Hour 1: The Big One (feat. Jeff Pearlman)

Speaker 2 All right, Smirnoff, official vodka of the NFL, world's number one vodka. Chris Cody, you're with me here.

Speaker 4 Smirnoff!

Speaker 2 Wow, you're on the money with Smirnoff. Spinoff.
I'm gonna ask you, Chris, what's your favorite game day food? Smirnoff! Not your favorite game day drink. What's your favorite game day food?

Speaker 1 Smirnoff!

Speaker 2 All right, here's the deal: game day is everything: the noise, the rituals, the passion, the dip, the wings, the dip again. Spirit off.

Speaker 2 Smirnoff off belongs in that mix because if you're tailgating or hosting or just sitting there checking your fantasy lineup every 30 seconds, you need Smirnoff! Otherwise, it's not a real game day.

Speaker 2 They've been doing it since 1864, which is, I don't even want to do the math. It's a long time.
It's like when Greg Cody was born. They're award-winning.

Speaker 2 They make cocktails super easy and they're all about bringing fans together. So yeah, we do game days.
That's their thing. And if you're over 21, you should too.

Speaker 3 Why, Chris? Smearing off.

Speaker 2 Grab a bottle of Smearinoff at your local retailer and head to Smearinoff.com to find recipes of delicious cocktails perfect for game day. Smearing off.
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Speaker 3 Folks, losing at fantasy football has consequences.

Speaker 15 It really does.

Speaker 5 I mean, a new tattoo, a bad haircut, waffle challenges.

Speaker 16 I've seen those waffle challenges.

Speaker 3 Those look delightful.

Speaker 3 You're stressing me out with that soundboard. Well, fantasy football is stressful.

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Speaker 18 This is the Dan Labatar Show with the Stew Gats Podcast.

Speaker 3 Mark your calendars. Monday, August 25th, the Suey Awards return, presented by Miller Light.
It's the only award show where bad takes win big and the winners make no sense whatsoever.

Speaker 9 I was howling with laughter listening to our voice. Have we announced who the voice of this year's Suey's is?

Speaker 3 I mean, it's the same host as last few years.

Speaker 9 Okay, you sound really excited about that. No, I am.
I'm just like completely total indifferent.

Speaker 15 You made it.

Speaker 3 You almost built it up like it's some big announcement. It's my dad.

Speaker 9 That's a big announcement, and you should be excited about this year's Sueys.

Speaker 9 We've had an assortment of very famous voices, and it's a nice distinction that has been given over to your father that you should honor with more respect than you presently show.

Speaker 20 Chris, is this because he ranks last among the fame of the voices?

Speaker 3 Well, I think Dan's thinking of the looks-like, who we've had a lot of voices do. The Sueys have just been poppy and my dad.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 I also think, though, that your disrespect for your father is profound, and you don't appreciate what I was appreciating yesterday. It was funny, which is is he kept messing things up.

Speaker 9 He'd get mad at himself and he reminded me of a number of wonderful memories that I'd forgotten about over the last year because consistently the Sueys are among the best things that we do.

Speaker 9 And Greg's voice, he was tired yesterday. He was doing a lot of, that's a big lift, but he's honored to be a part of it.

Speaker 3 There was an opening number. Like, I don't want to give too many spoilers away, but on Monday, you want to tune in.

Speaker 20 So he's doing like a Billy Crystal kind of thing.

Speaker 3 There's the, I don't want to give any spoilers, but just tune in Monday at the start of the Suez. There's going to be

Speaker 3 an opening number, some would say.

Speaker 9 Just to close a loop here on a couple of things we've been talking about both locally and nationally.

Speaker 9 Taylor Twellman says that when contacted by the athletic, a league cup spokesperson has confirmed what it is that Zaslow already reported.

Speaker 9 The inner Miami head coach was located in a space designated according to tournament regulations. Cell phone communications are not prohibited per league cup regulations in this instance.

Speaker 9 It's so stupid.

Speaker 20 I mean, think about this, all right? The referee can throw the manager out. But no, he's not really throwing the manager out.

Speaker 20 The referee is telling the manager, you now have to sit in the front row with a cell phone. That's literally what the red card means.

Speaker 9 Well, the story's been confirmed. It was broken originally here by Zaszlo.
And congratulations, Zaszlo. Taylor Twellman is chasing you on this story.
The athletic is chasing you on this story.

Speaker 20 Show some integrity. Mention me when you put your report in there.
As heard first by Zaszlo, proxy to Zaslow.

Speaker 6 Please, let's go.

Speaker 9 Let's give credit in the proper places. Also, Mike Ryan, do we know if Cameron Ward has changed his name for commercial purposes?

Speaker 9 Because there's also a Carolina Hurricane named Cam Ward, and he doesn't want any confusion there.

Speaker 9 There is.

Speaker 10 In fact, that Cam Ward, who played for our Hurricanes team, put out a funny video when Cameron Ward got drafted. So I do think that some of that is at play.

Speaker 10 Yeah, but it's actually very, very much much so the cliche. His mama called him Cameron.
His mama made the request.

Speaker 9 Zaslow has vetoed his mama's request. I'm not comfortable.

Speaker 10 Unless he beats the Broncos week one, and then he's going to call him Cameron.

Speaker 9 I'm no longer comfortable quoting, you know, Eddie Murphy as one of the guys in the barbershop in coming to America. That doesn't seem to be a,

Speaker 9 I gave you too much liberty there, and I think I need to take that back.

