Why Giannis Won’t Be a Knick, UFC’s Latest Boom, the Movie Theater Renaissance, Six Stages of Sean Penn, and ‘One Battle After Another’ With Ariel Helwani and Wesley Morris

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I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. It's still Robert Redford month.

We did Jeremiah Johnson. So that is our second, we have two left.
Yeah, Redford. And then

I think we have another theme month in November. So stay tuned for that.
Stay tuned on the Prestige TV podcast. Two more episodes of Task.
on HBO.

And episode five was a real, real, real classic banger.

Joanne Robinson, Rob Mahoney, and I will be breaking down on Sunday nights, episode six, episode seven.

Also, our buddies Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald on the watch, also breaking it down if you want double breakdowns. So there you go.
Check out the ringer.com. Check out all of our sports culture.

Basketball season starting. Not sure if you heard.
What's today's date? Yeah. It's starting in two weeks.
Holy macro. I just started doing research and it just feels too soon.

I need like another five weeks, but but unfortunately, I'm going to have to cram everything into one week. I watched the entire Monster Ed Gein

serial killer Netflix show

because I always watch those. I don't know.
He was one of the last serial killers I didn't really know anything about.

Really, really grisly show. And there was one night when I watched like two episodes and then fell asleep and I didn't sleep well.
So I wouldn't recommend that. But

I liked the first six.

i thought it tailed off at the end might have might have tightened it up but um netflix just doing their thing with serial killers just when you think they've run out there's another person who's murdered 50 people who gets a show um

i don't know why i like these shows

this one was interesting because

they

kind of they they use pop culture and and movie villains like the Texas Chainsaw Guy and

Buffalo Bill and Silence of the Lambs and

Anthony Perkins and Psycho. And they kind of use culture to say how Ed Gein was kind of like patient zero.
It's kind of like the Bill James of the Saber metric movement of zero killers.

So interesting angle.

But

it was, I don't know, it kept my interest. I had it on.
I don't think I ever fully, I always, Joanna Robinson and I always talk about this with the looking up and down iPad test.

If you're doing something like I'm doing emails or I'm

doing research for a podcast or whatever, and then looking up, watching the show and doing this. It's probably like a six out of 10.
But

for me, looking up versus down. Whereas like Task is like

a 10 out of 10, where I'm actually like, I put my phone and my iPad down. I'm actually just watching, maybe taking notes.
But anyway, Netflix, serial coerce. They might have to run back Bundy again.

It's been like five years since our last Bundy

anything. They said Lizzie Borden might be the next one for Monster.

Don't know a lot about her, so I'll be anxiously awaiting the next

Netflix.

Kudos to Netflix, just

cashing in on those murders.

Trying to think what else I'm watching.

Yeah, that's it. That's it for now.
Other than a little bit later, we'll be talking about one battle after another with Wesley Morris. But I want to talk big picture about movies and Sean Penn.

And just something seems to be shifting right now in the movie industry. So Wesley and I talked about that much later.

Coming Coming up next, Ariel Hawani and I are going to talk about this Giannis Nick stuff and just

is how real is Giannis actually playing on the Knicks? Is it even possible? What would you do if you're him? We're going to talk about all the machinations. And Ariel is a big Knicks fan.

So he has some hardcore thoughts. And then we're going to talk about Pereira Saturday night.
reestablished himself, what this means for UFC, this big 2026 UFC year we have coming.

And then we did some Buffalo Bills stuff as well because Ariel is a big Bills fan and the Patriots beat them last week, but I still think they're the favorites. We hashed all of it out.
Great stuff.

Really fun podcast. Hey, we're going to take a break, bringing Pro Jam next.
Erl Hilmani. This is the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel.
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All right, we are recording this. I swear this is my mistake not having him on last week before Pereira's rematch against Agolaev, before Bill's Pats.
Arya Hawani is here now.

The Patriots beat the Bills. I took nothing away from it.
We're going to talk about it later. I mean, I took a little away, but I, you know, I don't feel like we're on your corner.

It's still the Bills division. We're going to talk about all this stuff later.
I want to start with the Knicks, your favorite NBA team.

Because the Gianna story resurfaced today, and it's been resurfacing all summer. It keeps being a story.
There's a little smoke.

It's not like a billowing amount of smoke, but the smoke just keeps popping up, these little puffs. When you read these stories, do you get excited as a Knicks fan?

Like, walk me through your whole mindset because you must like this team. They're one of the favorites to win the title.
Okay. First of all, great to be back.
Thank you for having me.

I don't believe you for a second. Just for the record, you invited me on after your Patriots beat my bills, and I'm still depressed about it, but it's fine.
I'm here. I'm happy to talk about it.

We'll be okay. Let's talk about it.
But when did I text you, though? I texted you Sunday morning and I was like, I can't believe I blew it. I should have had you on last week.

And this is before the past game. I did do that.
You did do that, but you didn't say, oh, let's just do it on Tuesday.

Only after the loss by the Bills did you say, hey, want to come on, which is fine. I'm always happy.
It's an honor to be on and I'm happy.

And you deserve, congrats on your Super Bowl in October, is what I'll say. That's the classic thing.
That's the classic thing that everyone loves to say to put people down. I'm dismissive.
I like it.

Yes, yes, yes.

Okay, so I have mixed emotions when I see this because as you know, historically, people like to use the Knicks for leverage. That's been the move, right? Oh, we're talking to the Knicks.

We're going to the Knicks, this and that, and it never happens. The times, they are different now.
People actually want to go to the Knicks.

You're seeing veterans take smaller deals to go to the Knicks. You're seeing everyone want to talk about the Knicks and go to the Knicks and play for the Knicks and all this stuff.

And so I believe when I read that there is sincerity that Giannis wants to go to the Knicks. And I believe that his time in Milwaukee is coming to an end.

And I believe that Giannis is going to play for another team, at least one more team, before his career is said and done. Can that team be the Knicks?

I would be over the moon if it happens in the next year or so. The problem is I don't see the path to getting there.
Before the Bridges trade, I saw a path.

Even to a degree before the Cat trade, I saw a path. But now...

post-bridges trade and then post signing bridges and then all the other deals that they've done since og etc what's the path they don't have the assets and and i I could be a

delusional Knicks fan here and say, oh, of course they could trade CAD for the. That was the talk over the summer.
I just don't know if Milwaukee does that. So I try not to get too excited about this.

So I was going to do something before you came on, and I thought it would just be more fun to talk with you. I completely agree with there's no path.

And it's the part that's not getting kind of mentioned and reported enough. I don't think people understand how prohibitive these apron,

these first apron, second apron, the Knicks are hard capped under the second apron, but it also really, really hurts them.

From like, they can't take a player in a trade that's more money than they're getting out. Like, they can aggregate players.

They could trade Carl Anthony Towns and Miles McBride, who make more money than Giannis.

They could technically do a trade like that. But I think what people don't realize is

they don't have any picks, right? They already gave away all those. The only real way to do a trade that could at least make the Bucs go, huh, would be towns with Ananobi.

And then you take back Kuzma and Portis with Giannis. And that kind of works with the money.
I have no idea why Milwaukee would do that.

Milwaukee doesn't have their picks for the, they're either the picks are gone or they have swaps for the next five years.

If you're Milwaukee, why wouldn't you just keep Giannis, one of the best players in the league, over being like, all right, fine, we'll trade you and we'll just cripple ourselves for the next half decade.

The Knicks don't have anything offered. They made their moves already.
That's the problem with this. That's a huge problem.

I also think Giannis is still a great player. I mean, look how he played in the Euro basket tournament.
He was phenomenal. He was dominant.
And

they are not acting. Milwaukee, to me, isn't acting like a team that is just kind of waving the white flag.
I mean, the Turner deal was great.

I know they did the deal to get rid of Damian Lillard, but I mean, I think that opened things up for them. And that to me wasn't a team that was saying, hey, we need to rebuild.

As long as you have Giannis, especially in a very, very, very weak Eastern conference, like there's a scenario where things click for them this year with Turner coming in and they're what, a top three, top four seed?

I mean, who's, who's, who can you say is definitively better than them?

Knicks, Cavs, definitively, right? I mean, like, I know the cool pick right now, the Hawks, the magic. The magic going there.
Yeah. That's it.
But that's really it.

So why would they give up on this unless he says, I am leaving, I am gone and I'm only going to the Knicks and then they have to figure something out.

I maintain, I know it all worked out for the Mavericks, but that trade was one of the worst trades in the history of sports, if only because they didn't get any picks in return.

I'm talking about the Donchich trade. And so why would anyone recreate that?

Historically, you don't trade a generational great for no picks. And the Knicks just don't have any picks.
And any of their picks aren't good picks.

They're not, you know, they're not first round lottery picks. So as much as I want to believe,

I'm also the fan who, like, if you're on my team, I love you. And so I feel uncomfortable saying here, oh, get rid of Kat or get rid of OG.

They've given everything to us for as little time as they've been on the Knicks. And so I don't feel comfortable campaigning for that because I want to win with these guys.

Of course, I'd be over the moon if Giannis got there. I just kind of think it's all kind of, I don't want to say it's rage bait, as the kids like to say, but it's very, very.

It's very fun when you're in the media business and you put a name like Giannis and a name like the Knicks. You know that stuff is going to explode.
And so I kind of just chalk it up to one of those.

Well, that, so listen, I've never fully believed this story, even though Shams has information, obviously, and he wouldn't keep reporting unless there's some sort of smoke.

The interesting piece about this time was that this was reportedly the team that he wanted to go to, if he was going to leave. There's always an if, there's always a cat bad.

He wasn't saying trade me to the Knicks. He's saying, if I did get traded, I would want it to be to the Knicks.
Okay, that's cool.

They're not taking towns back for you straight up. You don't have other picks to put with towns.
I don't know what towns and Inobi together really do for either.

Like, do you even think that's a good trade for the Knicks if all you ended up with was Giannis,

Bridges, and Jalen Brunson, who we have no idea how Jalen Brunson and Giannis would play together, both two guys who love having the ball? You think so? I think they'd beat it. Yeah, absolutely.

Jalen Brunson. I mean, you think Jalen Brunson's good with this? He took less money to bring his friends in, and now they're going to go all in and get this other.

For Giannis.

yannis

who has the ball all the time sure but is he slowing down is he is he is he beat up he's not is he beat up is he injury prone not really um look okay let's just pretend that it's og and cat and maybe we'll throw in pacom dadier who they featured in their first preseason game

yeah it's okay so let's throw him in there because he's kind of like a draft pick he's 20 years old and maybe we'll throw in tyler kullick who's from that area and they may love him over there nobody wants him there what tyler kullick Kullick was fantastic.

Are you kidding? He's

about to be unleashed.

He's not a Giannis trade piece.

He's a nice little part of the package. Anyway, he's like, you're throwing in extra tires for the new car.
Your starting lineup is now Mitch at the five, who has looked phenomenal, right?

He looks healthy. He's running up and down the court.
He's catching all these loves.

Yannis, Yannis at the four.

Josh Hart at the three. Bridge is at the...

Two terrible free throw shooters. Keep going.
Jalen Brunson, who who's not signing up for that again i'm not advocating i like the team you have i think you

i would pick them to win the east if i had to pick anyone from the east right now and i i don't know i i would just rather see this play out and feel like maybe you have a chance to get yannis a year from now i

the the weirdest thing about this with yannis and with lebron because i think you got to throw him in even though he's 41 or about to be 41 you gotta throw this in too this new apron era we have where guys who are kind of stuck in the situations that they're in, they don't have the outs in the same way.

Like if you're LeBron, the two places you'd go are probably Cleveland or the Knicks, right?

You'd come home to Cleveland to finish your career or you'd go to the Knicks where you should have probably gone in 2010, try to chase a title.

