Local Hour: Ali Abdelaziz (feat. Ariel Helwani)

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Speaker 3 This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Black Friday Game Day on Prime is an epic day of live sports that all starts at 9 a.m.
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Speaker 1 Chris, I don't think that a lot of places in America or the world right now have exactly as wonderful a weather as we have right now. I thought you were going to say breakfast.

Speaker 1 The breakfast was pretty good today. I saw some upgrades over the donuts.
What's some croquetas today, then? You have finally. Croquetas in a sandwich with a little papita.

Speaker 5 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 He's starting to learn about papitas again.

Speaker 1 He's starting to learn about papitas. Tony.
He's always known about papitas. But so the weather here is beautiful, but I don't know if you guys felt this in the room.

Speaker 1 An Arctic chill blew through the room after I heard the sentence uttered, the year I became a golden cane.

Speaker 1 Did you guys all notice that? Like when Mike said that, I saw everyone in the room drift away. Mike is immersed in this lame kiffin.

Speaker 1 He's delighting in watching lame kiffin and the rare scenario where a school like LSU buys out Ed Orgeron and then winks at him and says, want to come back as an assistant with Lane Kiffin?

Speaker 1 I haven't seen a coach bought out in scandal. And a few years later, things go so poorly with Brian Kelly, it's like open arms.
Ed O, come back, coach.

Speaker 1 So if you're following the news, there is growing momentum that LSU is trying to hijack this Lane Kiffin to Florida thing. Florida had felt good for weeks on end.

Speaker 1 It's real. Happen to know.
LSU was trying to hijack.

Speaker 7 He happens to know? Great Scott, he happens to know he happens to know

Speaker 8 gather everyone get the children he happens to know

Speaker 1 so wise

Speaker 1 and one of the parts of the story that i think cbs reported on is if lsu does indeed hire lane kiffen could ed or deron join lane kiffen's staff and there appears to be real juice to that report

Speaker 1 We will get into that and all things college football.

Speaker 1 Dan, when you felt the Arctic blast of Mike saying that he was a golden cane, it was in context of something that I had mentioned to him that he was talking about.

Speaker 1 And I was at the game a few weeks ago with the Syracuse game, and I was sitting up in the club and I was walking through the back, you know, alleys of the club.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden, I see Coacho passing by, and I'm like, hey, Coach, good to see you. And he told me something very important.
There's only a couple of times where I've gotten this in my life.

Speaker 1 I'm a very important person. He said, good to see you, big guy.
Gave me a big guy. And I was like, how is that helpful to the story? What do you mean? That's the whole story.

Speaker 1 He gave me a big guy.

Speaker 1 I have a couple funny Ed Orcheron stories. I've been to a couple couple dinners with Ed.
I've talked to him at length.

Speaker 1 He sat in my seats before.

Speaker 9 For me for the big guy.

Speaker 1 Okay, my bad. Hands up.
He really Tommy. Hands off.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. He really Tommy Topped you on.

Speaker 1 You think you're the big guy? You got a big guy. You would think that I have this really good relationship with Ed Orgeron.
Doesn't know who I am.

Speaker 1 I've spent... A lot of time with Ed Orgeron.
I was at practice in the fall during fall camp. Ed Orgeron came up to me.
I thought, like, all right, the time is finally here.

Speaker 1 He's finally recognized me, and he's like, Man, you raised a good one. I'm like, Juliet, she's not out here.
Like,

Speaker 1 and then he came back five minutes later, and he's like, Apologies, I confused you with somebody else, but whoever that was, he raised a good one. Uh, I'm embarrassed.

Speaker 1 I'm legitimately embarrassed at the number of photographs I've sent Mike Ryan of a shirtless Ed Orgeron jogging past me on South Beach. Like, it's looks good.

Speaker 5 What a dream.

Speaker 1 It's too hot hot to be running out there. Like he's been running out there

Speaker 1 since I've known him

Speaker 1 as a graduate assistant at the University of Miami. Do you have him as a normal guy, Dan? Like, just whoa, you know what? What's sense? It's not too hot.
You notice what happened? Yeah.

Speaker 1 He tried to tommy top everybody. I know.
Yeah. Seeing shirtless at Ozron.
Come on.

Speaker 6 This is the Dan Levatar show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

Speaker 1 Tony, do me a favor, please. In the happen to know file, Chris Cody exclaims from medieval times, Great Scott.

Speaker 1 And I don't know why it's Great Scott, and I want to know why it is Great Scott, if you can find that for me.

Speaker 7 He happens to know? Great Scott, he happens to know.

Speaker 1 He happens to know.

Speaker 1 Mike has embedded himself in the Lane Kiffin drama and fun.

Speaker 1 It is great fun to see someone who does not care throw the entire business into upheaval as schools in the SEC try to say, No, we're more important than that school. We should be the ones who get you.

Speaker 1 How much money do we have to give you, even though you've been disgraced a couple of different times? Everything's all polished up now. We need offense.

Speaker 1 But before we get to the topics of the day, and Ariel Hawani will be in with us in studio in a little bit, I had not seen a segment that was just on GetUp before.

Speaker 1 Maybe they've been doing it for weeks or months,

Speaker 1 but that boy bad is something they do with some highlights, and it's led by Harry Douglas, who appears to have grown into his role at ESPN with the reps because Harry Douglas was very animated.

Speaker 1 But at the end of whatever point he was making, because the sound is down, they had everybody in the room do a synchronized, choreographed hip thrust.

Speaker 1 And it was done much better by Bart Scott and Harry Douglas than it was by Orlofsky, Greeney, and Peter Schraeger, who their heart wasn't in it. Their pelvis wasn't in it.
Their groin wasn't in it.

Speaker 1 They feel a little intimidated, I feel like, by what it is that Harry Douglas and Bart Scott were doing with their bodies, even though those bodies have been hit more than the bodies of Greene and Schrager and even Dan Orlovsky, who ran out of the end zone one time and got a safety to avoid sudden contact.

Speaker 1 Dan, it's all about confidence. That's what I keep telling Jeremy.
Like, you can do anything as long as you have the confidence to do that. That's what's the difference.
Throw a hip up there.

Speaker 9 All of a sudden, it's like, oh, you say this. He knows something.

Speaker 1 I love that Tony gives two-time Emmy winner Jeremy advice on how to present himself. Thank you.
But he is right in this respect when he says it's all about confidence.

Speaker 1 I've told you guys this story before.

Speaker 1 It was in the Falcons locker room

Speaker 1 and they were playing the Dolphins, and Deion Sanders was wearing a mustard-colored suit. And I said, fairly obviously, I couldn't wear that.
And he's like, Yes, you could. It's all about confidence.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I couldn't wear that.

Speaker 1 I don't have the confidence that you do. Tony projects confidence at all times.
Harry Douglas gives off some

Speaker 1 confidence. Can we play the sound? The only sound from the file that we have here marked Harry Douglas.

Speaker 8 You don't know anything about what you're talking about.

Speaker 11 Do you have the nerve to pull up here and say to me that we're trying to upsell the Falcons to you.

Speaker 11 Sir, you're not a Falcon fan. You haven't been.

Speaker 8 And if you have been, you don't know what you're looking at.

Speaker 11 Stop being a homer, bro. Get out of my house.
I'm the last one who's a homer. Don't you ever call me a homer.

Speaker 8 Who the hell do you think has been saying the truth since 1973 on Atlanta Radio?