Speaker 20 Sounds like you're trying to file some kind of appeal, and I'm not going to hear it.

Speaker 9 Well, you're deciding over Cameron Ward's mama. Yeah.

Speaker 20 She's not here in this court.

Speaker 10 Look, the Cam Ward that played for the Hurricanes, legend, Stanley Cup winner. No one's confusing the two.

Speaker 9 But the change is being made just because an adult has wanted to change his name or back to what it was originally, or because it's a marketing opportunity and you need to separate these two people because the Google searches have to produce just one of them.

Speaker 10 So the initial request that came from the family for award season was because it was important to to the family. But I think you have to be naive to not highlight the Cam Newton and Cam Ward stuff.

Speaker 1 Enough of the changing names.

Speaker 9 When I was mentioning the Rich Eisen thing to you guys before and nostalgia in general that is being partaken in in this Cowboys documentary that we're going to talk about with Jeff Perlman here in a little bit

Speaker 9 because the Cowboys documentary on Netflix has a whole lot.

Speaker 1 Oh, we're talking to Jeff Perlman.

Speaker 19 Gotcha.

Speaker 8 I thought it was Ron Perlman.

Speaker 15 I was like, dude, I I want to talk to you about the UFC voiceover.

Speaker 5 Sons of Anarchy. Dick, come on.

Speaker 8 I thought it was Ron Perlman.

Speaker 14 I got a picture with that guy at a radio row.

Speaker 4 Hell yeah.

Speaker 3 That's the guy with the face, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.
Bellboy.

Speaker 9 It's not a face. It's a square head, right? It's not.

Speaker 12 No, it's a face.

Speaker 15 It's chiseled. The face is chiseled.

Speaker 21 Beauty and the beast, right? Beauty and the beast.

Speaker 3 There's two guys you say that about. It's that guy and the guy from Sum 41.

Speaker 4 Jeff's cool, too.

Speaker 8 So not Ron. Okay, gotcha.

Speaker 20 God, that would have been awesome if you just asked him about something.

Speaker 2 But Bill Henry, that was back on February 25th, 2015. If you're remembering back the Henry Walker game, it was two threes in the final 22 seconds and his fifth day of a 10-day contract.

Speaker 20 Tie the game at 84 to go to overtime.

Speaker 3 Make me call him Bill.

Speaker 1 With Alfred Payton's magic.

Speaker 20 Make me call him Bill.

Speaker 7 Can you, Tony, can you just do the same prep that you did for Jeff?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Can you just ask Jeff the questions you're going to ask Ron? Yeah, for sure. Okay.

Speaker 19 Dan, is that cool? Yes.

Speaker 8 I know you like journalism and you know he writes a lot of books.

Speaker 14 It's really a funny game.

Speaker 14 I'm looking at his

Speaker 9 articulating my legacy.

Speaker 8 He's written 17 books.

Speaker 14 Okay, great, cool.

Speaker 12 Jeez, does he do UFC voiceovers, though?

Speaker 7 I don't know. 17 books.
What do you have to say?

Speaker 9 Tony,

Speaker 9 I will say that Jeff Perlman is exciting to me. Ron Perlman would be much more exciting to the audience.
His face is a cat.

Speaker 4 Does he look like a cat, though?

Speaker 9 It's unlike any face in the history of Hollywood, I would say. There's a a square footage

Speaker 9 in the face. It's not the chest.

Speaker 4 It's all the forehead, though.

Speaker 9 But look, the distinct look of Hellboy.

Speaker 9 I think that people think that Hellboy's face, I don't know how much time he spent in makeup. It must have been a great deal.

Speaker 9 But when you see Hellboy, you see that man's face, and it's because you see his character in his face because he's got an unusual head and face.

Speaker 9 It's an unbelievable amount of surface area, and there's no one else like it in Hollywood, right? I think Batista's head has a little bit of this.

Speaker 15 But Batista. He's bald, though, so he doesn't have the hair, right? I think Ron Perlman's hair also like makes it square.

Speaker 20 Yeah, Batista's head's pretty round these days.

Speaker 9 I know, but just yes, but such, so distinctive, I'm saying, that it's unlike any other person's. It's not even a movie star face anymore you're talking about.
It's a movie star head.

Speaker 9 How much makeup do you think that requires very little?

Speaker 8 I only see him. Like, I don't see Hellboy.

Speaker 19 Looks like it's just a little sunburn.

Speaker 7 If you're a hymn, you do the Randy Scott, right? Like, you just just go to bed like that. And then you wake up the next day, you're like, just do some touch-ups.

Speaker 7 Like, we're not doing 14 hours of makeup again.

Speaker 4 Full shower.

Speaker 9 I saw Colin Farrell did 14 hours a day for the Penguin. You're a movie star.
Who wants to do that for 14 hours a day?

Speaker 9 To totally distort the way that you look.

Speaker 7 I'm going to nap like this. Like, I'll come back tomorrow.
We just touch up what we can and we'll start from there. We're not doing this every day, eight hours of makeup.
That's insane.

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Speaker 5 Don Lebatard. Go ahead, Billy.

Speaker 9 Ask him your question.

Speaker 12 Is gymnastic, gymnastics

Speaker 5 possibly corrupt?

Speaker 4 Oh, wow. Wow.

Speaker 5 Stugats.