I just don't, with all the apron stuff, like with the Knicks,

okay, Ananobi and some other stuff for LeBron. Is that something you would do to LeBron in a expiring contract year when he's in his 40s? Like, you're not doing that.

I'm good on LeBron. He had his chance in 2010.
He had multiple opportunities after that. I'm good on him.
Like, that would be insane.

If they give up a guy like Ananobi for even one for one would be insane. That makes no sense.
And then if you're Cleveland, are you trading DeAndre Hunter and Jared Allen

and another contract to get like four months of LeBron? So I just think LeBron's stuck with the Lakers and he's going to eventually realize that and be like, all right, I'm on Lucas team now.

I'll figure this out. The Giannis thing is different because,

you know, on the one hand, you go, well, he already won a title. Just be Dirk.
Just stay there your whole career. You already won.
You got your ring.

Nobody's going to ever question were you a good player. 100%.
Spend the 20 years there. It'll be great.
Your team's going to be pretty good.

On the other side, I mean, I was looking at the odds to win the title.

It's crazy. They have, let me see, the eighth best odds in the Eastern Conference.

Eighth. They're behind the Celtics who don't even have Jason Tatum right now, who don't have a center.
They're 19 to 1 to win the East. They're 65 to 1 to win the title.

And they're minus 215 just to make the playoffs. And you think, like,

they have Giannis. They're in the East.
I can't even come up with East playoff teams. And minus 215 is like relatively reasonable.
I think the possible trades pulled in. So I was trying to think like,

All right, why won't he just do the Dirk? What is it? I get that he's competitive, but they did add Miles Turner. They do have a good enough team that they can compete.

And the real reason I think is so weird. He just hasn't been in enough big games.
I think he just misses. I looked it up.
So they won four playoff series in 2021, right? When they won the finals.

How many other playoffs? How many, what's the number of playoff series do you think he's won in his career other than the four in 2021 when he won the title?

How many times has he just advanced to another round? Well, the last couple of years were first-round exits and pretty bad ones. I'm going to go top of my head,

maybe three.

Yeah, four.

Four. He's only played 84 playoff games.
He's only had eight playoff series wins. I'm going to put that in perspective for you, Ariel.
LeBron has 41.

He's 41 playoff series wins. That's crazy.
And this is year 13. Tim Duncan has 35.

Wow. Kobe had 33.
Shaq had 32. You go on down.
Durant, 22. Kawhi is 19.
Jason Tatum is 15 and 7 in the playoffs. Jokic has 10.
Giannis is 8 and 8.

And I think he's just looking at this like, I'm just tired of, I just want to be in the playoffs. I just want to keep playing past, you know, April 30th.

And I think it's really starting to get to him. And he looks at Milwaukee and he looks at the landscape.
And he's like, now I'll be a year older a year from now.

I've already done this the last three years. So I don't even think it's it's about chasing a ring for him as much as like just being in relevant basketball games in April, May, and June.

And I don't really know where that's going to be because like, does he go to Houston? Does he go to Minnesota? Like you're going down the line. It's like, well, that doesn't make sense.

You're just going sideways, you know? So maybe that's why it's fixated on the Knicks. It's like, well, they could actually win the title.
I'm in a major market.

It's the one move you could sell to people in Milwaukee. Like, hey, I gave you a title.
I did everything I can do. Now I'm going to go here.
The problem is there's no trade.

Well, that's the really interesting. Okay.
There's a few things there. Number one, it's a phenomenal point.
Number two, like I said, I loved the Eurobasket tournament. I don't know if you watched it.

I really enjoyed it. And he looked like a man possessed and he was so into it.

And I know playing for his country is a big deal and his brothers are on the team and all that stuff, but you could really tell, like, wow, Giannis, like he really took this serious.

And he doesn't even need to play. Let's be honest.
Like he could just show up for the Olympics.

I think he recognizes. What's so interesting about him is that he's not the guy chasing the ring.
He's not the guy looking at the clock saying like, man, I only got like six, seven years left.

I need to do something now. Like, like Chris Paul in the mid-2010s, like, oh no, I'm running out of time.

He's playing with house's money at this point. Like, he did that thing.
He brought them the ring. He did everything that he said he was going to do.
And he did it with grace.

And everyone adores him there. And he'll have his number retired.
And they'll build a statue for him. Let's be honest.
And so now. To me, it just speaks to his competitive spirit.

And I think he recognizes, like few have recognized over the past 15 or so years, but it's happening more and more. You do it in New York, everything changes.
And they're so damn close.

Like, could you imagine if he did it in New York? Could you imagine what it would do for his life?

I mean, it's the one thing that no one else has been able to do since Walt and Willis and all those guys back in the day. And they're so damn close.

And he would probably get them very close or even put them over the edge.

The thing that gets me going about these reports is I really like, if they didn't do the Bridges deal, I would say like, this is a done deal. It's all right there.

It felt like they were doing everything to get to this point. I still, I'm not sure if I'm doing it.
So, you're saying they shot their wad with Bridges?

I wish they could do that one over. And it's no knock on.
You wish it's there. You wish you was a duo.
I said this a long time ago. I said this a long time.
And

what worried me was, okay, so I'll finish that point. I didn't understand why they had, I get the tax, the New York tax, Brooklyn, New York.
You got the Knicks, they're going to overpay.

I didn't understand why they had to give up up so many picks for a guy who had never been an all-star, who, yes, was a great defensive player and an Ironman. He never misses a game.

And then the vibes with the Villanova guys, it felt like a major tax to pay.

And then when it felt like this year, and I know he had the two big moments in the playoffs and was pretty good, had the Christmas Day game was great and all that.

Then it felt to me like they gave him the big contract, the extension, because they said, all right, well, we already gave up all these picks. What are we going to do now?

We're not just going to let him walk. And I wish I could live in a sliding doors reality.
They don't make that trade. They stick with what they got.

And now they have this freaking treasure chest of picks to just hand over to Milwaukee. Because let's just play that scenario.
Those picks plus one of these guys that we're talking about, Kat OG.

Now we're talking, right? Now this is like a real thing. And

I kind of wish they could do that one over. I made that point before last season.
Like they went all in with these two moves, right? Towns and bridges and all their picks. And it's like,

that's it. You're kind of, this is, this is now your window.
This is a three-year stretch of this is your nucleus. You've shut the door on the honest trade.
You don't have the assets to do it.

The only weird thing with the Giannis trade that I can't really figure out. If I like, if I'm Milwaukee and it's like, fuck, we started out 9 and 15.

Giannis is now.

He's been afraid this whole time to be a dick, right? There's been really no passive-aggressive stuff. But Shams is really the only one reporting anything.

Other than that, there's been nothing floating around, and he's been a good soldier, so it seems. But if he was like, I got to get out of here, get me out of here.
Um,

they, I don't know what they would want when they already have so many picks going out the door. It's not like they can tank.
It's almost like you have to get

players who are good to replace the player you have who's great.

So, even even

let's say the Knicks were like, cool, Towns and Ananobi for Giannis, Kuzma, and Portis. And we'll do some, we'll throw some swaps and whatever.
Let's go. All right.

I'm a Bucs fan now for the next five years.

What am I looking at?

I'm going to go 43 and 39 and not have my pick for until 2031. I'd rather just keep Giannis.

Yeah, probably. Although it ain't much better right now with Giannis.

But at least I'd rather have one more year with him and then figure it out next summer when more, when there's more suitors in the trade pile than there are right now. 100%.
There's,

yeah, there's no real rush. And, and, and, and there's no real rush unless he says, get me out of here.
And then that changes the rush angle. I would be surprised if he did that.

At least publicly, I would be surprised. Perhaps privately.
And, and I believe Shams. I mean, his reporting is always spot on.
I just.

To me, this seems like a next year story more than a this year story. It doesn't quite feel like something that's going to come to fruition.

And by the way, the Knicks are going to be in a completely different spot. You know, they'll be defending champs this time next year.

There won't be enough pressure. There'll be

the parade. Oh my God.
No, it's just like, okay, now how do we one up this?

I also get worried, by the way, like as someone who feels like the window is right there, like it's never been this open since the 90s for us.

I do get worried about blowing things up every offseason, right? Like last year, it felt like it took them a while to get things going. Now you have to blow it up again.

There's no guarantee, by the way, if you you bring a Giannis that you're going to win a championship. There's no guarantee that you make this super team, if you will, that you win a championship.

How many times have we seen the more cohesive team get over the hump? So that stuff worries me. I watched the first two preseason games.
Bill, the vibes are phenomenal.

I mean, I just have to say, the vibes are, I was sitting here talking to you about Tibbs, and I was like, oh, why'd they do this? Why'd they ruin it? Mike Brown is a breath of fresh air. I love Tibbs.

I miss him. Their ninth, 10th man is Malcolm Brogdon.
It's unbelievable. Like they are, I am the embarrassment of riches coming off the bench from Clarkson, Yabuseli.
I have to buy his jersey.

I love this guy. I love this guy.

Matthews is a great pickup as well. I may be screwing that one up.
The dude from Atlanta who's hitting all the shot, I always, I always say, no, Matthews. Yeah, yeah.

They legit could go 10, 11 deep. And so I like the vibes right now.
And I'm worried about torpedoing that because the window has never been this wide open for them. I mean, who are we afraid of?

The Cavs? Like, I don't even think we really need Giannis, to be honest. As crazy as that may sound, we're good.
We're good. We've got a great team.
Why screw this up?

Well, and you won't be able to trade for them next year because you will be well over the second apron next year, which basically you're where Cleveland is now. Like, Cleveland can't do anything.

They're just crippled because they're, once you pass that certain threshold, you're done. There's such an interesting cat and mouse piece to this, too.

Where if you're the Knicks, like if I'm running the Knicks,

I don't want anything to come out that makes it seem that I've seriously considered trading

these guys that are about to try to win me the title for somebody I'm almost definitely not getting anyway. So, and if you read, that's the part I really believed with the reporting.
It's like,

this isn't an open window because Giannis isn't saying he's being traded yet. But if there was going to be a trade, what do you think it would look like? And now the Knicks are like, oh, shit.
Like,

do we put names in this? What if the names get leaked? Now I have to talk to Towns. And Towns is like, what the hell? Why am I in this trade store? I don't want to go to Milwaukee.

And meanwhile, we're about to go to training camp. So it just felt a lot of cat and mouse.
Oh, yeah, you know, Giannis is a great player. And Milwaukee's going,

well, if there was a trade, what would be in the trade, do you think? And they're like, I don't know. It obviously have to be something really good.

And they're just doing that and not saying anything. And I think that's what the trade talks were.

You know, definitely something.

Can I ask from like a break the fourth wall media perspective, what's the motive for putting this out? Like we know, like Shams, I think he does a great job, but

he plays in the currency game of like, okay, getting the trade announcements and the signings and all this stuff. What's the motive to putting this out?

If, if an agent or a team didn't want this out, I don't think he's putting it out. He's not an investigative reporter in that regard.
And so why put this out?

A lot of stuff, just a lot of smoke floating around about the situation. Because I think, especially once

even something as stupid as the odds for the conference come out and you just kind of put them against all these other teams in the East, you go, wow,

they're like not far away from Indiana, who just lost the best guy in the team for a year.

So I don't know.

He is easy, weird situation because he's got people here, but he's also got people in Europe that represent him. You know, he was overseas for a lot of the summer.

They don't have a lot of connectivity to him. They're telling everybody everything's fine.
So I got to be honest, I don't really know what to believe with this story anymore. Is Giannis happy?

Is he not happy? Is he going to come out of the gate, be awesome? And they're going to go two and five and he's just going to immediately go get me out of here. I don't know what to expect.

