NFL Future Leans, the Yankees Malaise, Amy Bradley Theories, a Scheffler Makeover, and Hulk Hogan’s Career With Joe House, Jack-O, and David Shoemaker

23:41JT Thor was on Charlotte, and Cleveland deliberately decided to tank the last game of the season. I don't remember the circumstances why.

23:51Bill Simmons:And Charlotte was trying to tank too, but JT Thor was like, I'm not tanking. I'm trying to impress people. And looked at Carl Malone in the mid-90s. Anyway, so we always text bets, and we finally got excited about one. And it was plus 158. FanDuel when we were texting about it. Now it has dropped to plus 145. The bet is New Orleans and Cleveland both to finish fourth in their divisions. I feel even better about it than I did a week ago. I love this bet. There's some people we could throw it in, but it's my favorite one, right? Is this your favorite too? Yeah, so far. It's very simple. The other bet that I've made on the other side of it is Baltimore and Buffalo to win their respective divisions.

24:36That's plus 120 on the FanDuel Sportsbook. So I like to have a positive bet to go along with our negative bet. For karma. You don't want to just all go negative.

24:45Bill Simmons:I don't see any scenario where Cleveland makes the third place spot unless there's some sort of horrible injury to somebody. And even then, I don't know if they would make it. Have you seen the odds? I couldn't find them. I don't know if they're out yet. My favorite bet for Cleveland will be last team to get a win this NFL season. their schedule is excruciatingly tough at the outset. And there are some unbelievable betting opportunities. Let's go through it for the audience. Cause I looked at this too. And I, and it was one of the reasons I sent you guys that last place text. Plus not, not to mention, we have no idea who their quarterback was.

25:24Bill Simmons:Kenny Pickett's already hurt. Yeah. So they're home Cincy at Baltimore, home Green Bay at Dallas, playing Minnesota and London at Pittsburgh, home Dolphins at Pats, at Jets, Ravens, at Raiders, Niners are the first 12, basically. So I guess the best chance would be Dolphins week seven. That's their first best chance. I agree. Unless they upset somebody. But they'll be Bengals game. I haven't looked at the lines yet, but they'll be at least like plus five higher. They'll be plus five or higher in every game until that Miami game. so I don't see any case for Cleveland to not be in fourth place and I don't even think they care I think they're going to use this year to figure out they paid Miles Garrett he's now he can't say anything he took the money um they don't really have a lot of talent anywhere and uh and that's just the way it goes but the New Orleans New Orleans even though that division's obviously worse that was one of only I only had two teams that I gave minus twos for their quarterbacks and it was New Orleans and Cleveland.

26:30Yeah, I mean, the thing that's a tiny bit scary with New Orleans is that their offensive line is not horrendous. Right, it's the one good thing with that. Offensive lines, and they do still have guys that, you know, you see some spectacular plays out of Chris Olave, some spectacular. Alvin Kamara was like kind of a dog for as long as he could be healthy last season, which, you know, he's in harm's way quite a bit, especially with Derek Carr. Well, unfortunately, Alave has that concussion thing that I think he said four or five.

27:04Bill Simmons:I hate it. It's hard to pencil him in for an entire season anymore. New Orleans has, I would argue, the least amount of talent in either conference. Combined with this David Carr piece, Derek Carr. He's called him as brother. That would be the first of many mistakes in the podcast for me. Derek Carr, whichever Carr. but having to, whatever, that salary cap and not being able to plan for QB anyway. So we like that. It's plus 145, New Orleans, Cleveland. And then you can get a little frisky if you want. You can throw Tennessee in there for them to be in fourth place. That was plus 493, now it's plus 520.

27:45Bill Simmons:Or you can go Cleveland, New Orleans, Miami if you want to really go nuts. That's plus 724 house. If you think Miami can be the worst team in the AFC East, and I think they can. I want to tell you, I have lost some of my enthusiasm for Tennessee as the worst team in the AFC South because when you go in and start looking at, I did this out loud on many of our shows. They had all the hallmarks of a team that was point-shaving, except for they weren't. I mean, it wasn't an allegation. They just were the point-shaving Titans because their level of special teams play was historically bad. And Will Levis was, I think our good pal Warren Sharp called him a double agent.

