Arch Manning, NFL Announcers, a New Deal for 'PTI', the Ballmer Scandal, and a Crawford-Canelo Megafight With Van Lathan Jr., Bryan Curtis, and Chris Mannix

21:28Bill Simmons:Put those together, go nuts. Fando.com slash BS for your chance to win a share of$2 million of bonus bets. Play your game with Fando, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Must be 21 plus president in select states or 18 plus in president in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in. Must apply profit boost token on select market. Price pool to be split. among all eligible participants who made the correct first or last TD pick. Bonus issued as non-retrable bonus bet should expire 21 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fando.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLE or visit rg-help.com.

22:06Bill Simmons:Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket, my friend. NFL Sundays are back. You won't want to miss the action. NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, another friend of mine, lets you catch every game every Sunday all in one place. And now, get NFL Sunday Ticket month to month and cancel anytime. Head to youtube.com slash BS and sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games and commercial use. If you cancel YouTube TV, you will lose access to NFL Sunday Ticket.

22:42Bill Simmons:Terms of bargoes, device and content restrictions apply. Commercial use excluded. Renews every month during the 2025 regular season. Cancel anytime. Belichick leaves. Who's the big NFL media story? What's the number one thing? Last year, we had Brady joining. We had Belichick doing NFL. And it was like, oh my God, look at this. Look at this. What is it this year? I think it's J.J. Watt after week one. On the number two team? Yeah, because you know how this goes, Bill. Yeah. It's like the backup quarterback when your quarterback's struggling. Everybody looks over at him and goes, ooh, what about that guy?

23:18I mean, I was like, I was talking to Shoemaker on the press box and I was like, how soon are we going to get people calling for Tony Romo to be replaced by JJ Watt on the number one team? And then I looked on Twitter and basically it already happened.

23:30Bill Simmons:Wow. I was like, oh, I was like, it was like the first quarter of week one. Like, oh, this guy's much better. So you don't feel like Romo got right at the ship at all in the last two years or no? I'm not saying that's correct, but I just think when you put somebody in the number two slot, I mean, look at the Olsen Brady stuff. and that's a different dynamic, but you're always going to have that. And this is something, a network guy told me this when the whole Romo salary explosion happened. I was like, what did you take away from this? And he was like, always have a number two. Always have a backup plan so you don't get held up by your number one guy.

24:02Bill Simmons:Interesting. Olsen did the San Francisco-Seattle game. He's really good. That one is so glaring though. That's so glaring. After a while, I was about to say, actually, I can't say that. I was about to say, it makes me almost feel bad for Tom Brady. Nothing can make me feel bad for Tom Brady. Well, what about his wife dating a jiu-jitsu instructor? That's what I'm talking about. That's good for her. He knows how to do all the different poses and stuff. But for me, nothing can make me feel bad about Tom Brady. But that's a glaring one. The Watt situation, that's interesting to me. Because I actually do think that Romo, who started off on fire and then kind of obviously became a caricature of himself.

24:48Bill Simmons:I think Romo's kind of got it back together now. Yeah, I thought he was better last year. I definitely, he slipped, there's no question, but I thought he seemed a little more locked in. I just thought Aikman and Buck are the best right now, and I don't even think it's arguable. You know, Brady was better week one. Yeah? I don't know how much sound you had. We didn't have the audio for that. I didn't hear any of it because it wasn't on our multi-view. That game was complete trash. Yeah. There was a moment right before the half. He just sounded like, first of all, he just knew what he wanted to say.

25:16He was making one point instead of trying to make five points, which is the rookie announcer mistake. But he had this moment right before the half. Jaden Daniels, they were about to go in and score again. And he throws the ball away, and Brady's like, that's going to be intentional grounding. Ten-second runoff, half is over. And you can feel like Kevin Burkhart and Dean Blandino are like, wait, what? And then the ref comes in, and he was right. And it was one of the first moments I've heard, because you know this, announcers can give you good information, but what you really want is them to be in control.

25:43and to be like five to 10 steps ahead of you as a viewer.

25:47Bill Simmons:Bring up something that I hadn't thought about yet. And that was one of the first moments that Brady did that for me, where I was like, oh, wow. He saw that way before anybody, even in his own booth did. Were you surprised Inside the NFL basically died? You mean it's on X? It's on Twitter as like a short video show. I thought that to me, Inside the NFL would last. I'll Be Dead and It'll Still Be On. It was one of those shows. And then something started to happen with it. And maybe, what is it? Do you think it's just the era we live in now where everything's so fast? I think a couple of things happened.

26:24Number one, I think the Fox studio show market corrected inside the NFL a little bit. I know that - And podcasts, I would throw that into it. Podcasting as well. I know it's not the same thing, but when I was growing up, the coolest bunch of guys, the coolest football discussion was happening inside the NFL, the way those guys would talk about the game. Couldn't agree more. Then it moved to Howie and Terry and all of those guys and that was the coolest one. They had all kinds of other stuff. Jay Glazer was on there. What was the lady that used to come on there when it first started? It's like a really beautiful woman that used to come on there.

27:02Bill Simmons:Oh, Jillian Barbary? Jillian Barbary. Jimmy Kimmel? He used to come on? Yeah, so all of that stuff, they became kind of the cool football show. And that inside the NFL, to me, was never the same. And it was still on HBO at that point, which also was different for a lot of people. You know what I think part of what killed it was all the quips are just online now. Like I watched yesterday, last night after that Viking game, with J.J. McCarthy throws the pick six, has this dramatic comeback as Caleb's cratering on the other side. And he makes some big throws. But they had the locker room. I love the locker room stuff.

27:39Bill Simmons:and Kevin O 'Connell giving him the game ball, being like, everybody in this locker room knew what this guy was going to do, and he did it. And then they cut to J.J. McCarthy, and he's like, yeah! And he gets the ball, and they're all mobbing him. And it's like, that's the kind of thing I would watch inside the NFL for on Wednesday nights because they would have those things. And now I'm getting them instantaneously on wherever. So once I think they lost that, plus, you know, it's just the discourse is just constant. It makes sense it went away. I'm still surprised, though, Curtis. I felt like that was a staple.

28:14Yeah, and the NFL film's footage was always really cool. I mean, that's something that you really couldn't replace. Even if you watched the whole TV game, even if you saw the clips on Twitter, it's still really awesome.

28:23Bill Simmons:The guys talking shit to each other, the wide receivers getting into it, the D-backs. I ate it up. That still, though, is better than anything that's coming out football-related. it's 7 o 'clock in the morning at Commander Stadium or whatever and then the music comes in and then all of a sudden a player comes in. We're gonna get round today baby. We're gonna take them all the way. And then the whole way that that would come out would be fantastic. There's nothing like that now. But even that now. Or there's too much of it now. What do you mean? There's no one that I don't feel like is putting that type of production value that's putting that type of production value into covering an actual game.

29:05But does it need production value

29:06Bill Simmons:if it just exists all the time? If I'm getting it 24-7, why do I need it to be a produced version of it? Yeah, we get the bastardized version. It just feels like we're in no man's land. But what Vance's talking about, that camera coming out of the tunnel into a stadium with the music, oh man, that just gives me chills. There's certain things we just did and it's really weird because the technology is better, the people are smarter, and the equipment's better. And yet, sometimes you'll see on Instagram they'll have like, I don't know, they'll do an intro to the AFC title game from 1997. And it's like, this is fucking awesome.

29:40Bill Simmons:It's just got you more hype. Why? I don't know why we kind of peaked with this stuff 15, 20. Now it's like too elaborate. Well, Brent Musburger 40 years ago going, you're in game five. The Lakers didn't realize that they, you know, and they just would get you ready to go for the game. A couple of things have changed. Well, obviously, technology is one of them. Right now, we have a camera that's zooming all over. That's the draw. It's not the actual guy setting up the game for you anymore. It's the next-gen stats. Say he's running at 25 miles an hour or whatever it is. All of that stuff is kind of the stuff.

30:15And I'm a little older. I'm a little older, so that was the way I— You're nostalgic for the old days. I'm nostalgic for it. That's the way I can see football.

30:20Bill Simmons:Curtis and I are constantly nostalgic. Oh, my God. That's all we do. The thing I miss that you're talking about is the tease before a big game. and Bob Costas was incredible at the tease. And I don't know why they don't do the tease anymore because like if you are a casual fan coming in for the NBA finals or for a big football game, you need to know who the players are, right? You need to know what the stakes are. But if you're somebody like us, the three of us, you're like, hell yes, I'm even more fired up than I already was. I swear it used to be better. YouTube tried to cover a football game.

30:52Bill Simmons:How did that go? Oh, not so well. We got Derek Carr. out of the deal. Derek Carr was good. Were you surprised by that, Vin? Yeah, I'm surprised that he's good at anything. Derek Carr was a good studio guy. Like, shocking. Good for him. It'll take some time. Yeah, Vin needs to see him. It'll take some time. I'm happy for him. I'm happy for his family. Everything went well. It'll take some time before I'm okay with it. What do you think YouTube learned from their first YouTube experience? Well, it was weird because, you know, with Netflix, when they get to do these little one-offs, they basically have their pick of any announcer.

31:27you know so they can put like a cool team it's like what if we got uh you know greg olson and noah eagle and put them together you're like yeah that sounds good youtube had a weird one because every nfl announcer had a job that weekend so they could not go around and be like let's pick a dream team let's put together who we want so they just have to find people so i think in a way it's probably just a one-off if youtube had more nfl and they probably will have more nfl when the NFL tears up these contracts in 2029. I think they'll be better at it. I think it was just kind of weird, but it was so strange.

32:01We're sitting on a Friday night. Everybody's focused on it, right? It's day two of the NFL season. It's kind of like, hmm. It's in Brazil.

32:09Bill Simmons:It's Kay Adams and Cam Newton at halftime. I like that. You like Cam. Yeah, I think Cam is making a fantastic career for himself post-playing days. I think he's a lightning Rod. He's not fake. Afraid to stick his nose in there and give an opinion. I like Cam. You know what I thought that they should have? Interesting. Interesting take. I like him. Fourth and one especially. Cam on fourth and one especially. Just watching him. He's got a lot of charisma. It's going to work out. It's going to be great. You know what I think they should have? I think they should have a, since the games are going to go to YouTube, we know that this is going to happen eventually.

32:44They should have it where you can call the game on YouTube, like you and your friends. Oh,

32:51Bill Simmons:alternate stream. From your house and then people can watch you call the game. You should be able to be, you should be able to, the NFL should have a system where they let you call the game. I think all this stuff's coming. I actually think we're going to have all this in 10 years. People can watch, they can go, oh, I want to go watch Van and Jomie call the game. And then me and Jomie call the whole game and then we build subscribers based upon us as a little unit calling football games. I actually think that could happen. Democratize it. you know, Van and I didn't, didn't play in the NFL. Neither did you, Brian Curtis.

