An NBA Six-Pack, Netflix’s WBD Pursuit, NFL Picks, and John Cena Finally Stops By, With Joe House and Matt Belloni

22:39Bill Simmons:They've been really good about his minutes. He's only been at 33 minutes a game this year. He's averaging 29 a game. I was so happy because I've absolutely loved this Jalen season. And he actually really did get better at a couple things, including he has this move now that he did not have before and he would try to do it and half the time would dribble off his foot, but he goes hard, like he's driving in the basket. And then he, he does like a hard stop and a really low crossover dribble that, cause these teams would always dive down and try to pick his dribble. He does this hard, low dribble now.

23:14Bill Simmons:And then this little fallback 12 footer. And I swear to God, he makes like 90 % of them. It's like unstoppable. It's like this DeMar DeRosa mid range game that he just didn't have last year and he's able to shoot threes go to the basket or get like his shot selection's been really smart and I was so happy for him on Tuesday in that Knicks game because I think that was a it's a big that was a big marquee stage big peacock game Knicks Celtics and he sucked in the first quarter and all these people I've watched Celtics out here I was like oh great of all the games that he's gonna suck in this one when everyone's watching and then he rallied back and he killed the Knicks.

23:50He did. They didn't have OG,

23:52Bill Simmons:but he like really went after him and brought it to him. So I think he's gone up a level and it's great for Tatum because when Tatum comes back, he's not going to have to be the Tatum from last year, right? You're just kind of moving him in and giving him the 27, 28 minutes a game. Anyway, they're the six seed right now. The problem with them is Brown, Pritchard, White, Kata, these four guys, if any of them gets hurt, this craters. They basically need 30 minutes from all of them. but this is the first time this five game stretch Detroit, Orlando the Knicks and Cleveland they beat almost beat Minnesota where it's like this team's like pretty good and you add Jason Tatum who was the fifth best player in the league last year they're going to be better than pretty good it's a shame you couldn't keep kept Cornette see his game saving block I know we love Cornette couldn't pay him Simons is a little bit of an X factor because I don't think Joe trusts him yeah sure But he does have some good one-on-one stuff.

24:49Bill Simmons:And I think they're falling into him maybe being the sixth man. Anyway, fifth one, the Chris Paul with an all-time, everything ends badly other times. Otherwise, it wouldn't end final season. I just, House, I got to ask you, has there ever been a six months like this for an NBA team that you can remember? Starting with game seven against Denver when they took the most massive shit possible on the biggest possible stage. Just terrible immediately, awful for Hardin. From that moment on, this has been an absolute train wreck. And I don't remember anything like this. It's only rivaled by another era with this very same organization, which is when the owner turned out to be a virulent racist.

25:43Yeah. Like with, where his words were taped and published when the team was pretty goddamn good.

25:53Bill Simmons:Right, had a chance to make the finals. Yeah, that's a worse, like in the moment thing, blowing the lead to Houston. They've had worse things, but this stretch, that game seven, the aspiration scandal that we don't even know what the punishment's going to be yet, but hugely embarrassing. for everybody and a big plague over the season. They signed your guy, Bradley Beal, who then immediately got hurt. They signed Brooke Lopez, who's just washed now. He can't play, unfortunately. Horrible start. Norm Powell, who they trade because they won't give him an extension, thriving in Miami. The Lakers are thriving in general and look like a contender.

26:30Bill Simmons:They have all this Chris Paul weirdness. They don't have their pick. They're giving their pick to a team that might win 73 games. And on top of all of this, the All-Star game is here. at the Aspiration Dome in February. I can't think of a worse run than this. I mean, you didn't even include the legal jeopardy of Ty Lue's two best friends. Oh, I forgot about that. I think he was at some of those poker games. He was all right, though. He was just playing. Yeah, I forgot about that one. That wasn't great either. So yeah, this Clippers thing, I don't see it getting better. They did win last night, which was they beat somebody that.

27:13Bill Simmons:They beat the Hawks. You're missing a bunch of dudes. Because, yes, 10-second rant, Jalen Johnson was a late scratch. Like, here's the thing, everybody. If you're going to bet on the NBA, don't do it early in the day. There are no good numbers early in the day. Yeah, just wait until the last possible second. Because you have no goddamn clue who's playing. I laid two and a half on Atlanta early in the day. Like, okay, I like the situation, blah, blah, blah. doing sensible matchup stuff. 5 o 'clock, Jalen Johnson's out. Oh, well, good. Bye-bye, money. I mean, you have to hedge out of it, which I did.

27:48Yeah, you got to wait

27:49Bill Simmons:until the last 10 minutes. Six thing for the six-pack. I'm kind of excited for the NBA Cup matchups. Can we rank these from four to one? Yeah, let's go. Because I think all these teams are going to try. And I'm always ready to watch any basketball team where I have 100 % certainty that both sides care. They're going to compete. Let's go. I'll give you the four options we have the all Florida battle Miami versus Orlando we have the Knicks going to Toronto Suns Thunder Dylan Brooks just probably trying to as close to being kicked out as possible without getting kicked out and Lakers Spurs no Wemby hmm what do you got for number one I think Suns Thunder is super live.

28:37I just think there is so much because the general public hasn't really seen the Suns yet. People don't really have their heads around. You've been betting on them all year. They're number one against the spread. They're number one in the entire NBA against the spread. So yes, I try and make profitable bets.

28:58Bill Simmons:I just need this Colin Gillespie thing. I need Connor Gillespie? Colin Gillespie? I need some sort of explanation for how this happened where this guy has become such an awesome point guard. They had him on the team last year. This, this is an, an unbelievable example of addition by subtraction there where you really can't overstate how, how much, uh, it sucked to have, um, you know, those three guys who clearly were not on the same page, not saying a bad thing about any one of them individually, but it clearly was, you know, whatever was going on. The vibes were so horrible. Whatever was going on with Coach Bud.

29:39Bill Simmons:Well, that too. And your guy Bradley. Mannix texted me that the vibe at the Clippers game that he went to last weekend was actually worse than the vibe from the Suns games last year, which I thought was the most damning thing I heard about the Clippers. I hope I did. I'm sure he said that on his podcast too. But yeah, better vibes. They really give a shit. And I think there's a real Dylan Brooks conversation to be had. Every team that he's on really, really, really tries. It's the one thing you can count on. And over and over again, he's on the team that gives, it seems like it gives more of a shit.

30:14It's part of the reason why I'll forever hold Russell Westbrook in such high esteem. Not a guy that like, you know, style of play wise, I've ever been able to really wrap my head around always like, Like, you know, where's the IQ element, especially on defense? Hoops IQ I'm talking about. But goddamn, that guy cares. Goddamn, he tried hard. Goddamn, he dragged a terrible Washington team to the playoffs. He gets rebounds.

30:43Bill Simmons:He fills up this box score. All right, so you have Suns Thunder first. I have Miami Orlando first. Okay. I like what's going on with this Orlando team, and there's some interesting pal-up questions. I'm not going to bring any of them up, but there's just some questions, some things. I always get suspicious when somebody loses their best player and then immediately looks like the team has fallen into place. I'm just monitoring. Miami's been really fun to watch, and I hate myself for saying that, as I mention every time. It's really fun. They revamped. They went into the lab in the summer. They're like, you know what?

31:20We're not going to be as last in pace any longer. I like their style. What if we're first in pace? Let's go try that. Oh, yeah. All of a sudden, here we go.

31:28Bill Simmons:Interesting. Let's push the ball, spread the floor. You have the ball, attack the basket. That's why my guy Yakashunas hasn't played. That's not his game. They should trade him. Trade him to free him. Free Yakashunas. I would put Lakers, Spurs. I would have Knicks, Toronto last. That would be my four. I would go. So you have Suns, Thunder one. I have Miami, Orlando one. so we'll flip those for one and two, and then Lakers-Spurs three, Knicks-Toronto four. Okay. I think that's fair. I'm just psyched for all of them. There's a great mix of upstart teams, like who had Toronto, you know, showing up and showing up in this instance, and I think on that big stage, it's a good test, because the Knicks are not going to be like, oh yeah, let's accommodate Toronto here.

32:18That's going to be fun to watch.

32:21Bill Simmons:I think they need to add NBA awards that I can vote for at the end of the year, because I'm not allowed to bet on any of the awards. So I'd rather just vote for more awards. You want more awards. I want more awards. Scotty Barnes deserves some sort of award. And I was thinking the category would be, I never really liked watching you, but now I do. Something like that. I've really enjoyed watching Scotty Barnes this year. And I did not enjoy his game for the years before. Something clicked in his head. I like how unselfish he is. I like his physicality. I've just really enjoyed everything he's done.

32:59Bill Simmons:Thumbs up, Scotty Burns. If we were going to be like, you know, even more gracious towards Scotty about it, what was going on was the Toronto organization with this inexplicable tank concept that got Masai fired because he really couldn't explain it to anybody. And they just kind of floundered and it never really made sense or translated into impactful draft picks. And so they went the other direction. And it's a pretty interesting team this year. It helps them that they have Ingram, who can look like discount Durant sometimes, and has that. It was funny to watch him that one game when he hit the game winner.

33:38Bill Simmons:They gave it to him. And he flipped the ball almost like Rondo style before he started his move. Because he's like, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going left. I'm pulling up. And I'm making it. He made it. With an incredible amount of confidence. Then the next game, they played Charlotte. And it was the same situation. in Charlotte, because they have a good coach, was saying, there's no fucking way you're doing that move again. So as he started, they just sent two guys to the spot and double teamed him. But taking that load off Barnes, plus he's older, but I've been really impressed by him. Anyway, that's our six pack.

34:11Bill Simmons:If you want even more, grab yourself a pack of Michelob Ultra plus Ultra is getting you closer to the action with a chance to win exclusive prizes, including courtside tickets and more. Michelob Ultra, superior is worth playing for. Enter now at michelobulture.com slash courtside. Michelob Ultra courtside 25-26, no purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2025. Ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobulture.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. We're going to take a break and talk football.

34:45Bill Simmons:This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Every football season, the same thing happens. The game somehow makes everybody really hungry. Quarterback scrambles, clearly a sign for breakfast burritos. Yeah. Turnover, suddenly dessert at 2 p.m. doesn't sound so crazy. Wing formations, well, those can only mean buffalo wings, as if they're ever not in play. Even the goalposts start looking suspiciously like french fries. It's almost like football is sending the message to eat more food. Yeah, the good news. Uber Eats makes those cravings easy to satisfy with game day deals all season long from wings and pizza to chips, drinks, and even last minute grocery runs.

35:25Bill Simmons:Don't sleep on those. You'll find savings on all your favorites delivered straight to your door. Order now on Uber Eats. All right, before we get to the games that we really like, we got to talk about FanDuel now live in Missouri and to celebrate, we're turning to the expert who's had more barbecue than any white man alive, Mr. Joe House, to rank his favorite Missouri dining establishments. I know you've dabbled a few times here. What do you got? Well, I don't think I'm going to rank the establishments. What I'm going to do is celebrate a very unique aspect of the Kansas City barbecue scene. And the nationwide, everybody claims they have Texas has its barbecue.

36:05Carolina has its barbecue. But there is only one place you can go to get burnt ends. This place is Kansas City, Missouri. And there are a number of phenomenal establishments that have really made their mark with the burnt ends. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, it is the tip of a brisket. And over time, it's kind of evolved. Now, a lot of times what folks will do is cube up a piece of the sort of fatty part of the brisket, and then they re-smoke it. It's been prepared, then you cube it, then you re-smoke it. They're magnificent. They're a one of a kind and there are several establishments in Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri.

36:49I don't know who lays claim to the OG original. It might be.

36:54Bill Simmons:Everyone's a winner. We don't need to pick a winning establishment. The point is go get some burnt tips in Kansas City. Burnt ends in Kansas City. You could go to Gates, Arthur Bryant. You want to go to Joe's, Jack Stack. LC is apparently top of the list. I've tried a bunch. I haven't tried LC. That's got to get on my list. But burnt ends in Kansas City. Actually, with Dave Jacoby at MLB All-Star Weekend in 2012. I hope you got burnt ends while you were there. Please tell me. I made the mistake of eating too much, and then we had to do an interview with somebody, and I was in a barbecue coma. It was great.

37:25Bill Simmons:That's what I do. That's all stuff you can do in Missouri. You can also gamble in Missouri because FanDuel is now live in Missouri, and they're celebrating with a ton of great promotions and rewards for everyone. So sign up today. Take advantage this weekend. All right, let's talk about our favorite NFL games. A lot of football has happened since the last time we talked. We had all those Thursday, Friday games, Sunday games. Suddenly the Pats are considered to be the best team in the NFL, which is even as a Pats fan who loves the Pats, I would say that's probably ridiculous, but speaks to where we are at the season where nobody can even figure out a team to make the favorite.

38:00We do not have an OKC in the NBA house,

38:03Bill Simmons:but what we do have is picks. And you and I, once again, started out great last week. It went sideways. I want to use this as an opportunity to talk about a bunch of games with a bunch of playoff implications. Can we stay away from Seahawks-Falcons? That's fine. Number's too big. Like the Falcons there. Like the Falcons a little, but I'm not betting Kirk Cousins. We're not betting the Falcons anymore. We're not betting Kirk Cousins against the number one defense. Definitely not doing that. No, thank you. Seahawks by seven. No, thanks. Bucs minus eight and a half against the Saints. I can never tell who's playing for the Bucs.

38:35Bill Simmons:Way too many points. The Saints QB is just good enough that I almost wanted to throw Saints plus eight and a half in there, but I feel like we've taken them before and they couldn't beat Miami last week. They're out. Rams minus seven and a half at Arizona. There's some backdoor potential. I just, no thanks. High favorite on the road. I don't know what to make Arizona. And then - I mean, the Rams, the only, here's the case for the Rams. Three pieces. It's Sean McVay in December. He absolutely owns Arizona, especially in Arizona. And they lost last week. So that would be the case. They're going to come in and just beat the crap out of poor Jacoby Brissett.

39:15Bill Simmons:All right, I'll put them in the parlay pile. The maybes. It's a really weird Dolphins-Jets game that initially I liked the Dolphins. And then it ended up it's the Dolphins minus three is the line right now. Yeah. I think it is. Yeah. But the Jets have been pretty good the last five games. To the point then I was like, oh, maybe we should take the Jets. Then I'm like, well, if I'm changing my mind in the game, probably a stay away. The special team stuff is crazy in this. The Jets are first in DVOA and Miami's fourth. Yeah. So I guess that's going to decide the game. I'd rather not find out with our money on it.

39:52Bill Simmons:It's going to be 40 degrees though, House. There's your thing. There's your thing. Now, I've said on a couple of podcasts this week, I'm no longer making bets based on what we think the weather's going to do because it really stuck us really in a sweet place in that Browns game where we were like, oh, Purdy, can Purdy throw in the 50-mile winds in Cleveland? Get out of here with that. But for sure, it's going to be cold in New York in the, I'm just going to call it the Meadowlands, on Sunday. And it's for sure the case that Tua is going to be the quarterback of the Miami Dolphins playing in the cold up there in the Meadowlands.

40:32That's true. Sounds like you're kind of intrigued by this one. I like the way the Jets have been playing. They are conceding no ground. They are trying hard. I've been impressed. Just put it on the table. Just table it for a minute. That would be my inclination, though.

40:56Bill Simmons:Browns minus three and a half against the Titans. Browns defense at home. Browns burned us last week. I thought it was a really stupid game. So initially I had this down. Here's why I decided against it. And I was thinking a lot about how the Browns completely effed us and everyone else who bet on them last week and all the stupid shit they did. And it made me wonder, like, is this a secret tank team? I was on Browns Reddit. Really fun place, by the way. Enjoyable tour through the Browns Reddit. it. And I can't say they're enthusiastic about Kevin Stefanski, who's one of my takeaways. And some people are like, he's trying to tank, but if you were trying to tank, you would do some of the stuff you did in that game.

41:43Bill Simmons:And it makes me not want to take them in this Titans game. So I think it's a stay away. Is that fair? Yeah. And, you know, we have to like look at each other Sunday afternoon and say, we laid three and a half with Shador. We laid three and a half points with Shador. Greg Cassell had a thing. He was on some show. I follow him on Twitter and he posts the clips sometimes. I enjoy the Greg Cassell clips. But he had this thing about how he's still at the college speed and he hasn't graduated yet. It's a pro speed. That's the perfect way to put it. He's not quite at the pro speed yet. So good. The problem with the Browns is you go down nine plus points with them and the game's over.

42:20Game's over.

42:21Bill Simmons:Exactly. They were 10 to eight. I was like, they might be able to do this. And then it was 17 to eight. It's like, I'm done. Because the coach thinks they should go for it from their own 30. Do you know that San Francisco had five drives start on the Cleveland side of the 50-yard line? I'm aware. I watched the whole game and I was losing my mind. They scored 21 points by starting on the 35-yard line of Cleveland. I said to Sal, that was the dumbest thing all year that I saw a coach do. We can't bet them. It's a shame because that Browns defense is so good. Yeah, we can't bet them. Can't bet them.

42:55Bill Simmons:next maybe for me, the Vikings are favored by one and a half at home against your team house, Washington coming off a week where Max Brosmer just kept throwing picks like he was handing out turkeys on Thanksgiving as a professional athlete your team looked good and it almost makes me not want to take them this week because they looked good last week and almost beat Denver and I don't know what's going on which quarterback you're getting but I just, I don't want to be involved in this game if that's okay It's just a stay away for me. You okay with that? Yeah, it looks like Jaden Daniels. Maybe Daniels, but then he's not healthy.

43:32Bill Simmons:I don't like that scenario. Mariota in Minnesota makes me nervous. Every Minnesota offensive scenario makes me nervous. I just want to stay away. It's fine to stay away. I just want to tip my hat to the Minnesota defense because that Seattle game was nerve-wracking. I had my favorite bet, my best bet. and I gave it out on the Ringer pregame show was Seattle minus six and a half in the first half just to cover a little seven-point line. And the dramatic, possibly one of the greatest quarterback plays, Brosmer, just a miracle cover for me in that spot. But that Minnesota defense had Sam Darnold seeing stuff.

44:15Like, he had Sam Darnold's face. Don't let anybody convince you otherwise. And Minnesota's defense was bringing it, and they brought pressure. I don't want to have anything to do with that for this Washington team.