I definitely feel like there's a level of unhappiness there. And I think in this day and age, the star players love to play this game with us.

I mean, just look at yesterday with LeBron and this sort of cryptic game. And I think he's okay with all of this.

And I do package now. I believe that he will play for another team before his career is said and done.
I don't think he's going to be a Buck Slifer. I thought at one point he was going to be.

It doesn't seem that way anymore. Yeah.

I just, I don't want to, I don't want to ruin the vibes. I think, I think we're good.

The question for me, and this will determine the next three months: is it unhappiness or is it frustration?

Because if he's frustrated, that's different. I can work with frustration.
I can, I can kind of coach you, man.

Unhappy means like, I'm fucking, this sucks. Get me out of here.
Frustration is like, man, I wish we could win more. How do we get to the next step?

And you can kind of coach that. I don't know if you can coach unhappiness.
I feel like it might be the former, the coaching situation there has been a mess, right? Since they got rid of Coach Bud.

I found it very interesting when

they brought back Thanassus, right? And that to me is like,

what could we do to make this guy happy? That's their version of the aspiration stock.

Absolutely. Another $2.8 million.

What What a career. Thanasis is a great guy.
But yeah,

he was balling out at the Euro basket too. But when they brought him back, I was like, oh,

this seems like, hey, Giannis, like, what do you want? What could we do? Big trade for Turner, big signing, great.

Thanasis, would that make you happy? Yeah, it would make me happy.

Are there any other family members we can put on the team?

Yannis made seven straight first team Mo NBAs and he's averaging 30 and 12 and 6 for the last seven years. And from what I've seen, I don't feel like he's declined at all athletically.

So it still feels some of these big guys, like some of the centers, they hit early 30s and they start to waver a little bit. I don't see it with him.

I listen, I would pick your team over everybody else in the East right now. If, like, just at a gunpoint, forget the East.
Forget the East. Do we have a shot?

I personally don't think I have

OKC and Denver way up Denver too. Yeah.
Denver 2. Denver gets the bench.
And they have the best guy in the league.

I have those two levitating above everybody else.

Okay, well, they'll have to beat each other up.

Yeah, that's what you want. You want OKC in a back-to-back with a lot of miles on them, with some tough going through this gauntlet west.

And meanwhile, you know, you talked about the continuity thing, like with Cleveland. I actually like that nothing happened with them and that they had to just be like, all right, we lost last year.

Let's, let's bring it back. What did we learn from last year?

though true but i'm saying like they kept their nucleus they didn't be like oh we lost let's trade garland oh we got to do this like 100 which we're going to run back a team that won 64 games which i don't feel like people do anymore all right we're going to take a break um Just for the record, I think the Knicks are going to win.

I think we're going to beat the OKC in six. Just want to put that.
It's October 7th, 2025. So remember this around June 14th or so.

So you're planning on Bill's Super Bowl in February and then the Knicks title parade four months later?

There's a four-month stretch where all my worries, Bill, are going to just wash away, like all the angst of the past 43 years of my life. It's right here.

There's a four-month stretch between February to June that it's just going to be the most glorious time of my life. So, yes, I am planning on that.
I'm happy for you. We're going to take a break.

We've got to talk about my guy Pereira. The Bill Summits podcast is brought to you by FanDuel.

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All right, Alex Pereira

counted out pretty sizable underdog in the rematch

on Saturday night and comes out and fucking Michael Myers is it and just completely destroys the chip, wins the light heavyweight title back.

And in a moment where it felt like, ah, that was so cool with the Pereira thing, where it really felt like something kind of brewing

from a magical standpoint as like a star, like some an attraction. And then it's like, oh, he loses, like right when I I was like, really feel like he could have blown up, gets the title back.

And now, uh, now it's him and Taporias, the two biggest, I think, champion stars that they have. But were you surprised first? No, absolutely not.
That was not him in March.

And people get upset when fighters talk about illnesses or injuries. Oh, like they're human beings.
They're not robots and they're going through things.

And I was told repeatedly, as recently as this morning, like, yo, I was with the guy. Like, he was super sick.
He was super. People are telling me how he shouldn't have fought in March.

He was super sick. He wasn't himself, all these things.
And you kind of saw that in the performance. Who would have thought?

Everyone thought that Ankalaev would try to out-wrestle him when they fought the first time. And he did shoot 12 times.
He was actually 0 for 12, which was shocking.

But no one thought that he would throw and land more than Alex Pereira. That's Alex's game.
And he just didn't seem like he could get going.

And so we wanted to see, all right, everyone said he's good this time around. He's healthy.
He got the fight when he wanted it in October. He needed some time off.

He fought a lot over the past two years. And look at the way he fought.
I mean, the fight only lasted like 80 or so seconds, but look at how quickly he closed the distance.

Look at how he landed that overhand right. Look at the ferocity, the viciousness.
He fought mad. And the problem was he wanted to write the wrong.

Ankalayev's team, and in particular, his manager, talked a whole lot of smack about him on social media. He took that personally and you saw the result.

This was just what the doctor ordered for the UFC.

I have a theory, bill that 2016 was the greatest year in ufc history 2026 might actually top it if a few things actually break in their favor here and it all starts with this win for alex perera but like everyone every time we come on i i talk you asked me about like where are the stars where are the stars things might break a few more results here and a few more comebacks and a few more guys agree to fight and 2026 could be an all-time year for the ufc and of course it all starts with their deal with paramount plus back to perera This is what they needed.

This is just what the doctor ordered for himself, for his career. Obviously, he's got his mojo back.
And now, for the UFC to have him back on top is gigantic. I mean, massive.

Well, he hasn't even been in the UFC four years.

It's one of the greatest runs ever. And if he does what he wants to do next, he actually goes down as the greatest fighter of all time.
There's no questions asked.

He ends an 18-fight win streak from Strickland, 23 from Izzy,

13 from Yuri,

and 14 from Makalaev, not to mention Yosa Betahill and Roundtree.

But more importantly, the performance art of it in a sport where you desperately need, like, you want the guys to come in and not, not just win, but put on a show, and you want them to stand up and show different things, not be rolling around for five rounds.

This is like exactly what the doctor ordered. Now he's floating heavyweight.

I don't think they're going to be in business with John Jones again. I just, I know they keep floating floating that around, but I'll be that's one of those.
I'll believe it when he's in the octagon.

I think it's the real thing.

You think it's actually happening? You trust him at this point to be a reliable person and put in an actual card?

Absolutely. John doesn't, John doesn't disappear.
All that stuff from Dana about like, I can't trust John comes from two places. Number one, you know, he's had his, his,

whatever you want to call them, issues with the law over the years and PDs and all that stuff. But in the latter portion of his career, he's been fine.

Like the last few heavyweight fights, he's been fine. He got injured.
Yeah.

Dane is really mad about the fact that they offered him 30 million to fight Tom Aspinall. He said yes, and then he said no.
And he strung them along. And so he's annoyed.

And so he doesn't want to reward him with the White House card. But now everything has changed.
Alex Pereira. has won.
Alex Pereira is back.

He's the light heavyweight champion. There aren't a ton of options for him at light heavyweight.
There's Yuri Prochaska, who looked great, but he's already beaten him twice.

And then there's a guy named Carlos Alberg, who also looked great, but isn't a big draw. You couple that, like you, you, you, you compare that.
Could Jamia move up or no? No, that's crazy talk.

He's, he's a 185. He just won the belt.
Stick him there, and there's some big fights for him there. And that would just be a waste.
Okay. Pereira moves up to heavyweight.
Stick with me here.

Pereira wants to fight John Jones. He said it.

He didn't want to call him out in the cage because John tragically just lost his brother, Arthur Jones, former Syracuse, Baltimore Raven, and and Indianapolis Colt.

I mean, shocking stuff, 39 years old. And so he wanted to be respectful, which was amazing.

But then in the back, in the post-fight press conference and all that, he said, I want to move up and I want to fight John Jones very matter of factly. I'm done here at light heavyweight.

I did what I wanted to do. I got my belt back.
I exacted revenge. Now I'm done.

John has nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, because every time John was asked about Tom Aspaw, he said, I don't want that fight. I want Pereira, who at the time was the light heavyweight champion.

Well, here he is. He's back to being light heavyweight champion.
And he says specifically, because Pereira would never want to talk about this, I want John. So you make John versus Pereira.

Now, most people, as I've said this, say to me, well, what about Tom Aspinall? You were banging the drum for the past year about Tom getting screwed and all this stuff. Well, guess what?

The rules are different now because John isn't the champion. So John doesn't have to fight Tom Aspinall anymore.

But it's good for Tom Aspinall's business if now all of a sudden he's residing atop a heavyweight division that has Alex Pereira and John Jones in it. Rising tide lifts all boats.
Because guess what?

The winner of that fight will have to fight him. And if not, he can now say, John, you retired because you didn't want to fight me.

And now Alex, if you beat John or John, you'll retire again to not fight me. Like that's two wins over you, or that's a win over the badass Alex Pere.

If Alex wins and ends up beating him, now he goes down as the greatest ever because no one has ever won three titles in the UFC, three different weight classes, heavyweight, light heavyweight, middleweight.

You're talking the traditional, the traditional classes. Yeah, no one's ever done that.
The most anyone's ever done is two.

He's now a former middleweight champion, a current light heavyweight champion, champion, won that belt twice, which isn't a common thing. And now he's going up for a heavyweight belt as well.

Eventually, like by the end of next year, he could be doing that if he beats John. And oh, by the way, he can be the guy to beat John, the first guy to beat John.

And oh, by the way, now we're talking about Conor McGregor coming back, which is a very real thing. Oh, by the way, we're talking about Ronda Rousey coming back, which is a real thing as well.

This is what I'm talking about. Bill, this is a real thing.
Ronda Rossi.

We've already seen that.

She doesn't want to get hit anymore. She didn't want to get hit seven years ago.
I will say this. Is she ultimately going to fight? Remains to be seen.

Is it a real thing that she is contemplating it and training for a potential return? That's a very real thing.

That's a very real thing. And by the way, I never saw this coming.
To your point, she didn't want to fight. She was a shove herself.

Her spirit was broken. Broken.
And then the WWE run didn't end well.

She just had another kid. I thought she was just going to sail off into the sunset and never to be seen again.
She is training to come back. Does she ultimately come back? That's the question.

I don't know, but that's a real thing. So think about that.
You could potentially get Connor back, John back, Rhonda back. You have Alex back on top.

You have Islam going for a second title here at Madison Square Garden next month. You've got things.
There's a lot of things happening here in the UFC. You've got Amanda Nunes versus Kayla Harris.

Amanda Nunes came back as well. Taporia.
Oh my God. Forgot about him.
Potential Ilya Taporia versus Patty Pimblett fight. Everyone will watch that.
Like Paramount Plus,

they've stepped in something here. This is a great time to be in the UFC business.
I feel from our friends at ESPN because the end of the ESPN run was a little bit like a fizzle out.

And I think it will be a fizzle out by the end of the year, but 2026 is shaping up. If it all kind of falls in the right, and then I threw out the crazy one, the craziest of them all.

Okay, so then there's Tom Aspinall, who's the heavyweight king, who's the baddest man on the planet. He's like, well, what about me?

Then you cut a deal with the PFL and you get Francis and Ganu back and and you do Francis versus Tom Aspinall. Come on now.
They have the money. They're getting 1.1 billion from Paramount next year.

Let's go. What is that? What is that

side worth?

The one that Francis is in?

Are they even doing well? I don't know. I have no idea.

They're not huge fans of mine right now. No one knows because they're not huge fans of mine.