Speaker 11 Who?

Speaker 1 The shaking of the prescription pills is so good.

Speaker 1 It'll be eternal. It'll be timeless.
I want an explanation from the group on something because I've restrained. Okay, since you asked, I'd like it from Mike, I guess.

Speaker 1 The MLS playoffs are ridiculous, okay? I don't blame anyone who criticizes the fact that it has been six weeks and Inner Miami has played three games. That's right.

Speaker 1 It's been the first round of the playoffs took three weeks and then they just took a whole bunch of time off because I know they're scheduling conflicts and stuff.

Speaker 1 But so you cannot do the playoffs this way where it takes six weeks to play three games.

Speaker 1 I hear you. This is, well, playoffs.
In European competition, there's a Champions League, which is a playoff format, but it's not uncommon for long breaks here.

Speaker 1 What's weird is you have a best at three in the first round, and then we're just off to the races in single elimination.

Speaker 1 However, you're not off to the races because in the middle of that, there's like a two-week international break. So I understand why it's ridiculous, but don't worry.

Speaker 1 Deep in the meat of that NFL Sunday window, you get to watch Inner Miami play the biggest game in club history.

Speaker 1 And it's a one-off, right? It's an elimination game because we've covered for everybody that the first round is three-game, but everything after that is the randomness of one-game samples. Zagak.

Speaker 1 Did you get Great Scott there, Tony? Did you find for me the order? I do great Scott.

Speaker 1 The interjection Great Scott most likely originated from the general, Civil War-era general named General Winfield Scott. He was an imposing figure, stood 6'5.

Speaker 1 And at that time, that's basically like Wemby's size, right? Like everybody's very small back in the day. So 6'5 ⁇ , and they would name him Great Scott, but also made famous by a good doctor, Dr.

Speaker 12 Doc Brown. Just saw his photo.

Speaker 9 He looks like if Ed Orgeron was 90 and a Civil War general.

Speaker 1 All right, put it on the poll. Back in Civil War days, was the 6'5 general basically Wemby.
Huge.

Speaker 1 That general was only 33 at the time of that photo. I agree.
He looks 90. Hard living.
He's like former Kansas State coach Bill Snyder.

Speaker 1 That is a great scout.

Speaker 1 You know, war will do that too. Civil as war, yeah.
War as hell. Brothers against brothers, Dan.

Speaker 1 I wanted to get to a couple of the things going on locally here before Ariel Holwani joins us because Miami is playing Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech now has James Franklin as its coach.

Speaker 1 Virginia Tech has been really bad this year. I don't think that's a good job.

Speaker 1 I really don't. I think that that was a good job.
Now, now, I'm speaking a bit ignorantly because I don't know their NIL situation.

Speaker 1 At this point, basically, if you've got NIL money, that becomes a good job. They do have money.
They do. They've been preparing for this moment.
They understand that they were behind there.

Speaker 1 This is a really big, aggressive hire for them. I happen to know that if you don't have to.
Oh my God, he knows. He happens to know.
You walked into that one. Come, everyone.
Come and listen. I did.

Speaker 1 He's always got it right.

Speaker 8 He happens to know.

Speaker 7 Well-informed.

Speaker 1 Had the FSU job become available, that would have been James Franklin's priority.

Speaker 1 But FSU doesn't have any money right now, and they're desperately hoping this season doesn't totally fall off the rails. We'll see what happens tonight in Raleigh for Florida State.

Speaker 1 He wanted that Florida State job. Virginia Tech was on the radar.
A lot of Keynes fans in the group chat and people that are well-informed.

Speaker 1 That's a big question that you have. Like Virginia Tech, Blacksburg is in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, the program has some prestige, but how appealing is this job? But they have a lot of money.

Speaker 1 They're taking this super seriously. And I think they hired a great coach.
James Franklin does know how to recruit, does know how to program build.

Speaker 1 He's very familiar with that DMV area when it comes to

Speaker 1 recruiting. He knows the prospects already.
He can hit the ground running. I think that is a big-time hire for Virginia Tech, about as good as they can do.

Speaker 1 I actually need to pull back a little bit on what I said because my information is dated.

Speaker 1 I cannot say something is or isn't a good job based on the way that I've always done my measurements there because I need to know how much money schools have to spend on players to know whether something is a good job or not.

Speaker 1 But the idea that I've lived long enough to watch Virginia Tech be a better job than FSU is asinine. I don't, I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 1 If Virginia Tech has money and if Virginia Tech can get James Franklin, but Florida State cannot, Florida State is as podunk a region as Virginia Tech.

Speaker 1 But when you're in the state of Florida and can recruit Florida, that's one of the measurements I've always used to say, is that a good school? Do players want to go play at that school?

Speaker 1 I can't see going all around the country and being able to get players to come to Virginia Tech in its present incarnation, but my information.

Speaker 1 information is dated because if you've got money you can get players to play anyway.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Florida State is just they had money but they just spent it poorly buying out a bunch of coaches, and it just hasn't worked out.

Speaker 1 Now, I've been to Tallahassee, one of the worst places on the planet, but

Speaker 1 they have a dedicated airport, and they're a state capital. Like, Blacksburg is tough.
It's a tough sell. What you're selling there is game day experience, which I've been told is awe-inspiring.

Speaker 1 That stadium is incredible. That game day experience is incredible.
That's all they really have in that area. But this is a team in Virginia Tech that has lost a lot of talent to the portal.

Speaker 1 The new age of college football came, and they're such a

Speaker 1 their identity was Frank Beamer, and they were kind of set in their ways, and they didn't see this coming, and they weren't ready for all the talent that they did have and developed to just be leaving them.

Speaker 1 James Franklin's not going to let that happen. James Franklin will be the guy that poaches guys, and I think it elevates the ACC conference that needs a little bit more juice to it.

Speaker 1 So I'm happy they got that higher. And it's a good rival for Miami, and we all know James Franklin doesn't win big games, so I'm good with that.

Speaker 1 I mentioned yesterday that Miami, the University of Miami, found itself with an unusual ally in Paul Feinbaum when it came to the Notre Dame-Miami discussion.

Speaker 1 For those of you who are not familiar with our particular brand of obnoxious screech around here, there has been some screaming and yelling about the idea that Miami and Notre Dame could end up with the same record and Notre Dame would have a higher classification, even though they lost to Miami.

Speaker 1 Let's play the sound here from Paul Feinbaum.

Speaker 13 Paul, the idea that Miami beats Notre Dame head-to-head and remains behind them because of the quality of Notre Dame's losses seems to rub a lot of people the wrong way. How does it rub you?

Speaker 13 It rubs me beyond the wrong way. And Greene, I'll continue my rant about Notre Dame.
I've been hearing, and you have been hearing because you lived near Notre Dame growing up, that Notre Dame,

Speaker 13 in college, I should say, that Notre Dame, there's a bias. There is a bias.
Let's just go ahead and admit it.

Speaker 13 And this committee, I have no earthly idea why they can't move beyond it because they're supposed to be objective. But it just seems like let's always give Notre Dame the loss.

Speaker 13 And I feel badly for Miami. They got knocked out last year.
They were the last team out along with Alabama. They did some of it to themselves, but they beat Notre Dame.

Speaker 13 Shouldn't head-to-head matter in college football or in any sporting event? But apparently, to this committee, it does not matter at all.