44:26Bill Simmons:That's one of the reasons the Seahawks were a stay away from me against the Falcons because I haven't loved how their offense has looked. We keep seeing Sam Donald face. They can't really run the ball. They traded for Shahid, and basically he seems like he's a punt returner. And now it just seems like, I don't know, like JSN last week, who I had in one of my leagues, but it was frustrating because it just seemed like they were like, you're not catching the ball. Yeah, couldn't get the ball to him. All right. Parlay possibilities. Rams Cardinals is in there. Broncos at Vegas, I guess. But something scares me about Vegas.

45:06Bill Simmons:Like they finally figured out just throw the ball to Brock Bowers all the time. It does work. It's within 50 feet. He manages. He's incredible. And Denver is just clearly going to be this team that pulls wins out of their ass all year. Raven Steelers. Oh, that's Ravens minus five and a half. I don't like the Ravens that much. I'm not afraid of them when the Pats play them. I don't think they're that good of a football team. I mean, there's been a lot written about this and discussed about this this week, about Rodgers in the Steelers offense and how horrible it is and how it's like, actually there's historical precedents being kicked now with how little the lack of explosive plays, how he never throws the ball more than five yards.

45:51No 20-yard completions.

45:53Bill Simmons:It's like over and over again, everywhere you go, there's terrible stats about how bad the offense is. And then the flip side of it is that these games are always close. I feel like this burned me last year with this mentality of Ravens-Staylors. It's always close. But the dogs do cover most of the time. 75 % of the time, the underdog covers. I just feel like the Steelers are shot offensively. I don't even know what you do if you're them on offense other than just try to run the ball. Maybe they're going to be able to do that against the Ravens. But is the Ravens a parlay team for you, or is this just a stay away?

46:25Bill Simmons:Because I don't like them either. Yeah, I'd be inclined to stay away. The only thing, I bet the under as soon as the number came out because of classic AFC North. I think I got it around, I don't know, 43 and a half, something. But it might have opened far north of that. Either way, it's in a tic-tac zone. Well, here's one that I know you're going to. Oh, no, it's not Tic Tac. It's Vegas Zone. Pardon me. Pardon me. Vegas Zone. I know I'm going to be able to talk you into the Bengals in a parlay as a dog. No. I know you're ready. No. No. No. No. Why not? Because if the Bills can run the ball the way that they did against the Steelers, and I think they can run the ball the way they did against the Steelers, and it's the Bills at home, I kind of don't.

47:1221 % chance of snow house. I kind of don't mind laying the points. I kind of don't mind laying the points. That Bengals defense remains not good. It's better. I thought they were pretty frisky last year. Good effort against the Patriots two weeks ago. That they were frisky against your team and that they were frisky on Thanksgiving. They're improved, improving. But going to Buffalo, this is, you know, Buffalo understands that it can cede no more ground. I mean, I've been using that today.

47:45Bill Simmons:Well, so the case for Buffalo, because I think everybody feels like Buffalo's had a disappointing season, and it's basically because they don't get explosive plays anymore because none of their receivers can do that. But I think they figured that out. No separation. And now they're trying to do last year's Chiefs routine with like run the ball, run the ball, short passes. It's pretty good. I always mention this. I keep track of wins, losses, either or games. You do. Buffalo has eight legitimate wins. I think they have the most wins of anybody of just outright. I guess the Pats have eight. Maybe a couple others have eight.

48:18Bill Simmons:Nobody has nine. But I have them eight, two, and one. And the only either or game was that Ravens comeback game in week one. Other than that, all their wins are legitimate. And I said this last week that Texans Thursday night game, which seemed like a bad loss for them, they're playing on three days rest. They're playing a Texans team that I think you and I both love. and they almost won the game. Very well suited, that Texans team, to turn Josh Allen into a one-dimensional player. Particularly well suited, the Houston team. With all that said, Joe Burrow, with the playoffs on the line and the AFC North in absolute shambles,

49:02Bill Simmons:I just think he's going to move the ball. Okay. So maybe there's an overplay for us or maybe it's like Bill's money in the over, something like that. Okay. I guess there is snow. I don't know. Table it. All right. The ones that I like the most. What's the game you like the most? The Eagles. I have that down. Eagles minus two and a half at the Chargers. Jalen Carter's out. And I guess the question is, does it matter where Philly plays? Because their fans hate them. Aren't they better off playing on the road? Who's going to, are they going to get cheers or boos? Because the LA crowd isn't going to be, you know, There's no L.A.

49:35crowd showing up for the—

49:38Bill Simmons:It would be the Philly transplants who live here, but they're all going to be so grateful to see their team in person. They're not going to boo the first time they go three and out. They're not going to boo. Think about that. How good would that be? It's like, thanks for coming to see me 3 ,000 miles away. It's going to be a happy crowd. It's an incredible number when we don't know for sure that Justin Herbert's going to play. It's like two and a half. Or if he does play, he's going to have a broken hand. Right. He can't play on— they can't really go for on any fourth and short because he can't be the quarterback.

50:04I think Trey Lance has to come out and be the quarterback. Anytime I see Trey Lance on the field, I say, that's a win. Let's go.

50:12Bill Simmons:All right, sign me up. Plus you have the Eagles, 10 days rest. Eagles coming off a terrible loss. They've sucked since the second half against Dallas. They've sucked. So I watched all of that Chargers game last week because there's only three games. And I was in a fantasy thing where I had Brock Bowers. I was going against somebody, I had Gente. So I was like locked in and I don't know, the Raiders kind of hung around in that game in a way that was a little disturbing. And you realize like, uh, and Max Crosby was doing stuff every once in a while. The Raiders just aren't good. They're not well coached.

50:49Bill Simmons:They just don't have enough talent, but they, they kind of hung around in that game in a way that I thought would have been alarming if I was a Chargers fan. Plus Herbert, you know, these guys, we saw with Rogers last week, you're a broken hand, you get sacked, You fall on your hand. You're trying to protect the hand. You fumble. Like, there's so many ways this can go wrong with a fucked up hand. It just feels like stealing to get the Eagles at anything less than a field goal. When I honestly don't, I'm not positive he's playing. I'm not sure it makes a ton of sense for them. Plus, even like he had a terrible throw around in the red zone last week.

51:25Bill Simmons:I don't think he's been lights out. The guy that scares me in this game is Vidal, especially if Carter's not playing. And I wonder if they can run the ball on them. But the thing with me is like, should the Chargers be like an 11-win team? It's the kind of game you should lose. Philly needs it. I'm with you. I like the Eagles and they should be able to sort this stuff out. There's three that I really like. Well, two that I really like. One that I kind of like. I'll give you the kind of like first. The Bears plus six and a half in Green Bay. And you were on Green Bay last week. That was one of the ones we hit.

51:58Bill Simmons:The fear would be Caleb and Lambeau. To me, this seems like a flash sale line to me. Like, why isn't this line three and a half or four? There's still like a little untrustworthiness with the Bears, but I feel like with what they did against Philly and how they ran the ball and how good their offensive line is, the old Lombardi phrase, bad offensive lines don't travel. They have a good offensive line. And they're an outdoor team, and this seems like the kind of game they should hang around with, and it's a lot of points. It's too many points. Green Bay hasn't covered as a favorite by this number this entire season.

52:34Green Bay is great when they're an underdog or where the line is tight. Green Bay by this number, like, look it up. They flat out just don't cover, don't come close to covering this number. I think the Bears, see, what helps the Bears is it's going to be freezing effing cold. It's going to be like single-digit cold. And they are going to run. They're going to just try and run the football. But to the credit, like the offensive line was a point of emphasis in the offseason. And then they arrived with a head coach who actually can scheme up an offensive line, a protection package and some run packages that are synergistic.

53:13So it's not just we got guys. We got guys and now we have a plan also. And the way that they ran against Philadelphia, now I don't expect a repeat of that because by EPA, Green Bay is pretty good, but they're only like middle of the pack in terms of win rate in terms of defensive rush. But I think that the Bears will try and establish the run and that creates at least a little bit of room for Caleb. Nobody's asking Caleb to go, you know, win the game. If you are, then you're going to lose the game because we're still early in his career. But I think that six and a half is a crazy number to me.

53:53Bill Simmons:I like that they're going to be able to block I also like that the one great thing He has is the scrambling His ability to get out of trouble Three, four, and Drake May does this too Three, four times a game he can just It seems like it's going to be a sack and it isn't And as inaccurate as he is It's still a good quality, I just think they hang around I also felt like we had the Packers in that Thursday game There was a Few moments where they needed a first down Where they needed a play And I never knew where they were going and it would be like, whoa, Wicks made a play and dobs. And it's like, I didn't really trust Watson will have his one play long, right?

54:28Bill Simmons:But I didn't really trust them series to series where they were going on like a third and seven, third and eight. And now Wicks is hurt. He's got the red flag next to him. I was nervous that whole game against Detroit. I mean, Detroit, you know, played pretty good. They're in a lot of trouble. Different class. But the other thing. Too many points for the Bears. I like that Chicago's finally got its secondary healthy. And it's a good secondary. We've been waiting all season. The highly touted Chicago secondary. This is the time that you need them against this Green Bay team. Yeah, it's too many points.

55:03Are we taking the Bears?

55:04Bill Simmons:A lot of confidence. Yeah, I think we should. Cold weather team. Built for A2s and Lambeau. They're fine? Yeah. They're fine with it. Great. Jags Colts. I can't believe we're doing that. Jags Colts. It's Jags plus one and a half against the Colts. You're making a face. Why are you making a face? I just don't know what to do with this game. This game confounds me. All right, well, I'm going to tell you because this is going to be one of my picks. Oh, good. Okay. Thank God. Jags are plus one and a half. Why does it confound you, by the way? Because Jacksonville owns the Colts in Jacksonville. You'll hear the stat a million times.

55:45Raheem has it. He's been talking about it. since Monday. The Colts haven't won in Jacksonville since 2015, something like that.

55:56Bill Simmons:Remember we were talking about home browns? Outdoor Colts to me is a thing too. I thought Dimes looked terrible last week. You can't move. Dimes can't move. That's the handicap, right? Bad weather. Because what they have to do, the Colts is establish the run. They can't have Jacksonville, who surprisingly can put some pressure on the quarterback. they can't have him teeing up and teeing off on Jones. He can't move. Jacksonville's not bad. They're frustrating because of Lawrence. Thomas is going to hopefully be back more this week, but they can run the ball, which I've noticed with them. They actually can run inside.

56:34Bill Simmons:They can run on the outside. Yeah, they can run the ball for real. At home. So that's the pathway for them. Can they do that to replicate that against the Colts? You can't have Trevor Lawrence throwing the ball. Then you hate yourself. 74 % chance of rain. I think that's good for Jackson. If it's a bad weather, rainy outdoor game, I just like the Jags. Okay. I don't want Daniel Jones who can't move around. No sauce Gardner in this game again. And I think the Colts for the last month have just been different than those first seven weeks. There's just no question. Every stat says it. Yeah, well, they traveled.

57:12They had all of this travel. They played away games, outdoor games, grass games. Somewhere in there, Jones got hurt. And then it was supposed to be come home against Houston, get right. But they can't get right because my man Danny, Indiana Jones, has a broken fibula, apparently.

57:31Bill Simmons:They're like, it's fine. He can move around on it. Yeah, it sounds great. I also like this Jags home crowd. I thought they were good in the Chiefs game. Okay. Yeah, I think that crowd can dial it up every once in a while. It's funny to take the Jags and then watch Trevor Lawrence and then send each other texts. That all by itself is funny. So let's do it. I'm endorsing this pick. Well, one thing I was thinking for your Sunday show. Yeah. Like, I wonder if there's like a Jags by 14 and a half kind of like blowout bet. because like there's a world where this game goes horrible for the Colts. You know, like Jones can't move.

58:16Bill Simmons:No, but it's just like the Jags, like they pour it on, the weather's shitty and all of a sudden you're like, whoa, and Jacksonville, they scored again. Eight to one, they're 14 and a half. I'm just mentioning that. All right. I like the Jags. That's one of the picks. And then last one, I knew we would agree on this one. Texans Chiefs, it's in Kansas City. Texans are plus three and a half. It's going to be 25 degrees. It's a night game. The Chiefs have major offensive line issues, including their left tackle's gone. I think Taylor's gone too. Yeah. And they have the best defense in the league. It just feels like a miracle kind of matchup for them.

58:57Bill Simmons:Depleted offensive line. Cold weather. It's a cold weather and defense game. And I don't know. the Texans can run the ball. I think they're really good. And I think they're going to make the playoffs, which means they have to win this game. They cannot lose this game and still have hope of making the playoffs. They probably have to win their division. The way this goes. So, you have this one too? Texans plus three and a half? I like the under better. I play the under because these two teams are both top five unders this season. I have a parlay option for you. Okay, okay, okay. Texans plus seven and a half under 49 and a half.

59:38Yeah. See, I don't want us to parlay teams any longer. This is a parlay I can endorse. Like we lost last week. We both love Dallas. We should have gone three and O on Thanksgiving. We love the situation. We love the way it looked. And yet we, we took that and put that with the stupid Eagles. Why did we do that? That was dumb. Why did we do that? Like a team, play the team. I don't want to make two team combinations anymore with our parlays because what we have to do is all these adjusted line things. But if you want to do a Houston where it's correlated, the idea of Houston covering that spread and the total, you push the total up so you're going to finish way under the total, that makes sense to me.

1:00:31Now you're talking that that's like the, that that's, I don't know if anybody would say it's, it's, it's positive expected value, but at least it makes sense.

1:00:42Bill Simmons:Well, we could either do Texans plus seven and a half under 49 and a half, or we can do Texans plus four and a half under 57 and a half. I'd rather do the first one of those two by far, by a long shot. Seven and a half, 49 and a half. Yes. Yes. All right. Yes. Yes. So we'll mark that down. So we have Bears, Packers. We have the Bears, the Texans with the Parlay. We have the Jags. We have the Eagles. And we need a fifth team. Dun, dun, dun. This is where we've gotten in trouble all year. It's always been bad right here, this spot. We always have the four bets and somehow don't have the fifth one.

1:01:22We can't lay the points with Cleveland. You don't want to go against Joe Burrow in Buffalo. I don't. I don't want to go against Joe Burrow. I kind of do, but I understand. I understand your perspective. I don't want to do that. You don't want to bet on Geno Smith and the Raiders getting seven and a half? I mean, the Broncos haven't covered a number that big on the road all season. I don't want to do that. Okay. That's a no. That's fine. Rams cooking against the Cardinals? No, thanks. Back doors open? You don't like that one? I don't. Are we really going to do the game with your game? Are we going to do the Jets?

1:02:00Bill Simmons:Jets plus three against the Dolphins? The two of cold weather? Just try to ride that one last time? Tyrod Taylor? The resurgent Aaron Glenn? I kind of love it. We have a lot of Jets fans in our lives who hate themselves and hate their team and hate football, but there's a glimmer of something there with this current version of the Jets. So if you look at the last, since week six, Jets lose to the Broncos by two, lose to the Panthers by seven, Those are both two winning teams. Beat the Bengals. Beat the Browns. Lose to the Pats by 13 in a game that was competitive for a half. Beaten up by the Ravens.

1:02:44Bill Simmons:And then they beat the Falcons last week. Dolphins. They got blown out in week nine by the Ravens. Beat the Bills. Beat the Commanders with your team when you're still missing dudes. In Madrid. And then barely beat the Saints last week. And it's like, the Dolphins are back. Are they? They're 5-7. They can run the ball. A-chan's been good. They can run the ball. They've reinvented themselves as a running defense with some pass rushers. All right, fine. Fuck it. We'll see the Jets. We get two in 40-degree weather. That'll be fun. See, at least we'll be texting about Trevor Lawrence and saying bad things about him.

1:03:28But it will be fun to watch Tua in that cold weather because they're saying it's in the high 30s and the feel like will be in the low 30s and what Tua is going to feel like is getting the F off the football field.

1:03:42Bill Simmons:By the way, he has not been good. It's not like Tua is the reason they're winning. Another great point. It's not like he's been killing it. All right, so our Ringer 107. Today's Ringer 107 brought to you by FanDuel. and we have Bears plus 6.5 against the Packers. We both think that line's too high. Texans plus 7.5 parlayed with the under 49.5 in Kansas City. We think the Texans are a live dog. We love their defense. Big, big, big offensive line issues for the Chiefs. 25-degree weather. This is a three-point game. Three-point game, lower scoring. Just feels like it. Totally fine. Jags plus 1.5 against the Colts and Danny Dimes' semi-broken fibula.

1:04:29Bill Simmons:Eagles, minus two and a half against the Chargers. We like when the Eagles are on the road because then they're not home with their fans booing them and yelling swear words at them. And then last but not least, we can never find a fifth pick we feel great about. So we're going to have to default to two in relatively cold weather, 40 degrees maybe. Going against the Jets, plus three at home. the Red Hot Jets have won three of their last five. Tyrod Taylor, the number one special teams, DBOA. Nick Folk, give that man a ball. Give him a game ball. This team, all they do is win games, sort of. That's our Ringer 107.

1:05:10Bill Simmons:And all lines are subject to change on FanDuel Sportsbook. All right, that was fun. We're due for like a 4-1 or a 5-0. Maybe it'll be this week, thanks to the Jets. Before we go, I wanted to give you a Thanksgiving story. I'm here. I forgot to talk about food. Did you have a good Thanksgiving, by the way? Amazing. Thank you. Yes, incredible. Got to see family. Went down to Raleigh, North Carolina. Speaking of great food scenes, Crawford Brothers, new establishment from the Crawford Empire. Excellent. Incredible Wagyu steak. Incredible. Wagyu. Wagyu. So I had Thanksgiving, had like nine people over, had a bunch of stuff.

1:05:49Bill Simmons:My mom made her baked beans. our friend Sissy made her cornbread. I don't even, cornbread like casserole type thing. It just was like old school. I don't know how much butter was in it, but it was - In a casserole dish? Yeah, it was a long casserole dish with cornbread. It almost tasted like cornbread, but more like mashed potato-y kind of cornbread. Oh, I'm imagining it. Yeah, you would have loved it. Incredible. My mom's baked beans were out of control and also great for the intestines over the next couple of days, thanks to her. We had the sweet potato casserole. Awesome. Had that. We had all kinds of stuff.

1:06:32Bill Simmons:Turkey, obviously, cranberry sauce. But all these sides. We had so many sides that my wife never brought out the mashed potatoes. Oh my gosh. And we realized after the dinner that the mashed potatoes never came out because there was so much food. the mashed potatoes just got a DMP out of nowhere. It happens. They were just in the fridge. Yeah. There was cream spinach. We had all these things. We had so much stuff that mashed potatoes never made it. And my wife was like really upset about it because she's like, how do you not have mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving? I can't believe that. And I was like, A, nobody noticed.