28:33I mean, nobody, he led the NFL in opposing touchdowns, like letting other teams score. And he was, you know, by however many measures you want to use, the worst quarterback in the entire NFL. Well, and so if you...

28:53Bill Simmons:He was certainly the worst quarterback to gamble on last year. Well, they went 2-15 against the spread. Because he would look confident, and then he would become Will Levis and just pull... Yeah, so it was always better to be against Will Levis. Yeah, yeah, 2-15 against the spread, another historical outcome. So here's the thing. I mean, it's not like a strong case for Tennessee. It's just they got rid of the worst quarterback in the league and replaced him with a rookie. And the rookie is a great unknown. Who knows? And they got a legit special teams coach on the team. So, you know, they... Congratulations.

29:33Bill Simmons:Rookie QB, offensive line might not be horrific. They didn't get a minus one. They weren't a bottom five offensive line. Division's not good. Division's not good. Another positive for them. Rather than like, oh, let me plow into adding Tennessee to the parlay. The parlay that we absolutely adore. But we did, though. We did. But, I mean, it wasn't the same denomination. Less units. That's right. Well, there's a Cleveland, New Orleans, Miami, Tennessee, all to finish fourth places, plus 18-20. 18-1 odds. I think that's a pretty good long shot. The problem with Miami is the Jets are in that conference.

30:16Bill Simmons:how the Jets have some talent we said this last year I know I know but they have a better coaching situation my fear with the Jets is or a positive fear is they might actually have an identity I don't know if I like the identity I don't know if it's an identity that will win 10 games but you know with fields and they have a better than average offensive line right they do And maybe they're just going to be a pound the ball, multiple running backs, hard to play, a lot of like 16 to 13 type games. I can kind of see what they might be. All right. Right? They have enough chippers on defense, maybe.

30:55Bill Simmons:I don't see it with Miami at all. I don't understand what that team is. And that the first coach fired stuff hasn't come out yet, but I think McDaniel has to be lingering for that one, right? Sure, yeah. He's going to be in the top three for sure. Most shocking one on that list could be Mike Tomlin. I just don't see it. I know. I just don't see it. Who else would you have on the first coach fired list? I don't know. All of the eligible candidates got fired. All of the best bets. We have so many new coaches. Right. I guess like Zach Taylor would have to be mentioned. Yeah. Cincinnati comes out slow again.

31:37He'll be there. Dayball might be if the Giants are horrific. Don't you think he'll be or did he get another year's worth of dispensation? I would have McDaniel first.

31:51Bill Simmons:Okay. Yeah, but that's just me. So speaking of divisions. So I was trying to figure out we did this Sal and I did this when we did the over-under pod. So I have a final answer on this. But if you go most wins by division and you go least wins by division. It's a good way to think of it because last year, one of the things that helped me with my futures was I went all in on divisions or I was all out on divisions. We had the most wins by a division last year was the NFC North had 45 wins. The year before the AFC North had 43 and the year before that, the NFC East had 43. Those are our top three, 43, 43, 45.

32:33Bill Simmons:So we know the best division in the 17 game schedule is going to be in the 43 to 45 range, which is a lot of wins. You need one really good team, another really good team, and then the other ones are probably around 9 to 10 wins. Who is that this year, Huss? Who would be your best bet? Because I'm going to have Fandle do some division things for us, like win totals for divisions, divisions against each other. I have a pick. who's your most reliable division this year? For me, it's the AFC West. I think that they're really kind of built for it. They have the best coaches in the entire NFL, in my humble opinion now, with Pete Carroll.

33:18I mean, you could say whatever you want, make fun of Pete for the last couple of years in Seattle, but the culture will change and they have talent and they're headed in the right direction. What we saw out of Peyton and Harbaugh and the way that they immediately arrived and immediately kicked those teams into gear and then the Chiefs are just the Chiefs. And so, you know, you can get, I see like a 38 to 42 win sort of possibility for those four teams. And I can't get there with any of the other divisions.