33:27Bill Simmons:We're non-players. Are non-players qualified to discuss sports? Cause that kicked up again. Is this, there's these cycles of the same stories that happen with sports media. And we've had, what is this average? Like once every 18 months, this happens? For the last hundred years. It's like every 18 months this comes back. In the locker room. Yeah. And said, and the player, how could you possibly understand? Cause you didn't play the game. I thought there were two layers to that. One is the whole, you know, you are disqualified. You don't get to have an opinion here because you couldn't possibly understand part of it, which is you say, it's like as old as time.

34:00But then if I may infer a little bit, there's the, there's only so many reps to go around at ESPN part of the equation. There's something under underneath it, you say. Well, and I don't know that I haven't talked to Ryan Clark about that, but here comes this guy, new guy, who starts in the spring. My friend. And you're like, oh, he's getting run on Get Up, First Take. Shiny new toy. Right. He's getting on some shows. Yeah. So I'll say this. And this is the question, if anybody cares to ask. We've seen this go back and forth. Like when JJ was on First Take, he never outright said this. But he did carry himself a lot of times with the air of, let me tell you what happened and how the game was actually played.

34:48Bill Simmons:Yeah. Right? And you see guys - I understand this better than you because I played. There's got to be a level where that's true, right? By the way, that is 100 % true. It's maybe not in the way that Ryan expressed it to Peter right there. But at some point, the players are on these shows because they actually did it. I remember one time, Kevin Durant, who is notoriously - He's notoriously - He doesn't talk a lot to people on social media. He doesn't really use it that much. but that's a joke but he actually said something that was very it took me a second he said something that was very funny on social media he was like you shouldn't be if i can't if you can't hit seven elbow jumpers in a row you should not be able to talk basketball with me and that seems like a dick thing to say yeah but i on a level i get it like on a level i i do kind of understand someone saying that if you're going to tell me what I need to be doing in the game and how I need to be moving the ball and getting to my spot, shouldn't you have at some point, in some way, either had enough skin in the game, covering it over the course of decades, or have done it yourself?

36:01Bill Simmons:I had this when the year that I did TV with Magic Johnson, where we'd be arguing like you and I would argue. But at some point, he's Magic Johnson. And he's just, yeah. At some point, I'd probably lose if we're diametrically opposed on an argument because he's just going to know more about basketball than me. But I think the thing you can do is do as much homework as you can. Be prepared. Come up with ideas and takes. What I didn't like about what Ryan did, and I don't know him, you know him. When you're on live TV with people, there's a nakedness to that. You really have to trust everybody you're with.

36:38Bill Simmons:And I've been in situations where you completely trust the people you're with and it's great. And I've been in situations where I did not trust at least one of the people I was with. And it sucks because if somebody tries to flip something on you or make you look bad in some way or screw you up on live TV and either they're doing it intentionally or unwittingly, intentionally is worse. It's just fucked up. And I felt like that moment, whether Ryan intended to do that or not, he was doing it in a way to put Peter on his heels on live TV. And live TV is a wee thing. It's not a zero sum game. You're on a show.

37:20Bill Simmons:Everybody's got to win if you're doing this show. And once you bring that element into it, I think it's really hard to put that genie back in the bottle. That was my take. And he apologized for it. And he obviously knows, like, hey man, that's not where I want to be when I'm doing television. Let me tell you another thing that I'm kind of about. And obviously it's something that's regrettable and he regretted it, he apologized for it. You know what else I'm about? Because I'm this toxic. I'm about just sometimes having the fucked up interaction. Right. I'm for actually, hey, I said the wrong thing.

37:56I did the wrong thing. Because in that saying, what people don't talk about was Peter defended himself on live TV. He said, yo, don't belittle me like that. Right?

38:06Bill Simmons:Which I loved. I think he had to do it. So in that situation, we could all say, hey, that's not what we want to do to one another. But I don't mind making the mistake and getting up right to the level of what's appropriate and being able to set that boundary with a coworker. I think the real thing is, do you leave with more respect for that person? And that was the issue. And that's the do you leave with more respect for that person and an understanding of why you shouldn't do something like that or why it's not good for the viewers to see it. And the thing is, Curtis, I actually thought what Ryan was trying to say was pretty interesting.

38:42Bill Simmons:He was basically like, I see your point. Here's why you're wrong. And I'm just saying this to somebody. There was a way he could have said it. It was like, I'm just saying this to somebody who played. I don't care if I had a good game. If I made the play that fucked up the game for my team, that's all I would think about that night. And none of this other stuff would matter. It's just the way he said it. But I actually thought it was a really interesting point. You know what it reminded me of? I remember when Lamar Jackson and the Ravens lost the Bills in the playoffs last year. And every smart football person, you know, got on Twitter and was like, this is not Lamar Jackson's fault.

39:13This is not. It's Mark Andrews' fault. It's not his fault. And then if you actually listen to Lamar Jackson in his press conference, he was like, I didn't play well enough to win today. Like, he wasn't thinking like that. He didn't want football nerds to be like, no, no, we're defending. Like, he had a very personal reaction to the game. And I think that's what Ryan was actually trying to say, right? Like, CeeDee Lamb balled out for 95 % of the game, but he didn't for the last 5%. He's not going home looking at his stats, being like, I did great today, you know? But again, I think it's other baggage coming into it that had nothing to do with what they were talking about.

39:44It felt. Yeah. It's TV. To Van's point, I think if it was a podcast, you would actually just lean into that interaction, be like, wait, let's talk about this for the next 20 minutes. Yeah, you're not throwing a commercial.

39:54Bill Simmons:It's a good point. Well, and also, Mike Greenberg did nothing. He just sat there. Like, the host should actually be like, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Guys, let's reign this in. It's funny. I do live TV every now and again. I go on CNN. Bill loves to see me on CNN. I get it. He drives me crazy. He loves it when I go on CNN. I do too. Abby Phillip, man. That's a great show. See, look at that. Look what he's doing for me. Don't encourage him, Brian. And there is a very delicate dance that you're doing with people, even at that table where we all have these opposing political points and points of view, there's still a way that you want to make sure you don't cut people off too much.

40:37You don't want to come across yelling at someone. There's still, we're on TV right now. So let's try not to make each other look bad. We can try to make each other look stupid because we're throwing out intellectual points, but now let's not bully each other and make everyone look bad.

40:52Bill Simmons:It's so easy to undermine somebody when you're doing any kind of show with them. You can undermine somebody's point. In all these subtle ways, you can do it with how you're sitting, what your demeanor is, no selling. We always talk, it's like professional wrestling. You're doing your move, your pile driver on me. I'm going to act like it hurt. And then I do a move, you're going to act like it hurt. And that's how you do it. And some people on TV, especially now, it's like the louder and louder you get on TV, the more people notice you. The professional wrestling selling part seems to be going out the window a little bit.

41:28Bill Simmons:And it's something I think Stephen A is still really good at. When he's with the right people, like when he's with Mad Dog, he sells the shit out of Mad Dog. That whole thing, it's like really fun to watch because he gets it. That's why Stephen A is really good at what he does. PTI is another one. Kornheiser, the best person I've ever done TV with. They just re-signed for three more years. Kornheiser is technically contractually signed to do PTI until he's 80 years old. Wow. And this show started, I think, what, 2002, Brian? 2001. 2001. It makes really no sense with anything else at ESPN at this point.

42:07Bill Simmons:It's on for a half hour. I don't even know who leads it in. It just seems like it's going to go on forever. They'll never cancel it. It's those guys' show. They should be the ones who decide whether it goes away or not. and Kornheiser's for 10 years has been like, I'm too old. I called him today to make fun of him. I'm too old. I look like a Muppet. I shouldn't be on TV anymore. He'll never leave that show. That show will go on forever. But what was your reaction when you heard it was coming back? I think the reason we're happy it's coming back is because it's one of the last links to old ESPN.

42:39Yeah. That company's changed so much over the last couple of years. And I think you can argue for the better. They had to change. You know, the world's changing like so rapidly, the whole media world. But you look back, it's like it's 2001, right? That's what old ESPN counts as now. Not the 90s, not the 80s, 2001. And, you know, what else? Maybe Berman, you know, doing primetime in the form it's in now. Dickie V still around. Like, what are the other links to that world?

43:08Bill Simmons:Oh, 2001 was when I got to ESPN. It's 2001. One, people who were born the year that show existed are now getting married and having kids. Yeah, a little early. They need to go out and experience life more. But yeah, they could. It's good advice. But, you know, I look back at PTI or I look at PTI. PTI is the best version of the Sports 2 Man. because the Sports 2 Man went from PTI and then it went to First Take. And First Take is a groundbreaking show, particularly the iteration of First Take that I'm talking about is Skip and Stephen A. It's a groundbreaking show. But we have to be honest about First Take insofar as First Take is a show that you can make an argument broke sports media in a way because it changed discussion from having a take.

44:10And it... The slogan was literally embrace debate.

44:14Bill Simmons:Embrace debate. People hated it for years. When you are always doing that, it becomes not the ethos of your show. It becomes the shtick of your show. Sometimes, Kornheiser and Wilbon, they have completely awesome conversations about things that they agree on. About things that they are... Sometimes they're going against each other, But sometimes they're just yes-anding each other. And it's in the curation of the topics and the actual, them opining on sports culture that is the interesting thing. It's not the fight itself. Well, you know what's interesting about what you just said? They've earned that because you know they'll also disagree if it's time to disagree.

44:53When it's time to disagree.

44:54Bill Simmons:So when they agree, it's almost like what Siskel and Ebert had. We were like, oh yeah, these guys both like this movie. They're not going to try to zag against each other. I still think it's a really good show. I think it's the most important thing anyone created this decade or this century from a sports standpoint. It certainly is the most ripped off of any show, right? I mean, there's nothing. I don't think there's anything that comes close. You have to go back to 2001. Like, we're all kind of in the same business now in the media. We're all in the TV, audio, right? It was one business. Back then, it was not one business.

45:29It was writer or television.

45:32Bill Simmons:Yeah. And all of a sudden, those two guys go to TV and everybody who's in writing took us a while, but everybody's in writing is like, I could do something like that. That looks appealing to me. That looks like a version of what I would be talking about in the Washington Post newsroom or talking about at home with one of my best friends. And I think that's still the magic of PTIs. You can still look at it and be like, man, if I had a show like that, that would be the most fun thing in the world. I think all roads lead from Mike and the Mad Dog and PTI for all the shit that everybody is doing with sports now.

46:02Bill Simmons:It's like whatever, even like what we're doing right now, whatever that is of like, I'm hanging out with somebody I like and we're arguing about shit. It starts with that, with Mike and the Mad Dog and PTI. And PTI was way more structured and better and like tighter. Here are my opinions. They'll go back and forth. The format was just perfect. People could step in and host it for them, but it was never quite the same if they weren't on it. And I don't know. I always call them my uncles, but they're just like the two of them together, I still get a fucking kick out of it. And it doesn't make sense because it's almost 25 years.