1:07:07Bill Simmons:B, we were fine. But she really felt like that was the one thing you had to have. We also had two different versions of stuffing. Forgot to mention that. I was like, no, people don't notice stuffing, not mashed potatoes. You know how much I adore your wife. She didn't miss the mashed potatoes. Right. She also forgot. She feels like they're an elemental part. And yet she also forgot. Like that's, you know, that tells the whole story. Well, that just leads me to my point. Mashed potatoes, overrated? Nine people eating Thanksgiving dinner, and I didn't even realize that mashed potatoes weren't out there.

1:07:43Well, I don't know how crucial mashed potatoes are to a Thanksgiving spread. I'll just go ahead and say that because of all the other ways you can. You just described like six side dishes that are each in their own unique way. Mind-blowing. You can have, and by the way, mashed potatoes a couple days after, awesome, incredible. You can make mashed potatoes with scrambled eggs, and they have the effect of making the eggs as light and fluffy if you can get the ratio right. It's in, and then you get some of that, some of the, the, the momofuku chili crisp and put it with the mashed potato egg. In fact, I go on dinnertime live and ask, ask Chef Chang to make you mashed potato scrambled eggs and get some of that chili crisp.

1:08:29I'm telling you, this is an 11 out of 10. You're going to love it. We should, we should have done this

1:08:33Bill Simmons:as a first take segment. Mashed potatoes need to step up. They're getting passed by all the other potatoes. BMP. Mashed potatoes have been good for years. Yeah, I love mashed potatoes. So you know what I did at about eight o 'clock that night? Yes. I made myself a second whole plate of turkey, but I included the mashed potatoes. I brought back my friend and they were happy to be there. Yeah. You can put them on a sandwich. They're very, very versatile, the mashed potato. You can put them in a lot of different stuff. I'm proud of you. That was my Thanksgiving story. All right, we're going to take a break.

1:09:08Bill Simmons:Thanks, House. We're going to come back with Matt Bellany and then John Cena.

1:09:38Bill Simmons:slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 2-6 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. For small business, every hire matters, but the time and resources required to hire right are limited. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered screening interviews.

1:10:06Bill Simmons:Its conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Hire right the first time. Get started by posting your first job for free at linkedin.com slash Simmons. That's linkedin.com slash Simmons. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Firestone Complete Auto Care. There are a few things you don't want to overthink, like where you take your car when something feels off.

1:10:36Bill Simmons:Firestone Complete Sweet Auto Care is basically a one-stop shop. Tires, oil, changes, brakes, batteries, alignments, diagnostics, whatever's going on. There are thousands of ASE certified technicians have got it covered. Plus, every visit comes with a courtesy inspection, including free tire and battery checks. Visit FirestoneAuto.com to find a location near you, a trusted name since 1926. All right. I had to bring in our guy, Matt Bellany from Puck and from our podcast, The Town, which I love. It's great. And it's been bustling lately because there is a Warner Brothers sale that's been happening in slow motion for months and months.

1:11:18Bill Simmons:You call it a car crash. I got to say, Bellany, there's too much football going on. There's too much basketball. There's movies. There's screeners. I'm just not focused on it. And I know you're covering this on your pod, but I wanted to bring you on. That's why I'm here. Give me the idiot's guide. What's happening? It seems like there's three suitors. We have Paramount really wants it. Netflix allegedly has the inside whatever, but we'll talk about that. And then Comcast is kind of looming. Those are the three suitors, correct?

1:11:49Matt Belloni:Those are. And the process right now is they're getting bids. And the guy running it, David Zasloff, who runs Warner Brothers Discovery, he is the chair of the committee that's evaluating all of these bids. And he keeps asking them to sweeten their bid. And Paramount has said that we believe we are the easiest path to getting this deal approved. They think they have an in with the Trump people because they just bought Paramount. They settled the lawsuit between Trump and CBS. They did a big deal for the UFC. They're going to be broadcasting the fight on the White House lawn. and they are making a bunch of changes at CBS that Trump likes.

1:12:34Matt Belloni:They're going to release Rush Hour 4 because Trump wants them to because the director, Brett Ratner, is doing a documentary about Melania. So they've done a lot of things. Larry Ellison is friends with Trump and has donated in the past. They believe they have the easiest path to get this deal approved and that Netflix has a ton of problems getting this deal approved by the government because in the world of antitrust law, Netflix is the most powerful streaming service and they would be buying HBO Max, which is, depending on what metric you use, third, fourth biggest streaming service. So that potentially has some antitrust problems in this country.

1:13:13Matt Belloni:That is what Paramount is pushing. And then today we get this letter that Paramount sent to David Zaslav at Warner saying that they believe the process is essentially rigged and that Zaslav is pushing this company towards Netflix because they are going to treat him better. They're going to give him a cushy job and that they are the sort of preferred buyer here.

1:13:41Bill Simmons:Wow, that's a lot. You didn't talk about Comcast.

1:13:46Matt Belloni:Comcast is sort of an also ran here so far. They are in the mix. They are seen as potentially the company that needs this the most. Because they have Peacock. I mean, that's my thing.

1:13:57Bill Simmons:They need it the most.

1:13:58Matt Belloni:Yes. And ultimately, many of the analysts that are watching this say the company that needs this the most will ultimately get it. I slightly disagree. I think it's a combination of needing it the most and having the most money, which is what the Ellisons have. They have unlimited money because Larry is worth something like$260 to$80 billion, depending on the day. and they ultimately feel like they need it because they only own Paramount and they want to be a scaled competitor to Netflix. And you can't do that with just the Paramount Plus subscribers. You put that together with HBO and the Warner Brothers Library and you've got a pretty compelling value proposition there.

1:14:41Matt Belloni:Comcast with Peacock does feel like they need it though.

1:14:45Bill Simmons:Yeah, that feels like a one plus one equals three for a whole bunch of different reasons because I think, and Peacock's doing a little bit better. They have the Shiv Roy Kidnap Show.

1:14:55Matt Belloni:They do. Everyone loves that.

1:14:57Bill Simmons:Big hit, apparently. They got the traders. Yeah.

1:15:00Matt Belloni:They got NBA now. Right.

1:15:02Bill Simmons:They got some NBA. I feel like right now everything's been kind of quiet from a disruption standpoint because everybody's got their little spots in the pecking order. And we're making less TV shows. We're making less movies. We're making less everything. Everybody's being super careful. Amazon could have been potentially a big disruptor, but they keep reorging. The disruptor part that I think would be the most interesting to Paramount got it, because then it's like, all right, we are stepping into the boxing ring now. We have a ton of IP. We have money behind us. We have a football relationship.

1:15:38Bill Simmons:We have UFC. We have this huge library of all these movies and TV shows, and we can actually try to take a couple punches here at Netflix.

1:15:48Matt Belloni:Well, that's why many people think that Netflix is going so aggressively after this. It's more of a defensive play. Well, that was going to be my question.

1:15:57Bill Simmons:Yeah, is this a defensive play or an offensive play by Netflix? They don't want, they have pole position right now. They don't want Paramount to potentially unseat that.

1:16:05Matt Belloni:Absolutely. And by the way, add in a little bit of a personal element. The head of streaming at Paramount Plus is Cindy Holland, who got fired by Ted Sarandos at Netflix. Yes. So they just stole the Duffer Brothers away from Netflix. They did Stranger Things and they wanted to resign them and then they went over to Paramount. So there's like...

1:16:23Bill Simmons:Was it a steal? I...

1:16:25Matt Belloni:Well, not for what they offered them. They offered them movies in theaters to get them to go there. Are the Duffer Brothers like directors of the kinds of movies you want to see in theaters? Maybe. We'll see. They haven't ever directed one of those before. I want to see the advanced metrics

1:16:41Bill Simmons:of getting the people after their transformative huge show. Yes. That is the HBO argument. How that's gone over the last 30 years.

1:16:49Matt Belloni:HBO makes that argument all the time that, you know, we get the greatest show out of these people. And then if Netflix wants to overpay them to take them away, God bless. Go there. And, you know, it's like the guys that did Game of Thrones. They got overpaid by Netflix. And what did they do? They did that zero body problem. What was that show?

1:17:09Bill Simmons:Well, they did that one, but they also did the Garfield show, which was really good. I'm still I still like those guys. But yeah. they're probably not going to top Game of Thrones the show that Tom from Successions oh the one that just

1:17:23Matt Belloni:aired I have not seen that yet

1:17:25Bill Simmons:I'm still okay with those guys it's just like when you're paying people for past performance they paid them Game of

1:17:31Matt Belloni:Thrones money to do Zero Body Problem which was not successful yeah

1:17:38Bill Simmons:well it's interesting because from a Netflix standpoint they've never bought anything right And they've kind of been proud of that. And there's this whole road. And we've talked, I went on your podcast and talked about this, about media mergers. And why do people even do these? We had a whole conversation about this.

1:17:57Matt Belloni:Netflix said this at the Bloomberg conference that you were at. The co-CEO, Greg Peter said, there is not a good track record of media mergers.

1:18:06Bill Simmons:Like it's a terrible track record. It is, it just is. It's terrible. And you're also assimilating different cultures. You're bringing in executives with their ideas. There's always too many people. You end up doing a lot of layoffs and a lot of cuts. And it's going great for Netflix. So to me, and I haven't talked to anybody from there about why are you going after this? I'm not even sure how much I believe. But it seems totally defensive to me because people are worried about Paramount. But as somebody who's a creator who makes stuff, you kind of almost want Paramount to get it because now you would have like, now you have two people kind of going at it against each other for content, which would be, I think, great for everybody.

1:18:45Bill Simmons:Comcast is the part.

1:18:47Matt Belloni:It would take the legacy studios from five down to four. If you merge Paramount and Warner Brothers. Okay. They argue that they're going to increase the number of movies and put investment into that. But ultimately, you merge these services. If you merge the studios, it's one fewer buyers in the marketplace. But if you put Netflix over Warner Brothers, you could get Warner Brothers as a theatrical studio could entirely go away. HBO Max could entirely go away. I mean, it's it's that kind of a merger where the fundamental playing field of Hollywood would change significantly.

1:19:26Bill Simmons:Well, I know you've talked about this, but if Netflix got Warner Brothers, what happens to HBO?

1:19:31Matt Belloni:Two scenarios. One is it goes away. they absorb the subscribers they transition i mean that's idiotic you can't do that or make it a tile on h on netflix where you go to netflix and there's a little box that says you love hbo click everything you'd ever want to watch on hbo that's one scenario what netflix i don't like that what netflix is telling people is that they would operate them separately and that there would be an hbo max service there will be a netflix service maybe they have the same backend, maybe they don't, but that the brands and services would remain separate. I don't know if I believe that.

1:20:09Matt Belloni:That's the kind of thing you say if you are trying to win regulatory approval of your big merger. But the goal of buying this is not to buy HBO Max necessarily. The goal is to suck up all of those Warner Brothers franchise movies. I mean, Netflix would own Batman. They would own Wonder Woman. They would own Minecraft. All of these big franchises would become Netflix movies. And maybe they put some of them in theaters. Maybe they don't. Maybe they do it for a couple of years just so everyone gets off their back. And Ted Sarandos can be a hero around town for releasing movies. But then maybe they backslide.

1:20:49Matt Belloni:I mean, that's the goal. Or they take HBO Max and they spin it off and sell it. There's a scenario where they buy this company or the studio and streaming side of the company at Warner. And then they take the studio and sell HBO Max to Comcast. So then they can kind of take what they want and Netflix can take what they want. That's one scenario.

1:21:09Bill Simmons:So that's a library IP play. They decide they don't need HBO. They actually sell it off to make some of the money back. And they're basically getting library and cock-blocking Paramount.

1:21:20Matt Belloni:Yes. I mean, that is very complicated because obviously, what is the value of HBO? It's the brand and it's all the subscribers, but it's mostly the content that is on HBO, which presumably Netflix would want to take for themselves. It's all those Warner's movies. It's, you know, the full library of HBO shows. You could watch the Sopranos anytime you want it on Netflix. Like that is kind of the value. And if they sell HBO max to another company, what goes with it? Some of the library, all of it, you know, rights to the library. It's very complicated.

1:21:55Bill Simmons:So we could get our scenario where they sell it to Apple and we finally have Apple buying HBO, which should have happened 10 years ago, or you have Comcast buying it and just merging HBO and Peacock and calling it HBO because nobody knows what Peacock is.

1:22:09Matt Belloni:Exactly. And the key element there is that HBO Max is global and Peacock is only domestic. So Comcast would immediately become a global streaming player and currently they are not.

1:22:23Bill Simmons:And Comcast has some other advantages, right? With the, they have the wiring for cable and these things that maybe could help them in some other ways.

1:22:33Matt Belloni:Broadband is a declining business, but they also have theme parks.

1:22:36Bill Simmons:Not for old people.

1:22:37Matt Belloni:Not for old people. But, you know, Elon wants to make everybody a Starlink customer instead of broadband. But, you know, the, but remember, Universal has the theme parks. so that would be synergistic with the warner ip if they were to get it now warner ip is tied up at six flags if you go to your local six flags there's like a superman coaster things like that but presumably there would be ip plays that universal could use in the parks and ultimately transition all those heroes over the universal parks which is a big business and growing for

1:23:10Bill Simmons:them well the scariest thing you said was that hbo would get absorbed in a netflix and basically be a little carousel tile. I think that reminds me of like when going back in the early 2000s with wrestling, when WWE bought WCW and basically just assimilated the roster and then just everything got lost and it just didn't work. And I, you know, I feel like there's an HBO audience. It's a distinct brand. And I just think that's really hard to fold into something else. I hope that's not how this plays out.

1:23:41Matt Belloni:Yeah. But there is a lot of overlap in those customers. I mean, And most people who have HBO also have Netflix, right?

1:23:48Bill Simmons:Yeah, but don't you think the type of content you would expect from HBO that you might like veers a little bit different than the type that's on Netflix?

1:23:57Matt Belloni:Oh, of course. I mean, HBO is still the best brand in television because it stands for something. Netflix stands for many different things to many different people. And it's dependent on the algorithm. them. And it's not, it just means television, which is great for Netflix because it's allowed them to grow to more than 300 million subscribers, but it doesn't mean what HBO means. You and I both give a show a chance on HBO because it's HBO. When we would not give that same show a chance if it was on CBS or if it was on even Netflix.

1:24:33Bill Simmons:I give every show a chance. I am not a show snob.

1:24:35Matt Belloni:But perfect example is The Pit. Did you watch The Pit? I didn't watch The Pit.

1:24:40Bill Simmons:Okay. But I knew a lot of people that watched The Pit.

1:24:42Matt Belloni:But The Pit won the Emmy this year for Outstanding Drama Series. The Pit is a fairly conventional, extremely well done, fairly conventional medical doctor show. If that aired on CBS, no way it wins the Emmy. No way it even is nominated for the top Emmy. but because it aired on HBO Max and had the premature of that brand, people saw it differently and it not only was nominated, but won the top Emmy.

1:25:11Bill Simmons:Well, I wonder what would have happened with The Beast and Me if it was on HBO instead of Netflix because I think Netflix has had some really good stuff this year. And, you know, like even Adolescence, I thought that Garfield show was excellent. Like, I think if you took the best 10 things that have been on Netflix, they could go toe to toe with any other streamer. It's just they also have a lot of other stuff.

1:25:32Matt Belloni:Yeah, look at the volume. I mean, that's what HBO always says is that they have such a higher hit rate. And I don't necessarily mean hits that are super popular, but hits that are good and that might - Yeah, higher batting average. Yeah, higher batting average. And Netflix has so much content and so much garbage. They also have some good stuff. And the definition of good and garbage is different for every person.

1:25:57Bill Simmons:I would argue HBO has some garbage too. They do, they do. Especially when they have the Discovery documentaries and all that stuff that they're putting on there. Yes.

1:26:05Matt Belloni:And when HBO misses, they really miss.

1:26:08Bill Simmons:But to me, HBO is more of like a... They're like a closer. They're like throwing 60 innings. They're coming in to pitch the ninth. They have an incredible K-walk ratio. And Netflix is trying to be a 250-inning starter. I just think that it's apples and oranges. Totally. I don't know how that fits in together. I do think it's interesting for Comcast, though, because that's the one, if I had to rank them for how would this shake up the landscape, Netflix getting in is, I think, the worst case scenario because then it's just they become like a monolith. I just don't like that. The streaming wars are over.

1:26:43Matt Belloni:I mean, one of the analysts wrote exactly that this week. If Netflix gets Warner Brothers, it is over. It is like the ultimate flex, the ultimate. I mean, you made the Ben Affleck analogy.

1:26:55Bill Simmons:Oh, I said that on the phone to you today. It was Ben Affleck accepting the Batman part after he won the Oscar in Argo. And he's just like, fuck it. Yeah, I'm invincible. What can I do now? I'm just going to be Batman. I can do anything.

1:27:04Matt Belloni:I cannot do wrong. But it's also interesting that Netflix thinks they need it. If they're real about this, if they are not just going through the motions to raise the price, if they think that they need this, then there's something going on at Netflix that we don't know about. If they think they need this, because all signs point to a lot of growth potential. Margins are great. You know, they have good shows, good content. Like what's going on there if they feel like they need the HBO library this badly?

1:27:37Bill Simmons:Yeah, I mean, you could look at it the other way and you go, you got to keep growing even during times when you don't think you should keep growing. I saw this happen at ESPN in the 2011, 12, 13 range. They thought they were invincible. They thought they were going to have this lead forever. and within five years it flipped on them and all of a sudden they were scrambling and the subs were going backwards and it was all because of decisions they didn't make in 11 and 12 and 13 when they really could have consolidated. And then they almost made some misguided ones, right? Like I don't think buying Fox was a good idea by Disney at all.

1:28:12Bill Simmons:I don't. Especially when there's I think better stuff coming.

1:28:15Matt Belloni:I've been a little more forgiving on that one. I think that it's a little underrated what they did get and we talk about Disney in a little bit of a different light since they did buy Fox. They would have scale problems and they would perhaps be in more of a Comcast situation if they did not have all of that content from the FX networks. They wouldn't have Avatar for their theatrical slate. They wouldn't have the X-Men and all of those Fox Marvel properties that they're going to exploit for the next decade. There's a lot of stuff that they got from Fox content-wise that doesn't... Now, do they probably overpay?

1:28:51Matt Belloni:And did it load them up with debt that may have been made them unable to do other things that they should have done, like a video game company or do some of these other things? Maybe that's a better argument. But on a pure content play, they did get a lot of stuff from that.