They have been a mess and they are the de facto number two, meaning there's no other competition and they have an incredible opportunity to do something and be the counter to the ufc the problem is they can't get out of their own way they try to get too isn't he had every ufc competitor for 25 years the problem with these guys is they get too cute and they say you know what everyone loves the nfl everyone loves premier league soccer the nba we're going to make standings and we're going to have points and if you win via submission you're going to get three points

it's the fight game people just want to see big fights just make the best fights possible and none of this tournament, points, standing. And they made it so convoluted that people checked out.

They didn't understand what was going on. Now they're trying, they just hired a new CEO, a new face of the company.
Yeah.

And by the way, they're on ESPN. They're on ESPN.
Like they had a big platform and they still do. They have one more year there, but they just made things a little bit too complicated.

Now they're trying to clean it up. Fair play to them.

But the gap is just so gigantic that like Francis wants to fight and they don't even have a fight for him because they haven't done a good enough job of building stars.

So the Paramount thing feels like it's going to be a positive. Oh, yeah.
I think it's going to be huge. I think it's going to be gigantic.

I mean, look, the big thing is, and Connor has talked about it. I need a new contract.
I have two fights left, but I need a new contract because my old contract says I get pay-per-view points.

There's no pay-per-view anymore. And they'll figure it out.
Like the whole thing isn't just going to stop. There's not going to be a strike.
There's no fighters association.

Once they figure this all out, could you imagine you're just going to have to turn on Paramount Plus and you're going to get all these massive fights?

And then the White House thing is going to be insane. Like that's people.
Yeah, can we walk through that? So this is 100% definitely happening.

And they're going to load the card. Because we remember we thought they're going to load UFC 200 and then they were almost like, oh, UFC 200 is the brand or 300.

Yeah, we don't even have to really load the brand because we have a brand already. And then,

and you explained that on this podcast. They're not going to do that with the White House.

So I think they would like to load it. Obviously, it's still, what are we, October, that's 10 plus, like that's in eight months.
So things can happen, injuries can happen.

But just the fact that this sport was banned in this city that I'm, you know, residing in right now, 10 years ago, and now around the time of America's 250th birthday, they're going to be at the White House on the South Lawn on CBS.

like CBS, like Channel 2 here. Like what? That's crazy.
And the plan is and the want is,

and I think it's accurate. Like Donald Trump and his people say, bring us the best.

This is, Donald Trump is going back to Trump Taj Mahal, Donald Trump of the late 80s, saying, I want Tyson, I want WrestleMania, bring me the best. So they're going to bring him the best.

And I think the UFC and their owners recognize this is a massive opportunity. So we initially thought it was going to be July 4th, because July 4th is a Saturday.
That was originally what was said.

But then they said there's too much going on, 250th birthday. So they're now doing it on Donald Trump's birthday, which is June 14th.

That's the date that has been announced, which interestingly enough is a Sunday bill, which is very rare for the UFC.

They used to do some Sunday shows back in the FS1 days, but a Sunday night on CBS is kind of wild to think that there's going to be a massive card, potentially with John Jones and Conor McGregor on the card, not to mention Alex Pereira and God knows who else.

The only one who has said they don't want to be on the card is Ronda Rousey. For whatever reason, she didn't really go into it, but she said, I'm good on the White House.

Wasn't counting on her to begin with. You know,

you just, when you said it's a Sunday, that's that, I mean, that's going to be an NBA Finals game.

Yeah. So is June 14th Father's Day? Yeah.

Yeah.

Fascinating. And it's also U.S.
Open. U.S.
Open is always Father's Day too for golf.

Yeah, but NBA always, because I know NBA always has that, like, they usually have that Sunday, that Father's Day game.

Although, by the way, this father's day i remember because it was just a few months ago it was um game seven was on the monday if you recall but i think this so

you think so haven't they come out with it yet no i'll look um

yeah that no they don't they don't usually put out the final schedule yet but it usually goes well they usually say like it starts on this day right like june 3rd or something like that what do you think would do better maybe it's it might be a monday Because yeah, because game seven is usually a Sunday.

It's like Monday, Thursday, Sunday is 5-6-7. So maybe that's why they're doing it.

You know, they only have so many great sports moments. I don't want them competing against each other.
Let's spread them out. What would you better ratings-wise?

Let's say it's NBA Finals game seven or even game six or whatever, game five.

And it's, you know, let's say the Knicks are involved, but it's UFC at the White House. Knicks are involved.
Knicks win. Knicks win? Okay.
Yeah. Knicks win.

Even if it's Conor McGregor and John Jones and all that. Maybe if it's OKC Cleveland,

you might have a small chance.

I don't don't know. I mean, has UFC ever had C

has it ever been on a network before? Has it ever been on CBS or anywhere? Fox and ABC.

ABC, it was on. Yeah, but they've given them a number card, though? Not a, not like a real card.
Not a number card.

But you'll recall the first ever Fox show was Junior Dos Santos against Kane Velasquez for the heavyweight title in November of 2011, and it lasted 60 seconds.

That was a big deal for the heavyweight title. One fight, one hour.
They had John Jones and Brock Lesnar and Dana White on the desk with Kurt Menafe. It was wild.

And after that, they would put the odd, they would put like a Demetrius Johnson flyweight fight or a Benson Henderson lightweight fight, but never names like this, never, ever.

I mean, Connor or John or Ron, like those types of names, no way. So I'm curious, but yes,

I would agree. In America, at least, if the Knicks were involved, I would say that the

Knicks would win out, ABC would win out. What do we call the pay-per-views now when we go to Fairmount? I think we're going to go to the University of the University

of PLEs, premium live events like WWE does.

It hasn't caught on in the Simmons house. My son's not like, were we watching the PLE tonight? Yeah.
What does he say? What does he say? We still call them pay-per-views.

I don't know what else to call them.

And now that's good when you're talking about WWE?

Just in general. Like if it's like a special event, it's a pay-per-view.
No, I know. Or you call it by that name.
I don't know. I don't really know.

So we're just not going to have pay-per-views anymore except for boxing. It's done.
And how many boxing ones, like the zone, has said they're going to get out of the pay-per-view business.

Like, there's a very good chance for at least the next seven years, the pay-per-view business is going to be, you know, few and far between, which, you know, like, look, the world has changed streaming, all that stuff.

Even this ESPN Unlimited thing, like, there's still a cost attached to that if you want to get the WWE ones. So, yes, but the notion of sitting down and having to pay $79.99, that could end.

There's three more. There's three more UFCs.
And then who else other than UFC was putting them on consistently every month? No one. Nobody.
No, it's almost at the end of an era.

Do you feel like ESPN and WWE, do you like that fit? I think it's, oh my gosh, it's surreal for me. Bill, when I was there, and I was there a much shorter time than you, but I was there 18 to 21.

And during that stretch, WrestleMania was at MetLife. And I was like, please, can we go cover it? Could we do something like interviews? Do a, nah, nah, what? Sports center hits, something, nothing.

And now to see how much they're covering it, not just like, you know, on social media, but Sports Center doing highlights, like it's a real thing.

And then the amount of promotional push that they gave that first show in Indianapolis, and there's another one coming up this weekend in Perth, Crown Jewel, is surreal. It's really surreal.

And, you know, not to get too inside baseball, but I really don't think this happens without Nick Khan. Like, I really don't think this happens.

He deserves a ton of credit for this because I was there. Like, I was in those walls.
They wanted nothing to do with wrestling.

They would get annoyed when we would talk about wrestling or try to like equate it to MMA and stuff like that. And so to see how far it has come is really,

is

really surreal. And so I think it's huge for WWE.
And obviously, Matthew helps with that, right? I mean, McAfee being there three hours a day, but is also on the wrestling. I don't know.

It just feels like there's more synergy than there was 20 years ago. Plus, they need it because they lost UFC.

So I agree with that. I also think that for the ESPN,

the employees, the people who work, because a lot of those people I think are going to go from UFC to WWE in terms of working on the shows, this is going to be a walk in the park. Number one,

the vibe that you get from WWE, like they did this whole package, like, wow, we made it to ESPN. It's been so many years.

It feels like they're so happy to be here because it's almost like validating for them, as opposed to UFC, who kind of waltzed in from Fox and been like, this is how we do it around here. Also,

you could bank on who's going to be on all these shows months in advance, right?

Like, you know so it's not like oh this pay-per-view is a little weak or this guy got hurt a week out and we have to scramble this is going to feel similar to promoting and covering ufc because it's the same type of thing combat sports but because they're able to control so much and because i think wwe is going to be a more agreeable partner i think it's going to be a match made in heaven well and then to be able to tell them like we need something on this weekend we don't have anything oh yeah

can you move wrestlemania to this date i'm not they can't do it next two years but hey,

that March 29th date

when it's Final Four, we're just, we got nothing that weekend. What if we move something there? I think they're going to really work with them to do that.

In general, I really think this, one of the weird outcomes of this decade is people are getting better with the sports calendar of really like targeting week weekends and trying to program.

I think, I think the UFC and the boxing, it was really a mess for a long time where they would just have this huge boxing event, but it would be simultaneously against, you know, three other things.

You're like, why'd you do it that weekend? It's the Masters. You know, 100%.

Also, this is the first year. This past year, WrestleMania, this was something actually Nick talked about in interviews.

He might have even talked about it with you, to be honest, because he only seems to do interviews with you these days. Can't even get him to do it.
I'm a friendly space for Nick. Yeah.

I mean, golly, I wish I could get him on. Anyway,

he talked about like, do you remember the Philly WrestleMania was the same weekend as Final Four, and they continued to do that for so many years.

Now you see WrestleMania is now later in the month when there's nothing going on in late April.

UFC used to go Super Bowl weekend, and that never really made sense to me because, like, you're in Vegas. I get it.

People are there to gamble, but all the media is covering the Super Bowl, and you're putting on a big fight on that Saturday. Now, they don't do anything.

It's maybe a small show on Super Bowl weekend, but nothing big. You want to target the week before when nothing's going on.

That week between AFC, NFC title games, and then Super Bowl, and and you have that extra weekend, and that's a weekend. So everybody's better at everything now.
I don't know.

I'm still, the ESPN thing still feels weird to me, but I think I'm just not used to it yet. Because I'm with you, I've watched Sports Center a couple of times.
Like, let's go to

what's going, let's go to Anaheim. We're raw last night.
And it's like, wait, what? This is, what are you guys doing? And it's not tongue-in-cheek and it's not in jest.

It's like they're really talking about it.

And I mean, look, the WWE is going to benefit greatly from this. And

I just think that

ESPN was smart enough to recognize they need subscribers. And WWE fans are the most loyal in the world.
They will literally follow them everywhere.

Like they start a new network, streaming platform, they go there. They go to Peacock, they go there.
They'll go to ESPN Unlimited or whatever this is going to be called.

And so this to me is a home run. You want those people.
It's going to be interesting to see how many of these shows, these PLEs, actually get on ESPN Linear because they hinted at, okay, a few

the pay-per-views, whatever you want to call them, are going to be on. Some are going to be on linear, meaning like you'll turn on channel 206 if you have, you know, direct TV and there it is.

I'm curious how, because to me, it makes no sense to do that. Like you want people to subscribe to get this, right? Same with UFC.

That's why the CBS ones are going to be few and far between because they want ultimately people, how do they get their money back?

Subscribing to Paramount Plus or ESPN Unlimited. Can we call them money grabs?

I mean, you're the one that just said it was a safe space i say it's great i love the ples i'm just trying to think of some some way to like platinum i'm trying to think in other walks of life when something is more special

than something else how super card i don't you know what super card i don't mind super card PLE, it's kind of common.

PLE sounds like something somebody would get arrested, like an investment banker who's like cheating with POEs and he's going to jail. He was talking to Jeff Bezos and sold him POEs.