33:50Bill Simmons:So the over-unders right now, KC's 11 and a half, Denver's nine and a half, Chargers nine and a half, Vegas seven and a half. So if you add those up, we're at 38. Yeah. And if we're going over, if you think that division's actually going to overachieve, that puts us in that range. Here's the fun wrinkle. That division plays the AFC South and the NFC East. So you have the AFC South, which I do not think is going to be good, and the NFC East, which other than Philly, if your team goes backwards, if Dallas stays in the middle and then the Giants are bad, it's just probably the best. The best outcome would be South and South.

34:30Bill Simmons:But the next best outcome, I think, is this. So, I'm with you, House. You're agreeing with me. Okay. I am. That was the one I had as well, the AFC West. I think there's an interesting Vegas case where it's basically just QB coach, which we've seen. You saw it last year on your team. Yeah. Change QB, bring in a competent one. Change the coach, bring in a competent one. That's usually worth five wins. It just is. you know and that team was uh i think their record was even a little better than we thought it was going to be last year but um i don't know could they go nine and eight sure sure the christian i didn't love the christian wilkins thing yeah didn't love that that was that was i thought a red flag but then you flip it the other way who's going to be the worst all right what are the numbers for that last year worst division afc south 25 um we thought it it was going to be the NFC South.

35:34Bill Simmons:And we did, we had special FanDuel bets. We went under, I think, 29 and a half. It actually did hit, but it was a little closer and a little hairier than we thought because Tampa turned out to be pretty good. But anyway, last year, AFC South 25, year before NFC South 27, year before that, AFC South 23. So let's call it somewhere between 23 and 27 will be our range. And the two candidates are the two South divisions. So we have the AFC South. They're playing the AFC West and the NFC West. So that's at least eight of the games plus each other. NFC South is playing the AFC East and the NFC West. So slight advantage to the AFC South.

36:14Bill Simmons:AFC South has Houston 9.5, Indy 7.5, Jacksonville 7.5, Tennessee 5.5. NFC South has Tampa Bay at 9.5 wins, Atlanta 7.5, Carolina 6.5, New Orleans 5.5. So they're one win less. NFC South is at 12. 29. AFC South is at 30. For just if you take the Fanduil odds together. And yet, House, I think I like the AFC South to be the worst division. What do you have? I agree with you. Oh, I thought you were going to have NFC South. I was ready for it. I'm not. And the reason I don't is because I think that Tampa will be good again, but I think that there is, speaking of double agents, speaking of saboteurs, going back and looking at what Kirk Cousins did to that Atlanta Falcons team, it's astonishing.

37:11They have a cause of action against that man. They were six and three, and that offense was very good until it got to the red zone. The Falcons led the league in turnovers in the second half of close games, you know, like games where they were sort of within one score. And Kirk Cousins had seven picks before he got benched in the second half of close games and finished his, some might say career, with one touchdown and nine interceptions before they finally benched him for Michael Penix. I mean, they were, that was a legit playoff team talent-wise. Now, look, Atlanta had plenty of challenges. They had no pass rush.

37:56They tried to address that this offseason. But I think the ceiling for Atlanta is high. Now, you know, got to look at something. Higher.

38:04Bill Simmons:I would say higher. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I had that as well because I actually like Tampa this year. Like when I did my, at least this first pass of the rankings, I was surprised by how high Tampa was, including the fact that they have one of the best four lines in the league. They brought back continuity and offense except for the coaches. And it looks like they're in a pretty easy division. I don't feel as good about Houston as I do about Tampa. So even if you're looking at those two teams versus each other, I just have more questions and concerns with Houston than I do with Tampa. I think Tampa's going to be good.

38:42They are good. They had to address their secondary. they were a bottom three defense in terms of yards per game and overall total passing yards. They just give up a ton. They gave up a lot of career games to opposing quarterbacks. So they have to, you know, have some improvement there. And it is, once again, a new offensive coordinator for Baker, but it doesn't seem to matter. You know, he just gets cooking and it's a guy that was already already there. So it seems like it'll be fine. The talent is good. The offensive line is good. So I like Tampa hanging right around.