1:29:06Bill Simmons:Or you could have argued they could have invested that money in other places. They could have spent even more on sports and could have bought electronic arts.

1:29:13Matt Belloni:They could have bought a number of other things that would have been potentially additive to their business long term.

1:29:19Bill Simmons:Or they could have waited for a Warner Brothers scenario. Yeah, so the Paramount piece of this, if they did get this, if they do pull this hostile takeover, this is where I need you because I just don't understand. Like hostile takeovers, it seems like it's something out of a season seven succession episode. Totally. How often does this work? How legal is it? Is this going to end up in a scenario where just everybody's suing each other for the next five years and nothing happens until 2034?

1:29:52Matt Belloni:Well, this is the opening shot of potential litigation. This is a pre-litigation letter that was sent today from Paramount to Warner Discovery saying, look, guys, we're on to you. We saw that one of your executives was meeting with regulators in Europe and there was a German newspaper report saying that they were lobbying for them to try to block this deal. If the Ellisons have the inside track, In the US, Warner Discovery was supposedly going to Europe to try to head it off there. And they're like, that's not fair. If you are in bed with Netflix, I mean, Ted Sarandos, the head of Netflix, and David Zaslav at Warner's, they were at a UFC match together not two months ago.

1:30:35Matt Belloni:They're friends. If this is being directed to one company over us, we are going to sue you. And that letter was directed at the independent directors of the company, the people on the board who are not hand selected by the investors there, they are the ones that are afraid of getting sued because if they go along with a plan that does not serve the shareholders, but serves management, then they are liable if they are sued. Now, I'm not saying that's correct. You could argue that Netflix just put in the most money. They're offering the most money here from all the reporting. And if that's the case, then maybe they're just going to go with the highest bidder.

1:31:14Matt Belloni:But if there is something sinister going on, there could be litigation. Even if Paramount just thinks that there's something going on, there could be litigation that spurs out of this.

1:31:24Bill Simmons:I doubt there's anything sinister going on.

1:31:27Matt Belloni:You do.

1:31:29Bill Simmons:Yeah, that's really improbable to me. Do you know David Zasloff? Huh?

1:31:33Matt Belloni:Do you know David Zasloff?

1:31:35Bill Simmons:I know he's been a good foil for you over the years.

1:31:38Matt Belloni:He loves the spotlight. He wants to stay at this company so badly. He loves that he gets to have dinner with Charlize Theron and a bunch of people at his house. He wants to stay there. And Netflix, from my reporting and others, like they're saying, yeah, you can stay at Warner Brothers. If he splits this company as he wants to and turns down Paramount and splits it and then sells off the studio separately, he gets to stay in that chair longer. And there are other incentives involved that Paramount is referencing and I'm writing about in my Puck newsletter. that, that suggests he is doing this to keep himself at the company.

1:32:18Matt Belloni:Not saying that's true, but that's the suggestion at least. And if that's the case, that's may not be in the best interest of the shareholders.

1:32:26Bill Simmons:So Netflix, the other piece would be the sports, that there's some sports stuff that comes with Warner Brothers too, on top of the IP and Netflix is obviously taking sports way more seriously and dabbling left and right. and um yeah they have march madness they would have some baseball they'd have the savannah

1:32:43Matt Belloni:bananas that we all love uh they do not have nba they do not have football so the big two are not

1:32:50Bill Simmons:not coming with this but netflix is already getting some football they are yeah so the case if you're netflix is you're blocking paramount from being like your 1b competitor like that you're just going to be fighting for the next 15 years who has endless pockets and now you're spending more with them. Combined with you're doing awesome right now, that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't keep trying to grow. I would think those are the two reasons you would do this.

1:33:17Matt Belloni:Yeah. Or some problem that we don't know about that, you know, growth is lagging or they're seeing engagement on their existing content, or they feel like there's a cap on how big they can grow with the current assets they have. I think also - I don't see that one.

1:33:31Bill Simmons:I feel like more people have netflix every year i know i know they do it keeps going on like have to have netflix if

1:33:37Matt Belloni:the problems were really significant they would have to disclose them to their shareholders so it's not like there's some ticking time bomb there that they that they're just not telling us about but you know they're doing this for a reason and if it's not just purely defensive and it is offensive it may there may be some kind of uh stress point where they say okay we've tried to make movies for 10 years now and we can't get much traction on our movies. Is that because you need to have IP in your library to make movies that people care about? They see the numbers on the movies that they license from other studios.

1:34:13Matt Belloni:If you go on Netflix most nights, the top movies are from other studios. It's Shrek, it's Minions, it's the Warner Brothers movies like Superman that they just license over on Netflix. And they're seeing that. And so they have the data and they're probably saying like, if we owned all that, it would be so much easier and so much more of a growth generator for engagement than having to license them out and get raked over the coals every few years on these licensing deals. Maybe that's what they're thinking.

1:34:47Bill Simmons:Yeah, I don't, I see your point. I don't know if I agree with it, but the one piece that I think like if I was running Netflix would worry me is like they have a movie right now called Train Dreams. That's fucking awesome. Like it really is. It's really, really good. I really liked it. And it's on Netflix. And I watched it on the PGA screen wrap I got. I didn't realize it was on Netflix. Um, but it is on Netflix and it just feels like that movie should be a bigger deal because that's like everything you'd want an Oscar contender. It's kind of the, it's a little like Coda a couple years ago. I don't know who made it.

1:35:24Bill Simmons:I have no vested interest in it. I just really liked it. And it's like that to me, it's like if you're making, yeah, if you're making movies and Netflix cares about having movies, like that's an example of that movie should be huge on Netflix. I'm not sure why it isn't.

1:35:37Matt Belloni:It's doing okay on Netflix for that kind of movie. But that's a movie they bought at Sundance and they paid like 20 million. I believe it was 10 million for that movie at Sundance. I saw it at Toronto, the film festival, loved it. I would love for movies like that to get theaters. But Netflix is not in that business. So it didn't get a theater. I think that movie could have done okay if it had gotten a theatrical release. It's a really beautiful looking movie. That's the other element here is whether Netflix will shut down Warner Brothers as a theatrical studio if they get this deal. They're saying no.

1:36:12Bill Simmons:The problem is with movies now, movie theaters are back in a real way. And people like going to the movies. And Netflix is smart. And if they see like audience drifting a little bit this way, they're going to want to keep a piece of that while also driving people to Netflix.

1:36:26Matt Belloni:Maybe, maybe not. I mean, Netflix has been pretty consistent over the last 10 years of trying to kneecap movie theaters at every possible opportunity. Ted has said over and over again, it's not our model. It's not our model. We do not put movies in theaters. We want people to watch movies on Netflix. Now, they make concessions for certain filmmakers. They give them a two week release for the Knives Out movies. They give Greta Gerwig some IMAX. Like that's what they do to get these projects. But they would prefer that we all watch their movies on Netflix, not in theaters. And that is very different from the Warner Brothers HBO Max relationship where they would very much like us all to go to the theater first and then on home video if we want to watch it there, fine.

1:37:13Matt Belloni:So I think how that shakes out is a key component here.

1:37:17Bill Simmons:No, but you can't tell me like if Netflix had one battle after another and it was in theaters for three weeks and then went right to Netflix, like Netflix wouldn't sign up for that. I think that's where we're going. Two weeks, whatever it is.

1:37:30Matt Belloni:Yeah, and it would not because it's two weeks, it would not get a national release because the theater chains will not play movies from Netflix if they don't get a proper theatrical release. So one battle after another would have been a Netflix movie for most of people who saw it.

1:37:45Bill Simmons:Yeah, so that would have hurt one battle after another. If I get one battle after another, what about the next Batman?

1:37:50Matt Belloni:Or the one after that?

1:37:51Bill Simmons:What about a lot of these movies? They're advertising themselves as come see this on IMAX March 3rd.

1:37:59Matt Belloni:That's the thing. Netflix is saying we will honor the theatrical release for these Warner's movies. Maybe now, but maybe not after a couple of years. The best thing for Netflix in the world would be if there was a brand new A-list actor playing Batman movie that was only available on Netflix. They would love that because everybody would watch it and it would become a phenomenon and something people talk about. The whole knock on Netflix is that it's just a sea of slop and you don't remember what you actually watch. They can't create franchises out of their content. It's very difficult for them because these franchises we know as brands for the most part are theatrical movie experiences that we got up off our asses went to the theater saw there and remember and there was marketing everywhere for these movies the rewatchables how many rewatchables have been netflix originals

1:38:55Bill Simmons:i don't know i don't know at the list extraction maybe well triple frontier we've been saving okay

1:39:02Matt Belloni:so you did triple frontier and you did extraction no we haven't done it yet oh you haven't okay we're waiting but my point is i know that you do mostly old movies but the reason why those we don't really do anything for the last five six years but the reason those movies are rewatchables are because they're good movies and you love them but because you remember them and they were moments in the culture that lasted in your head like when you said you were doing weird science i remember the billboards and marketing for weird science when i was a kid i remember that experience of going to the theater and seeing that movie.

1:39:37Matt Belloni:And that's what Netflix is missing out on. And they have a hard time with that. So maybe if they buy Warners, they'll change their model and they'll put movies like that in theaters.

1:39:48Bill Simmons:My guess is they had Happy Gilmore 2 and it felt like everybody and their brother watched that movie in the first three days. Totally. But you know what? That's a sequel.

1:39:56Matt Belloni:That's a sequel to a theatrical hit.

1:39:59Bill Simmons:True. Well, we'll see. Jay Kelly will be a good litmus test for this, right? Two big stars.

1:40:04Matt Belloni:Jay Kelly is a small movie

1:40:07Bill Simmons:I know but George Clooney and Adam Sandler on the cover of your Netflix carousel that's not nothing they don't look up

1:40:15Matt Belloni:had Leo and Jennifer Lawrence similar type situation it was an Oscar movie that had two big stars that they could put on the tile and that movie did really well for Netflix but then again Maestro didn't do great for Netflix and that had Bradley Cooper so they've had star driven movies.

1:40:34Bill Simmons:That was not, that movie, it was very well done, but I wouldn't say it was a great hang. No. Yeah. The thing with Netflix is they're always going to keep moving and they're not going to stay stationary, which is how all these big media companies, I think have gotten into trouble over the years. If you look back at anybody, it's always like, we're doing great. Don't change a thing. And that's when you have trouble. Even like Spotify, like being here the last, you know, last five and a half years, like they're constantly like, what's next? What's next? was that we weren't even doing video three years ago, but they were like, this is coming.

1:41:06Bill Simmons:We got to do this. And I think that's how the bigger company is thinking.

1:41:10Matt Belloni:You used the Ben Affleck analogy of thinking you can do no wrong. The analogy for Spotify there would be, let's just buy up a bunch of podcast studios and pay a bunch of stars to do podcasts because we're freaking Spotify and we're making so much money, we don't know what to do with it. And look at that. The ringer worked. And then what else?

1:41:30Bill Simmons:yeah but I to defend that strategy which was great for me and the ringer obviously yeah they were trying to put the footprint in a in a podcast right and you know at the time I they mistakenly thought it was defensible but it was a mistake thinking that celebrities would lead to the same way it would be with tvs or movies where you get a celebrity that would drive an audience and what you eventually realize is a good podcast drives an audience yeah how dare you speak how dare you the royals that way but you know and then as everything's shifting to video i think some of the things they bought made a lot more sense in the 2010s than 2020s true no they absolutely put a

1:42:10Matt Belloni:a flag down in the podcast space but my point is we're spending money yeah my point is they overspent on an area that they were confident enough to go into because of all the success they had led to the town with matt bell and it did absolutely but then my but but then the um you know the netflix situation right now is are they doing the same are they about to drop 60 70 billion dollars on a theatrical oriented studio and a streamer that is overlapping with what they

1:42:41Bill Simmons:already have yeah it's interesting i mean they have so much money i thought the the fact that it was a mostly cash offer.

1:42:50Matt Belloni:Yeah, about 85 % cash, we are told. And then the rest in stock.

1:42:54Bill Simmons:I was surprised by that because their stock's awesome. Anyway, so when do you think, does this play out before the end of the year or how long does it go?

1:43:01Matt Belloni:Warner's wants it to, but keep in mind, this isn't the end. Even if they accept an offer and start negotiating exclusively with one party, anyone can come in at any time. Like anyone, if there's some super billionaire out there just waiting for this all to play out. And then they accept an offer, start negotiating the deal. And someone comes in and says, wait a second, I'll give you more money. That's, I'll give you way more money than they're doing. They can go with that offer like down the line.

1:43:30Bill Simmons:Excuse me? Neil Mohan just got, just thrown his hat in the ring out of nowhere with YouTube.

1:43:35Matt Belloni:If YouTube did it, I think the government would probably have a word with them. The merger of the number one and number two streaming services.

1:43:45Bill Simmons:Probably not going to work. So Pluto and Tubi. Tubi.

1:43:51Matt Belloni:Tubi is Fox. Tubi is Fox. Maybe Tubi buys Pluto. Roku? But Tubi, Flubo, that was a joke on Hacks.

1:44:00Bill Simmons:Roku.

1:44:00Matt Belloni:Oh, Roku.

1:44:03Bill Simmons:Charlie Collier just comes flying in off the top rope and gets War Brothers?

1:44:06Matt Belloni:I haven't looked at their valuation lately, but I don't think it's quite big enough to justify this kind of expense. this is not easy this is not paramount sold for about eight billion dollars this thing is going to sell for between 60 and 70 billion probably it's just an entirely different animal and there are only a few entities or people that can afford to make that kind of investment maybe it'll be the

1:44:31Bill Simmons:guy that bought the dodgers guy just has endless money you know the wakers the dodgers yeah he's

1:44:37Matt Belloni:just he's going nuts i heard yeah then they could air the games there i'll be i heard he's tiptoeing

1:44:42Bill Simmons:around some other LA assets right now too. Oh, really?

1:44:45Matt Belloni:Are you breaking some news here?

1:44:47Bill Simmons:Just keep an eye on him. I don't know if he's done. Not hard to follow the breadcrumbs on it. Matt Bellany, we can listen slash watch you on the town Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Your social clips are out there sometimes. Sometimes. Might try to get Lucas a better camera.

1:45:07Matt Belloni:I know. The town on video, 26, it's coming.

1:45:11Bill Simmons:It's coming. Is producer Craig going to have like his own like producer cam?

1:45:15Matt Belloni:We should. It really should. I would prefer the camera be on him most of the time and not me.

1:45:21Bill Simmons:Well, at least you figured out your camera angle finally in the BS podcast. I know.

1:45:24Matt Belloni:It's not like up my nose.

1:45:26Bill Simmons:Yeah. Matt Bellany, great to see you. You too. Thank you.

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1:46:29Bill Simmons:This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. I can't believe this hasn't happened before. John Cena is here. We won't be able to say that after this.

1:47:05Because it's happening.

1:47:06Bill Simmons:It's happening. Then it'll be like, hey, welcome back. Or you're never invited here again. One of those two. Well, I don't know whether you're the 17-time champ or the 14-time champ. Because I've never, once they split the belts, it just became super confused to me. You won the WWE F slash WWE title, the lineage title. That was 14 times. You might be asking the wrong guy. But then you won the universal one three times, which I think used to be the old WCW NWA title that moved over. You might be able to say any stat. And I'd be like, yeah. Well, I'm going to count the 14 because I count them for the, for the Boston titles for the century.

1:47:43Bill Simmons:Because we won six with the Pats, four Red Sox, two Celtics, one Bruins. And then you're 14. That's 27. If the NFL absorbs the AFL, isn't it still a Super Bowl trophy? So we'll count the other three. That's great. No, but I don't know. I'm just trying to, I don't know. I don't know. If the NBA absorbs the ABA, isn't the NBA trophy still the NBA trophy? I think. Yeah, you're right. I think you're right. I think it's 14. I think the three are over there. We can semantics all day long. I think what's important about championships in our business is it is pretty, it is the business card to show you're at the pinnacle of your profession.

1:48:27So regardless of like the origin story of it or whatever, when we deem this leather and gold, this thing that is manufactured, like, okay, this is it. You know, it's not as muddy a water as like boxing, but it is the symbol of like, hey, we're placing a pretty sizable investment on you.

1:48:49Bill Simmons:Well, and it's the culmination. I mean, you especially, like you played football late 90s. You do some bodybuilding. You were in that. There's like on YouTube that Discovery show where they did about, what was that? OPW? I don't remember. Ultimate Pro Wrestling. Yeah. It was here in Orange County. Yeah. So you're trying to figure out your shtick. Where was I ever? Yeah. All that stuff. My God. But within five years, you're the champ. But I always feel like when somebody wins the championship the first time, you can kind of see the disbelief in their face, even though maybe you know it's going to happen.

1:49:21Bill Simmons:But just like, holy shit, this actually happened. And I did it. And I climbed the mountain and I'm here.

1:49:29Well, that's an interesting perspective. If you saw, I just was able to perform one last time in the TD Garden in Boston. And on that night, I was able to have a match for the Intercontinental Championship. Right. Which I won for the very first time. It was your last one, right? And the look on my face is like, what's going on? So I don't know if that wears off. I, um, that's an interesting perspective because every person I've seen when they win it for the first time has some sort of like look of surreal appreciation, but there was the same look I had a few weeks ago when I won the intercontinental championship for the first time in 20, you know, my 23 years, I've never had a chance to go for it.

1:50:16Bill Simmons:Well, it's like, think about it, especially because wrestling's been in everyone's lives from day one right so like i think about my son that's what we're trying for well my son had the championship belt when he was six seven you know and doing moves and beating beating up a pillow and pinning the pillow and then doing this and then you think when you're an adult it's actually happening but i even like when hogan won when he beat the chic you can he seemed like everybody has the same look in their face like i can't believe and the crowd's going nuts and i yeah i it's weird because you you do make a good point like it is part of the curated experience of entertainment yet it happens i i also think there might be and i don't think this is our business particular maybe um nothing nothing truly happens until it does you know there's a lot of stuff that can happen between um even the bell ringing and the bell ringing again that uh that can change outcomes or whatever and these are moments hopefully anyone who's involved in wwe's you know thought about their entire life and when they happen it there probably is a wave of surrealism that comes over you know what were you like 27 man again there's 2005 how old are you in 2005 like 27 28 you're late 20s at that point yeah we'd have to but you'd only been in the business for like five years yeah i don't um so i don't know how much that matters i don't know how much i care about that anymore i think um I'm just saying it happened fast.