Big show, something like that.

AEW still does pay-per-views, so they're one of the few, but they don't do them monthly. So they're now with HBO Max.
Super card's that bad. Get the cards and super.
Oh, is it a super card?

This weekend?

Text your friends in Stanford. Let them know.
I'm not against that. All right, before we go, Bills.
Nah, I think. Okay, thank you.
No, last thing.

No, I'm kidding. I was just didn't want to talk about that.
You played five games. Yeah.

You haven't played a good start-to-finish game yet. No.
So what's going on?

I'm very nervous. And I was telling all my friends, this is a trap game.
Like, this is not a cakewalk. I know.
First of all, the Patriots aren't bad.

And I was saying this last week. Drake May is good.
And honestly, the best thing I could say about Drake May, he reminded me a lot of Josh.

Like the way he was scrambling and the way he was making something out of nothing. Stephon Diggs was annoying the shit out of me, part of my French, but like.

He had every right to feel fired up. I get it.
I don't like the guy, but I get it. And he came up big.
And you know what really slapped me in the face watching that game?

On top of like the mistakes and the penalties and the stupid penalties, I mean, stupid penalties and

the turnovers.

We don't have that guy that WR1.

You know, Keon Coleman is fine. Khalil Shakir is fine.
Kincaid, fine. Knox, fine.
But who's that guy that Josh could count on to make the big play, to get a few extra yards, to get the first down?

And that's what worries me. James Cook is great.

We have crossed off that issue and the defense will get we're missing ed oliver and and we're a little banged up but who's that top dog and and i worry i don't think keon coleman is that guy he's good but he's more number two number three josh palmer isn't that guy he's fine too so that is what the game really like like my big takeaway but you know as well as i they should have won that game the bills should have won that game and i don't think they took them seriously and if i'm being 100 honest we need to burn those jerseys i never want to see those those jerseys ever again i'm sorry i don't like that stuff stick with the Stick with the classics.

And every time a team does this sort of thing, I feel like they always lose. The Knicks, when they would bring out like their orange, all orange or their St.
Patty's Day green. No, enough of that.

And I knew once they walked up. I'm like, no.

It's interesting. James Cook is that guy for you.
And that was the guy the Patriots really felt like they had to shut down in the game. Right.

And they're actually, they have a really good run defense this year. But once they took him out, where are you going to get your explosive plays?

And I think that was, you're probably going to get it from Josh, but they did a nice job handling him.

They did a great job.

It's a week five win.

It meant way more to the Pats because, you know, all the Pats fans have just been out here touting the Drake May potential and nobody else wants to hear it. And then he finally did it.

And it's like, that's what we're talking about. We've been, we were, we've been watching this since he started playing.
He's good. It's legit.
You guys are the Spurs. You will always figure it out.

You have become the Spurs of the NFL. And I knew this drought, if you will, wasn't going to last for long.
I knew you would figure it out. I think you squeak into the playoffs, to be honest.

I was impressed. Rayball's good, all that stuff.

The schedule is going to, you have the easy schedule that we have because the AFC's got all the

easy schedule stuff.

Here's what happens when you lose a game like that. You start to look back and there's a bit of revisionist history.
And so you say like, oh man, the Dolphins roughing the kicker.

We got lucky on that one. The Saints roughing the kicker.
Oh, yeah, the Ravens game, which we had no business winning. Like, should we actually be two and three?

Should we be be like the only definitive win was the Jets game and every other game. And you have to get lucky and there's always breaks and there's always moments, but it's a little bit,

I think we'll be good against the Falcons. And as you said, the schedule is great.
And I can't believe the Ravens have four losses. And I can't believe the Chiefs have three losses.

Like it's right there for us.

It's very similar to my Knicks situation. Like the lane is right there.
Yeah.

I just don't want that to blow.

I think that's the single craziest thing about this season is you have this Bills, Chiefs, Ravens, these three teams that just felt like they were going to be running the AFC for the rest of the decade, right?

And the Ravens, year from hell. Chiefs,

that was just a weird loss.

You're up 14, nothing. You blow the lead.
You throw, Mahomes throws. He gets duped by the linebacker on the most obvious.
Don't throw that pass pass that like a rookie would get picked on.

He gets picked. They get the winning.
They get the go-ahead touchdown. They can't get a stop.
They can't stop Lawrence on third and 10

they can't stop lawrence on a qb sneak at the end when he loses the ball and he's stumbling around i thought it was a really weird game by them their luck has dried out they played too many games this was bound to happen i am just worried about the fact like we'll end up being the two seed the chargers are going to go on a generational run and it won't be the chargers they've had too many injuries i think it's going to be denver team i think it's going to be denver denver is a great goal and then and then you know what's going to happen the ravens are going to squeak into the playoffs and then we're going to have to play them in the first round.

And then it's going to be like, oh, Derrick Henry's back, and Lamar Jackson's back. And it's never easy for us.
We have to get the number one seed. We have to get that by.
We have to get homefield.

You have to. I agree with you.
You have to get it.

And the problem is the Colts, as weird as this sounds, like they might actually, just from a schedule standpoint, be better equipped to get the one seed. Oh, my God.

You still have the best player. I still think Josh is the best.

I think he's the best player in the league.

And even in that game Sunday night, it was almost in disbelief that we stopped him

with under three minutes left. It's like, oh my God, we stopped him.

Couldn't believe it. I just thought he would just do Josh stuff and run around and fight guys off and get first downs and we'd lose.
It didn't happen. Yeah.

No, listen, I give actually all the, as much as it pains me to say it, Pat's played him well. The defense was great.
We have a good game

that we hit the nice slow game plan. Just trying to keep Josh off the field, just taking points when we could grab it, being physical.

And it was the one thing is it wasn't an it didn't feel like an upset. Like your bills are definitely better, but it felt like the Pats belonged in the game, which was what I wanted to say.

I'm still sick. I am still sick.
Would you not agree? This is do or die for McDermott, right? Like, I am tired of getting a damage. I thought last year was, but yeah, I think this year definitely is.

Yeah.

I'm tired of seeing them get out coached. And the defense is a bit of a problem because I often feel like the defense is like, what are you guys doing? Why can't you stop the run?

Why does it feel like the, why does it feel like the run D has been a problem for seven years? Why can we not figure this out? Well, the Diggs thing.

So Diggs only played 30 snaps, and he had 12 targets and 10 catches and basically all the big plays any receiver made on the Patriots.

And I just don't understand if somebody's going to, because he's on a pitch count because he's still coming back.

If somebody's in the game for 30 snaps, how do you not figure out how to take him out of the game at least a little bit? And that's his domain. He's defensive coordinator.

Our secondary is a bit of a, like Trey White, I love him, but he's getting old.

There are issues here. Cole Bishop issues.
I know. He has some defense stuff.
Well, on the flip side, I was on multiple Patriot fan text threads wondering if we should go after Alvin Kamara. Oh,

that's where we've landed now with the past season. Now we're thinking about like, who can we add? Is there anybody we can add to this mix? Is there a wide receiver we can add? That's what we need.

We need a top dog. We need like an alpha.

Is there any of those guys out there? I mean, is there a couple of

people. But when you're paying the quarterback $50 plus million dollars, it gets really hard to add those guys.
You end up like the Bengals, where you have, plus you just paid James Cook.

I don't think there is. No.
I honestly think you're fine. I just think we took him a little by surprise, the Pats, played a really good game.

We didn't have that key turnover in the second half, and it was week five. You guys would be fine.
If I had to pick an AFC team, I would still pick you guys 10 out of 10.

You can block. Your defense will be healthy.

No one in the NFC worries me. Honestly, like there's goods, you know, Eagles.
They're all,

this one will haunt me for a very long time. Like, it's right there.
Figure it out. And you're right.
We have the best player in the league, no doubt about it.

And I wasn't even actually nervous throughout that game because I was like, oh, Josh is going to figure this out. He's going to pull something.
Like, he's Superman. He always figures it out.

And that's why when it was over, I was in a state of shock. I couldn't believe it.
Couldn't believe it. Still can't believe it.

I was counting the five wins. Before we go, what's the relationship with Dana Waite? I saw you were just in the news for like two days.

And I was like, I'll just either text him or find out on the next podcast what's going on here. No, it's status quo.
He was on the Logan Paul Impulsive Show, and they asked him about me.

And he was like, oh, yeah, how's he doing? And my takeaway was it was not sincere. It felt a little mocking in that, like, oh, yeah,

how's that guy doing? Like, whatever happened to him, or look how he turned out. That was my interpretation of it.
Oh.

You know how it turned out? He's right here on a great podcast. We just did it for an awesome hour.
Yes. He's doing great.

People were so happy about this because they thought, like, I feel like I, I have a PhD in Dana. And, and, and they thought like he was actually really curious about how it was doing.

And I was like, no, no, no, this was his

dismissive way of just being like, I don't want to talk about this right now. I don't want to give him any sort of oxygen.

And as I've said before, like, if he walked in the room right now, it would shake his hand and say, like, could we, could we end whatever issue there is here? But luckily, I get to do my show.

i get to do my work we get to do on crown we get to have the fighters on like it's fine i'm i'm not in a corner crying but of course we go through life and you want to have good relationships with people you cover but that was that was much ado about nothing you know it's not much ado about nothing you know it's not much ado about nothing the blue jays of toronto mr bill simmons is this going to come out before game three is this going to come out

did you see Vladimir Guerrero's Grand Slam. Did you see that game on Sunday? Please tell me you saw that.
Once the Red Sox get knocked out, all I have left is rooting for the Yankees to lose.

So, of course, I was monitoring everything. Did you guys see the 22-year-old stud making his fourth career start, 10K? I don't know why.
I don't know. Oh, it was 11Ks.

I don't know why they took him out in the fifth. I think they were getting a little bit cute, but I get it.
They didn't want to expose him or whatever.

There's something happening here. I'm walking around the streets of New York with my BJ's jacket.
Unbelievable, right? Who saw this coming? Pachette was your best guy in the second half of the year.

I thought your closer was going to let you down in the playoffs at some point. But if you can still win every game by six to eight runs, you're not going to have to see him.

Who would have thought two games against the Yankees, the least stressful games? Like those little moments there, a little bit stressful. There was a bases loaded

in game one on Saturday with Aaron Judge, a little bit stressful. But I mean, we could waltz into Yankee Stadium tonight.
and dispose of these guys and talk about Elaine as well.

Like, I think that they could beat any team in the playoffs right now. No one's really, you know.
Well, you play defense, you don't strike out, and you get some timely hits.

I stole the bullpen for an entire

scares me. I had both of those guys on my Alekeeper team, and I was not Hoffman and Rodriguez.
It's never fun. It's been awesome.

Every time he comes out,

I'm like, yeah,

it just can't be easy for you. Ariel Hawani, great to see you.

He's got his podcast. Is it every day?

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the the Area Hawani Show, Uncrowned.com. The number one unbiased platform in all of combat sports.
No bias here. We tell it to like it is.
Always great to see you.

See you in the White House. Yeah, thank you.
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All right, Wesley Morris is here. I saw one battle after another last night.
I want to talk about it with you, but there's a movie.

This is a really good movie year with a lot of great dialogue, good directors, good actors.

One of the big themes that's happened this year is Hollywood is finally starting to figure it out.

They're finally moving away from this comic book, just putting suits on people, and we're going back to making real IP trusting directors. So do we 100% believe that?

Or do we feel like this was just COVID screwed things up here for a couple of years?

And now we've actually had time to incubate IP, talent, ideas, movies, and this is just the way it's going to be now?

You mean where we get a healthy diet of stuff instead of one thing for dinner every night? Yeah.

I hope so.