39:16Bill Simmons:I think it's a little easier when you have everybody back and you have the same system and all that stuff. Only thing with Tampa is Tristan Wurf is hurt and out for a little bit. Looks like he might not be there for the beginning of the season. He's a pretty important offensive lineman. So that might be like, you know, you mark him down a game kind of thing. I didn't love that piece. Yeah. But Houston just lost Joe Mixon for God knows how long. You know, so, you know, I'm just a little more worried about them. So we're going to tell FanDuel, we're going to try to do an AFC South versus NFC South, some sort of head dead.

39:48Bill Simmons:They're going to put a couple futures up on FanDuel that House and I are going to approve, and we'll try to figure out. Before we go, New Orleans, Tennessee, Cleveland, Miami, all to miss the playoffs. Plus 109. Good. Let's do that. Plus money. We like plus money. Saints, Titans, Browns, Dolphins. I just don't see any of those teams making the playoffs. Miami would be the threatening one. That's who messes it up for us. Yeah. Like if the Pats are worse than people think, if the Jets are worse than people think, and they somehow go nine and eight and get a seven seed. On the flip side, Baltimore, Kansas City, Philadelphia.

40:25Bill Simmons:Yes, they all make the playoffs. 14 teams in the playoffs. Plus one-on-one. That's another one. Who messes that up? Plus money. Who messes it up? We like those. Philadelphia.

40:40I mean, I don't know how to make the case.

40:46Bill Simmons:I don't know who messes that up. Even odds. Let's do that as well. I mean, I would say Philadelphia on the theory that, first of all, I hate Philadelphia because they beat the hell out of Washington. But that's, no, the reason, here's the thing. If you want to make a case to fade them a tiny bit, it is that they have significant turnover personnel-wise on defense, and it takes a minute to get that Fangio defense. That's the best I can do. That's the best I can do. we're going to take a break and we're going to bring in our buddy, Jacko. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. As a small business owner, you don't have the luxury of clocking out early.

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41:55Bill Simmons:Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Simmons. Terms and conditions apply. And now it's time for Rookie Radar, a new segment from Yahoo Fantasy, the best place to play fantasy football this season. and we're going to be doing our big Ringer Fantasy football draft at the end of August. Starting August 4th, Yahoo Fantasy is dropping 28 big new features over 28 days, giving you more ways to play and draft and win. And whether you're building a dynasty or hunting for that late-round gem, it pays to keep an eye on the next generation of stars. Obviously, Gentian Vegas is going to be a crazy good running back, and we'll see how high he goes in the rankings.

42:39Bill Simmons:I still like Hampton on the Chargers to get a lot of touchdowns. I think he's going to be good right away. My sleeper would be RJ Harvey on Denver because Denver has top four offensive line. And I just think he's immediately going to put up points. And then the other one I really like is Tyler Warren on Indianapolis because I think he's, as a tight end, I think he's just going to come in and be really good right away. So we'll see. We'll see if there can be more names on that list. Stay tuned and get started by creating or joining a Yahoo Fantasy Football League today at yahoofantasy.com slash Simmons.

43:14Bill Simmons:All right, house is still here. A very special tree for us. My buddy Jacko, it's been a while. We were all together how many years ago? That may now be 37 years ago. You know, I was talking to somebody, a buddy of mine was sending his son off to college and we were talking, he had like some two-day orientation that they went to at the University of Oregon where they got to meet everyone. They're going to be the hall. You flew in, you flew back. And I ended up telling him Jacko's story about how he was introduced to his roommate, our friend Nick Aida. And I feel like you could just tell that right now, what happened.

43:49Bill Simmons:So we would get at Holy Cross, they would send us the name of who you're rooming with and a phone number and that was it. Right, and an address, I think. So like I learned that Nick Aida, who is not actually Japanese, although it sounds like it should be a Japanese name. So I'm like, Holy Cross is like 90 % Irish and I'm going to have the one Japanese roommate at Holy Cross, which is fine. But I'm just like, this will be unique. So I called Nick Aida to tell you what a simpler time it was. There was no social media of any kind. There was no Twitter, Facebook, you couldn't, or Snapchat, whatever the kids use these days.