1:51:46Bill Simmons:You went from like trying, oh, it'd be nice if I could get a WWE contract to be in the chain. I'm holding the belt. Yeah, that is a pretty fast. At a WrestleMania. Yeah, yeah. But in all fairness, in the class I was brought up in, in the time, you know, life is a whole lot of luck. And I was very lucky to be brought in at the time that I was brought in. So many tectonic changes were going on in WWE. I was in a very gifted class. Yeah, you were. There were members of my class that were made champion far before me with just about or a little less experience. So it was just a case of good timing.

1:52:28And I think opportunity is a lot about good timing. And it's just a matter of what you do with it.

1:52:32Bill Simmons:Yeah, it was such a strange era for WWE because it was like coming off the most scorching hot time in the history of the company, right? You have this run with The Rock and Stone Cold. And this whole... He defeats WCW. Yeah, well, it's the whole mindset of like attitude and racy programming and competition. And then it's all kind of washed away. Like it was, we're kind of in the middle of another boom in wrestling. No question. You know, there's multiple avenues of competition. There's multiple outlets of programming out there. WWE has so much programming out there. And to somebody like me, who just doesn't have a lot of time to invest in everything, it's like, man, I don't know how we sustain all this, but to our consumer, they want more.

1:53:20The more we can give them, the better. People are actually going to sit down and listen to this because this hopefully is going to drop some breadcrumbs on, you know, December 13th. Right. And they want more. They want to hear more. If I could sit down with you for five hours, I have a feeling our consumers would hang in there for it. It's just we're in another golden age. You know, certainly one was when it nationalized and WWF was put on cable television. I think that Hogan on the cover of Sports Illustrated, I think that was one. I think the Attitude Era and the height of WCW, WWF competition was another one.

1:53:56Yeah. And I think here we are in yet another golden age, like a boom.

1:54:01Bill Simmons:There was a little mini one when you and Punk were feuding. I remember that was the first year at Grandland, but I felt like the internet had gotten really good at trying to read between the lines of what was real, what was not real, and it became like this own game. It wasn't as big as the things you mentioned, but something, it's definitely some sort of little mini era. So like a moment of relevance is different. Like that unbelievable night that Phil that Punk had was amazing. And when it gets picked up by genuine sports outlets, like, oh man, he really did something great. Yeah. It was good for you too.

1:54:37I think it was good for everyone. Yeah. The Montreal Screwjob is another moment that's like, wow, this got picked up by a lot of folks. And it was a moment. But it was kind of in a lull in the business. When I mean like boom, I mean like sustained bull market. Like wrestling is on everybody's mind from 1984 to like 1988. and then from like 1997 to 2001. Yeah. And now it's been like, I think COVID helped us out a lot. We were the only program that ran during the pandemic to give fans entertainment. Right. But it's probably been like 18, 19 to 25. Like it's grown exponentially. The better TV deals, being able to reach more global audience, having a crop of new stars and having the old stars kind of fade and transition.

1:55:30but like having the bullpen stacked.

1:55:32Bill Simmons:Yeah. I think has helped. And the fact that now it's relatively easy to be a performer on TV. And I'm saying comparatively speaking, before there was only one Monday Night Raw with two hours of broadcast time on it. Now there's a bunch of different shows. TNA just announced another TV deal. Like there's a lot of stuff going on. So there's a way for you as a performer to put your business card out there. You know, like now it's been a great time to be a wrestling fan and it's been a great time to be a wrestler. Yeah, that's a good point because, like, when you came up, there was way less shows.

1:56:05Bill Simmons:WCW got integrated in. And it was harsh. There just wasn't enough time for everybody. Everybody was pretty miserable for the most part. So, WWE had birthed SmackDown. So, it went from two hours to four hours. But we absorbed ECW and WCW. So, they absorbed, like, 250 contract talent for four hours of television. With seemingly no real plan. Because you're just kind of adding. It would be like if the NBA just doubled the amount of players in the league, but had the same amount of teams or something. Yeah. So it's, and we went through a name change. Get the F out. So we became WWE. XFL failed for the first time.

1:56:41Yeah. Stone Cold Steve Austin was fired. The Rock went to Hollywood. Triple H was hurt. The Undertaker was hurt. Like, people don't understand, especially performers now. It's very difficult to tell them. You know, we just, we just did Petco Park with like 46 ,000 people in it. There wasn't, we sold seats that didn't have a ring view. You had to watch on a monitor, but you would say you were there. Right. Man, I remember doing, it was formerly known as the MCI Center in DC, where Dave Batiste's wife sang the national anthem. And there were 1 ,200 people in the building. Not 1 ,200 tickets sold, 500 tickets sold.

1:57:161 ,200 people. Wow. In where I'm essentially going to have my last match. You know, like, it hasn't always been this prosperous. and it really warms my heart to be able to look around the arenas and see the place jam-packed and the people excited, to see the promotion thriving, to see the talent really do well for themselves in a performative aspect and certainly like a financial aspect. They're getting paid a whole lot more than I was, but instead of like shaking my fist and saying, well, back in the day, we only made this much, I think that's a great way to show like, I just want to leave the place better than I found it.

1:57:58So now we got a bunch of millionaires because the company's doing well. Like it's leveled up. It is leveled up in every aspect. Sports families are bringing us in. ESPN's welcomed us into our family. Netflix has welcomed us into their family. Like we're out there all the time. We used to have to struggle to get like a good time slot in Germany. And you have to do all these international TV deals. But now we're just on Netflix. so that helps global touring which can keep demand high in the states like it does so much which can keep the business hot for longer which we can pay talent better and create more stars it's all really really really good I'm just happy to be able to see the beginning of this snowball get kicked downhill and see where it goes

1:58:45Bill Simmons:you also seem like you have like four different generations of fans at this point you have like people like me anyone over 50 who were there who remember like pre-cable who remember like when Killer Con broke Andre the Giant's ankle and when Subisco turned on Bruno all that stuff and then you have the kids that kind of came up during that Hogan era that they got indoctrinated that then you have the kids the attitude era then the kids from Rockstone called that era and then basically your era through punk and those people are now adults they're like my kid Or they're going after college and they can afford tickets now.

1:59:26So it just feels like it's gone on and on. And I also think that's what's great about the business. You're right. It does touch a lot of hearts and minds and everyone has their story. Everybody remembers their one moment from that era of like, no, but nothing was better than this. Comparatively speaking, I think a lot of people view Saturday Night Live like this. That's a good point. It's like, no, this cast was the best. And this skit was the best. And this moment was the best. And then someone else would be like, how can you say that? When this year was the best. And this cast. And remember this skit.

2:00:02They've done so much great work. And they've had so many rosters of stacked comedians that they do have eras. And they do have, like, the best of this era. And it is zeitgeist generational comedy. So, like, if it moves you in a certain way, you can watch some of those skits back. with someone who's never seen him and be like, they might not, it might not resonate. You know what I'm saying? Just like if you watch Hogan Sheik was the first match I ever saw. That hooked me. But you show, you know, a young mind who watches the way the business is now, you show them that match back, it might not resonate with them.

2:00:36You know what I'm saying? It's just, it was just, it was what I needed to see at the time.

2:00:40Bill Simmons:Well, they always say with SNL that whoever, whenever you were watching the show when you were 13, that's what you thought your favorite cast was. And wrestling's probably somewhere between 10 and 13 when you were all in. I remember watching it with my son, and I knew it was going to happen because he was like this physical kid, very, very expressive. And I was like, he's going to get hooked. And we took him to the Staples for one of the shows, and that was it. Man. And you became his guy immediately. Well, he doesn't watch enough wrestling. No, you were like the little kid catnip. Thank you so much.

2:01:13Bill Simmons:I showed you two pictures that you had with my son when he was like six. I was trying to think like, how many pictures do you think you've taken with little kids? So is it over a million? I don't know. I think like 20, 22, 23 straight years of you posing with. I could say as many as I possibly can. Because if there was anyone that I couldn't or anyone that I refused, I'd like to think that I had good reason for it. And I don't expect anybody to understand that. But like to this point now, and I'm not saying those pictures are over. I hope they continue. Definitely not over. as a conduit to bring new minds to the business.

2:01:50But I would like to think from the second I was asked to take the first picture to right now, I have taken as many as I possibly can.

2:01:56Bill Simmons:Well, and you're always nice too, because I was asked. Not always nice. I'm a human being. No, with the kids. Well, the kids, you understood the game. Yeah. And the kids are like, they're in the headlights freezing as they're standing next to you. I don't think that's understanding the game. I think that's understanding the life. the conduct of some adults I'm huge on respect it's one of my core values I wear it on my hat sometimes is extremely self-serving and I don't mind that we're all out to do our own thing kids are so honest they're honest and you can see when an adult wants to approach you and the kid does not and you can see when a kid wants to approach you and doesn't have the courage or if that kid is courageous and comes up to approach you, even if it's, even if their social skills aren't honed, even if they're disrespectful.

2:02:46Like I got to give a tip of the cap to a young person who is confident in himself enough to come up and convey like, hey, I'd like to do this. I'd like a picture. And there've been some moments where like parents are shoving their kids at me where the child does not want this. It is a vehicle for the parents. And sure, the parent I may be thinking someday you'll wish you took the picture, but that's not someday. We're now. Yeah. And that kid has not won any part of it. And I'll politely try to get to the kid's height and explain that, like, it's okay if you don't want to do this. It's fine. In those situations, I want to try to take seconds I don't have.

2:03:23I have barely a few seconds to speak with adults who come at any sort of relationship agenda from a selfish perspective.

2:03:33Bill Simmons:That's all. I was in the best situation. When my kids were little, my daughter is two years older than my son. We would go backstage to some of the WD stuff. She would be the handler trying to get photos for him. Nobody could say no to her. It wasn't apparent. It's a good game. And the wrestlers were always like, this is great. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Um, what's interesting about your career is I, I gotta ask, like nobody retires in professional wrestling or boxing. Nobody, but me. Nobody. So why are you different? Why is this actually happening? Because why should I believe you're not going to be back in three years from now?

2:04:05Bill Simmons:You don't have to believe anything. You don't want to, um, what, what I've, uh, been able to do over 23 years is turn a lot of non-believers around. Yeah. And that is by my actions. I don't expect anyone to believe that like, Hey, I'm retiring. Oh no. The precedent hasn't been set. The precedent for wrestling retirement is like a wrestling wedding. Like something's going to go wrong in the wedding. No one ever retires. Has there ever been a successful wrestling wedding? Never, never. So, uh, I understand the skepticism and you'll know I'm serious when I never come back. why do you think The Rock kept coming back other than money?

2:04:50Bill Simmons:Because he left a bunch of times and became a pretty big movie star and didn't need to come back. So you, it's difficult there because you're asking me to think for somebody else. Yeah. I know that I want to do it forever. I can speak from my perspective. Yeah. Every, this is something I've heard a lot this past year. Man, you're going out on your own terms. That's bullshit. I want to do it forever. When you've been there live, like to anyone out there who doesn't understand what wwe is or what just go live like um did you just look at the camera that was impressive indeed i'm just trying to i didn't realize you're gonna talk performer on me but i want to i want to let everybody out there knowing you know like um when you step in that building live it's just a different energy yeah and i never want to let that go but um my body hurts i'm a step slower i promised myself and the fan base like when i started before I won that first championship.

2:05:46When I'm a step slower, I'm out. And yet some people are saying you're having some of your best matches ever this year. Yeah, but it's all I have left. That's what people don't understand. And I want to go out at a level that is still passable and in some twinkles, admirable and not have to rely on luck. You know, I got one date left i have given my heart and soul to this year it has taken a lot to just do 35 dates whereas before i do 220 in my sleep like it is time to move on and 220 in a year easy so the 80s it was

2:06:27Bill Simmons:like 330 that's the thing it's trickled down now it's like now now uh i saw a stat i think um i think la night has had the most wwe matches this year in 70. wow and i see that and again it makes me smile. It's like, now talent can wrestle longer. Well, in the 80s, they're just hopping in cars and just driving to the next place and wrestling. When it got national, it was different. They would do morning matinee in Toronto, and then they would do the garden. There were like three units running. It was a true live event juggernaut. Not that it isn't anymore. Yeah, it's more stable. Do a ton of events, as much as you can.

2:07:05I think the concept of TKO is to try to pick your spots Try to make every event, you know, out of control special as big as you can. And look at the globe instead of just the U.S.

2:07:18Bill Simmons:So you said your body is obviously different after an entire century of wrestling. Yeah, it's a half century, a quarter century. What were the worst injuries? I remember you tore your pec. Tore my pec, tore both triceps. Both triceps? Yeah, yeah. Broke my neck. Yeah, that was probably the most dangerous one, right? The most dangerous one, because if not treated, like, in most cases, my tricep tears, that's serious. But if left to its own devices, eventually some of it will grab on somewhere. Or it'll just, like, stay torn, and I'll have a dent in my arm. Same with the pec. Like, maybe it won't attach.

2:07:56But, you know, I can still move, like, 75 % of my body. When a disc ruptures in your neck, and it gets pressed against all the energy and the cords and stuff that tell you to move, It can shut that stuff down. Yeah. So that was weird because it was like outpatient. I remember getting Fusion and going to SmackDown. You got the Fusion. Yeah. It was early on. Yeah. Dr. Maroon did Fusion on me in 2007 or 2008. But I remember going under on Tuesday morning and then going to SmackDown in Pittsburgh. Like walking in to say hello to everybody. And it was like, what the? Didn't you just get neck surgery?

2:08:33But it was like a…

2:08:34Bill Simmons:Plus like the history of wrestling. That sidelines some of the biggest stars we had. Like, so cold. True, but then again, like, I've all, you know, I started playing football at 15, so I started late, which is good, but I was always in the pit, in the trenches, so to speak. So you have eight years of full contact football. Yeah. Could be putting a bar on the back of my neck with heavyweight for an extended period of time, plus all the, you know, combative action that's involved in the sports entertainment. I think it's just overall wear. Well, and also, as the 2000s are going along, we move into the 2010s wrestling is just becoming crazier and crazier with the with the bumps so it's the so that's all that's all the bar keeps raising that's all performative choice yeah if you see the stuff that i do it's not it's as crazy as i can get yeah but it's you're not doing the shay mcmahon jumping 25 feet off of a steel cage and again those are performers choices i'm i tend handling more on why are we fighting?

2:09:37What is the story? What is the reason I want to go in and yell for one guy and boo the other guy? And I think my hat's off to the athleticism that some of our performers possess. But, you know, like the average NFL career is only so long because you have to be the best athlete. Yeah, if you're a tight end, if you're gronk, that's not going to be a 20-year career. So, again, the more you ask of yourselves, and I'm not saying for people not to try hard, but there's a lot of different ways to tell stories in wrestling.

2:10:12Bill Simmons:Did you worry as this was happening that the bar was getting too crazy for what the bumps were? No. And, again, I don't mind performers choosing to take their time to do what they want with it. I totally respect that. I've always had a good understanding of what I can do and what I can offer. Yeah. And I've only tried to go outside of that maybe once or twice. And that's when I'm like, oh my God, I almost killed myself. Do you remember? What was it? I try to take a, like I don't flip over well. And I try to take a suplex where I flipped over. I didn't practice it. I just wanted to do the best I could for the person I was with.

2:10:54I was like, yeah, don't worry about it. I'll figure it out. I want to be okay for you. I almost broke my neck. Like, it's just stuff that, thinking that I was smarter than the business. Right. You know, and those were mistakes, but I'm okay.

2:11:11Bill Simmons:Yeah, you seem like out of all the people who became superstars, almost like the most self-aware of what you could, couldn't do, how far you should push your character. I mean, you didn't become a quote-unquote heel until this year. I mean, you did it earlier in your career, but… That's not my choice. It's not my choice to go out there and play a good guy or a bad guy. That's above me. That's a level above me. Well, it's a little bit your choice. You were one of the biggest stars that they had. You have some say in it, don't you? I don't view it as my choice. I don't want the stress of that. I've never done this.

2:11:49Like, I don't. You tell me, am I a good guy or a bad guy? Tell me who you want me to face. How long have we been working together? And that's when I want to get into the sand. This is the story I'd like to tell. These are the details I'd like. Like, I never pick opponents, never curated my stuff. Hey, we want you to turn heel. Or like, hey, the crowd's booing. You guys should turn me heel. No, it's not my sandbox. I think in my perspective, a pro takes the tools that you're, or takes the subject matter that you've given and tries to make it something special. So you trust the people who are paid to make these decisions,

2:12:31Bill Simmons:that they're going to make the right decision? Whether I... Really, that was Vince forever. The answer to that is yes, but whether I trust them or not, it's their choice to make. So they say, be a good guy. Okay, no problem. In my mind, this is what I think a good guy is, and this is how I think a good guy would act. Is this okay? Yeah, sure. like that's the difference i i do see a lot of performers spend their time invest their time to try to curate their own destiny yeah and again not wrong it's the wrestling is a chicken soup business there's no wrong way to do it i just always wanted to know what you need the outcome you want the piece in the chessboard i can play and and can i do it my way like once we get all those things together, can I do it my way?

2:13:23Is that fine?

2:13:24Bill Simmons:Well, there's one other piece that you're really good at. And it's funny because sports talk is a little like this too, or being on TV or being in cruise. I've talked about this a lot on my podcast. When you're with somebody every day, when you're with them once in a while, when you're on a show that has five people on it, you have to sell other people and they sell you. And it's a quid pro quo, right? And if other people that you're with are doing well too, that's good for you. And if they're selling you, that's also good for you. And a lot of people don't understand that. Wrestling, I think, is the ultimate example of that because...

2:13:55Bill Simmons:Talk more about that. What do you mean? Well, to have a good match, both people have to buy in. You have to sell the person you're with. They have to sell you. It can't just be a one-person thing. It's got to be both of you. And I think you've been really good over the years at always having good matches. Like, there's been other people like this, right? Like, Ric Flair was always, like, famously always had good matches, was always good at the other person, always came off well when they wrestled Ric Flair. I think that was the case for you. So, again, it depends on the match, right? Like, and I've been in all sorts of stories.

2:14:31Yeah. When you are told, hey, I'm the good guy, you're the bad guy, you have four minutes on television, and the purpose of our four-minute commercial is to make John look unstoppable. so the way you can do the best for me for you and for the match is to bump like a madman and lose yeah uh a flip scenario this is the soup the famous suplex city match with brock lesnar at summer slam after he had defeated the undertaker how does one follow breaking the streak the most mythical thing in sports entertainment that a lot of us thought would never end, and this beast breaks it. Yeah. I'm up next. How do we follow that?