Speaker 7 I got some phlegm in my mouth.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 4 It's okay. Thank you.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Is gymnastics possibly corrupt?

Speaker 18 This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 18 She mentioned Colin Pearl. Damn.

Speaker 20 I'm doing a rewatch of 2006's Miami Vice. Wow.

Speaker 22 Now, articles have been written about how this

Speaker 10 set was plagued by Michael Mann just being Michael Mann. It was plagued by its director, Jamie Foxx, at one point.

Speaker 10 I have to remind myself constantly while watching the movie, Jamie Foxx is in this, right? That's because the headliner is Colin Farrell. Sub-headliner is Colin Farrell's hair.

Speaker 6 His hair is so good in this movie, and this is peak-cooked out Colin Farrell.

Speaker 4 It just oozes off. Oh, the best.
Well, wait, cool.

Speaker 9 But hold on a second. You can't do that.

Speaker 9 Yo, you can't do that.

Speaker 12 Seems reckless.

Speaker 24 Time to throw away all journalistic credibility and get reckless. Here is something we like to call reckless speculation.

Speaker 6 You guys think it's a reckless accusation to accuse Colin Farrell of cocaine in the mid-2000s?

Speaker 14 Yeah. All right.

Speaker 14 Sure.

Speaker 19 Whatever you say, pal.

Speaker 10 He's copped to it.

Speaker 19 This hair is unbelievable.

Speaker 6 It makes up for a movie that makes no sense. Why would Michael Mann want to make Miami Vice look like crap and not have any Cubans in it?

Speaker 10 In fact, the only time that there are Cubans in it is when Sonny says, I'm a fiend for mojitos.

Speaker 13 And the Chinese lady's like, I know where we can get one.

Speaker 10 And it's Havana, Cuba.

Speaker 13 Wow. He didn't bring a change of clothes.

Speaker 10 He's just in his suit. They go, they bang.
Weird sex scenes in the director's cut.

Speaker 12 It's not even passionate.

Speaker 13 Music, it's early 2000s, alt-rock, you know, that dip after new metal, where do we go?

Speaker 10 Let's just bring on non-point. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 6 It's not even a Miami Vice movie.

Speaker 10 They just slapped on Miami Vice Vice because this is a movie that Michael Mann wanted to make.

Speaker 13 All right, Mike.

Speaker 4 By the hair?

Speaker 9 I don't know if you ever got to Eddington, and I don't know if Mike's movie reviews. Like, you wanted to do heat.

Speaker 9 I don't know why it is that all of a sudden we're doing 2006 Michael Mann Miami Vice movie reviews.

Speaker 21 Have you watched Eddington yet? It's available for digital renting now.

Speaker 20 Nah, I got to wait till it's free streaming.

Speaker 12 I pay too much, man.

Speaker 10 I saw Eddington for the second time.

Speaker 13 We all covered. I don't know if you were here, Dan.

Speaker 10 I thought someone was going to shoot me in my movie theater when I saw Eddington the first time.

Speaker 20 This, Mike had a very scary movie theater experience. Yeah.

Speaker 10 A dude walked in with a suitcase.

Speaker 21 No, you've not heard that.

Speaker 10 And he was making noises the entire time. He walked in in the middle of the screen.
And you stayed? Got up.

Speaker 21 No, the entire theater was just paralyzed by fear.

Speaker 3 There's not a lot of exits, right? I mean, no, no, he was blocking the exit.

Speaker 10 And then when he left, he also left in the middle of it. He did like a full circle around his seat, which was a standalone seat, and he grabbed his suitcase and the wheels were squeaking.

Speaker 10 I missed the entire Austin Butler monologue, which I caught on second viewing. Eddington, great film, film of the year so far.

Speaker 9 Did it end up just being someone, though, who came straight from the airport to the movie theater and they just had a suitcase?

Speaker 4 How did people do that? He had overalls

Speaker 8 and a fisherman cap.

Speaker 13 It looked like, is this a marketing stunt?

Speaker 4 What is happening?

Speaker 20 And you were able to tell everyone in the theater was worried.

Speaker 6 He was coughing the entire time, and it's a movie about COVID, so I I thought this was a marketing stunt to terrify me.

Speaker 6 Anyways, second viewing, though, how Joaquin Phoenix can act.

Speaker 9 He is pretty good, and he's also terrible in every appearance being interviewed that I've ever seen of him.

Speaker 9 He's one of the strangest actors we've ever had, and that's keeping company with Daniel Day-Lewis.

Speaker 21 You're not going to believe this. Pedro Pascal's in it.

Speaker 9 A real stunner.

Speaker 9 Pedro Pascal is having the giant summer of, I guess it's longer than a summer now, right?

Speaker 9 In terms of a star turn, he's got what he's gotten over the last 18 months where I'm seeing him on the movie poster for Gladiator with Denzel.

Speaker 9 I'm like, who's in that? This is a climb.

Speaker 9 This is a climb to a place that I was not expecting movie stars to be able to do this.

Speaker 9 I thought we'd stop doing that with movie stars.

Speaker 10 Audiences love Zaddies, and he is a bona fide Zaddy.

Speaker 9 You guys mentioned Andrew Luck earlier, and I wanted to ask you guys a question to see if it's one of the things that's happening with Arch Manning.

Speaker 9 A reminder that Jeff Perlman, not Ron Perlman, will be on with us a little bit. Stephen A.
Smith will be on with us as well later in the show.