44:25So you couldn't see anybody ahead of time. So you would just cold call this person and you were encouraged to talk ahead of time. And meanwhile, my parents, and to tell you what a different time this was, my parents had bought me like a fridge and a hard landline phone, which was a big deal at the time. So I call Nick Aida and I'm listing off all these things that I have for our room. And I'm like, I have a fridge and my parents have a phone for our room and we're good with this and we're good with that. And he was kind of grasping at straws to see like what he could bring. And he's like, I've got a bunch of hangers hangers and I'm like hangers I'm like does he think like my shirts are just on the floor right now like oh thank god I'll finally have a place I'll finally have something to do with my shirts and coats because I was wondering what I was going to do about that so I felt bad for him but so we told that story in college and of course Nick and I are fast friends now but and then like Holy Cross Alumni Magazine a couple years ago had a thing about going off to school and I had all the things you need and one of them was like a big package of hangers and I'm like Aida was ahead of

45:25Bill Simmons:the time who knew he was 30 years ahead of the curve yeah we and now you have a fantasy football team of them called the wire hangers exactly so it's it's lived on it's lived on although you had a similar story because i remember when you called your freshman year roommate and he was like i have to call you back i'm entertaining some guests and you had a vision like he was circulating like a tray with cheetos on it or something like to all of his friends such an awkward thing it's so awkward My daughter started college last year, and now they encourage you to go on social media and try to find a roommate ahead of time, which I don't particularly care for because if you get rejected, you start off behind the eight ball.

46:09There's already people you dislike or dislike you by the time you set foot on campus. I don't care for that. But I mean, it worked out for her. She's going back sophomore year with the same roommate, so it's all good.

46:20Bill Simmons:Who knew college roommates was like Tinder? like swipe left did you know this house it would have made sense though because I will say from my own experience I got paired up with a very nice guy from like central Massachusetts and I was describing to him my interests and stuff and I was like really into the Washington DC music scene you know the punk scene here and I was describing you know all the you know how I spent my time that way and he tried to connect We were on the phone. He's like, well, my high school had punk day, which is why we don't get dressed up. It's like, okay, that's a different kind of thing than what I'm talking about.

47:05House was like, every day is punk day for me. That's Tuesday for me. That's right. It's a day that ended why. We were roommates for one year.

47:15Bill Simmons:There you go. Then you had the great Jeff Mazur. All right. There's a lot of things we're going to try to do with the three of us. We're going to start here, Jacko. Yankees have not won a World Series. There are kids now turning 21 who are legally able to drink, who don't remember really what it was like when the Yankees won the World Series. They could say they did because they were like four or five. You absolutely detest their GM. You absolutely detest their coach. And you fly off the handle anytime something goes wrong. So now Aaron Judge, who's been Superman, and now he's hurt. it seemed like there was some Tommy John stuff potentially, but they're saying he's fine, at least for a little while.

47:54They averted disaster there, yes. Yeah.

47:55Bill Simmons:Just walk us through your emotions as we head into August. Well, I mean, you could just play any podcast I've appeared on since 2018, and it's the same story. Like, literally, like, there's no updates. It's the darkest time in my Yankee fandom history. I am 55 years young, so I've been a fan cognizantly of the Yankees since about 1977 when I was seven years old. And there's just no hope. Like, yes, you say I fly off the handle. That's true. I can't help but react to some things that occur. But I'm like, why are you doing this? Like, what's the point? Nothing's going to change. It's like yelling at the weather.

48:34Like, what's it doing for me? It's not doing any good. The owner doesn't care. Like, we can reenact all this again. The owner doesn't care because he gets 40 ,000 people a night ordering chicken buckets and beers and sodas and he makes a fortune. So he owns his own TV network. He doesn't care. The GM, it has a job for life. Like he's been there, you know, I did a thing a while ago. This is like the, he's on the third Pope, like the second British monarch and like the sixth president. It's the, it's the biggest job security on earth. Literally. He's been there longer than the Pope and like the King of England.