46:39Bill Simmons:You would think you would even get tired of hearing your two uncles argue about sports after a while, right? Well, now they're almost the only game in town doing it that way. So if you want what they do, you kind of have to go to them for it. So it's almost made them more valuable in a way now than even they were. Because, you know, at some point, ESPN, it flipped. I remember PTI came out. PTI was this gigantic deal hit from the beginning. But then at some point, it flipped. At some point, you know, Cold Pizza, remember when it was Cold Pizza and all of these shows, they come along and PTI becomes more like the consistent show there.

47:16Well, now, it's a lot of these shows are going away. These personalities have changed. and it exists and it's still kind of the only place you can get what it is that they're doing. So it's even more special.

47:26Bill Simmons:Did you believe Burt Magnus when he said the show lasts as long as they want to do it? Like, I wonder, once they don't want to do it, does the show still exist? I believe him when he says as long as they want to do it, because I think they're in that handful of people at ESPN who have the lifetime contract. Hubie had it Dick Vitale had it Lee Corso had it when they walk they walk away when they want to walk away yeah it's a really tiny list as you know most people don't leave ESPN under their own power I didn't crack it but I was about to go there you beat me to it do you want PTI to exist post no Tony and Mike I don't know hell nah the show should leave just like inside the NBA like they are the show it's you can put other people in it and guest host it but it's not the same.

48:17Bill Simmons:Is there anyone out there, anybody out there right now that you could see filling in for those two guys? Just create a different show. Just make it something slightly different and do it that way and keep most of the elements you like. That show should end with them. And they shouldn't, I don't know. That's how I feel, but we'll see how it goes. Anyway, Tony's going to be doing it until he's 80. How old was Cosell when he lost his mind in the mid-80s? like mid 60s yeah I don't think he was that old people looked older in those days I'm excited for Tony to start getting a little like gamey on the air we'll get the next step be like whoa Uncle Tony let it fly it's not like he hasn't gone to the edge of controversy before it's happened alright Curtis anything else we have to cover or are we good I think we're good.

49:14Bill Simmons:We did it. It's great to see you as always. It's Curtis and I. This is our 15th year working together. That's insane. Yeah. 15th year. We're going back to Grantland? Yeah. 2000. Hired Curtis in spring of 2011. So yeah, we're 15. Bill's like my uncle. How has Bill changed? God, I think almost less than anybody. Yeah. I mean, like Bill the person. I'm pretty stable. Yeah. Well, Curtis interviewed me for the first time. What was it? 04? He did a piece on me. That was when we met. You reached out. When the Red Sox book came out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even know if that piece is on the internets at this point.

49:52I think it is. It's called The Bard of the Red Sox.

49:55Bill Simmons:Oh, interesting. Yeah, that was how I met Curtis. And then always kind of monitor him. And then when I was thinking about Grantland, I had this list of writers. And I was like, if they ever let me do this site, I have this person and this person. And he was always on that list. And now we're still working together. And he's hosted the Press Box with your guy, Joel Anderson. You share custody. Yeah, I did. And with Shoemaker as well, but with Joel as well. I did Press Box with Joel. It was fantastic. Me and Joel, you have to listen to Ringer Tailgate. Me and Joel's dynamic. Me and Joel might be the new PTI with Tate there as a referee.

50:31Bill Simmons:Joel is, any worries about Joel being comfortable on the show were erased in about five minutes. Done. Yeah. He's into it. He's aggressive with it. It's a great show. Oh, my God. He's the best. And I'm fortunate enough because Joel just trolls me all day on a college football Saturday, just text me all this shit over and over again, especially when the Longhorns look bad. And I'm like, he's a natural for this. I guess you didn't make that thread. Excuse me. I like this. I'm good to know that he's not just doing it to me. Yeah. Because this is just his personality because the first time - He shares the wealth.

51:04The three of us are on the podcast and we're all talking about college football. And Joel comes out at the end and he goes, fuck LSU. I'm like, what? why would you fuck me? why did you say this? and now I know because this is what he does on Ring Your Tailgate now I know he does it to you too and that makes me feel better I thought he had some kind of problem I was going to go let the air out of his tires

51:24Bill Simmons:every week he loves it Curtis a pleasure as always good to see you hook him Bill this episode is brought to you by TikTok did you know you can use TikTok to connect even more with the sports you love? it's not just highlights it's everything around the game including the sports community Find breakdowns of classic basketball plays, deep dives on baseball stats, even videos on how athletes train and recover. There are people teaching strategy, sports, history, even ways to improve your jump shot. It's kind of like the biggest locker room ever and everyone's sharing what they know on TikTok. This message is brought to you by Mariner.

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52:35Bill Simmons:Here's how it works. Place a$5 anytime TD bet on the game using the promo PBT. In addition to the chance to win your bet, you can win a share of the 2 million in bonus bets FanDuel is giving away if your player scores the first TD or the last TD. Fun things to root for. If your player scores the first TD, you split 1 million in bonus bets with everyone that bet the same player. There's another$1 million jackpot for the last TD score. So I would go Tucker Craft for both. I think he scores the touchdown in this game. Just double up. Do first TD, last TD. if you can only put him on the first TD maybe put like Terry McLaurin as the last TD because I think the Packers are going to win this one going away be sure to check out the TD Jackpot promo for Thursday Night Football this week and each subsequent Thursday over at our friends on FanDuel Sportsbook alright we're taping this it is Tuesday afternoon Pacific time here with Van Lathan and we have Chris Mannix on the TV I feel like this is like a real TV show Van yeah bring it in Chris Van Van called for this Van texted me last week he said, I've been studying Crawford and Canelo nonstop.

53:42Bill Simmons:And I just want to go into it on the pod. I'm like, okay, that's fine. But first we have to talk about this Clipper scandal, which I know you've covered a bunch. Did you get up to speed on this fan? I have. Okay. Mannix, you have been on the side of, maybe this is the Massachusetts in you very suspicious of the Clipper story. I would, I would describe you as a skeptic of the Clippers being like, how did this happen? What have you learned the last few days and are you still as much of a skeptic? Well, my skepticism, it really flows from the idea that if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, chances are it's a duck.

54:24And it also flows from the belief that stuff like this is not, you know, uncommon in the NBA that we see teams doing some kind of deals that provide sweeteners to players. What has astonished me and what's astonished most of the league types that I've talked to is the sheer magnitude of it. The amount of money that appears to have been, well, that was given to Kawhi Leonard. and may have been directed his way. I mean,$7 million per year is not nothing. I mean, I don't know what Kawhi's deal is with New Balance, but is it$7 billion per year? And Kawhi's up there doing commercials for New Balance.

55:13He's wearing New Balance gear. For this company, he did absolutely nothing. So I wouldn't say that I've learned anything new over the last few days. It's just that every NBA person I talk to is deeply suspicious that this is some kind of, you know, rogue outfit that on its own paid Kawhi Leonard $7 million per year to do nothing. And that's the key, Van. He didn't do anything. He didn't even do, like, local ads. Yeah, I guess the question is, that part of it everyone knows. But I saw Cuban, he went on Pablo's show, and they duked it out for what Pablo said was three hours that they cut down to like an hour and 15 minutes or whatever.

55:58And the question, the central question is, how much of this did Steve Ballmer and the ownership of the Clippers know? Right? There's a world where you could make up a scenario where this is Uncle Dennis going around trying to get what he's trying to get from the Raptors and then from the Clippers. But if that's not the case, then what you're saying is that all of this is taking place. Somebody runs it up to Steve Ballmer. as Steve Ballmer goes, yes, go ahead and do that. Which I could believe, but it does seem like Ballmer is going to have a lot of space between what happened and him being involved in it to say, I didn't know anything.

56:38And what is the smoking gun to prove that? Can we talk about, you know, this has been such a - Can I just, one thing, like, the one thing that gets, and I think Howard wrote about this on The Ringer today, like, there doesn't need to be a smoking gun for there to be punishment. like there you know this is not a court of law where they have to have an email from steve ballmer that gives like the thumbs up emoji to go and do this underhanded deal between kawaii and aspiration the nba just has to believe it there has to be enough circumstantial evidence yeah for the nba to believe something like this happened i think that needs to be taken into account this is what i've been hearing from from execs being like it look i think adam Silver would love to have that smoking gun.

57:22Remember the Minnesota situation? There was the smoking gun. There were actual emails between the two agents.

57:27Bill Simmons:It was all down on paper. But as much as Adam would like to have that, he doesn't need that to bring the hand of God down on the Clippers. Can I say something real quick just to that? So let's say he doesn't have it. Think about how destabilizing it's going to be to enact a punishment against the Clippers. It's almost, to me, it seems as if you didn't have that smoking gun, you'd almost want to punt on it because the hand of God that comes down on the Clippers for engaging in this type of malfeasance would have to be so severe that if you don't have the smoking gun, would you even want to do that based upon circumstantial evidence?

58:08I don't know that this league office is going to have the appetite for it because Especially with the All-Star game coming in February.

58:17Bill Simmons:Yeah, a lot of variables. A lot of variables. I don't know if this league office is going to have the appetite for it, but Van, use the word destabilizing. How destabilizing, though, is it to do nothing? Theoretically, there are people that wholeheartedly believe that the Clippers skirted ironclad rules. And if they did, look what they were able to do with it. Number one, they were taking some money out of owners' pockets because if they had paid Kawhi the full max the second time around, then that would have added to their tax burden, which would have meant more money flowing out of the LA Clippers.

58:52They also were able to do things cap-wise or signing players-wise, like guys here to pick up because they had more flexibility. So I would turn it back to you on this, Van. How destabilizing would it be for a league to have the richest owner in the NBA allegedly, theoretically, just flaunt the rules in order to keep some money in his pocket, but more importantly, be able to build the kind of team he wanted to. Yeah, I mean, there seems to be common knowledge that everybody's doing this. Like, I haven't heard about it on this level. Not at the number that this guy's got. Not at this number. So this is what I'll say.

59:29I definitely believe, I don't think there's any way, and it was interesting to hear Cuban and Pablo go back and forth, because Cuban almost seemed like he was defending his own reputation. Like, these are my guys. Like, remember Blue Chips? Tony's my guy. My guy. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't do that. Tough-ass kid from Chicago. That's what Cuban was doing. It seems to me very unlikely that Steve Ballmer didn't know about this. It seems impossible, right, that he didn't have it announced.

59:57Bill Simmons:Chris made the big point, though. The suspension or whatever can happen, losing draft picks, voiding the contract, whatever it is, this is basically the OJ civil trial versus the OJ trial. You only need to kind of think something happened and have enough evidence to be like, I think that happened. So we're doing this. The question is how much evidence - This isn't an actual trial. We're like, we are proving this indisputably that you did this. I don't think they have to do that for the lead to crack down and be like, dude, something smells with this. You gave 50 million of these guys. He's getting 28 million to do nothing.