Speaker 1 It does take more confidence in

Speaker 1 one pump. I'm just one.
You did it very stiffly. Or lost marks, dude.
You got to get there. It did all poppy.
Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.
How does it rub you, Paul? You saw that it rubbed him poorly.

Speaker 1 You saw that Paul Feinbaum there, who as an entity, the entirety of him, looks like something that would be rubbed.

Speaker 13 It rubs me beyond the wrong way.

Speaker 1 Chafing. Beyond the wrong way.
So beyond the wrong way would be chafing. You're absolutely right there.
Oh, wait, yes.

Speaker 1 Yes, there is stuff happening there when you've arrived at pissing off Paul Feinbaum on behalf of Miami. Do you know how wrong things have to be? How does that rub you? It's the craziest question.

Speaker 1 Come on, Green. That's crazy.

Speaker 13 It rubs me beyond the wrong way.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 it's beyond chafing. It's it's what's no Dan, there's nothing beyond chafing.

Speaker 9 But that's a good answer because you were asked the question, how does it rub you?

Speaker 13 It rubs me beyond the wrong way.

Speaker 1 How else are you supposed to answer? Well,

Speaker 1 I thought it would be sufficient for it to rub him the wrong way, but it's somewhere realms beyond being rubbed the wrong way. And Tony correctly identified when he said, well, that's a chafing rub.

Speaker 1 And what's beyond chafing? Bleeding. Oh, oh.
You chafed too much.

Speaker 1 There's nothing else there.

Speaker 1 It comes out. Wow, but wait a minute.
His blood runs crimson.

Speaker 1 It does not run green and orange.

Speaker 1 That is a strange ally to have in Paul Feinbaum. I suspect that it's an uncommon kind of wrong.

Speaker 1 It's also a silly discussion to be having before we have to actually have it, which would be when the final decisions are made on that. You would think, but I don't think so.
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 I think the...

Speaker 1 There's been noticeable media pushes from Miami. And if you watch a college football playoff show, the discussion was all about Miami.
That wasn't the case two weeks ago when Miami wasn't right.

Speaker 1 And if Miami lost...

Speaker 1 to Pittsburgh instead of SMU, they would have just kept Miami out of it and you wouldn't have had an opportunity to fight.

Speaker 1 And I think these are impressionable bureaucrats that don't like being bullied. And you have to turn the volume up if you're representing Miami.
You have to force this discourse.

Speaker 1 You have to hold their nose up to it and say, What are we doing here?

Speaker 1 I do think a little bit, a little bit of it is unfair to the college football playoff committee because clearly what they're doing is they're taking the AP polls and the coaches poll and they're just like, what do we want to change about like these two or three spots, which is this ridiculous tier thing that we all learned about this week?

Speaker 13 How does it rub you?

Speaker 1 Rubs me more than the wrong way. Beyond, beyond the way.
Beyond the wrong way. but that is actually that, what you just described,

Speaker 1 what you just described of how do they do this without computers. Well, they just grab all the information and then change a couple of the rankings.

Speaker 1 That's exactly how Greg Cody, when he goes through all the magazines before the season, like he's not doing any reporting.

Speaker 1 He's not doing any reporting that involves calling a human being and gathering information.

Speaker 1 He's grabbing a fee.

Speaker 1 how you would do a book report before ChatGPT. Like you Google something or you look at a book, you change a couple words here.
Instead of there, they are.

Speaker 9 My friend did the homework. He gives it to me.
I change a couple of words.

Speaker 10 All right. Not the same report.

Speaker 1 Same general idea, just

Speaker 1 different wording.

Speaker 1 I think the coaches poll in particular is maddening to me because if any coach, they're just what the coaches are doing is they're just looking at the AP poll and just trying to change a team here or there.

Speaker 1 There isn't a single coach on this green earth that would lose a game to an opponent and be okay with that opponent being ranked ahead of them had they had the same record.

Speaker 1 And given that the CFP very clearly takes its cues from the coaches and AP poll, the AP and the coaches poll need to be held accountable.

Speaker 1 You got a wet sock out there looking like a deer in the headlights. He's an idiot.
We know that. AP and coaches, they need to know better.

Speaker 13 How does it rub you?

Speaker 1 Ariel Hawani is going to be around the corner. Mike Ryan mentioned a media blitz.
I have seen that Crystal Ball has been out there, and this part is eternally dumb to me. I remember feeling

Speaker 1 silly when Nick Sabin would do it every year after he had lost, where he just starts making the media tour, and it becomes no longer about football. It's just how can you influence people by shouting.

Speaker 1 I want to get into the media blitz part of this, but before I do,

Speaker 1 i want to have at some point on our show a tournament of the best show sounds in show history and i think i'm not kidding you i know it's a recent nominee but i believe everything about this sound would make it a one seed i need your support the fact that he's a little drunk i need your support the fact that he is whispering to his wife i need your support the fact that it's about a fantasy league controversy i need your support The fact that he's taking it that seriously.

Speaker 14 I need your support.

Speaker 1 The fact that it is somewhere between longing and pleading. I need your support.
But you can hear the desperation in it.

Speaker 14 I need your support.

Speaker 1 I think it's a one seed, and it's combined with all of those things can be true.

Speaker 1 But the other part of it that makes it clear, it's a secret phone call from clearly a very closed quarters in a submarine bathroom.

Speaker 14 I need your support.

Speaker 1 Like, the sound is so bad. I need your support.

Speaker 1 that's not a phone call in 2025 that is desperation shouted from the bottom of the sea in a bathroom in a submarine i need your support that sounds no good i need your support

Speaker 1 and he's nine beers in i need your support

Speaker 9 All right, Smirnoff, official vodka of the NFL, world's number one vodka. Chris Cody, you're with me here.

Speaker 1 Smanoff!

Speaker 9 Wow, you're on the money with Smirnoff. Smirnoff.
I'm going to ask you, Chris, what's your favorite game day food?

Speaker 1 Smirnoff.

Speaker 9 Not your favorite game day drink, but what's your favorite game day food? Smirnoff. All right, here's the deal.
Game day is everything.

Speaker 9 The noise, the rituals, the passion, the dip, the wings, the dip again. Smirnoff.

Speaker 9 Smirnoff 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 9 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 9 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 1 Why, Chris? Smearing off.

Speaker 9 Grab a bottle of Smearin Off at your local retailer and head to Smearinoff.com to find recipes of delicious cocktails perfect for game day. Smearing off.
Please drink responsibly. Smearing off.

Speaker 9 Number 21, vodka distilled from grain, 40% alcohol by volume. The Smearin Off Company.
New York, New York. Please do not share with anyone under legal drinking age.
Smear it off.

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Speaker 10 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 1 To us residents?

Speaker 1 Wow. That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 You think I haven't been practicing? Stugats. Oh,

Speaker 1 I didn't realize we had a substitute complicated legacy choice.

Speaker 1 441 Powerline Road. Second down to nine.

Speaker 6 This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 1 Ariel Hawani has arrived.

Speaker 1 Come on in here, Ariel. He's the best going in MMA.
He has been for a long time.

Speaker 1 He is flexing, even though he is a Bills fan and he should be ashamed today. And we are going to talk to him about the Bills and other things.

Speaker 12 Finally, we get some ratings up in this. Finally, Hi Iwani has arrived.
Finally, we could pop a rating. Am I on?

Speaker 1 It's been too long since we've seen you. Generally, the ratings don't spike when you start it with

Speaker 1 number one.

Speaker 12 Am I still number one?