Speaker 9 You guys are delighted.

Speaker 4 You're going to be listening to this.

Speaker 9 No, but tell me what happened because the delight that you guys had in Tony discovering two hours into our show that he thought we were going to be talking to Ron Perlman and

Speaker 3 It was just an honest, like, what?

Speaker 20 Oh, man. Were you preparing questions for me?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. I was like,

Speaker 15 when the UFC reaches out to you, like, do you read the script? Do you have any notes for the script? Like, you voice them so well.

Speaker 9 Do you have any input? It's a better interview.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 7 You wait till we do it. Jeff could be fine.

Speaker 5 We're going to crush him.

Speaker 12 No, for sure. I just thought it was Ron.

Speaker 9 Jeff could be fine because

Speaker 19 we'll go after Ron.

Speaker 9 You guys all want to talk about Ron, though.

Speaker 12 Makeup.

Speaker 15 Does he take it off?

Speaker 4 Does he not?

Speaker 8 That'll be my first question to Jeff.

Speaker 9 I wanted to take you back to the conversation that we were having about sports media members who have a relationship with their audiences and what I was saying about Rich Eisen.

Speaker 9 And you saw what CBS is doing in week three. We're always making fun around here about how CBS does not know how to keep up with the young people.

Speaker 9 It's always Murder She Wrote, and it's always some sort of program for 60 and 70 year olds.

Speaker 20 CSI, number one show in America. I've never met a person who said, hey, hey, did you see his week's CSI?

Speaker 9 No, Stan Van Gundy and my dad love it. My parents give me updates every Saturday and Sunday.
They're watching Colombo. Like, this is absolutely a demo that works.

Speaker 9 But as CBS tries to get younger, because they've always had the oldest of the pregame shows, have you seen their week three idea, which is a good one?

Speaker 9 Has anyone heard what their week three idea is on how CBS is going to compete with the other morning shows?

Speaker 9 I don't know how Fox is going to be impacted by Jimmy Johnson no longer being there, but these television entities have been together for a long time, bringing you football.

Speaker 9 They're the same people that are bringing you football largely every week with a few rotating cast members, but CBS has tried.

Speaker 9 They've gone through Shannon Sharp, they've gone through Dan Marino, they've gone through Tony Gonzalez. They're trying to get younger over there.
So, how are they doing it in week three?

Speaker 9 Brent Musberger.

Speaker 9 They are bringing back the original show that they did a million years ago, and the way to do it is add Jimmy the Greek. Now you got me.

Speaker 9 If you add Jimmy the Greek,

Speaker 9 now I really want to watch. I don't know if Jimmy the Greek is still with us, though.

Speaker 2 Died on April 21st, 1996.

Speaker 19 I was going to say there's no way, right?

Speaker 9 Are you guys interested in a recreation? Tony, do you even know what we're talking about? Just ignore it. We got three minutes to go.
Yeah,

Speaker 15 I remember seeing some sort of 30 for 30, and Jimmy the Greek was like one of their, you know, one of the main things.

Speaker 6 I don't remember exactly which one it was.

Speaker 9 So what do you know about Jimmy the Greek? He was, was he Greek?

Speaker 19 I don't know if he was even Greek, right? Was he the Greek?

Speaker 5 Thank you for asking Tony this.

Speaker 15 No, but he was like a basically like a handicapper.

Speaker 9 The reason that I bring it up.

Speaker 8 It's the first one on TV ever, right?

Speaker 9 Yes, that is correct. But do you know anything else about Jimmy the Greek?

Speaker 4 That kind of thing. Okay, good.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 the history eludes you. Jimmy the Greek got fired because he he made some sort of comments

Speaker 9 that mentioned why it is the black athlete was better than the white athlete, and he brought up the points of slavery and some other things. And then

Speaker 8 disgraced. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 He also changed his name. He was born Demetrios Georgios Sinodinos and changed it to James George Snyder Sr.

Speaker 4 You're going to call him James?

Speaker 19 This is how we roll around here, baby.

Speaker 9 Jeremy Tashay's pitch clock toward the end of the show. Stephen A.
Smith is going to be with us before. Ron Perlman.
Ron Perlman is not going going to be on with us.

Speaker 19 We're efforting.

Speaker 20 Tony, is there someone else you wish Stephen A. Smith were?

Speaker 6 No, Stephen A. Smith.

Speaker 8 No, absolutely not.

Speaker 13 The GOAT.

Speaker 9 Mike, I want you to sit back there, and I want you to control everything that's happening here. I want you to just get us as quickly as you can to Jeff Perlman, who is not Ron Perlman.

Speaker 9 Can you get us there as we crawl on our knees toward the end of this segment?

Speaker 4 This is hard.

Speaker 3 You know what? Let's go now. Jeff's ready.

Speaker 9 Billy, do you have anything? You seem to be delighted. Did you trip a wire?

Speaker 7 Well, no, because what's going on here is they're investigating this one. We didn't get this as a false alarm.
This might be the big one, guys.

Speaker 9 Okay, so this is the biggest one.

Speaker 7 This might be it. They said we're investigating this one.
You know what?

Speaker 19 Let's go to break. There is.

Speaker 9 Okay, they're talking in English and Spanish.

Speaker 9 We have not heard that before.

Speaker 19 No, this is new.

Speaker 9 What are they investigating?