I feel like, so you wait, you think that this, what we're getting, the reason that things have been, have looked better than they have in the last couple of years is because the pipelines have been clogged from all the strike stuff?

It might be the strike stuff, might be the COVID stuff, might be the fact that we were in a little slump with what was getting approved with really talented people going into TV because there was a lot of streaming scripted stuff.

Now there's less scripted projects. And just we're in a nice little run with directors, I think, which I don't think can be understated either.

We talked about that the last time you were on about like we have this class of directors that have moved into just putting out over and over again really good stuff.

But I also feel like there's one other piece, and I don't know if you agree with this, but people like going to the movies again.

And I'm not saying they didn't before, but we had that stretch where we were like, oh, shit.

people are just going to stay home because the tvs are nicer and they'll just wait but it's the opposite like this just going to see one battle after another.

I had to go see it yesterday at 4.30 so I could see it on IMAX. I skipped the Monday Night game because it was like, there was no, this is in Los Angeles.

I was like, there's no other way to see the movie. I want to do a podcast.
Did you see the fourth quarter? Well, I had to go back and watch, you know, zoom through it on YouTube TV. Oh, my God.
That's

a good fourth quarter. I know, but I just don't feel like this kind of stuff was happening, you know, seven years ago.
So what's different?

Well, I think there's a kind of trust.

Well, I don't know. I mean, well, first of all, there's a few things.
There's the public's

like gathering interest once again and going back to the movies.

I think that there is,

it's still not, I don't know what to do with the stories that get told about what a hit now is. That part is confusing to me.

You know, the narratives that get spun around the budgets of these things, whether they're going to become profitable.

But what I'm really focused on, I mean, I didn't ask for like something like the fall guy to cost $200 million,

but I know that enough people went under ordinary circumstances to see that movie to make it a hit in some other age. Yeah.

But I mean, so it isn't that, I mean, what we're talking about, there are a few things. We're talking about actual movie going attendance.

We're talking about the quality of the movies we're going to see and having a diversity of options when we go. Well,

on top of that quality, though, it's original IP, which is what feels different this year.

This is like original start-to-finish scripts that aren't going to be part of some eight-movie sequel that we end up getting over the next 20 years.

Just these movies that have a beginning and weapons 12. Right.
I hope. Anyway, go ahead.

And I think that

there is,

I think that in a weird way, I don't know what's happening at these studios.

I think we're getting, we're going to have fewer and fewer of them, but I think there's something about the A24s and neons of the world

being the interesting places where movies, even if people don't want to see them necessarily, they're not getting huge audiences. They're doing, something is going on there culturally, right?

These are the movies that have their finger on something. And sometimes they're hits.

And I think the studios, I think there are people at these movie studios who want to be a little bit conversant in the weird energy of this moment.

So you think in the old days, it was just about let's make as much money as we possibly can.

Now, if you're making decisions at wherever, you also want to be involved in stuff that's part of the conversation.

And anecdotally, and you're at a cocktail party and somebody's like, oh, you made that movie? I thought that was fucking awesome.

What's interesting about what you said, though, is two of the most interesting movies that came out this year were Warner Brothers movies, right?

Where they gave Paul Thomas Sampson, I don't know how much money, and I don't really care. Um, but they gave him enough money to go get big stars and make a big action movie.

They gave Kugler the Sinners thing, and they gave him one of the best deals any director has ever gotten. So, they got behind him.
Warner Brothers was a fucking mess.

So, the fact that they got involved in two of those movies is a good thing. I think Weapons is also Warner Brothers.

Right. But But that's a more conventional, like, horror movies are a safe bet, I think, especially now.
Young people go to horror movies.

I think that I'm sort of curious about what the state of the horror movie is. You should have Jason Blum come on at some point and think this through a little because

I don't know. I think people want, I think the conjuring for that movie being a hit was indicative of a love of that franchise.
But I think, you know, the the second Megan movie didn't do that well.

And I

don't know. I think it really depends on the who and the what of the thing.
And weapons to me was unconventional in that

you didn't really know what you were getting when you got there. There was no star luring you to it.
That was a pure word of mouth. I went and saw that movie, Bill, because people told me to see it.

I didn't go to a screening. It's the ultimate word of mouth movie this year.
I got told by multiple people that I need to see weapons. So I went.

Yeah, but that was happening with TV for 12 years. And now it feels like it's shifting back to weapons

to good movies, right? I agree. I agree.
I think word of mouth,

I think word of mouth is really important. Now, I don't know, you know, one of the things to think about here is how much these movies cost to make.

I don't. Why do we have to think about it? I don't really care.
Like,

you mentioned earlier how this has become a narrative, and it was certainly a narrative with sinners, which was stupid. And it became a narrative with this PTA movie, too.

And it's like, why do people care about that, but they don't care about what all this other shit costs? How is that even a conversation? Nobody talks about it.

I mean, it's true. And yet, I think that the way that the people at the studios are thinking about whether or not to spend XYZ thing on

whatever is how much did they lose making it.

And the only reason I'm bringing up the budgets is I'm wondering, do they have to cost this much?

Now, I don't know what everything costs, but if we're talking about something that winds up making $120 million,

just like somebody taking a bath on that,

well, but, but why'd you spend so much?

Like, not everything should be avatar, should be an avatar movie where this man, apparently you can't give him enough money that he can't make you back, right? Right.

I also think that what makes me mad about these budget conversations is

that there's a whole, and I've talked about this before with you, and I know you're with me, but there's a whole universe of movies you could be making for the price

of

just one of these other films. Yeah.

Well, these are the movies that we grew up loving in the 70s and 80s.

There's no rewatchables without this level of film.

There's just no re-watchables, right?

And I am really worried. And well, I'm not worried.
I'm always worried about like there being no like mid-budget, mid-level, like middlebrow, star-driven movies. But I'm also worried.

I'm a little nervous, honestly. You're talking about all these great directors.
I'm worried that they're too great, right? Like, I'm worried that they're too good. Where's the Stephen Freers?

Where's the Taylor Hackford? Where's the Lost?

Our guy Taylor Hackford. Now, these are not, these aren't people that I need to, like, whose movies I need to be seeing all the time.

But, like, there is like a, where's the, where are the Carl Franklins? Um, you know, I think there's a, there's a tier of person, you know, Joan Micklin Silver, Nora Efron.

Like, there are people who are really good at doing a particular kind of thing that was never intended to like Walter Hill dominate Walter Hill, dominate the box office.

And so I don't know what it looks like because, you know, TV, those people used to come from TV.

And now TV and the movies aesthetically, they're almost indistinguishable from each other.

Well, I wonder like with the with the way the TV seasons have shortened,

where.

Like if you're Brad Inglesby, I really like Task. We've been covering on the Prestige TV.
You got me to watch.

There's a movie. There's a show you got me to watch.
I would never have watched that show. So that's an eight-episode show, and it's going to have a beginning.

And maybe they'll figure out a season two that will be a different thing, which, you know, on paper is the higher upside because you can take this one piece of IP you had, and instead of making a two-hour movie with it,

you could potentially get three, four seasons out of something. Like White Lotus would be the best example of that, right?

White Lotus could have just been a movie, and instead they blew it out into this big, now it's just going to go on forever. So I wonder, like, God help us all.

There was a while there where it was like it actually makes more sense to push your best ideas toward the streamers but now i feel like it makes more sense to to push them to movies because the streamers

the streamers who knows it might take them two years to make a show they might decide they don't like it after a year i'd rather make a movie now i am confused about some things though bill yeah Like for instance,

I don't know what to do with the fact that Bong Joon-ho's first movie after winning all those Oscars for Parasite was Mickey 17 with Robert Pattinson, a movie I enjoyed.

Really strange movie. Nobody went.
Yeah. Nobody went.
So I don't know if that's a marketing concern. I don't know if people didn't know it.
It was out there and they, you know, they didn't.

Can I give you my theory that nobody went? Sure. Because I think it's this simple.
And you mentioned horror before, how horror is coming back.

So I talked to my daughter about this because she and my son, they both go to every horror movie. They love going to horror movies, but comedies are not back.
They're not back. Comedies,

horror and comedy used to be dead even in the 80s and 90s.

And then something flipped.

And in this decade, comedies kind of drift toward like that friendship with Tim Robinson where it comes out, doesn't do that well, and then it kind of lives on for a couple of years. People rent it.

People watch it on whatever. Horror movies, people want to go in the theater.
They want to sit around other people and be scared. And I really think this is a post-COVID thing.

We've had horror since the exorcist and and psycho. It's not like this is a new genre.

But I think to get people to go to the theater, you really need that extra gimmick now. And I think people are starting to figure that out.

It's almost like in basketball when people started to figure out, you got to shoot more threes. You just got to game the system.
If you shoot more threes, there's better spacing.

You get long rebounds off the threes. And with these movies, it's like, All right, how do we get people to the theater? Well, horror gets them.

They like going to the theater, sitting around other people being scared. IMAX, an awesome, this is why PTA, everybody, everybody's like, you got to see it in the theater.

You got to see it on IMAX, you got to see it on IMAX, you got to see it on IMAX. That wasn't the case.
Think about 15 years ago, how clumsy that was with the 3D. It's like, this is the next big thing.

It's like, is it? Everyone I know hates this.

Well, it only worked for Avatar, right? And

not for 20 other movies. Right, right, right.

But I think that, I mean, but just to take your three-point shot metaphor someplace else, I mean, I've heard so many conversations between and among you and

the basketball people, many different people,

really

thinking philosophically about whether that shot is good for basketball. Yeah.
Right.

Like all the ways in which it has changed the game enough so that the things that once were pleasurable about it have been deprioritized, where really the three

is an easier shot. It's formulaic.
Right. And it's, you know, it kind of is a little bit dramatic.
And it, you know, in the right moment, it's the clutches shot because

you were farther back and the shot went in and it just seemed, you know, there is a degree of difficulty at operation here.

But at the end of the day, the thing that's really going to get most of your points is going into the paint and shooting from there.

So I'm worried that people are trying to to like

do these shoot threes, you know, and to not take a different set of risks by getting elbowed in the head. So, what are the different set of risks that we're not doing right now?

I mean, I think we really got to get these movie stars in some basic Shmeshik movies. And I don't, and you just got to spend the marketing money to persuade people that that's where they want to be.

I think going, I think I'm really, really still struck by how nobody has followed up on that Glenn Powell and

Sidney Sweeney romantic comedy that became the sleeper because

anyone but you or anybody but you. Like,

I think,

no, but it doesn't see, see, you know better than that, Bill. It doesn't have to be a lot of people.
I don't want to hang with them for 100 minutes. That's all.
That's all. That's all.

I don't care what situations are. It doesn't matter.

I am shocked that

Glenn Powell, I mean, Glenn Powell, I guess, is writing his own ticket now. And right? So, but, but doing this thing, this Eli Manning thing

where Everage Streaming, I can't even remember now. Hulu.

This, this Chad, what's his face? I, I, sure, I'd have no problem with that.

Honestly, I think he agreed to that before he blew up as a movie star. Interesting.

I don't know if, I don't know if he's agreeing to do this now. I think they really lucked out

buying in on him a little early and his star rose and they already had the the project going which is great for them but i think that there is a there is like there are like 24 people yeah um who

who right now

if somebody just backed them and they weren't playing famous people they weren't they're not doing biopics for instance like you know poor jerry with jeremy allen white like i don't know what else this guy has i mean because they keep asking him to play these mopey downbeat

people I like what else can he be doing? So, you didn't want him as short mopey Bruce Springsteen? Man, that movie, I, it just

lets me out.

You're not going to see it? Not seeing it. I don't blame you.
It's like, it's just such a done with the biopics. I well, listen, I've been done for 20 years with these movies, but we're go ahead.