Speaker 1 Am I still number one? No, you're not number one.

Speaker 12 Oh, there was some like weird.

Speaker 1 Jeremy Corbel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 12 He probably bought those views.

Speaker 12 He probably bought those views. How are you, Dan? It's so good to see you.

Speaker 1 It is nice to see you.

Speaker 12 You finally got the invite. You finally got called up to the big time.

Speaker 1 You've been invited so many times. You were near the Clevelander, wandering around on the outside of the Clevelander, and you wouldn't come in for mysterious reasons.
That was weird.

Speaker 1 You're always welcome here. You're always in the corner.

Speaker 12 Skipper didn't put enough zeros. Where's he at, Skipper? Is he back there?

Speaker 10 He's not here.

Speaker 1 We're not here anymore because

Speaker 1 I'm not here right now.

Speaker 12 He did what we call in the business fumbling of the bag.

Speaker 1 Is that Edo?

Speaker 1 Coachelle, Pardon the intrusion.

Speaker 12 Where's Pablo at?

Speaker 10 How does it rub you?

Speaker 1 Pablo's winning awards in New York.

Speaker 12 What a beautiful setup you have here. Wow, this is amazing, Dan.
It's so great to see you. Likewise, buddy.
I'm really happy to be here. I love this city.
I don't like your sports teams.

Speaker 12 I'm a little depressed on this Friday morning, considering what happened yesterday.

Speaker 1 Your Bills Allegiance is the greatest of your sports allegiances?

Speaker 12 I would say Knicks and Bills. When I was a kid, it was Knicks, Bills, and Expos.
Those were my favorite teams. The Expos, may they rest in peace.
In 2015, I adopted the Toronto Blue Jays.

Speaker 12 I've had a horrible 10 months. My kids say horrible.
I'm explaining to them that it's been pretty good because my Bills lost to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game in January.

Speaker 12 In May, my Knicks choked in epic fashion against the Pacers, game one and then game two, and then they had to swim upstream. And then the Blue Jays losing in, you know, seven games to the Dodgers.

Speaker 12 So we're at the dance. We're there.
We're on the cusp of greatness. But then, of course...
We falter when it counts. I've never seen one of my teams win a championship in my lifetime.

Speaker 9 Not once. That's hard to believe.

Speaker 12 It's hard to believe, yes.

Speaker 1 And it's hurting me. You used to be a young man in this business.

Speaker 12 I used to be a young man. I'm starting to get some white hair like you.
It's so great to see you. Have I ever seen you in person? Is this the first time?

Speaker 1 This can't be the first time.

Speaker 12 It's almost surreal being here.

Speaker 10 Look at this.

Speaker 12 Why do you keep them so far away from you there?

Speaker 1 I like to avoid intimacy. Yeah.

Speaker 12 This is so great. Tony up there.
When I first met Tony, he actually asked me, what does UFC stand for? Now all of a sudden, he's like a UFC expert. It's crazy.
I feel like I birthed his fandom.

Speaker 12 You absolutely did.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 12 He's like literally asking me like, so who's this Connor Mac?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 for the audience who may not be involved in combat sports, because he's here for part of the press coverage of Anthony Joshua Jake Paul, which I think is an insanity.

Speaker 1 I think Jake Paul's choice, like, what's the end game, Spence? Is it your endgame?

Speaker 12 I saw you guys talking about it.

Speaker 1 I just think it's insane that he's fighting this person. He usually, I know he fought Tyson at like 220, but he usually fights at under 200, right?

Speaker 12 In the range of 200, cruiserweight.

Speaker 1 All right, so he's a cruiserweight, and Anthony Joshua is a legitimate heavyweight and I just the people he's been fighting are not

Speaker 1 none of them are one-tenth of what this man is as a fighter.

Speaker 1 His opponent in this fight, I don't know what your opinion is on this, but I am genuinely curious because even while I think a heavyweight has a chance in any fight, a puncher's chance, I don't think Jake Paul has anything for Anthony Joshua.

Speaker 12 Do you respect him for taking it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, you have to because that's terrifying.

Speaker 1 Like that, look, I understand that Jake Paul is ranked in cruiser weight, but this there's their weight classes for a reason and this is a this is a man that I thought was going to be the guy who knocked off Fury and Deontay Wilder and that and a lot of people thought that a lot of people thought he was going to be

Speaker 12 two-time

Speaker 12 Unified heavyweight champion Olympic gold medalist in 2012. His last fight was for the title against Daniel Dubois and got knocked out.
That was his last fight. So it's not like he's washed up.

Speaker 12 It's not like he's fighting bums and all that stuff. Yeah, it's a crazy thing.

Speaker 12 I just get annoyed at the people who are doing like the sanctimonious thing, that this is a stain on AJ's legacy, that this is a stain on the sport of boxing, because you often hear that from people who actually don't watch boxing, don't know anything about AJ, don't know anything about the sport.

Speaker 12 And it's like, save me the sanctimony, because as you probably know, boxing has been doing fights like this.

Speaker 12 for decades. In 1976, Muhammad Ali, who was the heavyweight champion of the world, went to Japan and fought a guy named Antonio Noki in a mixed rules pro wrestling match.

Speaker 12 In 1975, after the Rumble in the Jungle, George Foreman, after losing to Ali, went to Toronto, Maple Leaf Gardens, on a Saturday afternoon and fought five jobbers. Like this stuff happens.

Speaker 12 And so I don't think

Speaker 12 he fought five people on the same day. A jobber.
Do you know what a jobber is? It's pro-wrestling terminology. I thought it was guys with jobs.

Speaker 12 No, no, that's like guys who are just like sort of jabroni guys. Tomato cans.
Tomato cans, jobbers, pro-wrestling terminology. I think it's a stain.

Speaker 1 I don't think it's a stain on boxing. I think it's a stain on

Speaker 1 the business of boxing that Anthony Joshua could get more for this fight than he's ever gotten before, that Nganu can go into boxing and make more money boxing than he can

Speaker 1 in an MMA where he's a legitimate.

Speaker 12 Platforms like Netflix want big-time fights. They want spectacles, right? And I feel like this is a spectacle.
Did I ever think this was going to happen?

Speaker 12 Did I think this was going to happen in the year 2025? Did I think that AJ's next fight coming off the Dubois knockout at Wembley would be against Jake Paul? No. Did I think Jake Paul would pick AJ?

Speaker 12 No. The whole thing

Speaker 12 is a sort of like mind-blowing spectacle. And I can't wait.
I have the, I don't know how I got this, but I have the honor of hosting the press conference.

Speaker 1 Well, you got it because you're the best journalist anywhere to be found in combat sports. Everyone knows this.

Speaker 1 For those who do not know what your resume is, for many, many years, he has been applying a journalistic, a rigid, journalistic, strict standard to a sport and sports that do not want it.

Speaker 1 And so you have had your tensions with Dana White and others because you insist on covering the sport in an honorable way. And that way you're a bit of a rose growing in a sewer,

Speaker 1 just insisting that there be journalistic standards. But let me play some sound for you here since we just mentioned Nganu and Dana White.

Speaker 1 This is on the Flagrant podcast. Listen to Dana White here talking about Nganu, and you tell me what your thoughts are here.
Francis Nganu is a bad guy. He's not a good guy.
He plays the whole,

Speaker 1 I don't understand the language and he tries to come off like he's a nice guy. You know what I mean? And people go, oh, it's the language barrier probably.
No,

Speaker 1 there's no language barrier with this guy. So he's going in to fight Stipe Miocic in Boston.
And he knows he's going to kill Stipe.