49:10It's ridiculous. And he's never, ever going to get fired because he's Hal's buddy. They're like brothers. So it'd be like, like, I would think like, if you put me in charge of the ringer content, right. And I, and I'm like, you're like, uh, John, I don't think we need a, the 50th Harford whalers or Pogues podcast. I think like 49 was probably enough. You'd be like, I love you, but we got to make some changes here. Like it's not working out. Hal Steinbrenner is like, Nope, it's all good. It's great. I love it. And And you have Aaron Boone, who is not fit to lead a pet store, let alone a Major League baseball team in the New York Yankees, you know, a multi-billion dollar franchise.

49:47The whole thing's a disgrace, but like it doesn't change. And yeah, like they have. And last year I was going to console myself and say, well, you know, they haven't even been to a World Series since 2009, which they won. And they went to one and I'm like, all right, I'll give them a pass. But then they lose the World Series in the most embarrassing, mortifying fashion. in the history, one of the worst performances in the history of baseball. Like that fifth inning in game five, I will still have nightmares about that, like on my deathbed. It's so bad and so horrendous. So like, you can't even give them a break on that because they got through a very weak American League to win a pennant.

50:24And okay, a pennant is still a pennant, but you can't like mortifyingly embarrass yourself in your first World Series in 16 years. You just can't. And then they're like, well, we're going to come back stronger. or we're going to be better defensively. And they got worse. Like, you can't make it up. They got worse. How do you? And they all have this fake swagger that they get from, you know, special advisor to the owner, Nick Swisher, who is the king of fake swagger. And he, like, runs the organization with Cashman. And they're like, well, the league's caught up to us and we're still the best team in the league.

50:52Based on what? When Aaron Boone says these things at press conferences, I just want one media member to say, like, you have all this confidence. What is that based on? Like, what is it based on that this team is going to rebound that it's all right in front of them and you're going to turn the corner. Based on what? It's delusional. Like, it is delusional. It's like me saying, I'm going to win the decathlon in the next Olympics. What is that based on? Oh, no, I'm going to do it. Don't worry about that. Based on what? There is no track record or history to say that you're going to do anything. And the media is just like, oh, okay, they're going to do it.

51:22It's all right in front of them and writes it down. Oh, the whole thing is just disgraceful. Disgraceful.

51:27Bill Simmons:Wow. House, you thought you had it bad with your baseball team. I do have it bad with my baseball team. The Yankees were in the effing World Series last year. Yes, yes, it was in Barrett, but they were in the World Series. That is, it's very good. It's a very, they won the pennant. That's very good. House does, a lot of people at Yankee, like younger, and I'm not killing House, I love House, but a lot of like younger Yankees Twitters, like, oh, they've been in the playoffs 20 years, you know, out of the past 22, and they went to the World Series. Listen, that's great if you're the Kansas City Royals.

52:01That's fantastic. You could hang up the banner like the 2014 Colts with the AFC finalist banner. Go ahead and hang that. That's great. If you're the New York Yankees, you are the creme de la creme of North American sports franchises. Making the playoffs is not enough. And normally I would give you, I would say, cut them some slack and say winning a pennant is good. We'll take that. But not when you lose in the way that they did. You just can't lose like that. I went to bed that night after the game and my wife had gone to bed before me and she said I was sighing so heavily. she thought someone died.

52:34I work with a woman whose husband is a big Yankee fan. And I went to work the next day and I said, how did your husband take last night's loss? And she goes, well, I went to bed early. And then when I woke up this morning, there was a bottle of scotch that was empty on the table. And I'm like, yeah, that's about right. That's exactly right. So you can't tell me, well, we went to the World Series. It was great when my wife thinks somebody died. And another woman I know, her husband drinks a bottle of scotch to console himself after that. Like you can't be like, well, we still got that pendant to root for.

53:04Bill Simmons:Well, and then Cole gets hurt. Now judges hurt. And then you have, this is something you and our buddy, John Jastrzemski has, have been on it forever. This it's basically Yankee prospect porn where they just tout these prospects that are coming up so that they don't spend money on other people because they have the next Lou Gehrig's coming up. Right. The next Eric Jeter's coming up. And they did this with bull pay, especially, where they were like, this guy is so special, you're not going to believe it. And now it's turned on him to the point that I actually feel bad for him as a Red Sox fan. Like, I feel bad for him and his family.