I just feel like there are like two dozen people who, like, like of

men, women, racially interesting like mix of people

who

could definitely be stars you know um tiana taylor i mean tiana taylor but again like it's really about the casting what is the what is the portfolio of roles this person could do um this is a person who cut her teeth in a in well cut cut a teeth took a big bite of a out of a tyler perry movie and is the thing i most remember about that film she can do,

she can't do anything, but like she's she is a star. There's a starriness about her.

And

she will figure out what can and cannot be done if you give her the parts. Um, I don't know.
There's just Chase Infinity. I mean, we just have like stay in the, in, in the P.T.

Anderson world for a second. Chase Infinity, that person can do.

I'd be curious to see what else they can do. Um, I feel like

what we saw in Presumed Innocent, and it took took me a half hour to realize it was the same person. Yeah, that's a bad use of Chase Infinity.

I will say this. Remember

we saw one of the Planet of the Apes movies together in L.A.

Right.

And it was with Franco. It was fine.
Right.

It was two hours. It was fine.
Yeah.

If that movie's happening in 25, 26, I think they're spending more money on how they shoot it. I think they really care about the experience of going.
It's going to be on IMAX.

It's It's going to be much cooler. I don't know if that's a bad thing.
No, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I think that

the

only thing I care about, because I just think that the thing that you're talking about,

this new three

is

just replacing what the comic book movie was doing with...

premium material in a lot of ways, but it is training us to not be comfortable sitting through a movie where the rock is doing nothing more than suffer. Right.

I mean, I'll admit that like this is a hard ask for a lot of people. I don't love the Smashing Machine as a movie, but I think he is very good in it.

But I think I also wonder whether or not it's possible to

get, to lure people back if you put, I mean, I don't want to think about anybody over the age of 40 right now. I want to think about younger people because that's really.
I mean, our favorite stars,

one of their first peaks happens between the age of like 19 and 24, right? Like Eddie Murphy's first peak is he's a kid. Yeah.

And I think now's the time to be investing in

younger people getting a lot of at-bats to see if there's any stardom there. This episode is brought to you by Brooks Running.
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Well, it's interesting because that ties into, I want to talk about Sean Penn with you, and then I want to talk about

one bad after another.

No, but Sean Penn had an interesting old school career where he made a lot of stuff and didn't really necessarily care if any of them was,

you know, sometimes he went for like he like he made colors, like he clearly thought that could be a big movie, but then he would do all these other ones. Um,

one bat after another, the Sean Penn performance is so crazy

and so distinct and so fucking batshit. And it made me think like, Sean Penn's been in my life,

I don't know, since I remember you're going back to taps and fast times and bad boys. Bad boys was one of my first favorite movies.

But I was thinking about the six stages of Sean Penn that I want to go with you really quick. Stages? Six stages of Sean Penn.
Damn. Okay, let's go.

Coolest 80s guy from that huge California class, right? It was Cutton had the Oscar.

Cruise was like the super hard worker, overachiever. Lowe was the handsome guy.

Sheen, Estevej, and Kate, Estevez, and Cage were the legacy kids.

And then Penn. And Cage is like a different cage issue.
But he was like related to the Coppola's. Yeah, sure.
And then

Penn was the one, and they all came up together, and there was more in the group, but they all come up together. But Penn was the one where they were like, that guy's going to win Oscars.
And

that's where...

He kind of started. But then he does taps, fast times, and bad boys.
And fast times and bad boys, he's so different in those where you're like, oh, wow, something's here.

He's in Falcon the Snowman, Racing with the Moon, at close range. Shanghai's surprised and starts to go sideways because

he marries

a tabloid fixture. Yep.
Fights with photographers and becomes this whole character. So now it's like, all right, what is he? So that's the sec, that's like the second stage.

He's like, bad boy meets Brando. Then he goes, he has this late 80s, 90s run where he doesn't win an Oscar, but he has the ascent.
He's in colors. He's in casualties of war.
Oh, right.

Carlito's Way, State of Grace, Dead Man Walking. Like he's, he's playing real characters.
Everybody's different. He looks different in each movie.
He's not doing buddy cop movies.

He's not doing action franchises. He's not doing comedies.
At some point, he ends up with Robin Wright here, who is the most beautiful person in the world coming off Princess Bride.

And then he moves into this mid-90s through 2002 stage, which was fascinating because now he's dining off being Sean Penn.

Like he's he's in the game. He's in She So Love.
He's in U-Turn. He's in Hurley Burley, Thin Red Line, being John Malkovich.
He's in all these weird movies, but he's also like he does, he's on SNL.

He does this segment with David Spade where he gives him a tattoo. He's on Larry Sanders.
He's on Ellen. He's on Friends.
He's like kind of playing the hothead persona, but he's also still Sean Penn.

He's working with good directors. But he's kind of trying to win an Oscar too because he does that I Am Sam movie, which is one of the worst movies of the last 25 years, right?

Then we move into the Oscars decade, stage five. Mystic River wins it.
He's in 21 Graham's interpreter, all the Kingsmen, then wins again in milk

for milk in 2009.

Now he's just cemented. And for the last 15 years,

I don't even know how to describe whatever stage he's at. I had him on my podcast, I think, in 2019.
He floats in and out. It's cool to see him.

I don't think he can carry a movie anymore, but he can also be in a movie like this where he can just feel like every time he's in a scene, he's the most important person. So, what is he now?

And has there been a career like this? Because I can't think of another one.

Well, first of all, I would, I don't want to answer your question with a question, but I will ask you this because it's going to be, it's going to help frame how we talk about him a little bit, which is,

is he,

or was he ever a movie star, right?

Because, so, what's the definition of movie stars? Like, could he not?

It's very simple. Did we

vote to pay to see this person in a movie? I think we did for a while, and then he needed help to be a star. He needed to be in the game with Fincher, with Michael Douglas.

Because I kind of hit that point. I think

what happened, and I think this is

phase four.

Yeah.

Mid-90s.

Where he

does

that batch of movies where he's some older actor's sidekick brother, protege, something.

Yeah.

And he gets to be a little, he gets to be a character actor, which is what I had assumed he'd always wanted. He did not want us to know he was hot.
Right. Yeah.

He didn't, he seemed to like really resist

being

attractive.

And even though he dated Madonna at the peak of her powers and then went right to Robin Wright.

But

taste is not the same thing as

kind of being ashamed of

something about yourself. Because at the same time, you know, he was always really physically fit.

He

And he only seemed to get fitter. Like the problem with milk is if Harvey Milk was that built right

as the mayor of san francisco yeah that relationship would never have lasted i mean come on right like i don't know i just it just you know he he's just like a really fascinating person because i think the madonna relationship

i don't know what he would say the love of your life answer would be but hers is him right like when when i think it's it's truth or dare.

Yeah, she talks about it. Somebody like one of the one of the dancers, they're playing truth or they're playing truth or dare.

And the answer to one of the, one of the truths or dares is, you know, the love of your life is who? And it's, she says Sean.

And I think that period was tumultuous for, for at least, you know, from the standpoint of the person who got dragged to the supermarket by his mom and could see the magazines magazines and their pictures all over them,

Madonna's and Sean Pence. I think that period is the, is the one is

it sort of changed him.

I think it changed his interest in being famous or being a movie star. Which explains some of the choices, right? Yeah, yeah.

I think he just seemed like he wanted to work with awesome co-stars, really good directors. He kind of did what we talk about with Leo, where he starts checking boxes.
He's working with Fincher.

He's working with De Palmo. He's working with, you know, Oliver Stone, on and on and on.

And

then he,

the last 15 years, and we always talk about this with Cruz, like, what do you want to be when you hit a certain age?

You can't be a leading man anymore. I actually like some of the choices he's made, whereas Cruz is just like,

I got to do Mission Impossible again. Like, could Cruz have been this character? Would he have ever in a million years

tried to do it? He wouldn't have. Well, I think

Damon would have.

Nat Damon? Yeah. Oh, there's even two actors that would have said, fuck it, I'll do that character.
I think there's others who would have been like, I'm out. I think, but

what you need for this one thing after another, sorry, one battle after, keep calling it one thing after another. What you need for this one battle after another part

is somebody who

has an innate sexiness

and has an innate sexiness that the actor understands or has access to, right? Yeah. And is not afraid.
This is the first time he's actually done this, right?

Where he's wielded it, but he can, I think the permission that he has to wield it in this way is that, you know, he's in the satire part of the movie, right?

His part of the movie is the joke half that meets the, the dangerous

political half, right? I mean, not that his side isn't political. But the satire part in his first scene is not satire.

That's like a pure, we're going to try not to spoil the movie because we're talking about the tail end, but it's like a very sexually charged scene. Bathroom sequence where she's planting the bomb?

No, when she, the first time she goes in on him with the gun and makes him get a boner. Yeah, but I mean, I don't know.
I found that funny.

Yeah, but I'm just saying they had like chemistry. Oh, which I think sure.
I think that would have been a pretty weird Tom Cruise scene. I, you know, I mean,

I'm having a lot of conversations about this movie with,

you know,

the black women in my life.

And

I think,

you know,

there's a lot of

conversation about being, you know, disappointed in this movie, wanting better for the women in it.

Mostly that conversation is happening around Tiana Taylor, but you know, there's also an entire history of black women

in

American movies, just to leave it at that,

that this film is correspondent with, but also contributing to the problem of in some way,

goes some of the conversation.

And

I think that one of the uncomfortable things is just

one of the uncomfortable things for some people I'm going to extrapolate here

is a problem of this chemistry question

and how

the two of them,

that is real energy happening in those scenes. Yeah.

And

I don't know how they gave him the boner. You know, I don't know how what they affixed it.
I don't know what they put in his pants to make us understand that this guy's got a cartoon boner.

One of the top five cartoon boners?

Achorman? We'll do that later. I'll work on that list for.

But I think that sexual connection is really palpable.

So it made me think like.

I kind of wish he had explored that in a couple other movies. Like, can you imagine him?

I just go to basic instinct for this, but can you imagine him in in the michael douglas role with sharon stan stone i think he could have done it he never

stop it bill i'm standing up talk about a talk about a talk about a cheese he might have a cartoon boater

but i mean but you know there are it would have been too real in a weird way because michael douglas was that was part of michael douglas's story right right basic instinct was a was a chapter in the in the persecuted white male story there's a great book out now about michael douglas oh and american masculinity that's really really fascinating and entertaining.

I will

remember it as we talk what it's called.

But it's just a great piece of criticism.

I think that Sean Penn would have been interesting in a variety of other people's roles. I think the thing that makes him feel comfortable doing this one is, what is he? Is he 60 now?

I think he's older than that. I mean, he was 191 is in taps.
All right. So he's 65, let's say.
He's over 60.

I think being older,

I think being

and looking older. I think him not having changed his face.
65. Is really important.

I think him being as fit as he is

and being as old looking as he is, weathered is really the word that we're looking for here. Yeah.
I think there's something liberating in terms of what he can allow himself to do.

And I really, really think there's a trust with Paul Thomas Anderson that the things he's doing in this movie will be conveyed to an audience as

comical and laughable in some way. And I think that is that is allowing him to go as far off the deep end as he goes in this movie.
All right.

We're going to spend the last 15 minutes here talking about one battle after another. You've already given your takes.
I'm going to give some of mine and you can react to them. I receive them.

There will be a couple spoilers here. So if people haven't seen this, feel free to end the podcast right here and you can come back later.

You know, obviously I've had season tickets for PTA since seeing Boogie Nights in Boston, Massachusetts, whatever year that was. 1998.
Seven. 1998.
Seven, whatever. 97.

There's something about the performances he gets from actors that's like his superpower.