Speaker 1 So after the press conference, we're walking down this hallway and he comes over to me and he grabs me. His English is f ⁇ ing great.

Speaker 1 When this fight's over, they're going to book me a private plane to Paris. And I said, I laugh and said, oh, yeah, he goes, I'm not joking.
Okay. Steve Amiocich beats the shit out of him.

Speaker 1 That ended that whole conversation. I should have cut him that day.
So then, you know, when you're an athlete that's signed by the UFC, you know, you get full access to the Performance Institute.

Speaker 1 And he comes up. to my office and he was pissed off that he didn't get a $50,000 bonus in his last fight that he didn't get the bonus of the night.

Speaker 1 And I said, Francis, you didn't get it because this, that. And he's in my office and he's arguing with me.
The conversation's over. I'm starting to leave.

Speaker 1 And he grabs me by my shirt and like pushes me back in my office. And I said, dude, get your f ⁇ ing hands off me.

Speaker 1 I could see in this guy's face and in his eyes and in the way he's acting who this guy really f ⁇ ing is.

Speaker 1 Now, now he's over and he's done a deal with PFL and Saudi Arabia. I'm sure they wish they never f ⁇ ing signed him.

Speaker 1 has never slapped his wife in public that I know of. Dana White calling anybody a bad guy is rich.
But Dana White, because he's rich, always has these problems with Randy Koutur and others.

Speaker 1 Every objection that he had to Nganu there was Nganu wanting more money. That's how you get objections from Dana White.
What are your thoughts on what you just heard there?

Speaker 12 So, yeah, Dana has had this long-standing feud with Francis Nganu. It's important to know.
So I reached out to Francis. I haven't heard back yet regarding this.
I wanted to know how real it was.

Speaker 12 I do know the timeline.

Speaker 12 The interaction that he is talking about is following his win over Aleister Overeem in, I believe, off the top of my head it was 2016, going into 2017, or either 2017, going into 2018.

Speaker 12 And that was the fight that got him a title shot against Stipe Miecic when they fought. Off the top of my head, it was UFC 220.
Point is,

Speaker 12 throughout that build-up, Dana was

Speaker 12 so steadfast and was so,

Speaker 12 he was so energetic and so passionate about his promotion of Francis and Ganu that Stipe was actually so disrespected that when he beat Francis in their title fight, their first title fight, he took the belt from Dana as he was about to wrap it around his waist and gave it to his coach.

Speaker 12 And he felt like that was the proper thing to do because this guy had disrespected him in the build-up.

Speaker 12 And so my mind goes to the place where it's like, if you were so, if something happened between you guys,

Speaker 12 why did you promote him so well?

Speaker 12 And then why did you promote him multiple times why did you give him a title shot during the pandemic and he beat stipe and why did you try so hard to sign him when he was at the end of his contract and why did you try why did you sit him for a year when he beat sorrow gun and and and kept him to that exclusivity period if you were if you were if you hated him so much why did you want to be in business with this guy for four or five years later if he was such a bad guy why did you want to keep him around because he makes it seem in that in that interview with andrew schultz he makes it seem like you know i i wanted to cut him after the stipe fight, but my matchmakers told me to keep him.

Speaker 12 My question is, if he was such a crappy guy, if he was such a horrible human being, if he did the things that you are accusing him of doing, and I wasn't there, so who the hell knows, why did you want to be in business with him for four or five more years?

Speaker 12 And why were you so upset when he turned down the fight offer from the UFC as UFC champion and walked away and you took the belt away from him? Why does it bother you?

Speaker 12 It bothers him because he didn't stick around. It bothers him because he rebuffed their offer and he went on to fight Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua and once in the PFL.

Speaker 12 And so since then, he has been on this, I don't know, this thing, this campaign, this media tour to slander Francis.

Speaker 12 And I don't know why he's bringing it up all these years later, but you have to ask him.

Speaker 1 You are in town for 24 hours for Paul Joshua.

Speaker 1 And I don't know in your service of this role if you're allowed to say just flatly what you really think of this fight or whether you have to sell the chance, the possibility that Jake Paul can win this fight.

Speaker 12 I don't have to sell anything. I don't work for Jake Paul.
I don't work for MVP, the promotion. I'm hired by Netflix.
And even, I'll be honest with you, Dan, like I'll shoot with you here.

Speaker 12 Even the role that I'm in today,

Speaker 12 I feel a little uncomfortable because I think that, you know, I can promote, I can have fun with it, but I'm not a promoter. I am not involved in the transaction here.

Speaker 12 And historically, the guy standing at the dais is the promoter, is the Bob Aram, the Dana White, the Vince McMahon, the whatever. And they kind of use me in this spot.
They ask me to do it.

Speaker 12 And out of respect, I say yes. And it's a big opportunity.

Speaker 12 It's Netflix and all this this stuff so I have to sometimes answer questions from people where they're like well you're on the take or you're on the payroll I'm not I don't get paid anything in fact I've turned down multiple things from promoters because I don't want that conflict of interest so I feel like it's important to say that that being said I think this is a I think if Jake Paul beats Anthony Joshua I think it's one of the biggest upsets in the history of boxing the odds wouldn't suggest that but are you telling me that Jake Paul was more accomplished than Buster Douglas he wasn't and and I'm not gonna get into like what's the bigger upset, but like this is a Herculean task on his hands.

Speaker 12 Anthony Joshua is still a very, very good fighter. His last fight was for the belt.
And there is nothing in

Speaker 12 Jake Paul's resume that would suggest that he can knock him out or beat him, but he's going to go for it.

Speaker 12 And I have a lot of respect for him, you know, for picking this opponent because he could have picked anyone.

Speaker 5 This is Jake Paul trying to earn our respect, no?

Speaker 1 I just think the reason that I think it's crazy is because of the leap between what he's been fighting and this.

Speaker 1 Like, he has to earn your respect with this, even if he gets knocked out in the first round, because you shouldn't step in with this person.

Speaker 12 But here's the risk. There's so many risks here.
The risk is, if he gets knocked out in the first round, the whole thing comes crumbling down.

Speaker 12 Like, the whole Jake Paul experience, there's going to be no demand to see him continue to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 But if he gets into the fourth round and you're like, oh, this is closer than I thought.

Speaker 1 Because he's lost before, and I don't think he's lost.

Speaker 12 Yeah, he lost the close decision to Tommy Fury in Saudi Arabia on a Sunday night. No one even remembers it.
And since then, he's got some great wins.

Speaker 12 He hasn't been like knocked the f out and so i think that that's what everyone is dying to see and i think that the whole thing comes crumbling down here's the problem if the fight goes past the second round you know francis lost to jake in the second excuse me francis lost to uh and um anthony joshua in the second round and got absolutely obliterated right i mean it was shocking francis had never been rocked

Speaker 12 knocked down or knocked out.

Speaker 1 That was shocking to you because it wasn't shocking. It was shocking to me.
The only reason it's not shocking to me is because, look, Nganu's great for a striker.

Speaker 12 He's got a good chin and and he doesn't get he had just gone the distance with Tyson Fury and and knocked him down and so I didn't think that AJ would do that to him but he took that task very very seriously and so the the issues that they're facing is if Jake somehow survives and goes the distance everyone's gonna be like ah the fix was in and if and if and if AJ somehow you know makes it to the seventh and and and and can't knock him out until the seventh or eighth everyone's gonna be like ah AJ held him up and so and and if if Jake somehow pulls off the great upset everyone's gonna say the fix is it I feel like he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't here.