1:00:30Bill Simmons:Like you can say there's no smoking gun, but something happened here and we're punishing you. and I think that's how this plays out it's the 28 million and it's the nothing like if he had just gone out there and done one of those stupid H-E-B commercials that the Spurs did back in the day or if he had posted once a year about his love for eliminating the carbon footprint we would not be having this particular conversation and I think it comes down to it either has to be a Timberwolves like hand of God punishment because they believe that the Clippers circumvented the cap or it's got to be nothing.

1:01:07They cannot find a middle ground. There can't be like, okay, we're going to dock you.

1:01:11Bill Simmons:I disagree. I think they can still punish them for some piece of this. Like a second round pick? No, I think it's somewhere between Joe Smith and nothing would be my guess on this. That's got to lean closer to Joe Smith though. But if they do that, then it's like them trying to say that you can get a little bit pregnant. Right? Because either you did it, and if you did it, it's such a shot at the competitive balance in the league. Can you imagine them not doing anything now? What I'm saying is the choice for the league is whether or not to make this story right now, which is a huge sports story.

1:01:51The choice is whether or not to make this the biggest sports story of the decade, which is what you do.

1:01:57Bill Simmons:Like a Donahue level type thing. Donahue is way worse. Which is what you do. Let me put it on something else. One thing that Stern did well, and it's always going to come back to what would Stern do. We are barely going to make those. It'll be a secret to your retirement.

1:02:13Stern liked to make examples, right? He liked to throw an elbow. You know, in 2000, you know, the Timberwolves did it. He came down with the harshest punishment he possibly could. Malice in the palace, he said to Ron Artest, you're out. You can't do this. This is the harshest punishment we could possibly come up with. Even something on a small there. I remember when the Spurs were like benching guys DNP old and stuff like that. Like they handed out one of the largest fines ever for something like that. Like, old NBA was willing to throw an elbow and to come down with swift punishments and severe punishments to make an example of someone.

1:02:51It remains to be seen whether this version of it is willing to do the same.

1:02:55Bill Simmons:Can we talk about how funny this story is? I know it's not supposed to be funny, but let's be honest. Nobody got hurt. Rules were broken, but it didn't help the Clippers. Nothing really happened. They've won three playoff series in six years. First of all, aspiration. That's what it's called, right? Aspiration. I've lived in LA this whole decade. They were allegedly a sponsor for Clipper Games. I'd never heard of the company. I don't, I'm not saying I have to hear about everything, but it was like this, we're trying to make the environment safer, but they're somehow funneling all this money. And it's basically a Ponzi scheme slash, let's just try to take as much money as we can from people.

1:03:34Bill Simmons:Kawhi getting 28 million for four years to do nothing. And then my favorite part of this, Uncle Dennis, who was a hilarious character in 2019. We all heard these stories. It became like that Bill Braski SNL sketch where it was like, I heard Uncle Dennis asked for a yacht and an elephant. And you just never knew what was true and not true. And now Uncle Dennis is back in our lives just asking for shit. I just think, I think this is almost a funnier story than like, people are taking this so seriously. And it's like, yeah, if they did it, they're going to lose all these picks. but this is like crazy that they thought they could get away with this.

1:04:12Bill Simmons:I'm almost like in awe of how stupid this is. You know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm interested more though in the ripple effects of what a punishment could be. Like if I knew the punishment was just going to be some money in a second round pick, I probably wouldn't care quite as much or be quite as invested in finding out exactly what the truth here is. But the reality is that the outcome could be A, catastrophic for the Clippers, and B, in like the nuclear scenario, could put like a top 10 player on the open market to be signed by somebody if they decide to void the contract of Kawhi Leonard.

1:04:48So that to me is the most interesting angle of all this. What the fallout could be if the NBA determines the Clippers did this.

1:04:55Bill Simmons:Is that like the worst thing in the world if they void it though? And have him go back. I mean, they don't have to pay him$50 million a year. I don't even know if he can play 50 games. I mean, I know it's not great. They have title aspirations. You're talking about it from a basketball perspective. I would say losing the draft picks would be the thing that killed me. But there's also something else that's going on here. And it's like a social thing, right? Steve Ballmer is one of the richest men in the world. Yeah. Right. And so when you watch these interviews or watch these people talk, it seems like this is a situation where there are some people that are looking at this.

1:05:25It's like, shouldn't he have to follow the rules too? Shouldn't Steve Ballmer have to follow the rules too? There are rules that are put in place so that mega rich guys can't just go spend whatever they want on any player that they want so that there is some balance. You know, I get deeply into way too deeply into Twitter, much to the chagrin of a lot of people around here. Including this guy. There you go. But there are people who went, yo, man, I just want to let you know, this bomber clipper situation. This is a microcosm for our whole society where rich people feel like they could just do whatever they want and make whatever rules they want.

1:06:01and the rest of us just have to go along with it. So there are people that are looking at this and they're saying, hey, if Kawhi is on no-show jobs or if he's getting no-show jobs to the tune of, what is it,$50 million,$30 million?

1:06:14Bill Simmons:$28 million and$20 million of worthless stuff. $30 million to circumvent the cap. They want to see their basketball gods like rein their hand down on this and kind of nip it in the bud. I almost want it to be more money than it was. It's right in that middle zone of like the 28 million. Sure. That's great. But Kawhi was making 50 plus million a year. Right. And it's, it's like, all right, a lot of money to the rest of it. No, but you got to grease them up with extra money, but it's not worth, it's not enough money to risk like his reputation for the rest of his life. Ball, Ballmer being suspended, but with seven draft picks, it's not like he's funneling$200 million worth of stock or some crazy thing.

1:06:56Bill Simmons:It's like, it's like he's wetting his beak. Here's a little extra for you, Kawhi. Here's 8 % extra on top of your salary that I'm going to funnel your way so you'll stay with us. But here's one of the things I don't understand. Kawhi was hurt when this happened. He tore an ACL. So why did they have to pay him beyond the salary cap to make sure he stayed on the Clippers? Where was he going? He was hurt. Well, I'm not focused on that first contract. I'm more focused on the second contract. Well, that's what I mean, though. The one of the three-year... Well, that was less than max. Was he hurt then?

1:07:29Yeah, he was hurt.

1:07:30Bill Simmons:Three years ago? And it was less than Max. He's been hurt so many times. It was very... But it's less than Max. But what does that less than Max allow them to do, Bill? Like, what did that less than Max, did that open up avenues for them to do certain things? It got them Russell Westbrook, who helped them lose in round one. I mean, it didn't really do that much. I'm not saying their decisions were... That's why I think the story's funny. First of all, if they did do it this way, where they're like, hey, Uncle Dennis wants more money, Bomber's like, all right, let's use that aspiration. that weird tree site.

1:07:59Bill Simmons:We'll all give them money and just have them give half of it to Uncle Dennis and nobody will find out. This fucking random company. What's the worst thing that could happen? Oh, nothing. This will never come out. I just think this is so stupid that that would be what actually happened and yet it might be what actually happened. The funniest thing about the story to me is the two people that could give a shit less about any of this are Uncle Dennis and Kawhi. Oh, yeah. Dude, I would be so surprised if Kawhi Leonard's heart rate or blood pressure went up one beat or one point. Is he going to apologize to his fans?

1:08:38None of this.

1:08:39Bill Simmons:I'd like to apologize to all the Kawhi believers out there. I'm sorry. Never. He's the one in the middle of this. It's all about and over him. And I can guarantee you he couldn't give a shit about any of this that's happening. in the worst case scenario if he is back on the the free agent market him and uncle dennis get to go to another team and ask to be environmentalist somewhere else so like maybe he could go to another city and he could teach him about climate change help him clean up the city well do you even blame kawaii no in these circumstances no because guys ask for stuff all the time like that's been something that i've had covered even just a couple hours ago with the gm like guys ask for things constantly.

1:09:23It's like if it's almost the analogy would be like if you have like a young, you have a young kid who is up at 10 o 'clock at night says, hey, can I get a candy bar? Right. I want to go. I want a Snickers bar before bed. You don't blame the kid for eating it. You get blamed for giving it to him. Right. Like the kid, it's the kid's job to ask. It's almost it's Kawhi's job. It's even frankly, Uncle Dennis's job to ask for as much as you can possibly get. it's the general manager's job the owner's job to say no and there's a possibility at least that they didn't say no

1:09:55Bill Simmons:Mannix, how many what's the over-under players, owners and front office executives who are sweating fucking bullets this last week with all the chicanery that happens in this league and all the yeah, use our team plane to go to wherever and then just make sure you bring it back and Oh, yeah, your buddies, you guys want to go to Vegas? Take the plane. Oh, here's this. Oh, here's this little endorsement thing. Like, there has to be people sweating bullets. Look, if over the last 10, 15 years, your star player took less money, you know that if the Clippers get punished, you're going to wind up in somebody's crosshairs.

1:10:38You're going to wind up, you could wind up being investigated. Look, that's the humorous thing to me about the Cuban defense. And I have no knowledge of what was going on with his teams. But like, you know, who in the history in the last 20 years has taken less money to stay with a team than Dirk Nowitzki did years ago? Like, I mean, it was a huge.

1:11:00Bill Simmons:Dude, I was on this podcast when Dirk had that documentary and Cuban's company bought it. And I would make multiple jokes on multiple pods about how he spent like Iron Man level money on the Dirk doc. Here's 48 million for your diet. Like, who knows what he spent? But it was technically legal, whatever he spent, right? Magnolia buys the dock. Sure. It's like smart business. There's just a lot. There's a lot of things that you can do that maybe don't necessarily pass the smell test. So I think that's... Well, how about the season tickets? How about like the guys, the best friend of the guy who's always sitting courtside?

1:11:32Bill Simmons:I wonder how he got those tickets or the suite or just whatever. Like, what do people think happens? Look, it's... They think this stuff happens. it's just this would be the most million dollars well this would be again that's the big thing the number the number and the fact that he did nothing that that keeps coming up the fact you know stuff like this like you remember the deandre jordan stuff from 10 years ago that was like 200 or 200 grand or something like that yeah some kind of endorsement deal that the nba caught them uh trying to do like those kind of things i'm sure happen on a regular basis here borrow my jet here my private estate in Aspen, whatever that may be.

1:12:09$28 million is a number that people can't seem to come off of.

1:12:14Bill Simmons:Well, and then the other thing that's funny is Bomber's defense is basically, I have a bunch of idiots working for me and I guess I didn't fully realize it. You got scammed. Yeah, and I got scammed and I have a bunch of dumbasses. That's your defense. The funniest part to me is imagining, just like, you remember the Sopranos episode where they're all sitting around, all the mobsters are sitting around, and Finn walks up, and they tell him, Finn, sit down. You don't have to do anything. We're just hanging out. You know what I mean? Before he gets sexually harassed by one of the capos in the family.