Speaker 3 Let's find out offline.

Speaker 9 Let's find out off air, shall we?

Speaker 12 Folks, the leaves are turning.

Speaker 10 The weather's getting a little chillier.

Speaker 6 That means the football games are more important. That means football time should be Miller time.

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Speaker 6 So whatever your game day looks like, remember Miller time is always a good time. Miller Light, great taste, 96 calories.
Go to millerlight.com slash stan to find delivery options near you.

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Speaker 25 I always trip out when guys tell me, man, you know, officer tackle, man, the hardest play officer. I said, please, man, your job, you fat 300-pounder.

Speaker 25 All you have to do is stay in front of another fat 300-pounder for three seconds. For three seconds, one fat 300, other other fat 300 stand in front of a three second.

Speaker 4 Mean, me. Spoo gotcha.

Speaker 25 I gotta go out here.

Speaker 25 I gotta fight a dude to come off the line of scrimmage just to get into my route, go run a route, fake another dude out, go turn, catch a ball that's being projected down the field fast, flying somewhere between heaven and earth, snatched it out the air, mid-air, come down, put my foot on the ground, all while somebody trying to take my head off, and I don't get a chill till I get in the end zone.

Speaker 25 I'm like, please, come on, man, let's be real.

Speaker 18 This is the Don Levatar Show with the Stuccats.

Speaker 2 So, Pablo Torrey is the 50 Cent of Journalism.

Speaker 3 Pablo,

Speaker 2 anything you need from me, baby.

Speaker 2 We're all here for you. We got your back.

Speaker 9 You reach out.

Speaker 7 So, here's the thing.

Speaker 26 Are you smarter than an NFL QB? What do you

Speaker 14 Girl, you might as well tell me now.

Speaker 26 As Bablotori finds out, no doubt,

Speaker 26 you can't hide the truth from me.

Speaker 14 Girl, you might as well tell me now.

Speaker 26 As Bablotori finds out, no doubt.

Speaker 26 You can't hide the truth from me. Is Giannis missing free throws for free chicken? Is our next president an alien and Russell Wilson? Why does the FBI director play so much hockey?

Speaker 26 Was Malik Beasley gambling before Milwaukee? Uh, wanna hear about the NFLPA? Salaries in the WNBA. The Knicks failed, LeBron recruitment tape.
Did you know that TRL was fake?

Speaker 14 Girl,

Speaker 26 you might as well tell me now.

Speaker 26 As Papal Torrey finds out, no doubt, you can't hide the truth from me, girl.

Speaker 26 You might as well tell me now.

Speaker 9 Jeff Perlman is not Ron Perlman, much to Tony's chagrin and disappointment.

Speaker 9 But Jeff Perlman is a 17-time author. All his books are great, exhaustively reported.
And Tony, I may be able to get you interested here. His next one's on Tupac.

Speaker 9 So when he writes about stuff, he digs in really deep, talks to a whole bunch of people.

Speaker 9 And I wanted to get him on because I saw episode two last night of the Cowboys dock, and I felt some of the NFL video influence on this a little bit.

Speaker 9 And it was a little softer than I thought we were headed. I'm sure the bad stuff is up ahead, but I have not seen the entirety of the documentary.

Speaker 9 I have read the entirety of Jeff Perlman's book on the Cowboys, which I assume is the starting point on how it is that they're doing this documentary. So, Jeff, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 9 Always enjoy your work. Also enjoy his YouTube stuff.
where he's a master storyteller. So he's doing some good and fun and creative stuff on YouTube as well.
But what was your take here, Jeff?

Speaker 9 Have you seen the entire documentary? Does it ring authentic on some of the stuff you were reporting about?

Speaker 22 I mean, it definitely rings authentic if you believe Jerry Jones is the greatest thing to ever happen to football and nothing better has ever happened to football than Jerry Jones, who's the greatest thing to ever happen to football.

Speaker 22 So if that is your stance, 100% yes. All right.

Speaker 9 So what's flawed about what's being seems like universally celebrated, but I would have guessed probably pales in comparison to your book?

Speaker 22 You know, I guess it's a couple of things. I'm not saying it's not entertaining or good TV.

Speaker 22 I think early on they way undersell Jimmy Johnson's impact. In particular, the Herschel Walker trade, which is skimmed over, but which is a trade that completely and totally remade the franchise.

Speaker 22 And number one, you would think it was Jerry Jones's idea and you would think it was Jerry Jones's implementation when 99.9% of everything that happened with that trade was Jimmy Johnson and then Mike Lynn, the Vikings, general managers screwing up.

Speaker 22 And also number two, and a small thing that they skipped over completely that I was surprised is they talk about Trey Aikman's arrival in Dallas.

Speaker 22 And they leave out completely that that same year, there was a supplemental draft where the Dallas Cowboys took Steve Walsh, Jimmy Johnson's quarterback out of Miami, and they had this challenge, this head-to-head challenge that Walsh was winning and that Jimmy Johnson really wanted Trey Aikman to feel uncomfortable and feel challenged by Steve Walsh.

Speaker 22 And then they turned, they flipped Steve Walsh to the Saints for all these more picks. Another thing that Jimmy Johnson did, completely and totally left out of the whole thing.

Speaker 22 And since I'm on a little rant, I will say lastly, I didn't need a dollar for this. I didn't need attention.
I didn't need to be in it.

