeah, that's a nice.
Wait, did you tape them?

Speaker 12 No, they're just like a little loose.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can tell.

Speaker 2 You're off your game a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker 6 You are the dweeb that LeBron was talking about.

Speaker 1 Yes, LeBron's doing a QA soon. Did you guys see that? Yeah, I did see that.
Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, so he just tweeted this out randomly. Do you have the tweet pulled up?

Speaker 12 I can find it. I haven't done a QA in a while.

Speaker 2 Man, I haven't done a QA on here in a while.

Speaker 16 Coming soon.

Speaker 12 Haven't done a Q ⁇ A on here with y'all in a while. Coming soon, Emoji.

Speaker 2 He could have just done it right then. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Dude, I remember Paul Gasol once did this. He did like answering questions for the next hour.
He answered one question and just forgot.

Speaker 6 It's kind of a power move. Just leave everyone waiting.

Speaker 2 I have LeBron notifications set up, obviously, on my Twitter. So

Speaker 2 I'll be the first to know when the Q ⁇ A actually happens. I think it might be, we might have to wait until like August for this Q ⁇ A.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it's going to be a long time.

Speaker 1 It also

Speaker 12 might have to be time to bring back baby Braun because he's got three or four guys shouting out every night, it seems like.

Speaker 1 Ja, he loves Ja.

Speaker 6 He loves Ja. He loves CP3, loves Tyrese.
Is Tyrese Max? He loves him.

Speaker 1 Or just set up a bingo card. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Actually, I need to start getting my draft ready for what I'm going to ask LeBron in his eventual Q ⁇ A. Yeah.
Are you better than MJ?

Speaker 6 By the way, their tequilas are up for the same award.

Speaker 6 Like, I don't know what the beverage World Series, who the fuck knows, but I saw that they both have tequilas and they're both up for tequila of the year. So if MJ wins, we'll be talking about that.

Speaker 6 If LeBron does, I'll just pretend this never happened. Okay.

Speaker 1 I noticed. Cool.
All right.

Speaker 6 Jake, you want to do the numbers? Yeah.

Speaker 6 Hank, you still, still, Hank, you still haven't gotten it?

Speaker 1 Yep. 93 on that one.
Nine.

Speaker 1 69.

Speaker 2 What number, Hank?

Speaker 1 Eight.

Speaker 1 93. Oh! You got it? How about that? Let's go.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Hey, fuck your Panthers. That's a sign back on the caps tonight.

Speaker 1 So that's huge.

Speaker 2 You know, I'd like to give this win to Hank.

Speaker 10 Hank, that wins. What's your roulette number, PMT? Give me a roulette number.

Speaker 2 21.

Speaker 1 We got to do

Speaker 6 a better job of like, I don't know if we can write it down, but every time someone wins, they'll like celebrate. I'll be like, wait, that was your number?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 It was like two seconds ago.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 6 Hell yeah, PFT.

Speaker 13 Let's go.

Speaker 2 Next year. 21.
Put on 21, Hank. Let me know how it goes.

Speaker 6 I'll do the same.

Speaker 6 I'll do the same. All right.
See you guys. Hit him straight.

Speaker 15 Yo, are you guys getting lunch or anything?

Speaker 6 No,

Speaker 1 no, Billy, come maybe in the live door.

Speaker 2 All right, I'll do Billy's Animal Fact of the Day.

Speaker 1 Sometimes in the wilderness attack leopards.

Speaker 9 Fuck.

Speaker 2 Love you guys.

Speaker 2 on

Speaker 2 me,

Speaker 2 take

Speaker 2 me

Speaker 2 on.

Speaker 2 I'll be

Speaker 2 gone

Speaker 2 too.

Speaker 2 Needless to say,

Speaker 2 I'm all set in spots. Do a little way.

Speaker 2 Though they're learning that life is okay.

Speaker 2 Say after me.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's no better to be safe than somebody.

Speaker 2 Say after me.

Speaker 2 It's no better to be safe than sorry.

Speaker 2 Take

Speaker 2 on

Speaker 2 me.

Speaker 2 Take

Speaker 2 me.

Speaker 2 I'll be

Speaker 2 gone

Speaker 2 in a day of day

Speaker 2 all the things that you say,

Speaker 2 Lord. Just to play my worries away.

Speaker 2 You're all things I've got to remember.

Speaker 2 You shine away.

Speaker 2 I'll be coming for you anyway.

Speaker 2 You shine away.

Speaker 2 I'll be coming for you anyway.

Speaker 2 Take

Speaker 2 on

Speaker 2 me.

Speaker 2 Take

Speaker 2 me

Speaker 2 up.

Speaker 2 I'll be

Speaker 2 gone

Speaker 2 in everything.

Speaker 2 I'll be

Speaker 2 young

Speaker 2 in every day.