1:12:48And just imagine Kawhi in that situation. Kawhi, essentially a part of illegal by the NBA standards scheme, no show job. He's a part of the scheme. He's a part of the racket. That's hysterical to me. That's funny to me.

1:13:03Bill Simmons:Well, how about aspiration? Nobody at any point during any of the meetings is like, I mean, he's got to film a commercial for us, right? And they're like, no, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. Just make sure the check clears to Uncle Dennis. Yeah, I mean, they didn't even try to fake some sort of like the flower shop in the town. It's like, yeah, no, Kawhi opened a flower store. Kawhi opened a karaoke place in Koreatown. Like, none of that. It's lazy. All he would have had to have done was take one flight, build one basketball court, I'm Kawhi Leonard. All he would have to do is one thing and it would have been like he earned the money.

1:13:40And the fact that it's him of all athletes. I think you're even overestimating what he would have had to do. Just tweet one time like a season. Like give yourself some plausible deniability here. Like that, that is one area where it looks like if it plays out like it looks like that Kawhi might have screwed the Clippers over there by not doing literally anything for this company. And having a contract that spells out that you don't have to do anything. Like, it's just, it's so implausible to believe that this is not what it looks like.

1:14:12Bill Simmons:So the only case that I could come up with for Ballmer, and I think Michael Rosenberg at Sports Illustrated made some variation of this. But basically, this place is trying to hustle Ballmer. They're trying to get as much money out of him as possible. And they think, if we just give Kawhi this huge thing, that'll tie Ballmer to us even more. He's already given us$50 million. We'll give$28 million back to Kawhi. Maybe we'll be able to get like$300 million from Ballmer. And this was like some sort of long play Ponzi scheme thing. I was like, all right. I test drove that for a couple minutes. And I was like, that's interesting.

1:14:47Bill Simmons:But it doesn't add up to him not doing any work whatsoever for$28 million. I just can't figure it out. The thing that makes the most sense, which is always how these things are litigated in people's minds. I don't know the investigation that the NBA will do. It'll have all these different steps. But the thing that makes the most sense is that Steve Ballmer's in the Clippers and the Clippers tried to go around the salary cap to pay Kawhi Leonard more money. That's the thing that makes the most sense. Well, it's like that Amy Bradley where she falls off the cruise ship, that Netflix thing. And there's like 17 theories of what happened.

1:15:20Bill Simmons:It's like, oh, maybe she just fell off the cruise ship. Yeah. And that might've been what the answer was. Well, we'll find out. I've reached the, I think a lot of this has been pretty funny. Like even ESPN yesterday, they were talking about it and they were going through all the sponsors that like Joel Embiid. Well, he, I think McManaman was doing it. Joel Embiid, the team had to deal with this. And Joel Embiid, he also did a thing. It's like, no, but none of those people were making$28 million to do nothing from a team sponsor. And they did something. That's the whole thing. Like Jason Tatum's got to deal with a Celtics sponsor.

1:15:51Like he's in all these commercials. Like they're all doing something. It comes back to the fact that he did absolutely nothing. He got paid$7 million per year. That, I don't know how you explain that away. That, to me, is going to be the hardest part of it. You're saying that Tatum's involved in something. Hey. No, no, no. Pablo made some calls. That's what I want to see.

1:16:11Bill Simmons:That's a war with me and Pablo. I want to see part two. If he goes after Tatum? I want to see. That's it. I want to see. That's the franchise that we really need to be keeping our eye on. No, that's not the show. The one that regularly appears on NBC Sports Boston, there are lots of Tatum commercials doing that stuff. So he's providing services. He's putting the time. All right, we're taking a break and then let's talk about the fight. This episode is brought to you by ChatGBT. Imagine you're running a professional sports team. Nice. Imagine the player contract report is due today. Not so nice.

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1:17:19Bill Simmons:Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started. Just go to ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Whether you're racing to build the biggest sandcastle, seeing who can throw the fastest pitch or competing in a championship match, it's always better when there's a prize on the line. Like Michelob Ultra, smooth, refreshing, and so satisfying after all that hard work. Superior is worth playing for. Michelob Ultra, Superior Light Beer. Enter for a chance to win Superior Soccer, Basketball, and Golf Prizes at MichelobUltra.com slash Superior Access.

1:18:00Bill Simmons:Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026, Anheuser-Busch. Michelob Ultra Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. And now it's time for a special part of today's episode brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I know technically there's no such thing is too much NFL. But on 1 p.m. on a Sunday, E.T., 10 a.m. in the morning on the Pacific Coast here, you're flipping through the channels, you're trying to follow these games. You don't need to do it that way. It's the whole reason NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV is basically a must-have from September to January because of multi-people. We'll get to that.

1:18:38Bill Simmons:It's the only way to impose order on the chaos. Get every game, every Sunday, all in one place with features that help you stay on top of all the NFL action. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games. Exclude digital-only games and commercial use. Terms embargoes apply. No refunds. Okay. So we have week two. We have nine early games, as we call it out here, because it comes out of ten. And I'm going to give you the four to put on your multi-view. I think Jacksonville-Cincinnati, weirdly, is a must. Cincinnati's offense needs to get going. Jacksonville's offense might have a chance to get going against Cincinnati's defense.

1:19:14Bill Simmons:I'm in on that one. I'm in on Chicago-Detroit. what are we getting from Caleb? Two on one teams. Whoever loses that game is in a lot of trouble. I think I'm in on Buffalo and the Jets. The Jets looked good last week. Buffalo obviously coming off an amazing game. And then last but not least, Seattle-Pittsburgh. Two teams that I think both have a chance to be playoff teams. Seattle probably not if they lose this game. Notice how I didn't put the Pats and Miami in there because I'm an honorable guy and it's not one of the best four games. Sorry. Sorry, Pats fans. Just remember, with NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube TV, 1 p.m.

1:19:51Bill Simmons:should be the best part of your Sunday. You're in the driver's seat. Pick every game every Sunday all in one place. Control that chaos. Trust me on the multi-view. For a limited time only, get$36 off NFL Sunday ticket using BS36. At checkout, new users only while supplies last. Ends 9-22. Go to youtube.com slash BS to sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV, NFL sending ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games of commercial use. Device and content restrictions apply. Terms and embargoes apply. No refunds. All right. Canelo Crawford. Van texted me last week and he's like, I got to talk about this fight in your pod.

1:20:30Bill Simmons:You've only invited yourself on the pod like three times. Yeah. And you're like, I'm watching these clips. I have real takes. And I was like, well, I'm going to talk to Mannix about it. So we'll do it, the three of us. I'm going to start here. the biggest fights of the 21st century, which I was like, oh, I'll be able to rattle these off. Like if I go back to when I loved boxing in the 70s and 80s, I could just rattle off all the biggest fights like instinctively. The 21st century gets a little bit hazier, right? Like I felt like Mayweather Canelo was like a big fight. Mayweather De La Hoya. I mean, Mayweather De La Hoya, I'm sorry.

1:21:07Bill Simmons:Mayweather De La Hoya was a big fight. The kind of press that like, Kagler Leonard or Hearns Leonard or the kind of fights from the 80s. We've had some heavyweight stuff. Tyson Lewis was big, but from an interest standpoint and a legacy standpoint, this might be the most interesting of the last 25 years. And I don't know if I'm in the minority on that, but there's so many ways this could go and yet I don't feel like anyone's talking about it. I wouldn't say it's the most interesting. Top of my head, my list of let's hear like roy jones john ruiz was i think in 03 that when he moved way up moved to heavyweight to fight at heavyweight ruiz wasn't like george foreman you know yeah but that had never been done i think at that time before like that was like the real test of roy's greatness i remember buying that on pay-per-view back in the day um delahoy mayweather of course delahoy pacquiao not quite that level but it was still pretty big delahoya or sorry mayweather canelo was big and then the biggest is Mayweather Pacquiao.

1:22:09Like that was the, was a cultural event. I mean, that had, you had CNN that was there. You had CNN, ESPN, the New York times, everybody that covered sports, even on a nominal basis was, was there covering that. This is, this is up there in terms of marketability because you have two very different fan bases and you have the Netflix fire hose involved, which is going to lead to the biggest viewership number that a traditional boxing match has ever seen. But it's on a very short list of the biggest fights of the 21st century. You know one thing I love about it?

1:22:42Bill Simmons:It's a good fight to argue about. Yeah. Where you could really make strong cases for each side. And you could... Like, I still don't know who I'm betting on. I have a sense, but I could still be swayed four days in. It's a fight to me where the traditional wisdom and the boxing knowledge, the traditional boxing wisdom and the boxing knowledge, hardcores are like butting heads. The traditional wisdom says the bigger skilled man wins this fight. If you're jumping up two weights and that's Canelo Alvarez. However, most of the hardcore boxing people are so amazed at the skill and toughness of Terrence Crawford that they really feel like he can beat this version of Canelo Alvarez.

1:23:27They really feel like that's the key thing.

1:23:29Bill Simmons:This version of Canelo. Right. and that's the tension in the fight. I guess for me, it's also an interesting fight because it's a fight between two guys that are all-time greats in their sport. Yeah. But in my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong about Canelo Alvarez, it seems like they failed to become all-time cultural pop culture greats as sports stars. Do you know why that happened? Because neither of them really have the awesome fight. Like, Leonard had the Hearns fight, right? And he also had the two Duran fights. And by the time he got to 1982, he felt like you still have to have like the memorable something.

1:24:08Bill Simmons:Even in the NBA, you still, like Bird and Magic needed the 84 finals to elevate that. Like if you ask somebody like, what's the most amazing Canelo fight? They'd list stuff, but it's not something like you would be watching 50 years from now. Well, Crawford has that fight. Crawford has that fight. Crawford's just... Crawford killing Spence. Yeah, that's one of the top performances I've ever seen before. But Canelo doesn't, do you think he has a fight like that? I'd argue that the second Golovkin fight was up there. I think most people believe Golovkin was going, most people believe Golovkin won the first fight and he was going to win the second fight.

1:24:47And then Canelo not only won, but the way that he won, taking the fight to Golovkin, who at that time was the predator at 160, was at or near the peak of his powers. It was such a long time ago now. Was it six years ago, seven years ago at this point that we kind of forget. The Crawford stuff is interesting to me because I think a lot of people are looking intently at Canelo Alvarez's last fight, which was lackluster. I was there in Saudi Arabia for that fight. But they're not looking as intently at Crawford's last fight. And look, you bring up Spence, man, and that was awesome. But that was two fights earlier.

1:25:25That was at 147 pounds. When Terrence Crawford made the jump to 154, mathematically, he was life and death with Israel Madrimov. Israel Madrimov is a good fighter, but I encourage people to look at the statistics of Terrence Crawford as a welterweight versus the statistics that he had at 154, the one fight he had there. At welterweight, he was a volume power puncher. He was a guy that hunted you down. Against Madrimov, the number of right hands he threw dropped precipitously. The punch output per round dropped precipitously. The landed punches per round dropped precipitously. Like he was a very different fighter at 154 against a good solid BB plus level opponent.