Speaker 22 But I do feel like we live in an age where intellectual property is being completely ignored and nobody really seems to care that there's a source material for stuff. And it's never

Speaker 22 AI is doing this all the time with books now, where it just gobbles up books, spits out the information, you don't even know where it came from.

Speaker 22 And I do feel like there is a lot of stuff in this series that originated with my reporting.

Speaker 9 All right, so that I may offer some of this to the audience because all of his books are excellent.

Speaker 9 But one of the things that he did in his Cowboys book that floored me, because when I was reading it, I'm like, wait a minute, what happened here with the Cowboys? And how does no one know about this?

Speaker 9 Michael Irvin basically should have been charged with attempted murder on a teammate because he went after an offensive line with a pair of scissors and just got him near the jugular, like arguing over seniority and haircuts.

Speaker 9 Should have been charged with murder from the reporting of Jeff Perlman. How do they attack this story on Netflix?

Speaker 9 Because like I said, I have not gotten to the other six parts of this story, but the content dilution of Hollywood makes this stuff so in exchange for access, you get diluted versions of the story.

Speaker 9 This story, I only read in your book. I didn't know how you got anybody to talk about this.

Speaker 22 Yeah, I mean, it was, it would have been attempted murder, not murder, because Everett McIver, the lineman he stabbed in this, in the neck with the scissors, did not die.

Speaker 22 And originally in the local Dallas newspapers, it was reported as there was this mishap and there was this exchange and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but everyone's okay.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 I had, I think it was Kevin Smith, the cowboy defensive back, who said to me first, he's like, you know about the scissors, right? And I'm like, not really.

Speaker 22 He's like, oh, you need to know about the scissors. And then I kept talking to people and basically Michael Irvin.

Speaker 22 Everett McIver, an offensive lineman on the team is sitting in a barber chair in training camp and they bring in Vinny the barber to cut hair.

Speaker 22 And Michael Irvin walks in and MacIver's in the seat, and Mike Irvin says, seniority. And MacIver's like, I'm in the seat.
He's like, yo, seniority. And Everett McIver is not a rookie at this point.

Speaker 22 And all the other guys in the room are like, yo, Everett, don't leave the chair. Don't leave the chair.
And Irvin's like, get the F out of the chair.

Speaker 22 And Everett McIver stands up, shoves Michael Irvin. Mike Irvin shoves him back, grabs Vinny's barber scissors.
stabs Everett McIver in the neck.

Speaker 22 Everett McIver falls to the floor, bleeding out of his neck.

Speaker 22 They rush in paramedics. And part of the deal, ultimately, because Mike Orbin was already on probation, is if he gets caught for this, he is going to prison.

Speaker 22 This is a clear violation of probation once you're charged with him probably.

Speaker 22 And I'm just being honest, just being honest, I'm not, you'll never hear me. Like the, I wrote a book about the 86 match.
ESPN did a 30 for 30. They interviewed me at length.

Speaker 22 It was a beautiful project. I was really happy with it.
I didn't make a dime. I don't care about making a dime.
But I reported the hell out of that. Like I reported the hell out of that.

Speaker 22 I spent weeks of my life reporting on that.

Speaker 22 And when a documentary comes along and doesn't at all credit source material, just as an author and speaking for other authors, it does bother you a little bit, just be honest.

Speaker 9 It's okay. I was laughing more at the idea that Michael Irvin would have violated his probation by trying to stab a teammate in the neck with scissors in the juggler.

Speaker 22 It was a moment. It was a moment.

Speaker 9 Well, does the

Speaker 9 Does the documentary feel sanitized to you?

Speaker 9 Or when you say you're on a rant, do you feel like you're getting an honest version or you're just simply getting what Jerry Jones wants us to eat as part of his marketing and propaganda arm?

Speaker 22 I feel there's a lot. They did a lot of amazing work with the footage.
They did an amazing work with a lot of the guys they had come and sit down. Steve Berline is interviewed.

Speaker 22 I mean, that was a random and interesting poll. Charles Haley sat down.
You don't see him do that many interviews. Like they did.
They definitely did the work.

Speaker 22 Like to give them credit, they gave the work. They did the work.
They put in an entertaining documentary. I just think Jerry Jones, like the Cowboys have not won in 30 years.

Speaker 22 They haven't sniffed a Super Bowl in 30 years.

Speaker 22 And this idea, here's a success story of the NFL because this franchise is worth a ton of money and Jerry Jones is worth a ton of money and he got his family involved.

Speaker 22 When the number one problem with the Cowboys for the last decade at least is that Jerry Jones is making all the decisions and he's never been good at making football decisions.

Speaker 22 And that feels very, very sanitized, just be honest.

Speaker 20 Jeff, is there anyone that you weren't able to get on the record when you wrote Boys Will Be Boys that maybe this series is going to have? Have you seen?

Speaker 22 I didn't get Aikman. Trey Aikman wouldn't talk to me.

Speaker 22 So I didn't get Trey Aikman. So that was, and he's a big part of it.
And he's great in the series.

Speaker 22 Again, they got a lot of really good people. They got Emmett.
They got Aikman. They got Irvin.
They got Haley. They got Jerry.
They got Switzerland and they got Jimmy. Like, they did their work.

Speaker 22 I give them much credit for that. So it's not about that, to be honest.