Speaker 12 The only result that I feel like the public is going to be okay with is an Anthony Joshua demolition of Jake Paul in a round or two. And that's a tough spot to be in.
And so I hope it's competitive.

Speaker 12 I hope it's close. I hope it's fun.
I hope it's a war. But I honestly, in my heart of hearts, have no idea what to expect here because it's just so off the wall crazy.

Speaker 1 Hey, but that's what the money's for, right?

Speaker 1 The money, the 70 million is, thank you, Mike, is for, hey, yeah, you're going to be kind of lose-lose situation if you take him to the eighth round or if you're knocking him out on the fourth, like whatever it is, that's what the money's for.

Speaker 1 But also, this is kind of the end game for Jake Paul. There's nobody higher that he can go to and be like, who else am I going to fight? He already called out Nganu before the AJ thing.
Now it's AJ.

Speaker 1 Who's better right now to fight Jake Paul? Like,

Speaker 1 what's the next level?

Speaker 12 I mean,

Speaker 12 he had a deal with Kenel Alvarez. They were this close.
Is Canelo better than AJ in the pound-for-pound rankings? Some would suggest.

Speaker 12 Certainly, you know, before the Terrence Crawford fight and this fight was supposed to happen in May, there's always someone, and Jake doesn't really play with the same deck of cards as everyone else.

Speaker 12 Remember, he was supposed to fight Tank Davis this past Friday. That was the original fight.
I'm infinitely more interested in this fight than the tank fight.

Speaker 1 Oh, but the tank, so the part that I find interesting about

Speaker 1 what he chose to do with what I believe will be the punctuation of this part of the story. I thought he was going to lose to tank, and tank is 134 pounds.
What's Joshua going to fight at?

Speaker 1 They They haven't done the weigh-in yet. He's going to fight at 250?

Speaker 12 They said he can't weigh above 245.

Speaker 12 Okay. The last time he weighed in that region was 2022.
His rematch against Alexander Usik. The last time he weighed in against Dubois was 252.

Speaker 12 So it's not a huge drop, but there is some sort of limitation. He can't go in there, you know, at 265.

Speaker 1 But I thought Tank was the best fight.

Speaker 10 Not skill-wise.

Speaker 1 Is the best fighter he was going to fight, skill-wise, and now he's doing that 100 pounds heavier. Yeah.

Speaker 12 It's a wild thing because the tank thing, no one else would, like, no fighter who's fighting at cruiserate or heavyweight would pick a lightweight. That's what Tank Davis is, a 135-pounder.

Speaker 12 And so the question going into that fight was, this guy is infinitely more talented and skilled than this guy, but this guy is that much bigger than this guy. And so does the skill outweigh the size?

Speaker 12 Here, he's now going for a guy who's around, you know, 45 to 50 pounds bigger than him.

Speaker 12 He'll probably end up, I think, being like 25 to 30 in the end, but also that much more skilled as well and so you know some people like to bring up aj's chin i don't subscribe to that he did get you know he did get stopped by andy ruiz many many years ago and then there was the dubois fight the last one in september but i just don't know if jake has that pop in his hands to knock him down and knock him out he's gonna have to try to survive and again i feel for jake in this one because yes i know he's getting paid and he doesn't need my sympathy but like Even if he does survive, I know what the narrative is going to be in the afternoon.

Speaker 1 It'll be the same as the Connor fight with Floyd Mayweather. I don't think that's fair.
Floyd was carrying him around. I don't think any of that.

Speaker 12 By the way, I don't think people recognize this.

Speaker 12 You go to federal, as Dana White likes to say, federal effing prison if you work a fight. Like, if you work a fight, you go to prison.

Speaker 12 And the UFC is involved in their own issue right now with a fighter potentially throwing a fight, Isaac Dalgarian. Like, it is not worth it, especially on Netflix.

Speaker 12 You think Netflix wants to be involved in a worked fight like this? No. So, yeah, I think AJ is going to go out there.
AJ already has a deal on the table. I know this for a fact, to fight in February.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute. He happens to know? You happen to know.
He just said he happens to know for a fact.

Speaker 7 He happens to know? For a fact. Scott, he happens to know.

Speaker 1 For a fact.

Speaker 1 Gather, everyone.

Speaker 7 Get the children.

Speaker 1 He happens to know. That's good stuff.

Speaker 12 I'm sorry. So wise.

Speaker 1 You happen to know what?

Speaker 12 For a fact.

Speaker 1 What do you know for a fact?

Speaker 12 Oh, that he has a fight in February. So he doesn't want to screw this up.
He actually has two fights on the table for next year.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 the fact that he would be fighting against it again in February suggests that he doesn't believe this is going to go more than a round. Like he would not normally fight again a couple of months later.

Speaker 12 Well, actually, he did have a fight scheduled for December, potentially in Africa. It was going to be like a tune-up fight.

Speaker 12 It was going to be like an eight-round tune-up fight against a fighter, dare I say, a jobber that you've never heard of. And now the brilliance of all this, like AJ just like stepped in, S-H-I-Chieve.

Speaker 12 Am I allowed to say that? I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Well, you didn't say it. You just spelled it.
But yeah, you can say it. You can say it.
You're talking about shit?

Speaker 12 Yeah. I didn't know what the rules were around here.

Speaker 12 Anyway, he's now going to get, like, I don't know, 10x, and he's going to fight, as opposed to fighting on Dazone and in front of six people, God knows where. No one's tuning into that.

Speaker 12 He's fighting on Netflix, biggest platform in the world, in a massive arena here in the United States. Just the second fight in the United States.
And it's comparable skill, potentially.

Speaker 12 You know what I mean? Like, Jake is still a novice in this game. He still has less than 15 fights on his resume.
No amateur fights, actually, just one against a YouTuber.

Speaker 12 Point is, it's an unbelievable turn of events for Anthony Joshua.

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Speaker 10 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 1 No one else here is willing to do a Trump or a Biden. That's not true, Dan.

Speaker 1 Okay, Tony, you can catch up. I have a thousand impersonations.
That's not bad, man.

Speaker 1 Pretty good.

Speaker 1 Stugats. Yours is terrible.
You just got to get a little redder. A little pinker.
You're right there, man.

Speaker 1 Yours is not. You're Biden.
What do you mean? Oh, his is good. That's actually not bad.
That's not terrible. That's not terrible.
We got to come together.

Speaker 1 A little Southern.

Speaker 1 A little George Bush in that one.

Speaker 6 This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 1 When you say, because you didn't want to do the rankings of greatest upsets, but I will say if Jake Paul beats this person, it will be what Buster Douglas did to Mike Tyson.

Speaker 1 Like, this is not, Buster Douglas was a professional fighter who was ready for that fight.

Speaker 1 Mike Tyson, obviously and famously, wasn't ready for that fight in a number of different ways, including having a stand-up comic in his corner as part of the training regiment.

Speaker 1 But Jake Paul taking this fight and doing all of this is among the most surprising things I've seen in boxing.

Speaker 1 I don't think somebody with these credentials has ever fought someone like Anthony Joshua. I know, thrown in as meat, yes, not co-headliner.