1:26:11Now he's jumping up two more weight classes. And look, people have done this in the past. I mean, Sugar Ray jumped up two weight classes to fight. Down in the land.

1:26:19Bill Simmons:Yeah. It's a big one for us. They did something kind of in between there. He did it for Hagler, sort of. He was kind of a welterweight. Hearns did it, too. Hearns jumped up two divisions. Hearns did it, of course. Roy did it against John Ruiz. But more often than not, size ultimately matters. And look, I'm not trying to compare Terrence Crawford to Jermell Charlo, but Jermell Charlo, because Terrence is a better fighter, I think. But Jermell Charlo jumped up two weight classes two years ago against Canelo and got blitzed. Didn't win a single minute of a single round. Got knocked down. Now, I think Crawford can have more success but I think it's wildly dismissive of what we saw from Crawford the last time out to not take that into account.

1:27:00Bill Simmons:Well, that's the other thing. He's only one fight a year for five years. He's getting older. What I would say about the Madrimov fight and what I think some of those people would say about the Madrimov fight is while Madrimov is a B2B plus fighter that he does present to Crawford who was jumping up. I thought the matchmaking was bad in that fight as far as if you're going to move up to 54, the first fighter that you fight should not be a fighter that's as awkward and stylistically as hard to figure out as Madrimov was. And there is a boxing part to that. Like, the weight is one thing, but then when you look at the style that Madrimov presented to Crawford, he muted a lot of his offense because I think it took Terrence a while to figure him out, right?

1:27:46And maybe he figures him out easier if he can overwhelm him at 47 or one of the lighter weight classes, maybe it wouldn't have been as big a deal. But at the higher weight, with there being more on the line, more that can come back at him, I think it took him a second to kind of figure Madrimov out. The question that a lot of people are asking is the fact that Alvarez right now is so meat and potatoes. I mean, he is now, he still has great head movement. He's still very tough. but he is a seek and destroy boxing machine. There's not going to be a whole lot of movement from him. Like even in the skull fight, when we talk about people's last performances, he could not cut the ring off against him, which in past versions of Canelo Alvarez would have cut the ring off against that guy and put him to death.

1:28:34But he seems to not be able to do that anymore. He seems to be meat and potatoes. And if Crawford shows up and the size is less of an issue for him, it seems like he would be able to fight his way to a victory. And that's what I think a lot of people are thinking. You agree with that? Well, no. I, I, sorry. I did not. The, the, the school fight had a couple of things going for it. One, you had a guy that ran as much as any fighter in a championship level fight I've ever seen run. It's pretty upsetting. He was on, he was on his bike from the opening bell. And could Canelo have done more to cut the ring off?

1:29:10Absolutely. But this guy was a Cuban-trained, undefeated boxer who fights like that. I mean, he was on the move. The other variable that doesn't get talked about enough is the fact the fight was at 6 a.m. The fight was early in the morning in Saudi Arabia to make it prime time in the U.S. And yes, Canelo did everything he could to acclimate his body towards that type of start time. But there's only so much you can do when you're talking about getting up at midnight. Now, he told me he got up a bin and I jumped into a cold plunge to get himself awake to get ready to go to the arena. These are all things that you don't see a fighter do ordinarily to get ready for a fight.

1:29:49I also think there's a lack of motivation there in fighting Williams School. Like Canelo, he wanted to fight Jake Paul that week. Like he was on the one yard line with Jake Paul to do that fight on that day before. Turkey Alashik came in with all that money and said, you got to make this fight. We want it to be undisputed against Terrence Crawford. You got to do it. You got to do it. So I think all those played into the fact that Canelo didn't look as good as he did. That's a long way of saying I don't think he's anywhere near as bad as he looked that night in Saudi Arabia. Maybe he's not the guy that was running through super middleweight between 2018 and 2000 and what, 22.

1:30:24But I think he's maybe 80, 85 % of all that. The other part with Crawford is, and I've said this a lot about Canelo opponents, to beat Canelo Alvarez, you have to throw right hands. Look at the guys that have either beaten or were successful against him. Gennady Golovkin threw a ton of right hands. Dimitri Bivol threw a ton of right hands. You cannot jab your way to success against Canelo Alvarez. Many have tried. You wouldn't say that Bivol jabbed his way to... Oh, no. Bivol was all... Look at the numbers. Bivol boat raced him. Bivol pressured him. He was bigger. He was stronger. He was in his face.

1:31:00He backed him up all night long. That's what Bebo did. I know, but the jab in that fight was, I can't believe I'm going back and forth with boxing with Chris Mast. I'm having a great time. The jab in that fight was Bebo's. To me, Bebo took a couple of rounds to really jab, use the educated lead hand to put Canelo where he wanted him to be. And then later on in the fight, when he saw that Canelo wasn't going to give him anything, that he had him figured out, that's when he started opening up against Canelo Alvarez. With Crawford, I'm fully expecting him to come into this fight and fight it southpaw.

1:31:38Like, to me, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for him to come in and fight this fight orthodox. I'm fully expecting him to fight the southpaw. So it's going to be the lead hand that we're going to see kind of whether or not he can use that to mute Canelo a little bit and whether or not he can use his feet good enough to stay away from him and maybe tire Canelo out a little bit. I think you made the point, though, that Beeble did eventually open up, right? And that was a big reason why he came out on top of that fight. The guys I've seen jab and then not open up. Caleb Plant for the Undisputed Championship.

1:32:11Sergey Kovalev, who threw a million and one jabs that night. Buddy McGirt was like, in training camp, Buddy McGirt was literally tying Kovalev's right hand to his body to make him throw jabs out there to keep throwing it over and over again. Like, there's a belief that you can score on Canelo with a jab, and you can. But I don't believe you can beat him without throwing right hands. And the Crawford that I saw against Madrimov, statistically, did not throw a lot of right hands, or at least nowhere near the number of right hands, or I should forget the right hand, power shots. Let's go with that.

1:32:41The power shots that he was throwing in that context. He did not throw anywhere near as many as he threw against Aero Spence. So I think that's going to be a problem. If Bud comes out and tries to jab his way to success, yeah, he'll have some moments there, just like Kovalev did. Kovalev was in that fight. It was close until he got knocked out. I think he'll have some moments, but I have yet to see someone then jab their way to a victory over Canelo Alvarez. Well, I will say this real quick. Somebody did and they robbed him. Golovkin jabbed his way to a victory over Canelo Alvarez. Not even that, but he was throwing rights too.

1:33:14If you go back and look at the fight, he controlled that fight with the jab. And even the second fight... That was a bad decision. Even the second fight, I'm going to be honest with you, man. I think Triple G won that fight. It was close. Yeah, I think Triple G won that fight, but anyway, I digress.

1:33:30Bill Simmons:So Crawford's only gone above 147 once in the Abumov fight. Now he's jumping 21 pounds past that. I always like, I've been watching boxing a long time. I always get nervous when the guys jump 20 pounds. Should. That just seems like a lot of weight, man. Yeah. It's just, there's a physicality that you just have met. Like Canelo is supposed to be around the weight. Like what's he going to come in at? like 175, 174. He might gain 10 pounds. Yeah, yeah. But he's kind of naturally built that way. Now, I've read all this stuff about Crawford's been gradually trying to add and he's doing it correctly.

1:34:11Bill Simmons:He's not just... What do you think Crawford weighed fight night against Madrimon? What was it? 169. He looks slow in that fight, though, for him. By the way, this is not me saying that Crawford will beat Canelo Alvarez. This is not me saying that. But what it is me saying is that like, if Canelo was going to lose a fight of this magnitude, this would be the guy that he would lose it to. This guy is a dog. He has tremendous power. He's got skill. Well, the Spence thing is his resume because that was a violent, vindictive fight. Like just really wanted to like snatch the guy's soul. And that's why, So one of the things I wrote down, because this reminds me of the Hagler-Leonard fight, but if Crawford was both Hagler and Leonard, he's moving up weights, right?

1:35:09Bill Simmons:Like Leonard did, where it's like, oh shit, you're going to go all the way up there? Oh man, I'm nervous for you. But then he has the Hagler side. He's got that kind of fuck you to him that I don't know if Canelo has. Canelo is like, he's cemented. He's one of the most famous fighters of this century. I know Crawford is in the boxing community, but my mom doesn't know who he is. I don't know if he's had his moment yet. And I wonder, I hate to do the first take, the morning sports show thing, because obviously the fight means more to both, but it really means more to Crawford, I think. Oh, by way, way more.

1:35:48Bill Simmons:A more important fight for him, legacy-wise, everything. Way, way more. He could become the first three-time undisputed men's champion in the four belt era that would be something and he would also i'd argue add the first hall of fame fighter to his resume look at canelo's resume loaded with hall of fame yeah he's that awesome some he won some he's lost crawford like what's the best opponent on the resume of crawford it's errol spence yeah i thought sean porter jeff horn but none of i mean i think you can make a case that Spence gets in the Hall of Fame. It's an arguable one. I don't think it's a first ballot.

1:36:27Bill Simmons:Did you feel like Spence was damaged goods in that fight? I did. I did. But that takes nothing away. I don't want to take away from Crawford there because, you know, he tried to make that fight for years. He tried forever to make that fight happen. Well, and a lot of the guys that you were that in terms of like at 47, a lot of those guys were with Heyman in them and like he'd had problems like getting to those fights. So it's but I also say this, man. so Canelo's Hall of Famers we would say are Miguel Cotto we would say they're Sergey Kovalev, we would say that they're Triple G, all of these fighters I could look at all of them Laura, maybe well if Laura's a Hall of Famer I don't even know what Kovalev is, Kovalev's kind of yeah but Kovalev and Bivol were like guys, I don't know if they're going to be Hall of Famers but Bivol, he lost but by the time he, by the version of Sergey Kovalev that Canelo Alvarez fought?

1:37:18Like, the name mattered. I lost money on that name. I still believe in the zombie Kovalev. Sorry, Kovalev that Canelo Alvarez fought. We're not talking about Kovalev of 2014 or 2015. But he's been fighting relevant guys now. Really.

1:37:34Bill Simmons:And he fought, when he fought Floyd, he fought Floyd pretty early. You know, in his career. He was like, I went to that fight, ironically. And he just felt like he was two years away from it, but took it anyway because it made sense for him to take it. But he's been taking big fights for 12 years. Some of this isn't Crawford's fault necessarily because like you said, he was trying to make that Spence fight forever. Sometimes he just didn't kind of have his class that came with him. But he's 41 and 0. You know, he's 31 KOs. And I was thinking like, if you're talking best fighters of the last 25 years, there's been all these last 25 years list.