Speaker 9 And I don't want to discredit them there, Jeff, but when Jerry Jones signs up for the story of his life while he feels like he's overcoming cancer and says, hey, one last time, let's tell this story.

Speaker 9 Of course, everyone's going to participate, just like Apple and Kraft got everyone to participate there. What did you make of the way the story is told?

Speaker 9 Because what I was saying yesterday is it seemed like Jerry Jones in his own documentary with good amount of control over what he was doing decided to give Jimmy Johnson more credit than Bob Kraft was giving Bill Belichick in the 10-part series they did.

Speaker 22 Yeah, no, he gave... He gave Jimmy Johnson credit.
I just think, honestly, God, if we're all being honest here, Jerry Jones is very wise to to buy the Cowboys. It's a great investment.

Speaker 22 Interestingly, Donald Trump, when Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys, Donald Trump said he overpaid and the franchise is never going to be worth what he thought, which I always thought was funny.

Speaker 22 He deserves a lot of credit for buying the franchise. None of Jimmy Johnson, everything Jimmy Johnson did was masterful.
Like everything.

Speaker 22 To be honest, if you want to write, if you want to do a documentary about this era, it should be called How Jimmy Johnson Changed the Franchise and everything he did from the Hearsel trade to the Steve Walsh trade, everything he did, the pressure on players.

Speaker 22 And Jerry Jones was a really savvy owner who put a lot of money into the franchise and has made himself an uber, uber billionaire.

Speaker 22 But the football story itself is Jimmy Johnson, wise drafts, savvy trades.

Speaker 20 Jeff, do people understand how crazy Charles Haley was?

Speaker 22 No, no.

Speaker 22 I mean, in a way I feel bad, I have actually said it in the past that I feel like in a lot of ways, that's one part of my book that I have some regret over because he was battling severe mental illness.

Speaker 22 And I just wasn't mature enough or smart enough when I was writing that book to really delve into it. But he was a guy who during meetings was, I mean, he was pleasuring himself during meetings.

Speaker 22 He shows up and he's under a blanket listening to whoever's giving a talk, pleasuring himself.

Speaker 22 And also, they touched on this a little bit, which I thought was good. His ruthlessness toward teammates, the cruelty he used to bring toward teammates.

Speaker 22 Chad Hennings, an old defensive lineman, was a really good example. Like he could just be ruthlessly mean.
and also as wildly unpredictable as you can find.

Speaker 9 Did you feel or see any sanitizing, Jeff? Did they talk about the mental illness involving pleasuring himself in meetings?

Speaker 9 Because I saw a little bit of what they did with Charles Haley, and they went around the fringes of it, and they did say he urinated on an assistant coach's desk.

Speaker 9 He tried to fight a head coach, but the Charles Haley stories were legendary well beyond that.

Speaker 22 Yeah, no, actually, it's funny. I just saw this.
My favorite Haley story, and it's kind of light humor, is when the Dallas Mavericks drafted Jamal Mashburn.

Speaker 22 And Jamal Mashburn comes to town and they give him a tour of the Cowboy facility to meet the Cowboys, just a PR thing.

Speaker 22 And if you remember, Jamal Mashburn used to have a gap between his teeth, like kind of a pronounced gap.

Speaker 22 And Jamal Mashburn is walking through the Cowboys' locker room, and all of a sudden he hears someone, and it's Charles Haley, scream out in front of everyone.

Speaker 22 Jamal Mashburn is probably 21 years old, hey, Jamal, now that you're making that NBA money, how about getting your teeth fixed? And like, Jamal Mashburn just feels like vanishing into the carpet.

Speaker 22 They definitely went a little, they definitely went light on Haley with the Cowboys because Haley was, you know, crazy.

Speaker 9 One of the great all-time lunatics of all time in that sport, correct? And I say that, and no, we did not cover with great grace his mental illness, but

Speaker 9 he was his talent. What he made people endure was far beyond the pale on sports was not equipped to deal with his kind of crazy.

Speaker 22 No, no, he was a very, very, very,

Speaker 22 very difficult teammate.

Speaker 22 And when you were adding him to your franchise, and he would probably acknowledge this now, when you added Charles Haley to your franchise, you were making a concession that our locker room is either mature enough or insulated enough that we can deal with this.

Speaker 20 Jeff, what were some of the best examples of Switzer just not having control of that team?

Speaker 4 Oh, my God.

Speaker 22 I mean, I like when he showed up to the, he showed up before when they played the Steelers in the Super Bowl, I think it was Super Bowl 30,

Speaker 22 and he's out getting wasted at these parties.

Speaker 22 You know, it was the very thing

Speaker 22 Jimmy Johnson was like, look, we're not going to do this. He was out there dancing with the players, dancing with women, fooling around.

Speaker 22 Like the whole week leading up to the game, he was on this this wild,

Speaker 22 I'm just going to live my life. I love how he, I actually think Barry Switcher is one of the best characters in sports.

Speaker 22 And I'm not saying he was a good NFL coach, but I just think he put it all out there and lived that way.

Speaker 22 And he was just, he was 58 years old, drinking like his players, partying like his players, fooling around like his players, just living the life leading up to the Super Bowl with this real mentality.

Speaker 22 I'm probably never going to get here again. So I'm, I'm damn well going to enjoy it.