Speaker 1 Yeah, thrown in, thrown in specifically to you, lose, yes, but never as the payday. Like, this is not an Anthony Joshua payday.
This is a Jake Paul payday for Anthony Joshua. That's crazy.

Speaker 12 Well, he's the A-side. Like, his name is first on the poster.
It's absolutely wild. And it's a spectacle.
It's fun. It's entertainment.
It's prize fighting.

Speaker 12 At the end of the day, that's why I get so upset, especially in the UK.

Speaker 12 I'm seeing all these pundits over there saying AJ's ruining his legacy and it's ruining the sport and this is a stain on boxing and all this nonsense. Boxing is prize fighting.

Speaker 12 And here's the one thing.

Speaker 12 If you want to bring up one thing to be upset about, say like, hey, from a health and safety perspective, like you have to be actually concerned that this guy is going to get obliterated, Jake.

Speaker 12 And if you're team MVP, like you have to have that on your conscience. Like our guy can get obliterated.
And that's the only concern, in my opinion.

Speaker 12 The rest is all just, you know, sanctimonious hand-wringing.

Speaker 1 The real question is, what's going to happen in the welterweight division of the UFC? We had a massive two-division championship with Islam Akashev.

Speaker 1 All of a sudden, everything underneath that, Bilal, Kamar Usman's name getting brought up, Jack JDM, is that another rematch? Do we have Carlos Brades kind of making his way in there?

Speaker 1 Where's Shavkat Rachmanov? We need to find him. What's going on with the welterweight division, Ariel?

Speaker 12 Could you imagine this guy when I met him seven years ago was saying Connor MacGregor, and now he's asking me about Shafkat Rachmanov. I'm just proud.
Thank you. I'm proud.
And Connor says, hello.

Speaker 12 GC says, hello.

Speaker 1 That's my guy.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 12 So, we have a huge fight tomorrow. As you know, by the way, Armin versus Hooker, who do you have there? Oh, my gosh.
What a big fight. You know, I like to abstain from predictions.

Speaker 1 I know you do, but I want to put you in spite. You're on my turf now.

Speaker 12 Well, the fighters are so sensitive. They will see this clip and be like, no, you picked against me.
I'm never coming on your show. So it's just not worth it as much as I love you.

Speaker 1 Well, you and Armin are already on bad terms.

Speaker 12 No, no, no, no. Armin and I are good.
It's the Islam crew that don't like me. And we could get into that another day.
Armin and I are good. I love Armin, and I love Hooker, too.
Bilal doesn't like me.

Speaker 12 Getting into that later.

Speaker 1 He said something weird, by the way.

Speaker 12 He did say Epstein thing. It was weird.

Speaker 1 That was wild.

Speaker 12 Ian Gary against Bilal Muhammad is a huge fight. We have Michael Morales, who did great last week.
Stunner, by the way. We have Islam, who is the new champion.
And you have Carlos Prachez.

Speaker 12 Kamar Usman's trying to wedge himself into this. discussion.

Speaker 12 It's like a four-five horse race. And I think at the end of all of it, Islam's going to get to choose.

Speaker 12 And quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he picks Kamar Usman because they're buddies and they're managed by the same guy. And I think that's a travesty and a joke if he gets a title shot next.

Speaker 1 So you think there's a little bit of home cooking with

Speaker 9 Abdell

Speaker 1 Abdel Adel Abdel.

Speaker 1 It's a tough name.

Speaker 1 Oh my God. Wow.

Speaker 1 All that praise that Ariel was giving you, too. Wow.

Speaker 12 Here I am, like, bigger up.

Speaker 1 You've got to respect Abdullah.

Speaker 1 I'll belly out. All right.
Work the phones during this aerial section. Ali Abdellaziz.

Speaker 1 I got some good stuff here. Lane Kiffin has a verbal agreement with both schools, Florida and LSU.
It would be for a record-setting salary.

Speaker 1 Now, on the LSU side, it would be a massive NIL package because, quote, Lane does not want to recruit, and that is what Ed Orzeron would be for.

Speaker 1 Now, LSU is highly skeptical, thinking that they are being used right now. However, they know that they have a path to Lane's heart, and that is with Lane's son, who is a recruit.

Speaker 1 And the thought is Lane's son wants LSU.

Speaker 12 Is Lane Kiffin a fighter? Who's Lane Kiffin?

Speaker 1 I'll catch you up during the break. Surging middleweight.
Okay. Now, Olmis

Speaker 1 is furious.

Speaker 1 Furious, like straight up. I've heard Olmis wants to fire Lane Kiffen because they're being dragged through this during the college football playoff chase.

Speaker 12 Who are your sources here? How do you know all this?

Speaker 1 He happens to know. And also,

Speaker 1 Lane's daughter is dating an LSU player, correct?

Speaker 1 There's the honky badger. Now,

Speaker 1 the feeling is we're going to know one way or another today. Wow.

Speaker 14 Wow.

Speaker 1 On Lane Kiffen. Now,

Speaker 1 Lane Kiffen is in total control of this timeline. He has the college football world by the balls.
He has both these schools knowing he is playing A. And they have to go all.

Speaker 1 Like, Lane Kiffen's not being scared by John Summerall here. Lane Kiffen, I think we're reaching

Speaker 1 a point of no return. I think it's the goose's cooked.
He's not going old miss.

Speaker 12 Is he related to Pat Summerall?

Speaker 1 He spells it differently. Every time I hear you say Summerall, I think the same person.

Speaker 1 It's Summerall, not raw. Got it, got it, got it.
But wait, so I expect a decision real soon here on the lame kiffin front because, like, this is

Speaker 9 unsustainable.

Speaker 1 Did you just report that he's got an oral commitment with both schools? Yeah, the deal, like, the deal points in terms of money, all that stuff and NIL commitment, all that stuff has worked out.

Speaker 1 He has a verbal agreement on the working points of the contract with both schools. Now, it's genuinely about what he wants for his family and what he thinks is a better spot.

Speaker 12 Is this a Lebatt exclusive right now?

Speaker 1 And seeing if he can pinch either of these schools to throw more in there. He's the happen-to-know guy.

Speaker 1 That's where, when he says happen-to-know, when you say you happen to know something, you have the credibility to.

Speaker 12 Sorry, I'm not trying to belittle your reporting. I just didn't know that we were in the midst of a discussion.
You were questioning.

Speaker 12 When it gets like regurgitated, am I going to be grouped in

Speaker 12 during the Ariel Hawani segment? Lane, what's his name? Kai-Fin?

Speaker 1 Okay, it's not messaged. I don't know who that is.

Speaker 12 I legit don't know who that is.

Speaker 1 I was waiting for the bit. Okay, what's the bit here?

Speaker 1 Let's do something you do know about in football. Josh Allen has nine interceptions in his last uh eight games, okay?

Speaker 1 And a lot of people are pointing out, for example, that Jalen Hurts has thrown just two interceptions in his last 528 attempts. You can't turn the ball over.

Speaker 1 Your team has so many flaws in so many places that you need your quarterback to be a little extra reckless. He won the MVP, not being reckless, but they're asking him to do an awful lot.

Speaker 1 Last night he gets sacked eight times. They have three turnovers, and now they've given up the division.
What is is the status of your Bills' tears?

Speaker 1 Because if they don't win the conference this year, when the hell are they going to win it?

Speaker 12 Okay, well, first of all, division isn't lost. Let's not get crazy.
I know you guys are, you know, in the rearview mirror, but it's not lost. It's not lost.