2:15:22I think I went to that match. It was in LA, so you probably did. I did. I thought you were going to die. Exactly. So how do we make this guy who won this huge thing definitely not a fluke? If I went out there and had a 50-50 performance with Brock Lesnar, Brock Lesnar is capable of making anyone look fantastic, by the way. But that didn't help Brock. That didn't help the story. And it didn't help all of us. I can't say that night was a good time. Watching you getting annihilated. And that's another thing. When you sit there live, it is a one-episode thing. But it's not.

2:15:59Bill Simmons:It's the vibe that gets weird because people are like, oh, my God. Is he going to really get hurt here? What's happening? Knowing there's a lot of things here. And I love talking about this. I could talk about it all day. What is the purpose of the match? Well, it's always audience reaction, right? No. What is it? It depends. The purpose of that match was to get Brock Lesnar over Strong on our most cherished, strong, and believable intellectual property. If he can beat The Undertaker, he's a beast. If he just destroys John Cena, I want you— Now he's a monster. I want you uncomfortable and looking over to your shoulder, your friend being like, who the F is going to beat this guy?

2:16:43And along comes somebody like Roman Reigns. Finally, he can do it. You know, like, and those moments, you leverage that SummerSlam, that single serving packet in a microcosm. This is why I said you got a lot of stuff there. In a microcosm, and this is the first time I'm reflecting on this year because it's a narrative that's going, but we got one left, so who cares? the match Cody and I had at WrestleMania. Which was awesome. Some people would say different, but it was not the end of our story. It was like the end of act one. Knowing that like, you got Cody, you got to turn bad. Eventually this is going to happen.

2:17:26We need you to peek at SummerSlam. That's the end. Performers get in their head, just like they get, you had said like, performers want to want to show the best they can thinking that's best for the match they also get in their head that like wrestlemania is the end i got to go out for wrestlemania and tear the house down i'm not saying you don't i'd take the nfl playoffs for wrestling but if it's the first chapter of your book it's not you can't end the book in chapter one so we had a very by design we had a very methodical match with a very simple end and we thought you know we thought we would have some parts and players those disappeared it didn't matter because it was the end of act one so we had like act two and then act three and then if you compare what we did in april to what we did

2:18:13Bill Simmons:in august which is yeah what am i one of the matches was awesome maybe it was the summer i got confused the summer slam one was awesome because that was the end of our story and that's the ride we're taking fans on but it's it's it's as difficult to conceptualize as you're not coming back. Like, no, everybody comes back. You just, you had this match at WrestleMania that, that left me. I wanted more. Yeah. No kidding. You're going to get it. Yeah. Because although we know that like WrestleMania is the end of our season, when it came to Cody and I, that was just the beginning for us. And, and certainly just the beginning for me after them choosing to say, well, now you're a bad guy.

2:18:54Okay. I'm a bad guy in February. I got to the middle of April to figure this out what's the best way i can do it and what's the best way i can do it integrate it and then uh look at my morality in august you know what i'm saying that's a short time to accomplish all that but you have to be it's like writing a tv season like if you're doing and you gotta commit yeah you gotta get you gotta get suplexed 19 times and lose sometimes yeah to to know what's on the other side and and the cody thing what had to do with cody and i me with me and Brock, I'm getting, I'm getting killed for Roman. I'm, I'm hoping like, man, keep going.

2:19:32Hope you get over. If it's not you, Brock's, Brock's going to keep on his path and hopefully somebody, you know, but like, it's, I never ask, how can I look good? When I sit down with an opponent, um, I have, I love anecdotes. I have a, the first time I ever worked with AJ Styles. yeah he is the nicest human being in sports entertainment and i always have some sort of i can find some energy of like you said this about me in an interview once or like man i don't like the way you work or whatever aj's such a good guy and i sat down i'm like man this is this is going to be okay why are we fighting i said what do you mean why are we fighting i want to be the champ that's not good enough take a second to yourself figure out why we're fighting i went on my bus scoured the web to try to find out anything this guy's ever said just anything a sentence never speaks bad about anybody yeah so then i came back to him and like literally after two and a half hours he was finally like okay this is this is aj this isn't alan but maybe aj's thinking that if you were never around i would be where you're at and i'd be so much better because when And in that ring, I am better.

2:20:46I'm like, we got it. And we built our story, culminating with even the match at the Royal Rumble, with I, AJ, am a better in-ring performer. You are charismatic, but hella lucky. You put these two in a ring together, and I will run circles around you every time. And that's where audiences are like, your son would be like, hell no, that's my guy. Anybody that watched TNA would be like, our guy's finally getting a shot. This dude's awesome. Wait till he can do his stuff. And now you're divided. And now you're interested. And that's an issue that you can run with. But you have to sit and ask, why are we fighting?

2:21:29Bill Simmons:Well, you just tapped into the most important word in the history of wrestling. Jealousy. It's been like 80 % of the rivalries, right? I think it's because it's something that people understand. Yeah. those stories have to come from a place redemption jealousy anger why you and not me whatever it is it should have been me is great he stole this for me they did that with Hogan all through the 80s Paul Orndorff was the first one it was great and then Macho Man was the best of all of them it's an emotion we all have we all can understand and I think that's why it's like I want to be the champion I never rested that that's never good enough there has to be something more and when you have that it's great like anytime you have on the mic if you ever get lost you know where you are because I'm supposed to feel jealous of you anytime in a match you know how to act if if you are jealous or if you finally are cresting that hill and now you feel confident how do you act how do you move what do you think the audience will believe that these the answers to these questions aren't perfectly placed but man they're easier to come by so instead of being like we'll do stunt after stunt after stunt you can build this thing you know um just going back to aj where he completely in the beginning of those matches out wrestled the hell out and i didn't i was out of my place we told the story of i'm going to be better than you and then you are and my world is crumbling and then finally i start doing a little of my stuff which is more of it's more like throwing ham bones yeah but then i start hitting and with like my best stuff and he kicks out and I'm like, who the, who is this kid?

2:23:09Why won't he go down? Yeah. And maybe he's right. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my world is crumbling. Like those are just by, just by saying, like, I think this is why we're fighting. You can dig into so much. And I know this, a lot of performers don't do that because I'll always, uh, in a postmortem sense if i watch matches i'll watch me like okay you did this and this why are you guys fighting what do you mean they told we got we were on the main event we went out there for a match yeah okay cool all right and i'm again i'm not saying that someone who doesn't ask or answer that question cannot be successful but if you know the story think of sports some some games a lot of people watch yeah and some games they just don't games on all the time games of everything on all the time.

2:24:05But if there's a rivalry or if there's meaning,

2:24:08Bill Simmons:like college sports, my God. Chiefs, Cowboys, 57 million people on Thanksgiving. Man. An important game for both teams, two famous teams, two good quarterbacks. And you could, there's a million stories you can tell. But there's a, there's an ego piece to this though, which it sounds like you were always thinking about what was good for the business, the storyline. How, how could you think big picture months and years in advance. And then there were other people who, especially those stories are more famous in like the 70s and 80s of like, I'm at this spot. How do I keep this? How do I, how do I, and this was a big topic after Hogan died about that he, you know, the big criticism with him, at least in the 80s and 90s, was that he didn't pay it forward.

2:24:52Bill Simmons:That he was always trying to hold on to what he had and not. So again, I think there's a lot there. Uh, and, and I always, I always try to look at life of like control the controllable. What can I do? Right. Uh, wrestling was a territorial gangster business and it was cutthroat. So if, if you did have something going, you wanted to keep it. It's, it has its origins from carnival performing, which is even more cutthroat. It then gets nationalized just because it gets nationalized. just because we end segregation. It takes a long time to change people's mind. So just because it gets nationalized, you don't take the gangster out of the guy.

2:25:38You know, like they still have to operate like that. Any story I heard about non-meritocracy, I don't like it. I don't like it. And there'll be people to criticize my career or my actions or whatever. They have the right to feel how they want. I believe best person, best idea wins. And I believe sports entertainment is the perfect meritocracy because you know the sound of noise. And promoters, whether they like you or they don't. There are these age-old tales. I didn't get the shock because a promoter didn't like me. Promoter didn't like me. Hated me. Everybody hated me. but they heard the noise.

2:26:26So they got to give me at least one more chance. And in that one more chance, you got to get the noise again. And if you get the noise again, you get another chance and then you get another chance. And then eventually the promotion, the office, they like you because not only with all these chances, have you got the noise every time, but in my case, I want to be a reliable employee. I want to be somebody you can invest in and bet on. I want to carry myself well as an advocate for the company I love. I'm my job is to fake fight. I am doing the thing that I, as a six-year-old with the paper belt, I'm doing it.

2:27:00I don't want this to go away. Right. And there'll come, there'll come a time when someone does it way better than me that. Okay, great. No problem. It's your turn. You know, like, um, so again, I guess I, I enjoy hearing that because you're not wrong. stamping your territory and being the top draw. You know, you want to see who somebody really is, give them power. You want to see who somebody really is, take it away. Like, I don't blame anybody for trying to keep where they're at, but I've always operated, and the way I'm going to keep where I'm at is put us out there, put a mic in my hand, put us out there and let the bell ring.

2:27:44and I'll always get the noise and I'll always be as prepared and ready and like on my game as anyone you put me in there with, no matter what.

2:27:54Bill Simmons:And when it's time for me to go, I'll go. The power thing's funny, kid. I was just talking to my old agent, James Babydoll Dixon about this, who reps all these TV people. Talk to me about the nickname. He's great, Babydoll. Well, he calls everyone Babydoll, so he just became Babydoll. Right on. But we were talking about somebody who, as they ascended kind of became more of an untrustworthy asshole that we know. And I was like, I just didn't see it in the early stages. I didn't realize they were going to be like that. And he was like, that's the thing. Everybody's got it inside them, but you don't know what's going to happen until they get some power.

2:28:31Bill Simmons:When they get power, something shifts. I don't know though. I just thought it was an interesting take. I was like, oh. So not everybody has it in there, but sometimes if it's in there and then all of a sudden you get opportunity and power, it can tilt it. Well, I mean, I'll give you another take. You're right. It's not fastest person wins, right? It's opinionative, objective. It's floor gymnastics.

2:28:59Matt Belloni:So it's kind of like if you're cool or not. I don't know how many folks came from where they came from to wrestling, like being cool. Right. So it might, it might be a little imposter syndrome. It might be a little like lack of self-worth. Um, a lot of performers, including myself want to be out there because out there you're, it feels like home. You're comfortable. You're accepted, but you kind of struggle with who you really are. and if people see your flaws or imperfections, then maybe it's all gone. Like, it's weird. Like, I've told the WWE I'll never be able to thank them, especially the audience, for making me the human being I am today.

2:29:50And it's just time under tension. I think if my career were shorter, maybe my decisions or my perspective in life would be different. But I've had to go through so much. or I've gotten to go through so much. I've been told, you're a good guy. You own the sandbox, no problem. I get out there and the noise is opposite of the good guy. I've had that for a long time. So I still have to traverse the obstacle of like, how would a good guy do this? And in doing that, man, humiliated, embarrassed, bullied, picked on, but all part of the act. Because when you're in the arena, it's part of the act. Business is business.

2:30:29You know, people have grabbed the microphone and attacked me personally. We blur the lines a lot. Gosh, fans of my bald spot, they convinced me to get a hair transplant. I'm so glad. I'm so grateful. But, like, you're out there. And it's very fragile. And I've seen so many gifted people, like, not make it because it's so very fragile. You need to have like so many things in line to have a sustained, good career. And that, a lot of that is like having control of your mental health, you know? And I think a lot of the.

2:31:07Bill Simmons:And having a really thick skin. I think especially you came in the 21st century during the internet era as wrestling was completely changing into this different, all the message boards, all the cheat sheet. Everybody had an opinion. And then social media comes with Twitter and Instagram and stuff becomes meaner and meaner and people become faster to jump on or off somebody. And you're just navigating this the whole time. I've also tried to be patient. I think you can just let things play out. You don't always have to answer every question. You can leave people wanting more. You can wait. And like, again, I was, I was getting bullied live before message board.

2:31:50So I had a really good, I had already been through it, you know, but.

2:31:55Bill Simmons:I think it's, it's funny. Like you come in right around when LeBron comes in, right? LeBron's still playing. You're still wrestling stuff that in the 1970s to think that somebody would still be at the top of their game in their early forties of basketball and their late forties and wrestling seemed pretty inconceivable. And you both had the ups and downs. He had a bunch of like, his big thing was the decision when he became basically a heel in real life for six, seven, eight months. He's getting booed in stadiums. Just feeling the wrath of the internet and just how people are, which you felt too.

2:32:30Bill Simmons:And you just kind of, at some point, it almost like it gave LeBron more focus and more inner strength. And it kind of helped him achieve all the stuff he achieved in the second half of his career. Like he wouldn't be denied, you know? So in some ways you could say it was like the best thing that could happen to him, but it's weird to say that. Well, it's weird to say because it is what happened. In my case, I guess I always try to look for a good explanation, right?

2:33:01In our business, when you hear negative noise, the knee-jerk reaction is to jump on the audience, to turn heel, so to speak, to be a bad guy. But that's not what I was told. The person who can make those decisions and the creative body making those choices saying like, we're not doing that. Well, that was Vince. And even now, like in some cases, let's take the year of retirement. I think a lot of people were wondering what would happen if John Cena turned heel, if I turned heel. And then when I did, it left a taste in people's mouth that they didn't like it. And like, they wanted other stuff. I wanted a music change.

2:33:48I wanted a uniform change. I wanted him to act like this. Well, we've been talking about it for 15 years. Never thought it was going to happen. I got 11 months to do this, 36 TV appearances. It takes five years to get a guy over, regardless. If you turn him, it's going to take a year or two on television for it really to sink can, especially if you really want to get into it and then be able to flip and then get a guy to get a nice or get a performer to get a nice flip on the other side when it's time to turn again. I don't have the time to tell the right story, but that's besides the point because I'm told we're going with this story.

2:34:34We sure are. I'm going to do the best I can. And to be able to hear the audience be surprised and then kind of like, this is not what I wanted. It's not that you may or may not have wanted me to turn bad. It's that a lot of people started to realize, like when I came out into a dome, I was like 36 dates. That's it. It's hard to conceptualize. The first time I put a counter on after Vegas and it went down to like right down to 24. It was like, whoa. and then we started peaked in the site started to pick up like 15 left 12 left 10 left so you're glad you structured it that way mentally it sounds like like that you had it that you had it all for

2:35:21Bill Simmons:this whole year like all this stuff is by design because i knew it had never been done so how do i continuously send messaging of like you're never gonna believe it you're never gonna get it i have to reinforce the fact that this is it. I still don't believe it. Which is fine. Which is great. And hopefully 10 years from now, we can sit here again and go. I'm like, oh, he really did it. Are you coming back yet? 2038. I'm like, oh, man. Yeah, yeah. He wasn't playing. So I've been in a high level of performing for 23 years. I have minimized foolishness in my life. I've been compensated fairly. I have my health.

2:36:01Also. You have a side gig. Like you can, well, these are star in movies. I appreciate you saying that. That's also beyond my control. I don't know when the phone rings next. But in the height of all that, in doing 220 days a year for, I don't know, 10, 12 years straight, the most important thing in my life was WWE. And it's not anymore. And that's okay to say. I'm still obsessed. I'm so passionate about it. I'm not obsessed. I was obsessed.

2:36:29Bill Simmons:Yeah. Very passionate about wrestling on my days off, on my free time, without any compensation. I will go anywhere I can if, you know, my partner and I say, hey, you have an off date. What would you like to do? I'd like to go watch younger talent perform and critique them. That's what I enjoy doing on my time off. So I'll always be around it. But man, like, how much more do I want? You know, there's always another crowd to perform in front of. but like, gosh, maybe if my actions set an example for this class, hopefully my actions about political behavior over the course of 23 years have set an example.

2:37:13I can tell you in my perspective alone, I don't know if this is truth, but from my perspective, there is a lot less political activity now, 2025, than when I started in 2002. So I can't say it's done, but I can say it's greatly minimized. And if that's because of me, great. If it's not, great, because that's what I wanted in the first place. So maybe as the first wrestler who actually retires, I set a precedent for young people to be like, man, I want to strive to give it like two decades and then go out, like go out the biggest way I can. It's also a different business model for athletes. Do you keep holding on for one more and then one more and then one more or take a look within yourself and be like, man, I can give you guys the best year I can.

2:38:03Can we figure out what that is

2:38:04Bill Simmons:and figure out what the compensation is for that? We just saw this happen in the NBA. Chris Paul, who decided to have won last year in the Clippers, and he hung on too long. It was 41. We see it all the time. And then they waved him today as we're talking about this. It's like, oh, it shouldn't have ended like that. But it should have because that's what you want. I do not blame any performer for wanting to continue to get out there. It's beautiful, man. I'm going to miss it so much. But I've seen it. Yeah. And I don't want to be it. And now with one left, man, if I have to pump myself full of adrenaline to make sure that I give all I got, I have enough left in the tank for one match.

2:38:45Bill Simmons:Well, so I was at the first Netflix Raw. Yeah. The night before the fire's here. You came out. The two notable things from that was Hogan came out and got really booed. and almost like some, I think some famous wrestling people would have kind of felt the crowd energy and turned it. And it was almost like he didn't know what to do. So that was one notable thing. And the other one was when you came out and it was clear, it was like this purposeful angle that everybody had put a lot of thought into it. Nobody tipped me off on it. But as I was watching it, I was with my son and I was like, oh, this is smart.

2:39:23Bill Simmons:They're going to, I see what they're doing. They're making this like the year of Cena. He's going to make one last run at trying to win the title. And like, I see what they're doing here. And I think it went better than anyone could have expected. The heel piece was the thing. It seems like you have like small regrets about it. Not at all. No? No, I trust. Do you think it went perfectly? Or like, what would you have changed if you did it over again? What is perfect? Here's what I do know. Perfect is never achievable. unachievable. I think that's a sucker's chase. When I look back on it, could I have given any more than I did?

2:39:59Not a bit. Yeah. I, I overprepared. I tried to go to every corner of my emotional wellbeing. Um, and the cool thing is like when the audience began to turn, we turned. Yeah. so like they helped they helped it out and that dynamic was a little bit ahead of schedule for let's say cody and i but it made for a great showing for the summer so you you choose you uh make uh again anecdotes make new day a bunch of heels they're aspirational pastors but they're bad guys the crowd booed them and then they love them nobody wanted to change them good but hey it's time to change him good. You know, let's try John like this.