1:38:08Bill Simmons:And Floyd has to be the best fighter, I think, of this first quarter century, right? I think everyone would be like, it starts with Floyd. and then you could kind of talk about all these different people, but Usyk, Andre Ward, and Crawford, I think would be 2-3-4 for me in some order because none of them ever lost. And then you move into that. I don't like the loss part. Like, you know, Canelo lost, but he never lost at a low level. He lost to elite guys. Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, those guys have to be after Floyd mentioned. I would have them 2-3-4, but they have to be. Right now, I'd put Canelo ahead.

1:38:41I'd put Canelo ahead of Crawford at this point just based on resume alone. Yeah, but that's why Crawford needs to fight. He needs it. Like the two things that you guys touched on there that I think most, one thing you've touched on is most important is the weight. Like muscle is heavy and Crawford looks fantastic. He looks like a bodybuilder, but this will be his first time ever fighting of 168 pounds. It'll be his second time ever fighting above 147 pounds. I have this argument with Sergio Moore all the time. I feel like I'm on crazy pills where he doesn't think it's that big a deal.

1:39:12Bill Simmons:He drives you crazy that surgery. He really bugs you. I listen to it as very... Like an old married couple. You guys are a good crew, man. We try. But he's like, the weight doesn't matter all that much. You can't convince me of that. Like the second half of the fight, when Crawford is moving as much as he's going to have to move, trying to be as reflexive as he's going to have to be, that the added muscle isn't going to matter. Muscle is heavy. Muscle is going to wear on you as a fight progresses. And Canelo... Well, me neither. And Canelo has been fighting at this weight for so long. He's fought 12 rounds at this weight so many times.

1:39:47He's not going to have any problems. We don't know yet what kind of issues Crawford's going to have with that extra weight. The other reason I like Canelo is that Canelo can be kind of a spiteful body puncher. And one of the little areas of weakness that Crawford has had over the years has been some of those body shots. We saw Agus Kavaloskas at 147 catch him with a body shot that bothered him. Madrimov in that fight caught him with a couple of body shots. I thought they bothered him. One of the reasons guys do not let go of their power hand against Canelo is because they know what's coming back.

1:40:20They know that if you overextend on that power hand, you're leaving yourself open to a big body shot. I guarantee you, Canelo, Eddie Reynoso, their entire team, they're looking for a counter to the body against Terrence Crawford in this fight. And if they land it, that's going to be the first time, Ben, that Canelo gets hit, or Crawford gets hit with that kind of speed and that kind of power in this kind of weight class? The thing that bothers me the most from the Crawford side of it is his fight tendencies, the way he likes to fight. Even when he is the clearly more talented fighter, he enjoys a firefight.

1:40:58There are times when Crawford doesn't use his athleticism and his feet to get out of situations like he should. Crawford will take a couple of shots. He likes to show you the dog a little bit. He's a Philly fighter, even though he's not. They always say that about the Philly fighters. He has a fight tendency to engage in firefights and to feel his opponent a little bit and want to return, one, because that's his mentality, but also because he believes in his power. He's not just a powerful puncher, but he's an extremely precise puncher. the coordination and the quick twitch of Crawford is insane.

1:41:40And he believes in that. I don't think that that would be smart to do in this fight. I don't think it would be smart. He would have to fight this fight, to me, a little bit more like a Floyd, a late-stage Floyd would fight a fight, which is be there, not be there, punch, punch, work it out. Don't get hit too much. Yeah. And if he, I don't know if that's in him. But I'll tell you one thing, I don't know why. I have a feeling that he's going to win and I know I'm on one of the biggest sports podcasts in the world saying that I have a feeling that he is going to win on Saturday night

1:42:15Bill Simmons:I was shocked by the line because I'm with you, I was leaning a little toward Crawford Canelo, at least I'm fando, was like minus 190, it's like almost a 2 to 1 favorite and Bud's like plus 152, something like that I wonder if we get closer to the fight But were you surprised by that? I know the lines, they put them, you know, they're trying to balance the action, but you weren't surprised. No, to me, it's about respect for Crawford and everything he's done and a belief that after the skull fight, Canelo has lost a step. I think that's what everyone right now is looking at. I'll tell you, the good bet so far is Canelo by decision.

1:42:54That's at like plus 130, I want to say, when I looked at it there. He has not a knockout since, what, 20 or 21? And I don't think Crawford's going to get knocked out. Like, I think Crawford's, even jumping up this much in weight, is too mentally tough and too skilled to get knocked out in a fight like this. I just think that Canelo's, I don't think Canelo's lost as much off his fastball as people think. Also, getting a decision against Canelo Alvarez in Vegas. It's not going to happen. Like, it's, I mean, one of the judges, one of the judges in the Mayweather fight scored the fight for Alvarez.

1:43:27which is impossible. It's impossible if you watch. It was a draw. No, he scored a draw, right? I think it was a draw. It was a majority decision. Yeah, so he scored. That's impossible if you watch that fight at all. Question for you. That judge also had stock and aspiration. Same thing, right? Do you think that Alvarez, you say he's not going to knock him out. Will Alvarez hurt Crawford? I'm going to vote yes. Yeah, I'm going to say yeah. The body punch. He always gets at least one body punch in. Even though he hasn't knocked out anybody over the last, what, five or six fights, he's hurt everybody during those fights, or at least knocked them down.

1:44:08Like, John Ryder in Guadalajara had a busted nose in the fifth round. Jaime Munguia was knocked down, and I thought he was out cold in the final round. Canelo just kind of carried him all the way to the stretch. Edgar Berlanga, you know, had a parade because he went the distance with Canelo, but he got knocked down in, what, the third round. of that fight. So we always, especially early on, he always has some moment because guys don't really get the speed and power combination that he brings to the table. He cruises a lot more than he used to. And you can even go back to the third Golovkin fight to where you started to really notice that.

1:44:44Like he was up six zip, seven zip on Golovkin and then Golovkin mounted a little bit of a comeback in the second half of that fight. So that's eroded from his game. But the first half of a fight, he's dangerous and I do think he's going to catch Crawford with something that buzzes him.

1:44:59Bill Simmons:Could you give us the, because I'm sure you've spent time around Crawford. Yeah. Give us the vibe. You've been around a million NBA players. You've been around a lot of famous athletes. What's the vibe with him? How would you describe him? I mean, he's ruthless. And I say that in a complimentary way. He's singularly focused on winning and believes that there's nothing that can stop him from doing it. And I see that in some of the all-time great NBA players. He's got kind of a Kobe vibe to him, if we're being honest. He's got that relentlessness, the belief that he can do anything. He's also...

1:45:40I don't think Kobe had this, because Kobe wasn't really around as much during the social media age, but Crawford's got rabbit ears. Crawford sees and hears everything people are saying about him. He claps back on Twitter, not quite in a Durant-like way, but he's been known to jump on Twitter and fire back at his skeptics. He and I have had an issue. He and I started having an issue after I scored the fight close for him against Madurov. He was upset at how I scored that fight. So he sees everything. He actually got upset with you online?

1:46:08Bill Simmons:Not online, but when I see him and run into him, and I've run into him several times, it's fine. It's not acrimonious, but he sees skepticism and he puts that in the old fuel tank and absorbs all of it, no matter where it's coming from. That's the difference. But in terms of the comparison, I think Kobe's a good one. He's relentless. He's a killer. He believes that his talent and his willpower is enough to do anything in the boxing. I'm into him. I actually just really like him as a character. I don't feel like he's gotten his just due. Of all the fighters that I've loved at the lower-wage rigging dial, loved Rigondow?

1:46:52Loved him. Wow. I've never heard that before. Loved him. You know why I loved him? I just, he was not an aesthetically like pleasing fire to watch. Yeah. He was not. That's not what he did. However, do you remember him against, whatever, I want to start going back to the old fights, but I loved Rigondow. I loved Lomachenko. The guys at the lower waist that I really liked. I used to like Paul to Punisher Williams. He was one of my high-volume punchers at 6 '1", at 47. And then he got knocked the fuck out. He did. When he went up and weight, right? Wasn't that at 160? Oh, my God. That was the best knockout.

1:47:32By the way, him going up to 160 was what was supposed to happen. He was never the same after that, right?

1:47:37Bill Simmons:Well, he got into a motorcycle accident, and that happened. By the way, he got knocked out in, I think it was the rematch against Martinez, if I remember. No? Was it not? I was there. It was in Atlantic City. I was there and you could see the eyes open on the canvas when he got knocked out, kind of face first like that. That was one of the best knockouts I've ever seen. You only have one of those. You can't. You're never the same. I don't feel like Pacquiao was ever the same after he got sent to next year by Marquez. What I'm saying, though, is of all the guys at the lower ways that I've liked, obviously Lomachenko in his heyday was like a ghost.

1:48:13He was an an apparition. He was there. He wasn't there. He was all around you. It was something like I had never seen before. Crawford is the one that carries himself to me more like a heavier, I'm going to throw my weight around the ring and impose my will on you type of fighter. He's the guy that steps into the ring with you. And like every single part of that ring, It's like you're in a lion's den. Like he is a stalker, like a freak. And so I think there's a mentality there to that. What he did to Arrow was actually like tough to watch after a point.

1:48:53Bill Simmons:No, it was like Ali Cleveland Williams type, like Floyd Patterson, like torture boxing. Blood everywhere. He could do nothing. We're going to see how far that goes. And that's what I love about boxing. What I love about boxing is always when everything that the fighter has, not just their skill set, but their cultural presence, their identity, who they think they are. When a fighter is fighting and you get to see the moment in the ring that he realizes he's not who he thinks he is against this particular guy on this particular night. And does he run from that or does he push past it? That is why this fight is so interesting to me because that's the type of challenge that Canelo Alvarez presents to Terrence Crawford.

1:49:34Bill Simmons:Well, the funny thing is Netflix had that horrific Tyson fight. I mean, one of the worst events that's been put on at least this decade, right? Now, this is the opposite of that. Like, this is a gather together. And this could be like a generational fight, potentially. I don't know. That's the thing, too. Like, I think it's an incredible fight. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not aesthetically pleasing in the ring. Yeah, it's possible. I don't believe that you're looking at Hagler-Hearns. I don't believe you're looking at Hagler-Leonard. I think you look at two guys that have proven to be judicious with their punches, especially Crawford as he's moved up in weight.

1:50:18Canelo, more selective with his shots as his career has gone on. Both these guys are kind of information seekers in the ring. They feel guys out over the first one, two, sometimes three rounds before they really start to engage. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a very cagey fight with kind of limited spurts of action in between.