Speaker 9 Is there anything new to

Speaker 9 uncover from this period of time in in this documentary jeff like you you've already told the story so are you saying you've seen the whole thing you're saying it's a it's a pale reflection of the real story as you described it exhaustively in your book yeah i mean it's a i don't want to dog it It's a very entertaining documentary because that story is entertaining and they got amazing footage and they did the interviews.

Speaker 22 I don't want to suggest it's not worth watching. It's a very good and enjoyable documentary, but is there new revealing? Holy cow, I didn't know that.

Speaker 22 I didn't really get much of that, but others might.

Speaker 9 I want to talk to you about your Tupac book in a second, but I was wondering, you are a very good ombudsman on bad behavior in the media and where it is media can be compromised.

Speaker 9 You're old school in a number of different ways. I've been trying to find somebody who can discuss with me intelligently the idea that ESPN has just sold 10% stake to the NFL and the NFL network.

Speaker 9 You received that news and thought what?

Speaker 22 I thought it checks checks with everything that's going on with modern media right now.

Speaker 22 I mean, it's the same, if you think about it, it's the same thing with the, with the documentaries we're getting now, even The Last Dance and this new one, where there's always someone with control of the message.

Speaker 22 And it used to be, I mean, you know, Dan, you and I have been in the business a long time. Like it used to be, you were the final word, right?

Speaker 22 ESPN, we're going to cover you, but we're going to write honestly about you. And it really, perception is just as strong as reality, if not stronger.

Speaker 22 So if ESPN is now not writing, not doing much about CTE, as an example, is that because of this cross ties with the NFL? Has the NFL put pressure on them?

Speaker 22 Is the NFL saying, look, we'll give you this, but we want you to lay off of head injuries in sports?

Speaker 22 The look of it is terrible, just absolutely terrible. And it just suggests that there's very little, if any, independent media anymore.

Speaker 9 Okay, so what do you imagine is the truth around Spike Lee's documentary on Colin Kaepernick getting spiked and the timing of all of that when it comes to simply

Speaker 9 what's happening here ends up getting

Speaker 9 truth diluted by powerful entities. And Jeff, I don't think people care.

Speaker 22 That's the worst part of it. I actually, it's interesting.
I used to work for a bleacher report.

Speaker 22 This is where to me, my birth for me personally, I used to work for bleacher report and you would write these 8,000, 9,000 card BR Mag, and you would write these long, long pieces. And it was great.

Speaker 22 And it was awesome. And it felt like old SI, old ESPN.
It was only like five years ago.

Speaker 22 And then I think at some point they realized, wait, why are we spending money on quality journalists doing quality journalism when we could just put up an interview with an NBA player where we asked him softball questions?

Speaker 22 And I just think that's where we are. Colin Kaepernick, it's not worth the heat.
It's not worth the heat they're going to probably get from someone with the White House.

Speaker 22 It's not worth the heat they're probably going to get from the NFL. It's just not worth it for them.
The bang for the buck as they view it, it's just not there.

Speaker 22 And the thing is, I remember when I was a young writer at Sports Illustrated, and SI would do stuff just because it was the right right story to do. Like, this is an important story.

Speaker 22 We're going to throw everything at it. We're going to put Ken Camanetti on the cover of the magazine talking about steroids in baseball.

Speaker 22 Even though Major League Baseball is going to be pissed off about this, we're going to do it because it's a right decision to make.

Speaker 22 And now there's so much overlapping between corporate and editorial that stuff like that almost never happens.

Speaker 9 Only God can judge me. The many lives of Tupac Shakur is available for pre-order now.
I don't know why you would tackle this degree of difficulty on your reporting on something.

Speaker 9 This is a trough that so many people have been at. How did you do it better and differently than the other?

Speaker 22 First, I want to say the song you played at the beginning of this segment, it was very Tupac. I think Tupac would have 100% approved and probably jumped in for a verse on that.

Speaker 22 So, that was really good.

Speaker 9 Of Pablo Torre finds out, yeah, I suspect not, probably.

Speaker 4 Unless

Speaker 9 probably not near the crossword puzzles of Pablo Torre finds out.

Speaker 22 I just always thought there was a definitive, definitive book.

Speaker 22 I love Tupac as an artist. And what I did differently, I interviewed 650 people.
I traveled to everywhere he lived. I knocked on doors of everyone he knew.
I sat down with his sister.

Speaker 22 I sat down with his godmother.

Speaker 22 I just lived it for three years because I really, really wanted to tell him, not in a state-sanitized story, not a story that's been regurgitated.

Speaker 22 I just really wanted to get into his life and understand him. And that was my, for three years, that was my obsession.

Speaker 20 Dan, I think that was Fitty.

Speaker 15 It was Fitty.

Speaker 21 Just saying.

Speaker 9 Very nice. Wasn't Lil Yachty from your soul.

Speaker 4 Lol Yachty.

Speaker 9 Jeff, thank you for being on with us. We appreciate the time.
I am sure that book is going to be good. 650 has to be a record for you.
Come on, 650 is absurd. That's 200 more than are necessary.
No?

Speaker 9 That's a record for you, is it not?

Speaker 22 No, I did. I always keep track.
I did 720 for Bo Jackson, I think.

Speaker 9 Okay, there's something wrong with you.

Speaker 19 I have no life.

Speaker 3 Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 9 Good seeing you. I will tell the audience one more time.
His YouTube storytelling is magnificent if you want to, if you want just some old-timey truths. I appreciate the work you do, sir.
Always have.

Speaker 22 All right, thanks, Dan.

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