2:40:49I know we have limited time, but let's do something really big. Okay. It didn't work. Didn't mean I didn't get my all. You know, um, I often talk about, uh, a main event on WrestleMania I had with the Miz long time ago where the rock came down to interfere. Everyone knew Rocky was coming match between Miz and I was lackluster as far as audience involvement. Cause they were waiting obviously for Dwayne Johnson. Who wouldn't want to be just looking towards the entrance?

2:41:17Bill Simmons:Yeah. Miz got knocked out, won the championship with a concussion. Like, we beat the hell out of each other. We couldn't give anymore. But I didn't, looking back, I didn't understand all the things and maybe we should have done something different because we just got Rock out there earlier. But that piece was also, again, it's WrestleMania. I think we had to blow it off. That piece was a building block for a year later in Miami because the next day on TV, we challenged each other to the Miami WrestleMania. So it was like leveraging WrestleMania for another WrestleMania. I just wasn't used to it.

2:41:50I didn't get the perspective. And it worked. It ended up being one of the most successful events in company history. So when you say like, oh man, you seem a little bit like this. I don't. It happened. It was great. And it helped. Like it paid off. And this whole year, I think, has been special in that regard. People have bought in. and I'm so glad because after this I don't have another chance. If they didn't buy in I would just go. You'd fake an injury in July. No, no. I would do the rest of my dates and then I could look back and be like, man, I held on too long. But in these shows like it's now become you want to be on these shows.

2:42:31We have tons of people watching. We have sold out arenas and stadiums. It's a chance for you to show your business. Well, you made one mistake. Please. I'm open to criticism. why wasn't the last match in Boston? Again, that's way beyond my control. I don't book the live event calendar. Well, my guess is that... If it was up to me, every match would be in Tampa. But my guess is... They knew the Boston match. The mistake is I didn't have 36 matches in Tampa.

2:43:00Bill Simmons:I know, but you're like the Boston home team, though. Trust me, it was great to be able to go back there one last time. My guess is they thought that could be its own thing, and your last match could be its own thing, and they didn't need to combine those two things. You never know. I don't know if the Garden was available. Possible. So you never know. Like, that's a thing of like, man, it would be perfect if, perfect for you. Like, you don't know the routing. You don't know the live event hurdles that they have to go through. It was an emotional event. It was great. The last Boston match. And it was like the last, the last, then you can get a bunch of last ofs.

2:43:33The last SmackDown in Chicago where I started. Yeah. The last time in TD. The last time in NSG. my last raw my last premium live event or pay-per-view in san diego and then of course the last match and um in trying to create the atmosphere for the last match folks in creative were like hey we want to do like this tribute thing and i i never i never booked myself yeah but i called uh triple h and i said i have an idea uh you'll know how to do this because I don't know how to write television. But I think if we do a tribute show, one of two things are going to happen. It's either going to be too much or too little, which means it's not going to be good.

2:44:16Why don't we take Saturday night's main event? Everyone knows it's John Cena's last match. The video packages, you want to trickle in there throughout the night, no problem. Then we go to the match, have the match, that's the night. But beforehand, on a night, I know people are going to be tuning in. We're going to have a sold out. It's going to be definitely an item, a ticket you want to have in your hand. And that last piece of relevant energy that I can get an audience member to tune into. Show the future of your business. Have top-named WWE superstars. CM Punk, Charlotte Flair, you put it together how you want.

2:44:53Have them have non-canon exhibition matches with the future of the business. Bring kids up from NXT. Get them in a building with real noise, with real energy. let him get under the bright lights maybe just maybe like i want to be here you know what i'm saying and they get to wrestle people with experience and wisdom and in non-canon non-canon exhibition matches where nothing's on the line it's just a chance to see it's a chance to hear the music of your favorite superstars against someone you have no idea and he said that's a that's a great idea and they're going to do it. I have no clue what the plan is, but I know it's, I, that's how I want to go out.

2:45:37Right. I want to, I want the people who are tuning in for me to be like, yeah, but you see that other kid I'm watching next Monday. Cause he's awesome. Or she's awesome. You know, like what a better way to tip the cap and try to, try to keep, keep the thing going.

2:45:57Bill Simmons:You know, what would you tell 2003 John Cena? if you could give him go on a time machine give him like two tips of advice what would it be there's going to be this thing called bitcoin that the Winkle bosses are going to debut in 2012 I'd give him a sports almanac I'm kidding I'm kidding no I don't I don't it's weird I get asked that question a lot I don't you get asked that question a lot yeah oh man now I feel like a jerk you want to ask another question well give me one thing you would have told yourself I don't know if that works. Like, I don't know, first of all, to see your generational self is a weird paradox and who knows.

2:46:40But like, to tip someone off about like, even if it's like, hey man, just keep it up. It's going to be crazy. What the fuck does that mean? Right. Am I going to go crazy? Like, what's, what's, I just, I, things have happened the way they've happened

2:46:58Bill Simmons:and that's how they needed to happen. I'm going to use my new John Cena mentality to just look forward and not, not think about how I asked you a question that a lot of people have asked you. I'm going to try to spin it into a positive and just ask another question. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah. You got one? I thought that was a really good one. Who, who was your biggest mentor when you were coming up? Like looking back into that Oh three, Oh four or five. Did you have anybody that became like a Mr. Miyagi? No, Vince, without a doubt. Interesting. Let's talk about that. Cause he was on the docket. As you know, I did the documentary.

2:47:30Bill Simmons:Yeah. that you were interviewed for. Yeah. And we had a whole segment about the ruthless aggression. Like that was kind of your big moment. You were like a rational confidence young guy, John Cena. Like, fuck it, I'll do it. I'm in there. So how was Vince at that point when he took you under your wing? Like, what'd you learn? How did he help you? So he was just really kind with his time. He would explain things. here is a person making a lot of, if not all the choices. Yeah.

2:48:08I am always in search for a good explanation. And he would always give one. And in giving the good explanation, you would get a nugget. And because Vince had such fluency in every avenue of the business, a lot of performers are worried about the stunts. I think one of the benefits of doing 220 shows a year is pace. And if you obsess over the physical aspect of the business, you might get exhausted. You might burn out. I love the technical aspects, but then I also became obsessed with the theatrical aspects. And then I also became obsessed, especially when before I won my first championship on the way to getting relevance and the way of shifting from the obscure Saturday Night program to SmackDown, I became interested in the business and not my business.

2:49:06Like, how can I take from this place to make as much as I can? The business. How do we get more people in the arena? And the only person, it seemed like, that had a good explanation for a lot of those questions was Vince. and that allowed just a wealth of information to be dumped on me. I had full faith and trust in him. I think he had full faith and trust in me.

2:49:36Bill Simmons:He also had a really good track record of, I think this person can carry us for a little while. And he was usually right. He wasn't afraid to try, which is another thing I learned from him. Do not be afraid to swing big and do not be afraid to fail. Be accountable for your friends. I'm glad you said that. That's one of the biggest things I've learned in life. I think people are too afraid to fail. It sucks. Failure sucks, man. Get back up. I understand. Go for the next thing. But it's like, it's uncomfortable. Yeah. And failing is bad. Taking accountability for failure, that's even a heavier weight.

2:50:15But gosh, man, I just.

2:50:17Bill Simmons:What was your biggest failure? Like when you look back, like the one where you were like. Blowing the. completely disintegrating ruthless aggression. And it almost got me fired. So here I am, a young whippersnapper debuting in Chicago because The Undertaker's sick. I get to challenge Kurt Angle to a match on SmackDown from a sold-out house at the formerly known as Rosemont Horizon. Yeah. The Olympic gold medalist says, what makes you think you can stand out here with anybody else? What do you have that I don't? Ruthless aggression. I slap him in the face. That was great. That's aggressive. Yeah.

2:50:52And then the match we went on to have is pretty ruthless. But then, like, he won, but with, like, a roll-up pinfall. And then the aggressive, ruthless young kid goes like, man, you only got me by that much. And then the next thing they did was, like, a backstage taping with The Undertaker, where the ruthless, aggressive kid is so starry-eyed that The Undertaker has given him advice. Like, hey, you did a great job. Shakes The Undertaker's hand. that is neither ruthless nor aggressive. So this is what I mean by like being ready for opportunity. That gimmick, those two words, that personality, I could either lean into being aggressive and ruthless.

2:51:36And we all know what those things are. We all have an idea in our head of what is ruthless and what is aggression. Or I could do a 180 and be like the most passive aggressive past. I was neither. You were in no man's land. I was neither. And I didn't have the technical ability of my peers. And they gave me this beautiful moment on a silver platter. No one told me it was an attitude. No one told me, but I didn't take advantage of it. That was my biggest failure because a year later, they're like, hey, we're going to let you go. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I get it. I got it. Like I could see the cheers against Kurt Angle, then a little bit with Chris Jericho.

2:52:17And then and then I'm turning heel on Billy Kidman on Saturday Night Velocity and nobody cares you know like I blew it I blew it and was lucky enough to get a second chance

2:52:29Bill Simmons:we talked about in the documentary you're rapping on the bus and Stephanie hears it and then all of a sudden that was it but The Rock had a very similar there are always these moments where it's going one way and one little small thing happens and it flips Yeah. And in Rock's case, he was like, man, just, you're going to put me with these folks? Just give me the mic. Right. And in my case, I got lucky. Somebody heard me on the mic and was like, would you be okay doing that on TV? Hmm, let me weigh my options. You're going to fire me or do this on TV? Looks like I'm your rapping kid from Wes Newberry.

2:53:09You know, like this just, yeah, sure. Great, I'll do it. But I think the cool thing was I essentially failed fast, you know, and I was held accountable for my failures. Kid, obviously this isn't working, you know? Yes, you're correct. All right. You know, like that's, I get it. And it made me like, all right, I'm going in. And I just had a conversation with a young talent the other day who is trying to find themselves. And they expressed like, oh man, I think I have my why down to this. I said, okay, but what does that mean? Like I went from wearing boots and tights and carrying my laptop to playing rollercoaster tycoon to like, you're the rap guy.

2:53:58Fine, I'm the rap guy. I'm going to buy my gear in the hood. I'm going to get faded up at the barbershop. I'm going to tell everybody I'm throwing this jersey out tonight. I'm gonna wear diamonds and then switch to diamond for a steel chain. I'm gonna wear five fingered rings. I'm gonna wrestle in sneakers. I'm gonna wrestle in jorts. I'm gonna wrestle in yellow corduroy and blue sheepskin suits. I'm not gonna look like everybody else. I'm gonna make my own music. I'm gonna freestyle everyone in the parking lot so they know it's not rigged and no one's writing my stuff. I'm gonna come out with my own album.

2:54:29We're gonna make music videos. I'm gonna do concerts. I'm gonna work clubs in between SmackDown and Raw and pay-per-views. I was, it was it.

2:54:39Bill Simmons:It was me. You went for it. Wholeheartedly. And three years later, I'm in a theater with Adam Carolla watching you in the Marine. Yeah, man. I feel like I still owe you money for that one. No, we enjoyed it. What? What was that? That's maybe that's also a, certainly a fail. I mean, I got run out of the movie business, so that's a, that's a big failure too. For some people. You'll never work in this town again. I kind of enjoyed those action movies. What do you think? You were the one. Well, what do you think was your career year? What do you think was your best year? Because I felt like as a writer, I have like three years in my head where I was like, I really had it going that year.

2:55:17Bill Simmons:I really feel good about how that year went, the stuff I did, and I have fond memories of it. Do you have a year like that? Gosh, I like this one. 25? I like this one. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean... It was certainly probably the least taxing physically because you had 36 matches? Yeah, 36 matches. Versus 220? It's weird. Like, if you talk to a performer who's done that schedule, you don't have time to do anything else. It's kind of like being in season. But, like, the preseason is so tough for NFL. Right. The helmet feels heavy, and, like, the first few hits hurt. But then when you get in it, it's like, yeah, we got another game.

2:55:56Don't worry about it. We got another game. We got another game. You get that callous, and your timing gets great, and it's like you get in a zone, you get in a flow state. It's really tough to get in the flow state with like 36.

2:56:11Bill Simmons:Sounds like almost like playing golf. Like you're better off playing golf five times a week than one. Yeah. And then maybe like once a month. Right. Where I'm going to give you five minutes to hit a bucket of balls before you go out there. Oh, sorry. You have three minutes to hit a bucket of balls before you go out there. All right. So give me your second best year. I don't know, man. that had to be one year where you look back you're like oh man we were humming that year so i think i think the the year uh in miami that culminated at wrestlemania with with the rock i thought that that was a pretty and the reason i choose the two things um is because a year-long build in 2011 or whatever it was in WWE is unheard of.

2:56:55Is this possible? And it worked. A wrestling retirement is unheard of. Is this possible? And skeptics will be skeptics, but with one left, December 13th is it. I can be like, it worked. Was everyone critically happy? They're going to weigh in on everything. I'll always be criticized. You'll always have your opinion of like, I would loved this. They, they booked it wrong. He did this wrong. I know a lot of folks showed up and I know TKO is doing well. And I know our fan base is still interested. The fact that we were able to do a tournament to get to the last person. So now the shows I'm not even on.

2:57:37Who's it? Gunther and LA Niter left? Yeah. And the shows that I'm not even on have gravity and like, oh man, I want to kind of see what goes on. What a, what a cool idea of like, well, John isn't going to be there, but the presence and the, the idea of this. And then of course, it leans into like my core value of meritocracy. Yeah. And same thing with on the 13th. Man, we'll give you a chance. See what you can do. Please, I'm begging any young performer that gets out there, steal the show. I would love them to just talk about you and not me. That means I have done my job. You did the performer thing again.

2:58:10I want to send the message to whoever's ever on the thing. That was great. Yeah.

2:58:14Bill Simmons:Gunther has to be in top five this century of guys that I'm sure are a great wrestler, but the next day you're in the shower just like, fuck. I mean, those chest slaps... You took me to a weird place. I don't know how to talk about that. No, you're just like, the chest slap, I just can't imagine the next day. Those seem like they hurt. I would say the Lesnar suplexes would be the number one. The Gunther chest slaps, I don't know what else is in the pantheon for you for like the next day you're just like, oh, I'm feeling it. I think for me it's performers who... lean on like really like beating the hell out of out of you.

2:58:59There is a certain magic to what we do. Yeah. And so you're talking like the hard clothesline slash just I would borderline it to say like unsafe striking unsafe maneuvers like where I don't know the feeling that the realism trumps the ability to like what should be first and foremost is we're going to give the best we can and we're going to walk out of there and nobody gets hurt and and there is a certain magic to our business and there are certain performers brock is one where his stuff is physical but he's one of the smoothest like he's a really great performer randy orton is another one it's like great performer and his stuff looks great and his timing is beautiful um seth rawlins is another one cm punk is another the list of folks who understand the magic.

2:59:52Yeah. And again, I don't fault anyone for their style. It's their lane to choose. But I do know, for me personally speaking, my math would be a whole lot less if every night I beat the tar out of my opponent and I expected them to beat the tar out of me. You know, you ride down that injury avenue a lot more frequent than you would if you understood the magic of our business.

3:00:19Bill Simmons:Nick Khan wanted your Mount Rushmore. So this isn't my question. Yeah, sure, sure. Mount Rushmore is, what is it? He wanted your four. He said he would actually give it to us. No, not presidents. Jefferson, Washington, and Lincoln. Give us - Is that Mount Rushmore? No. It is. You got to give us the four. Is that Mount Rushmore? Wrestling Mount Rushmore. You're saying that's not Mount Rushmore? We need a wrestling Mount Rushmore from you. That's mine. That's what I'm doing. Come on. Lincoln wrestled the bear. You can either give me - Washington wrestled the British. The four best you ever saw, or the four best you ever wrestled.

3:00:49Bill Simmons:No, you got to do it. He demanded. He's in control of this December 13th show. You got to do right by him. I would like to think that the relationship I have with Nick Khan, he does right by me and I do right by him. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. So Rushmore's off? I gave you it. I gave you Mount Rushmore. Can you give me... Can you ask another question? Can you give me the three... So you don't want to do three best wrestlers you ever wrestled against? That's a great question. That's basically Rushmore. No, it's not. Okay. You talked about Mount Rushmore. I gave you Mount Rushmore. What is your real question?

3:01:23What do you want? Three best. The three best. So you, three best people you ever wrestled. The three best people I ever wrestled. Where you were like marveling at how good they were. Seth Rollins.

3:01:35Shawn Michaels, Seth Rollins. Shawn Michaels, Seth Rollins. And it is very tough to narrow down to a third. I've had incredible chemistry with people.

3:01:51It's tough.

3:01:52Bill Simmons:Well, so let's concentrate on those two because Michaels is usually somebody's answer for this question, right? So what was it about him that was just different than all these other guys?

3:02:06He can make this a champion.

3:02:12He would look at that and be like, okay, need to bump around for that book. and then I'm going to super kick the book and then beautifully fall on top of it at the same time. He just, his performance, and Seth is of the same vein. His performance is, like, Randy falls into this category. But then again, there's, like, guys who have had crazy chemistry with AJ Styles, CM Punk, Kevin Owens, Dwayne, Edge. Right, now you're just listing guys. But, like, I've had this. It was interesting, though, I've been around for 23 years. I think those are the two. Yeah. Because of their, like, they can just work with anyone.

3:02:55Anyone. And I've been lucky enough that, like, I was anyone a few nights. You know?

3:03:01Bill Simmons:Who was the one that jumped the highest from where they started, where years later you were like, wow, you really did it? Cody. Cody Rhodes. Cody. Okay, explain that one. he asked for his release from the company and left. But did you feel like he was a good wrestler when he left? I felt like he had, man, the first time I heard that kid speak was at the Hall of Fame in Chicago when him and his brother inducted his dad. And I'm like front row going, I'm out of a job. Like, or Los Angeles it was. Like wherever he, I'm like, this kid is coming for me. I better go back and practice. And, you know, generational talents have big shoes to fill.

3:03:43and uh gosh he he did the best he could with what he had but he realized it you know start up here and then you watch the stock go down and then essentially the company dissolves of like i gotta go and they're like my man this what is going on with this guy and back he comes and he's at a he's our guy now i don't think there's any arc better than that like to be kicked out or to to to be out of the club and then not only earn your way back in, but earn your way back in and prove that you can compete and perform every day at the, the top level, not a top level, like the top level.