1:50:39Bill Simmons:Well, you left out two pieces with that. One is one guy's 35, the other guy's 37. So it can't be Hagrid Hearns. The other one is both guys have been a lot of money boxing, which changes the desperation variable a little bit. You brought that up. That's good. Crawford, notoriously slow starter, like legendarily slow starter. Can he afford to do that in this fight? i don't think so because i think the longer this fight goes the more it favors canelo for all the reasons i laid out there the weight physicality physicality of it all i think he's got to try to find a way to build that early lead and canelo has given opponents opportunities in the past like that there have been a couple of rounds of fights of canelo that i've called where he hasn't landed a punch or he hasn't even thrown a punch canelo calum smith first round didn't do anything Canelo, Billy Joe Saunders' first round didn't do anything.

1:51:30Like, he just eases his way into a fight. I think Crawford and his team have to find a way to take advantage of that and at least squeeze out some statistical wins in these early rounds. Can you sell us on the co-main event? I have no problem with it. It's probably not the kind of sexy co-main event you're expecting to see on a Netflix show. I'm lukewarm on it. last time we saw Katie Taylor Amanda Serrano as the co-made event of the Tyson-Paul fight this one look I think it's going to be really entertaining I think both these guys are bangers like I think Fernando Vargas is one of the Vargas brothers I'd probably put him at like number two or three on the list of the top Vargas is out there I think Emiliano Vargas is probably the best of the bunch you know Callum Callum's a good fighter shown he's a banger shows he's willing to engage so I think it's going to be a a really fun fight, if that's what you're looking for.

1:52:26I don't know. If you're looking for high-level, meaningful, impactful, championship-level stuff, this probably ain't it. If you're looking for a banger, you're probably going to get it between these two guys.

1:52:37Bill Simmons:I don't know why they did the co for that. I do. Well, you may know. All right. Before we go. I mean, look, well, Callum is, you could say it, Callum's a TKO fighter. Callum is effectively co-managed by Dana White. He's been fighting on UFC Fight Pass for his last six or seven fights. So it's all who you know, Bill. It's all who you know. Real quick, as far as that, just big picture, where are we? There was a thought that we talked a little bit earlier about the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight. I remember when that fight came out, that was when that fight came out. When that fight happened, that was the fight to save boxing.

1:53:13After a lackluster couple of fights, and you're going to put these two guys in the ring, Mayweather then becomes the A-side for the rest of his career in a big, big way. And he carries boxing through the next decade. He leaves and then the sports in the wilderness for a little while as the business changes, as the zone comes around, HBO Boxing leaves. And then everybody runs to different promotions, have different relationships with different streamers. We have some really interesting fighters right now. Usyk is on an all-time run. He might be done soon. Right now. We have some guys, a lot of different personalities, but it's hard to gauge where the sport is right now.

1:53:51Turkey, the last couple of years, has really come in and consolidated the matchmaking. But is the sport healthy with all of this stuff happening? It seems like there's a new business move made every week. It seems like there's a new app you have to get. Is boxing healthy right now? I think it's in a challenging spot right now. I think there are healthy aspects to it. But I think overall, it's still challenged. The Saudi effect has had positive and negative effects, right? Like the positive impact is that we're getting fights that we either were never going to see, or we sure weren't going to see twice.

1:54:30Like Bevo Betterbeev is a great example. I can tell you we were never going to see that fight. There was no money in it anywhere. where both those guys have no fan bases and no ability to sell pay-per-view. So you needed Turk Yalashik and the Saudis to come in, pay for that fight. Getting Fury and Usyk twice in the same year is the kind of thing you'd never get. So you get a lot of great mega events as a result of the Saudi influence in boxing. Among the problems, though, is that a lot of these fights are taking place in a different part of the world, which means that people are being asked to watch it.

1:55:05in the U.S. at like 3 o 'clock in the afternoon, often when college football's on or the NFL is on or whatever's on on a Saturday, going to the beach in the summertime. So there's a challenge. And I think a bigger issue is that because these Saudi persons are so big, fighters are willing to wait around and not fight with the hopes that they'll get one. I'll give you a quick example. Teofimo Lopez, still one of the bigger names in boxing. By all rights, Teofimo Lopez should be fighting a guy named Richardson Hitchens at Madison Square Garden in November or December. Two New York area fighters, 140 pound title holders, the both of them.

1:55:44That is an excellent fight to make at MSG. Instead, Teofimo, who would probably make like two or three million to fight Hitchens, is sitting around hoping that Turkey Al-Sheik will come forward and give him six million to fight someone like Shakur Stevenson, you know, over in Saudi Arabia in January of this year. So I think that's an aspirations offering him 7 million not to fight it off. We always, we always come back to that, but it's the point is like, for boxing to thrive, it needs activity. UFC thrived because it put on great event after great event. Boxing still puts on great events, but you can't have a great event and then four months of nothing.

1:56:24You need to be putting on great events twice a month to get some momentum for the sport.

1:56:28Bill Simmons:Well, I mean, look at Crawford and Canelo. Those guys are fighting once a year now. Well, Canelo's different. Canelo's been pretty active for a guy of his status. But how many fights has he had in the last four years? He's at least two fights a year. All right, two fights a year, and Crawford's one fight a year, and these are two of your four biggest stars. Usyk, he'll still get out there, hopefully, at least once. Wait, maybe two times a year, maybe, hopefully? No? I think Usyk's probably got one fight left. if Joseph Parker beats Fabio Wardley, I think that's the fight he'll take. And then look, if I'm Usyk, then I'd call Jake Paul.

1:57:07If I'm Usyk, then I'd try to get the back. Why not? He's fought so many tough ones over the years. He deserved a back. He earned it. He cleaned out his whole division on an all-time run. Why not get the back?

1:57:19Bill Simmons:So if we go Mount Rushmore for the century before we go, and Floyd's on there and Usyk's on there, who are your other two? Andre Ward would have to be on there for me. He was to be the fighter of the decade between 2010 and 2020, even though he retired in 2017. He had a tremendous run. And Pacquiao's got to be on there. So that's your four? That would be, for the 21st century... First 25 years of this century in boxing. So that's your four. That would be my four, yeah. With Canelo looming right there. Probably those, I would think about Bernard Hopkins. I looked at him. I would think about Bernard Hopkins in that situation.

1:57:57And maybe even on an outside level, just honorable mentions, Tyson Fury would be there as well. Tyson Fury, however his career has played out since then, ended one of the greatest runs in heavyweight boxing history. like when he beat Klitschko people will underrate Vladimir Klitschko because talking about guys that didn't have a lot of gigantic names because of the era that they fought in, he was the most consistent technically pure fighter at heavyweight for that long run, always came in in tremendous shape, added more levels to his game, changed it up stay relevant. And the guy who ended that run was Tyson Fury.

1:58:43And then he had it for a little while until Usyk came along. So I give Tyson Fury a little bit of a lip service. I have the Klitschkos on a different list.

1:58:53Bill Simmons:What's the list? You guys ruined boxing list. It's like 20 people. The Klitschkos? Vitaly Klitschkos? Heavyweight Klitschkos. The heavyweight division just felt like it was in Zombieland. That was a problem. I know. I just, I look back at that era now. I'm like, I don't even remember anything positive. I'll give you this. Van, I'll tell you this. I'm not convinced Vladimir's done. I'm not. What? Oh my Lord. I think, look, Vladimir, Vladimir, I think is extremely happy for his countryman, Alexander Usyk. But if Usyk had been beaten by Tyson Fury in one of those two fights, I think Klitschko would have come out of retirement and fought Tyson Fury.

1:59:34And I still don't take that off the table. I still don't remove that for consideration. No, no, he wouldn't do that. Yo, you know what fight would go hard right now? A Klitschko-AJ rematch. Why not? AJ's got, why not? Why not? That's a winnable fight for Vlade. Bill hates AJ. Bill's down. Bill's not big on AJ.

1:59:52Bill Simmons:I think I've lost on one side or the other of this last 13 fight. But see, here's the thing, though. I know we're going long, but here's the thing about AJ, though. AJ gives you a good example of kind of the precarious situation that boxing gets into. AJ was a draw. is a draw, remains a draw. If he was as dominant a fighter in the ring as he was a personality and sort of a business machine outside of it, you might have seen, if he could have won a couple of these fights, he doesn't lose to Andy Ruiz. Like, you see in that situation somebody who could become a major worldwide boxing megastar, but it just doesn't happen for the sport.

2:00:31Bill Simmons:Was Anthony Joshua the Joel Embiid of the heavyweight division? We'll discuss that next. Is Bacoli, can I get a Bacoli update before we go? Oh, no. You need to know what I mean? Oh, Bacoli. Like, the texts I get from Bill, there's usually... He loves him. Is it over? It's Celtics related or it's Martin Bacoli. He loves him. It's his guy. It's over? It's not over. He's dealing with some promotional issues over in the UK. His promoter, Boxer, lost its TV deal and now is kind of sort of getting... man, fucking Macola. But he's like, he'll be back. He's in the Saudi pipeline and because he did Turkey Al-Ashik the favor of taking that fight against Parker on like 24 hours notice, you know, flying in from Africa to take that fight, there'll be another opportunity for him to fight once again.

2:01:21There's a weight limit

2:01:22Bill Simmons:that he cannot go over. That's it. It's like, I don't know whether it's 277, 280, whatever it is, he cannot go over that weight if he goes over it, he can't fight. When he fought Anderson, He was in the shape, and he was a monster. The best version of himself. That's it. That's the way. There's still a lot of questions on the table for McCauley, but when he fought Anderson, he looked like just a pure force. Do we see Jason Tatum next season? Oh, shit. No. I just think they're going to be so mediocre that it's probably going to be people wondering why bring him back. They're like one three-week stretch injury from Jalen Brown of being way outside the play-in mix.

2:02:06Who's the starting center right now? Who's the starting power forward right now? As bad as the East is, I just think there's going to be no appetite to bring it back. I think, honestly, I think they should just contract the whole franchise. Don't look so happy about this. I think they should just get rid of the franchise. You just went to Boston and talked about how great it was. I loved Boston. I loved Boston. He's in a Boston. What people have to keep remembering is that they have control of this draft pick. What is the best thing? What's the long-term interest of the Celtics? What's the best outcome for next season to get a lottery pick?

2:02:39Bill Simmons:The coach, and I say this in the most complimentary way possible, is an absolute psycho. And I don't see him rolling over during a season and being like, yeah, whatever. He's a maniac. He's not doing it. There's no way. Sometimes you just don't have the horses, though, man. He'll figure out how to be like, well, shoot, 73 is a game. Chris Mannix, good luck at the tables in Vegas. say hi to our guy bud so your pick is canelo canelo decision yeah all right great to see you thanks for coming on you got it all right that's it for the podcast thanks to van lathan for sitting here the whole time thanks to brian curtis thanks to chris manix thanks to gahau and eduardo and saruti and uh i will be back on thursday on this feed we'll have a guest and then we're gonna do uh some ringer 107 which did not go well in week one this might be my worst idea ever because we're one and four heading into the second week.

2:03:33Bill Simmons:So I'm going to be trying to turn it around. I will see you on Thursday night.

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