And I don't care what movie it is, but he has had over and over again for the last 30 years, the ability to extract something awesome out of really good actors.

And

I'd love to read a piece about it, a feature. What is it? What is it about him on the set? What does he see? How does he cast these people in his brain?

Even going back to Burt Reynolds and Boogie Nights, Burt Reynolds' career was over. And somehow he figured out, like, how do I extract Jack Horner out of Burt Reynolds? And he figured it out.

So when you think about not only we did with with Sean Penn, not only did with Tianna Taylor, who already has, obviously, has the talent,

but just all through the movie, just everybody's really good. Everybody's really good.

And all this, all the scenes, all the shots, like the reason to ride for movies like this, and especially his movies, like everything is so painstakingly thought out and well done, and just like top of the line.

So, I really appreciated that. So, I have that.

Um,

the crazy Sean Penn performance, it's so nuts. It's just like this movie's almost three hours.
You're just like, I just can't believe what's going on with this.

I thought, so we go to the highway when it spreads out, but this is like the reason you have to see the iMac. This is why you go to the iMac.
There's a 45-minute stretch here. This is it.
This is it.

That's really breathtaking. I mean, you could, you could watch the first two hours wherever, but you kind of have to see that.
And it's, it's really cool.

Like, it's, it's one of the most memorable things I've seen seen in a theater you're just like gee when we're going up and down those hills it's like is this real what is this it's it's just uh it was just the most captivating so much like think about all the stupid money we spend on cgi and fucking like this is like i would so much rather watch this i thought i was so much rather watch this um

Some of the stuff with the current moment that everybody's been talking about with the movie, how it captured something.

I'm a little confused by that because the first part of the movie takes place in the like 2007, 8 range, but I think it like inadvertently captures the moment now.

Yeah. You don't know.
But it's not intentional. You don't know where in time you are when it starts.
No, but it, but it, it's an outcome of the movie, right? And it's a really cool outcome.

But it's also like, it's not like he's like a year ago, he's like, I'm writing this. Like he's been working on this forever.

It almost reminded me of the only other movie I could think about, I mean, I'm sure there's been others, but it reminded me of like when I was a kid, the China syndrome came out. Oh, sure.

And it was right when everybody was starting to panic about nuclear war. And then this movie came out about a nuclear reactor.
And it's just like all the pieces came together.

But the actual movie is not that good, but it was like an Oscar contender. But it was really like the moment that drove it.
I feel like there's a little more going on here.

Do you think the moment is this moment is driving the conversation around this movie? I think it's one of the things. It's one of the things.

I think it's one of the things. I don't think it's the number one reason because it's a really good Paul Thomas Anderson movie with major stars in it that's, you know, exhilarating to watch.

There's another thing. There's another part of it.
Well, you keep going. Keep going.
Keep going. No, give me your other part.

Well, I just think that there's, I think that this is a movie initially set in Los Angeles by a guy who lives in Los Angeles and has been seeing what has been happening to the city and wondering why his fellow artists aren't doing more to capture it.

And I think that he's thinking both locally and nationally.

And I also wonder,

this is the first movie that he's made in the present

in a long time.

And I

think Punch Drunk Love might be the, by the last, might be the last movie he set in the present.

That's interesting. You're right.
And

I don't know what

picking up and dropping off the kids looks like for him. But you know, being

in some part of Los Angeles on a somewhat regular basis, you're just kind of like, this is a tragedy. There's like tragedy happening everywhere for no reason other than greed, selfishness, blindness.

Like, what, how, what,

what, what is that connected to? So, this man is thinking systemically.

These systemic problems have been with us for a long time.

And

I have never faulted his films for not paying attention to the present.

Although I always get a little nervous when movies want to spend all their time in the past because that means you were scared of what's happening now. This is a movie that is not afraid.

And to the ex to the, with respect to like the

like the really

important, fascinating, like

persuasive conversations happening around the

many, many black women in this movie,

I think that it is

trying to start something and acknowledge that something is happening without necessarily caring about getting anything right, if that makes sense.

I think it really wants to capture an energy. And if some characters wind up less developed than others,

it's a side effect

of the attempt to capture this energy. But I don't think this movie is disrespectful.

I mean, we can talk about like what, like how people feel about the depiction of the black women in it, but like, I don't think it's being, I don't think it's being done in bad faith, but I also think it's like it is fun and useful and illuminating to think about this movie as both a work of racial politics and racial movie politics.

Well, you just, this leads to my biggest flaw in the movie, and the thing that I left the theater kind of be mad about, even though I thought I was glad I went, I had a great time.

And I didn't think the movie

I was surprised. People are like, This is a masterpiece that got there.
I thought there was a major flaw in the movie, and it was the Tienna Taylor character.

Well, well, then I can give you four phone numbers

of people who would love to hear from you. Join the conversation.

Okay,

she

murders an innocent guard in the bank for reasons that remain unclear. I'm doing full spoiler alerts now.
She has this crazy affair with Sean Penn, even though she's with Leo.

We should be clearer about like Sean Penn raging military racism. Whatever.

But she's carrying, probably carrying her kid. Doesn't tell Leo about it.
She rats out all of her friends and gets a lot of them killed.

Right? That's the thing that happens. Like she sells all of them out.

She ditches her baby and disappears. And then even disappears on Sean Penn.
There's not a redeeming thing about her by the time she leaves the movie.

And then spoiler alert, we come all the way around to the end. We've, we have the, he saved his daughter, the whole thing.
And then it's like, here, mom wrote this letter.

She's like, I think about you every day. It's like.

I've already decided you're a terrible person.

With all the choices you made, you're not winning me back with this this letter to your daughter that you ditched when she was a baby and she couldn't take care of herself.

And I just like, I couldn't, I thought it was such a flaw, I couldn't get over it.

I think that you're identifying like

some of the majorist criticisms of the criticisms of this movie, which is, you know, you have this, you're going to give us this

badass

black revolutionary

who then proceeds to

complete a checklist of all the things,

all the problems that the movies have given black women, all of the sort of conservative

disrespects,

stereotypes that have been built, you know, to

judge,

deny,

erase black women and black womanhood from American life.

Well, answer me this: Is this movie, is it better without the letter? Like, let's just not have the letter as this movie. So, what's the letter doing for you?

It's trying to make it seem like, oh, she did feel bad the whole time. It's like, I've already, I've given up on her.
I, you know, I don't need to hear from her again. To me, I think this

is a really interesting

question about creative tension.

Because

what I wonder

is almost philosophical here, which is at what point

does a character stop being a representation of something

and begin

being an individual human who makes shitty decisions?

And if you allow this character, Prophetia Beverly Hills, that, I do not think that's the name on her birth certificate, by the way.

Because

you meet her mother and an aunt, and I just don't believe that.

What's the difference between a shitty decision and a reprehensible decision?

All right. Because I would say ratting out all your friends so they get killed is way up there.
I understand that, but this is a thing that happens in revolutions. I just want to be clear.

This is not, this is not like

I was done with her at that point, not to mention ditching your daughter. That's fine, Bill.
That's, I mean, yes. But what I'm what I'm wondering is

Paul Thomas Anderson writes this fictional character who does the reprehensible

and

then exits, right? Like, it's not like you have to spend the rest of the movie. She is essentially exiled herself from the first time.
35 minutes since she's gone.

And I think that the time that passes, we're talking about 16 years, basically,

of time for her to think about the life that she's currently living and the life she abandoned.

I think I received this character as human before I received her as a stereotype. Okay.

And I think that terrible choices were made. But I also think that that's a long enough time to regret having made them.
Who knows? She could be going to therapy or wherever she is.

She could have found, she could have started a new family. And

in starting that new family, come to appreciate that she fucked up. I don't know.
But these are the things that the generosity of the spirit in which this movie was made allow me to think about.

So you're pro.

Yes.

Does she should she have written letters to the families of all of her former colleagues that she got either murdered or jailed? We don't know she didn't. We don't know she didn't.
Yeah. I don't know.

I mean, it didn't work for me. I listened to Stay their thing.
Like, really, the letter, that's how we ended this.

I'm not here to convince you, but what I love about talking about this movie, especially this character,

is that there are options

for a response to her and her behavior.

And I think, I don't know why it's her, Bill. Honestly, I don't.

I think on the one hand, we are so starved for somebody to take a black woman seriously in any capacity that it really felt like this one was maybe trying to.

And then at some point, like a segment of the movie going population that has seen this film has just got off that train because they didn't feel that's what was being offered and that's what was transpiring.

I.

found this woman and her energy utterly exhilarating.

That's a key point. That's why I cared.
And that's why this movie matters because this is a fictional character in a fictional movie.

And at the end, I'm like, really disappointed, you know, that she's like trying to win them back with a letter because I've already decided, she'd already brought out such a visceral response that, you know, that's why it's a good movie.

The only other nitpick I had, not that my opinion matters, is I just didn't think the movie was funny. And I had people in the theater were half the people were laughing, half the people weren't.

But PTA is somebody who has done some of the funniest stuff in like drama-type movies. Like the stuff in Boogie Knights is one of my favorite things.
It's really like a genuinely funny movie.

Phantom Thread.

Phantom Thread is another one.

I just didn't think that Christmas, I thought it was kind of lazy, the Christmas adventures. Like, oh, you know, the, I don't know.
I just didn't work for me.

I think the dread in those sequences is so intense.

And I think that, like, the, I mean, the playing of it for comedy

wasn't funny, though. I guess, yeah.
I mean, I like,

it's an atmospheric comedy. I mean, it's funny.
Like, I don't know why I feel like I'm the person who's got to stand up for this movie. Like, lots of people love it.
Like, it does not need me.

But, but I, but I, I really liked it too.

No, no. These are my two nitpicks.
I, I actually did find the Christmas Adventurers funny in some way because

I think there's something really

like

dramatically comical in

this history of

these secret backdoor societies. Well, no, no, white men's attraction to black people.

And like whiteness's inability to

just love people without, like, black people, especially, without also having to perform contempt for them.

And, you know, I think this movie is coming from a really deep place.

If not in the person who made it, then certainly in

the environment, and this is in an environment this person understands in some way. And I think for now, the way that he's handling it is to laugh at it.

I don't know what he does after this, but I mean, I think for now, the juxtaposition of these,

they're not idiots. These are like powerful, smart people who also

are almost satirically wielding their racism

to

keep

their end of the country pure.

Well, this is the thing.

So I said this before we got on, and then you have to go because you have to run to a screening. I have to go to Lincoln Center.

My whole thing is,

I want to see this movie a couple more times. I think this is like one of those.
Oh, yes. Like sinners, right away.
I'm like, I'm in. I know this movie's going to be in my life.

I know how it made me feel. I love this movie.
This one, I'm like, I feel feel like three years from now, I'm going to be noticing things that I missed the first time I saw it. Right.

So, this is, these are all first reaction stuff.

I thought it was exhilarating.

I left a little disappointed just because of that thing I mentioned, but for the most part, like fucking great to go to the movies and see an awesome Paul Thomas Anderson. It was, it's just

great. I was really glad I saw it in person.
All right, Wesley Morris, your podcast, Canonball. I'm really going to be on this time.
You're on this Thursday.

We're going to talk to our movie stars and Robert Redford. Great.
Always great to see you. Thank you.
All right. See you, Bill.

All right. That's it for the podcast.
Thanks to Ariel. Thanks to Wesley.
Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. Don't forget, you can watch this on YouTube, on my YouTube channel.

You can watch it as a video podcast on Spotify. I'm going to be coming back

on Thursday with a bunch more stuff, including ice cold NFL picks. House is on the hot seat.
Mike McDaniel and House are the two people on the hot seats right now. We'll talk about that on Thursday.

We might even have a special guest doing the picks with us. So, see you on Thursday.

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