Speaker 12 We've had some bad moments, and I still believe in the boys. But this is how I feel on this Friday morning after that disgusting performance.
That was disgusting yesterday.

Speaker 12 Like, there is no reason why they should have lost to that team.

Speaker 12 Who is Davis Mills? I don't even know who that guy is. What is going on?

Speaker 12 Not a good quarterback. Davis Mills.

Speaker 1 Davis Mills had never won consecutive games in 26 starts before the last season. Ridiculous.

Speaker 12 If him and this lane guy were sitting in front of me, I'd say, like, where's my Uber Eats? I have no idea who is.

Speaker 1 You'd be weirded out by Davis Mills' neck.

Speaker 12 Here's the thing.

Speaker 12 I love the Bills. I love the team.
I love the organization. But the time has come to make a change.
The time has come. They should have made a change long ago.
If I'm being... You're firing the coach?

Speaker 12 The time has come. The time has come.

Speaker 1 Why does he look less intelligent when he wears glasses? I don't,

Speaker 12 here's the thing. We've had so many, like, I don't believe in the window being closed.
Josh is still in his 20s. Remember, John Elway won when he was like 38 or something like that.

Speaker 12 So Josh has many opportunities. But you can't, I thought the time came after 13 seconds.
You know what I'm talking about? I thought the time came when you lost to the Bengals at home in the playoffs.

Speaker 12 I thought the time came when you lost to the Chiefs at home in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 You've been firing McDermott for three years?

Speaker 12 I'm a basketball cuenis, sir. Are you familiar with the game of basketball? I am.
And there was a time back in 2018 that the Toronto Raptors had on their hands the NBA coach of the year.

Speaker 12 His name was Dwayne Casey, right? And Masayu Jiri said, you keep losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers. You keep getting us to the Eastern Conference finals and not getting us over the hump.

Speaker 12 And so what did they do? They made a very tough call. They fired him.
The season he won coach of the year and brought in Nick Nurson. Of course, they brought in Kawhi Leonard as well.

Speaker 1 I believe.

Speaker 1 I believe though.

Speaker 1 Eastball detail. Eastball detail.
And LeBron left the conference. Listen, my point is...

Speaker 12 I believe that there are times when a coach has taken you as far as they can take you, right? The Knicks made that determination with Tibbs.

Speaker 12 I thought a little bit early, but the point is that happens in sports. And I think Sean McDermott has taken them as far as they can go with him at the helm.

Speaker 12 And it is very frustrating to see that McDermott and Bean did not do anything to improve the wide receiver core. I can't believe

Speaker 12 we didn't update it. We didn't upgrade it, I should say, at the trade deadline.
The defense is putrid. Special teams is bad.
The offensive line is porous at best.

Speaker 12 You have the best quarterback in the league on your hands and you've done nothing to put pieces around him to succeed and excel.

Speaker 12 James Cook has been tremendous, but the rest has been very disappointing. And so I think we need to make a change as we go into the new era with the new state.

Speaker 1 They don't win at Houston. They've had trouble with that.
You got to kind of win the game when Shakir goes for 100 yards and your running back goes for 100 yards.

Speaker 9 We are better than the Houston Texans.

Speaker 12 Even with the bad defense and the bad wide receivers and all this stuff, we are better than these guys.

Speaker 1 We're better than the Dolphins.

Speaker 1 We're better than the Patriots, too.

Speaker 1 There aren't a lot of teams in the league that are winning a road game when they're getting sacked eight times and turning the ball over to the bottom of the Ariel.

Speaker 1 You lost head to head to the Patriots.

Speaker 12 That makes them better. No.

Speaker 1 I have to remain consistent.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry.

Speaker 12 I'm sorry. We'll get them back.
We'll get them back in December. And we lost to you guys, too.
And that was one of the most embarrassing performances.

Speaker 1 What does it look like when you're watching that game last night in front of the television?

Speaker 12 I am so sad because I feel like we are so damn close to finally realizing this and quite I've been a Bills fan since 1990. I don't even want this for myself.
I don't even want this so I can gloat.

Speaker 12 I want it for the good people of Western New York. Like they are some of the greatest people that I've ever been around.
The greatest experience, like so loyal. This is all they have.

Speaker 1 Their fan base is also wildly generous too.

Speaker 10 They're beautiful people.

Speaker 12 They deserve this happiness. They truly do.
I want it for them and I want it for Josh. And they are, man, it's heartbreaking because I feel like we are right there.

Speaker 1 But sometimes you got to make these tough calls calls and you got to you got to shake things up and I feel like now's the time to shake it up always a pleasure to see and be around Ariel Holwani if you're not familiar with his information it is the best information

Speaker 12 very quick I know we work short on time I'm looking at this right here and so I want to say I feel like this is the most appropriate time to say it famously with with you guys during the pandemic I had a debate with David Sampson.

Speaker 12 And I just want to send my best to David and his family. Much love.
And I'm thinking of you and I'm pulling for you guys. and I'd like to say right here and now, I consider David a friend.

Speaker 12 I've come a very long way since that debate.

Speaker 1 That's crazy that that's happened with you.

Speaker 1 That might be the greatest conquest of David Sampson's life to go from

Speaker 12 David and the Sampson family.

Speaker 1 How it is that you used to feel about him to how you feel about him?

Speaker 12 I felt like he killed my baseball team, and I thought he actually came across me well on the Netflix documentary. And I think that he doesn't deserve the blame that he has gotten.

Speaker 12 And I'd I'd like to say that,

Speaker 12 David, I love you. I'm pulling for you and your family.
You know how I feel about you now. We've buried the hatchet.
And yeah, I saw the logo right over there.

Speaker 12 And I just wanted to say that there is no feud. There is no feud anymore.
Put your arms down, everyone, in Montreal. David's not the bad guy.
He was made out to be the bad guy.

Speaker 12 And I have seen the light.

Speaker 1 Stunning development. Really stunning.
We have less than a minute left.

Speaker 1 So the place that I want to just rummage around in and really hurt for Tony is Tony was very eager to impress you there with his.

Speaker 1 I don't know if I was eager to impress Ariel.

Speaker 1 I had it. Try to get confidence in it.
Try it again. Try to get it.
Ali Abdel Aziz. The problem is, I switched the B and I switched the playoff.
Look, Tony, please back off.

Speaker 6 No, no, I'm going to back off. I'm going back off.

Speaker 1 I just want Arielle to hear again what you were trying to say as the last words in your conversation in which you were going to express to Arielle how much you now know about the sport.

Speaker 1 So you think there's a little bit of home cooking with.

Speaker 1 Ariel. I mean, to be honest.
Now play it again. Play it again.
Ilya ducking Patty Pimblet? What's happening here?

Speaker 12 They'll fight in January, I think.

Speaker 1 Just keep playing. One more time.
One more time. Just keep playing.
One more time. So you think there's a little bit of home cooking with

Speaker 1 him.

Speaker 12 He's never sounded better. He's a tough name.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah, but Tommy Aspinall.
Yeah. Okay, and Cyril Gone.
Like, what's going on there?

Speaker 12 Incredible fight. Can't wait for the rematch.

Speaker 1 Somebody, please help me.

Speaker 13 How does it rub you?

Speaker 1 Terribly. I need you.

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Sweet, delicious Cuervo.

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Cuervo. So, enjoy the tequila that started it all.
Cuervo. Cuervo.
The tequila that invented tequila.

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Cuervo.