3:04:22Bill Simmons:And it seems like he learned some stuff from you that he talks about. Like, I think you were an important person for him. Man, whatever, whatever anyone has between their two ears is just a matter of like your application of it. You know, if that's the case I'm grateful for the moments I've shared with Cody I'm grateful for the moments I still share and will share but he's he's doing it and I think that's important like he's doing it regardless of where he got it from like I said I got tons of information from my mentor I think that the best way to honor that information and honor that wisdom is to put rubber to road and make something happen Undertaker yeah was he that much of a leader behind the scenes yes was he the number one

3:05:12Bill Simmons:the most respected personality and um you could even feel that in 03 as you're coming up you're like oh that guy don't fuck with him until about like recently and even still i think that the his name still carries weight i don't know because i'm not a new performer i know what i know yeah but in looking at like i'm so grateful to have experienced phases of the business yeah and i'm so happy for where it is now uh the locker room essentially doesn't need a spokesperson because all of our people are professionals you know it's it's not like pirates or herding cats anymore or like we don't need an internal police force because we're all professionals but that being said a lot of the fraternity a lot of the the bonds which led to great programming yeah that stuff has dissolved so it's weird you want to look back and romanticize how things were but how things were was like man you you better get a$200 advance on tonight's show because you're not going to get paid.

3:06:31So that's just how they were. And I had fun and great times under being welcomed into that fraternal business. And he was literally, he was very instrumental in that. I had my first drink with The Undertaker. What do you mean, like first drink ever? Oh, yeah. I was 26. That was your first drink? And he was like, I sat down. I'm like, hey. He's like, boom. Like, hey, I don't, boom. You know what? I'm going to go for it. Yeah. Because I have this wise figure who has, who is very stoic, doesn't say a lot. Welcome me in. Like that is, okay, I understand why I don't do this. But I also understand that I want to do this.

3:07:23I'm okay. I'm going to give this a try. And I'm so glad I did because in that one conversation, I still, I see us at that bar. Some of the lessons he gave still stick with me. Yeah.

3:07:41The two things I vividly remember from that conversation, always take care of your crew. He never let any of the boys pay. Never say goodbye. I got so hammered when I was like, man, when is it time to go? It's like, go whenever you want. Just don't ever say goodbye. And I was. Don't ever say goodbye. That's such good advice. And I was so happy. The Undertaker's an Irish goodbye guy. I was, I guess so. But that was, that was. Maybe he's Irish. That was a tippy bestowed on me. That's a good one. I was so out of place. I turned to him and was like, man, thanks so much. And then so many people that I'd never talked to, I said, I said goodbye to everybody.

3:08:24Yeah. But then it just put me right back in the seat and I stayed there a little bit longer. But I really thought it was important to know that like, he was like, always take care of your crew. Take care of your crew. Irish goodbye. When it's time to go, it's time to go. So when it's time to go, it's time to go. It's time. We got one left. You know, it's time to go. So, but I, he's just, he was tremendously respected. And I think because of that, he certainly had a great relationship with Vince and could act as a conduit. Anyone who can bridge that gap. And that's another thing. There's no gap anymore.

3:09:00There's no office and the boys. It's like everybody's in it together. Everyone's accessible. You can go up to Paul. It's not like Vince wasn't accessible, but Vince also did everything. So now Vince's brain is split in a bunch of different places. There's Paul. There's Nick. There's Chris LeGentle. there's Matt Altman, there's anybody in talent relations. There's like, you can get answers through all these folks. Justin Scalise with live events, Derek Casimo with merch and Ethan with fanatics. Like I can get a good explanation without spending or asking the man to spend minutes he don't have, you know?

3:09:35So it's not, it's, it's very little, it's us versus them. It's, it's all we, you know, it's like, I like it like that. I like it like that. Because I was never a big us versus them guy.

3:09:48Bill Simmons:Did you ever think that WWE could survive and thrive without Vince? After seeing like, like you just mentioned all the things that he did. So of all the things he did and of all the things he taught me, one of one piece that was very important is that no one is irreplaceable. And that's the truth. The one thing that needs to stand firm is the consumer's belief in what we do. and Vince has so much knowledge. I think what's happened is unfortunate because you have this individual with so much depth of field who can still offer things and we no longer can pull from that well, but it doesn't mean we don't have able-bodied folks who can't put on creative programming.

3:10:40So I never wanted, Vince to go because I love him and I know how much he loves the business but he taught me like we're all gonna go all of us and he taught me that not only through saying through his actions I was there the day he fired Stone Cold he missed a date gotta go it's the biggest attraction I gotta let people know this isn't okay so things happen we gotta let people know this isn't okay it's time for you to go Everybody goes, man. Everybody goes. So because of his words, yeah. Yeah.

3:11:22Bill Simmons:So you're either going to be wrestling Gunther. Or LA Knight. Or LA Knight. Yeah. That's a great topic. Look at you. Look at that. You say, hey, yeah, you got it. You got it. I've had you for a long period of time. My God, it's tomorrow. I know. I've been here a while. And then that's going to be it. and you're going to actually retire. Yes. And you have Little Brother coming out, which I'm supposed to promote because Dave Burnett is my friend and he's one of the producers. I don't know when that's coming out. He wanted to mention that. Whenever it comes out. Fun comedy, me and Eric Andre. Yeah, it's coming out like next year.

3:11:55Yeah. You'll see me at WWE events. I'm going to be involved as long as they will have me until I need to be replaced. But I will look like this.

3:12:06Bill Simmons:So you're going to be involved as like a personality slash... I will make sure you get to your seat. facilitator and i will go up and announcer i don't know you don't really like announcing no i would love to do it i think the announcing crew we have now i'm such a big fan of stew bad and wade barrett i think he's he is carving out an excellent legacy for himself i know michael cole's getting a little long in the tooth he's probably wanting to move on uh i would love to sit at the table i think we have and i love listening to biggie call this would be a good angle for you where you're jealous of Michael Cole this whole time.

3:12:40Bill Simmons:You got to sit here as we all took these bumps. I knew I was better than you this whole time. Yeah. Listen to you. I think I'm out. You reel me back in. I, I, you have to have the time to regularly commit to be an announcer. Yeah. Like I know, I know Pat McAfee struggled with that. He split himself in a bunch of different directions and gosh, I don't, I don't blame anybody for going until you can't go. Right. But like he didn't, he didn't have it in the tank. Like he can't be, he can't be everywhere at once. So yeah, Yeah, he's, I actually thought he was doing a good job as the announcer. But at some point, you can have just too many jobs in too many places.

3:13:15So that was a, you were like, hey, man, 36 dates must have been easy this year. I did too many jobs. The original.

3:13:22Bill Simmons:Yeah, because you're doing a movie as you're also doing this. I was in Budapest, going from like, flying from Budapest, like all night on set in Budapest, fly to Indy, do Indy, fly back, land, drop my stuff off, go film. and like doing that until post-WrestleMania, like back and forth to Morocco and Budapest and all these crazy places that weren't easy commutes. And it's just, you think you can do it. He's like, ah, sleep, I'll sleep on the plane or whatever. You don't, it doesn't happen. And then you get upside down and you're like super fatigued. But like, I threaded the needle just enough. The plan originally was to do like a full year.

3:13:59This goes to show my ignorance of the business. I wanted to do 220 dates. just take a year off of everything, hop on a bus, do a full WWE calendar and like totally say goodbye. Thank goodness that the business isn't like that anymore. Cause I would be, if you took a gingerbread man, just broke him. I'd be done. They only needed me for 36.

3:14:25Bill Simmons:Did they, did you ever ask your half brother Dom Toretto for any advice or no? I asked Vin for advice all the time. You do? Yeah. And he stayed in touch with Vin? We text back and forth all the time. Really? He's a really good dude, man. There's another guy who's like, he keeps himself. If you know him, he's like a really wise, genuine dude. I love how loyal he is to Paul Walker. He keeps the memory alive in all these different ways. And it always seems completely authentic to me. He just really loved the guy. And he always wants to bring him up in a good way. I also know he cares about his body of work.

3:15:04and he cares about the people he works with.

3:15:06Bill Simmons:Yeah. And that's also cool. You know? Nah, cool guy. Shout out to Vin. I definitely keep in touch with him. I mean, it's funny because it's not like you weren't famous, but that franchise is basically like you're entering the Marvel universe when you're in a Fast movie. And I get to be a Toretto? Yeah. I get to be Jacob Toretto? I had some notes about whether the... Bring it all on. I don't know. The relations. But I just... It's fun. Didn't really seem like you guys had a lot in common genetically. I got to wear the cross. And as they would say, it's in the books. Do you have to do any fake driving preparation?

3:15:40Any sort of, were they teaching you how to? To green screen drive?

3:15:44Bill Simmons:Because you're doing, they have a car full of cameras, right? And you got to, it just seems like it's this weird, weirdly hard acting that you wouldn't think would be hard. Because you got to pretend like things are coming, this is happening, guys crossing. Two things about me. One, I love to drive. And two, I haven't never, thank goodness, shut off my imagination. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like doing Bumblebee, working with Bumblebee was a long stick with a tennis ball. Peacemaker, Eagly, was a gray bowling pin. Fast, a lot of times you're driving green screen. Yeah. Just a trip to imagination. Just throw yourself into it.

3:16:27Bill Simmons:Yeah. Did you feel like people didn't know who you were in the Fast universe? I don't expect like who is this guy that's the thing like I don't expect anyone to know who I am and I don't care because it feels like it's and I'm a I'm a card carrying Fast and Furious guy but it's not it's like this universe that's over here in a lot of ways and it's massive and it's global so is WWE yeah that's what I mean it's almost like I wonder what the overlap was between the two worlds so I think again like I can't say how much WWE's prepared me for who I am here's a here's a a genre where you can go around the world and little kids come up to you and do this, but no one in entertainment knows you.

3:17:07So a lot of the opportunities I've had, people have no effing clue who I am. And that's okay because I just want to do good. I figure it's just like when in wrestling, when nobody knew who I was. Yeah. All right. All I got to do is go out there and get the noise and then I'll get another chance. Just go out there and get the noise. And I don't care that people don't know who I am. They don't know my story. What I care is at one point, someone was like, I'm going to bet on you. And maybe it's to say a few lines or a cameo or whatever. Dom needs a brother. Connect the dots however you want. We would like to bet on you.

3:17:44I feel like that brother would have come up in the first eight movies. Hey, man, I'm glad it came up in the ninth, and I'm glad it was me. So in the bottom of the ninth, I made it in. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Stuck in there. Just try to do the best you can with the opportunities and don't care. like I don't I never care about who knows me and who doesn't I don't even know where Vin ends and Dom begins at this point I just picture him like hanging out like he invites you to his birthday

3:18:10Bill Simmons:party and he gives a speech to everybody and he's like to me familia and does like one of the coronas all around yeah and just the coronas and does this whole thing I just feel like he's merged I I bet there are folks out there that would have that perspective about me to say like, I don't know where John Cena, the WWE character ends and where like John begins. Right. Well, you were the first era of the people that didn't have the gimmick or like you actually just used your name. You want to talk again about luck. That was not my choice. Right. And now that's basically almost everybody. They went from an attitude era of like edgy TV and for a hot second, they were like, we want more realism.

3:18:51I snuck in. Yeah. Like in them, like the Indiana Jones where the thing is like, closing and I snuck in like me, Brock, Randy, Batista, Shelton, Benjamin under the thing. We got it, you know? And it's so many people would look at that and be like, well, you don't own your name. I don't care. So many people because of what WWE has done is have put the IP out there, have allowed me to get so many opportunities so I could be greedy and try to cash in on like give me every shekel that that is attached to that name because it's my name or i could be grateful to be like because of that name i did this this and this which they have nothing to do with and then they vaulted into this this and this they have nothing to do it and every once in a while there's a ball cap and t-shirt thing that they they absolutely get what they've earned you know but it's weird because it's like man you got to use your real name but some people come at it from the perspective of like, do they own your name?

3:19:51That's weird.

3:19:53Bill Simmons:It just is what it is. I'm so lucky. I'd like to see you at a couple more big Boston sports games I think would be a good 2026 and beyond for you. Like lean into the Boston thing a little more. We count your titles. You would like to. 27 titles in the 21st century thanks to you. You count them weird. What do you mean? You counted them weird. Why? Well, I counted the WWF ones. WWF slash E. Were they all E or were there a couple Fs in there? I think they're all E. They're all E? I forget. I never really. I always thought they should have won that lawsuit. I get it. The other one was first, but it always bugged me.

3:20:30Sometimes it's not worth it.

3:20:32Bill Simmons:Yeah, I guess not. Because they moved seamlessly to WWE. What a great way, again, to like, no, we're going in this direction. No one's going to get it. Yeah. Until everyone gets it. Right. And, man, I had folks in like 2014. You still with WWF? Yo, it has been WWE for like a decade now. Now, no one. Yeah. Like, no one. The F is out. So, good choice. You had to get rid of the F in one of your moves, right? Yes. Yes. When they went PG? So, again, a great, a good explanation, right? Brock Lesnar's move was the F5. Yeah. I had a similar move where you pick a guy up. We both pick guys up. he is a little bit more strong where he helicopters the guy.

3:21:21Beers was the FU. But it came out of nowhere. Like, I'm a middle... So again, the match is not about me. I'm a middleman for Brock to beat to go to the Undertaker. But the more you can make that middle match exciting, the cooler it is because it's a good one-off of the fans. So I didn't try to make Brock look bad, but I was abrasive with my trash talk and was like, you have the F5, I have the FU. And that's where the name of the move happened. So I kept using it. And then as we evolved into PG, I was told like, hey, we can't use that anymore. And then switching it to the attitude adjustment has been incredible.

3:22:07Because like, it's so weird that art imitates life. Like I'm always trying to change people's perspective or off from a new perspective. So literally I'm trying or leaning into the fact that you can adjust your attitude no matter what at any moment. And that like really changes the dynamic of anything. You know, if the move was still called the FU, it'd be tough for me to sit here. Yeah, seriously. You know what I'm saying? It evolved because it had to, but rather than swimming upstream, yeah, okay. It's the AA. It's the attitude adjustment. All right.

3:22:42Bill Simmons:December 13th, Saturday night's main event. Yeah. we don't know who you're fighting yet I hope for the sake of your chest it's LA Knight so you don't have like dark maroon slap marks ah it's the last one hey it'll be fine alright and I got two keep going I got two big old TV's who's favorite in that match what's that Gunther versus LA Knight who's the favorite man it's pretty close two guys who've been doing really well the last couple years I I like the edge that LA Knight has like he he operates on a nothing to lose sort of thing. I think many times this is, I think many times he might be his own biggest hurdle.

3:23:22But gosh, if there's a dude willing to bet on himself, it's LA Knight and I admire that.

3:23:29Bill Simmons:It would be fitting if you beat somebody with the LA in his name in your last match. It would also be great if it was in Boston. But none of that shit is in our control. Yeah. It sounds like you just would have done Tampa. 36 in Tampa would be glorious. It feels like you're becoming like a Bucks fan. I don't even know if you're focused on this Patriots renaissance. This is going to burn this room up. I don't even watch anymore, man. Well, you're too busy. You're flying back and forth from Budapest and you're wrestling and making movies. Being in sports takes time. I don't even know what day it is, man.

3:24:00Bill Simmons:Yeah. All right. John Cena, congrats on everything. I'm glad we finally did this. That's how we're ending it? We're ending it on a downer of like, I don't even watch sports anymore, man. We're ending it on. That's how it goes? That's the last moment we have? Well, I could make you do a freestyle rap. No, you can't make me do anything. You're going to ask me to, and I'll say, no. That's a great idea. Yeah, that's no problem. No, I'm happy for you that you feel like this last year was, in some ways, your favorite year. That's a great way to go out. How many people get to retire on their terms where they're actually happy with that played out?

3:24:30You used it. You said it was my terms. I would do it in infinity if I could. This is not my terms.

3:24:34Bill Simmons:These aren't my terms. What is your terms? My terms is do it forever. But you can control when you stop doing it, and you're controlling it, which is a good thing. well again I asked if like hey uh company do you think this is a good business idea and they agreed so we're able to do it what I love most about the year is I think it will keep on giving moments after it's done yeah I think people will begin to continue to reflect and like oh but maybe it was this was the story they were trying to tell I think as it's weird to talk about it because wwe is so at at the moment like something happens on television and people like i hate this or like this is the greatest and it is it has been a year-long story yeah and people will digest it once the last one happens on the 13th and then i think they'll reflect especially when they realize that i'm not coming back and then like you could dive into like oh man what were they really trying to do across a year it's never it's never been done before um i i would not i could not give an ounce more of effort i don't think there's a single thing i would have changed and i like that it isn't perfect i like it like i i like that parts changed i like the dates and cities changed i like that the last one isn't in boston um all the stuff that like it would be perfect if no life isn't perfect like you just do the best you can with what you got and i i personally like all that stuff that's i like the patience chintz angle is good too because you're right everybody's like yes no quick move on to the next thing scroll up and down on my reels something as simple as like in my last title defense having live morgan assist and beat me in the same way that i turned on cody but she did it better than me yeah just being able to like hey wait you're gonna get a call back to this moment in February, in November, but just, just wait for it, wait for it.

3:26:36And being able to pay it off that late in the game, like, I don't know. And whether that means anything to anyone else but me, I just, I like to know that I'm, there's not a moment I'm not thinking of. There's not, we're doing everything we can. I'm doing everything I can. So I just, I hope it, if it doesn't, nothing ever stands the test of time, but I'll, I'll be very good on the 13th, knowing that like all right i gave the best i could this year i truly all the wisdom tricks uh knowledge physical ability strength i have left effort seconds time you know advice whatever every i i don't have anything left you know and and uh the 13th is is going to be special in that regard of like putting a period on this did dom toretto rsvp yet or no can't make it he's got to save the world.

3:27:26Too bad. I don't want to tell you what it's about,

3:27:30Bill Simmons:but there's cars involved. He gets selfish that way with the cars. Duty calls. John Cena, thank you. Great to do this. Thank you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to John Cena. Thanks to House and Bellany. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. New Rewatchable is coming on Monday. I'll tell you the movie on Sunday night because we haven't taped it yet and I want to make sure it actually gets taped. But in the meantime, you can watch on HBO and HBO Max our first installment of this season of the Music Box series. It is the Jeff Buckley documentary by Amy Berg. It's awesome. It premieres on HBO Thursday night, and then you can find it on HBO Max as well.

3:28:12Bill Simmons:So go check it out. Have a great weekend. I will see you on Sunday with Cousin Sal live after the Sunday night game.

3:28:24I don't have feelings with them.

3:28:54Bill Simmons:helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text hope ny in new york