53:43Bill Simmons:And I hate the Yankees. Like, I hate them almost the most, other than maybe the Lakers. But that's how badly it's gone. Why did they do this with their prospects? Well, because Hal doesn't want to spend money and they have to justify it some way. So he didn't want to spend money on, like, Trey Turner and Corey Seeger. And even before Volpe was a thing, he didn't want to spend money on Manny Machado and they never went out and got Bryce Harper. And then they're like, there's like a joke about, you know, on Twitter or elsewhere where somebody is like, I want McDonald's. And I think it's like an old Eddie Murphy joke.

54:12Like we have McDonald's at home. So the Yankees are like, we don't need like an all-star shortstop. We have one at home just waiting, Anthony Volpe. And they overhyped him and he's Italian. So they could play that up because the, you know, the Yankees have a history of great Italian players in New York, largely Italian Yankee fans, DiMaggio and Lazeri, the whole Rizzuto, the whole nine yards. And he grew up a Yankee fan. He grew up in New York. So they're like, oh, this kid, he's going to be great. He's awesome. And they put too much pressure on the kid and he stinks. Like it's this third year and he stinks.

54:42And people got all excited because he had a halfway decent postseason last year, but that was like a very small sample size. And it turned out to be a fluke and he stinks and he can't hit any, But he makes up for not hitting by not being able to field either. So it's like, what is he doing? And the Yankees always do this, where Clint Frazier was going to be the next great thing. Greg Bird was going to be the next great thing. And Gary Sanchez was going to be Johnny Bench. And they do it because Hal doesn't want to spend money. And he's enamored of the Tampa Bay Rays business model of doing it, paying 75 cents for a roster.

55:18And it doesn't work. And I guess it could work if you had a GM who knew what he was doing. But the GM's been there too long and everybody in the system has been there too long and they don't know what they're doing. And they've shown that clearly. But so Volpe, I almost feel bad for him myself because he can't help that he just stinks. And fans put too much in him because they're like, well, I guess if we're not going to get a competent Major League shortstop all star, Anthony Volpe will be that on the cheap and we'll love it. And he's our homegrown guy and prospects and yay. And I read about him in Baseball Prospectus and all that.

55:51Bill Simmons:It's horrible. Everything's horrible. At least Torres didn't go to the Tigers and lead off the All-Star game. Right. I mean, that's a great point. When they traded Chapman for Torres, and Torres was the number one prospect in baseball, and they made another trade where they got Clint Frazier, and he was supposedly one of the top 10 prospects in baseball, and the Yankees destroyed both of them. Now, Glaber was okay as a Yankee, but he never lived up to the top prospect in baseball billing. They couldn't get him to run to first base on a consistent basis, and they coddled him, and they never got the best out of him because Aaron Boone is like your big brother, like managing the team and he's not an authority figure.

56:27And he lets him get away with murder and he covers for everybody. And you ended up with like, you know, I had a thing the other day and a guy corrected me because I said they haven't, they developed Aaron Judge, who's a generational player who they weren't even that high on as a prospect and they lucked out with him. They were higher on Greg Bird and Sanchez and Volpe later on than they ever were with Judge and they lucked out with him. but who else have they developed? And a guy said, well, Luis Heal won the rookie of the year last year. Okay, he's a pitcher, and I think it was probably a weak field, and he's been hurt all year, so I forgot about him.

56:59But before that, like, who's the prospect that this wonderful analytics department of Brian Cashman has developed? You can't go back and find anybody that they've developed in their own system except for Judge, and I'll give you Heal, who won rookie of the year. But, like, they washed out on Torres, by and large. They washed out on Frazier, et cetera. you got your guy schlittler yeah they got him and they have spent they have this kid spencer jones in the minors and they're probably going to trade them for like a you know backup third baseman because they don't have it or a relief pitcher that's going to be brutal so yeah it's yeah they get this i like schlittler because he or whatever you say his name because he throws 100 miles an hour and you know they need more of that he threw like the first game he pitched he had the six fastest pitches for the yankees all year which tells you something else so i like him but like Like, you know, pitchers, who knows if they're going to work out.

57:49He looks good in a small sample, but who knows? Who knows? This is a good faith question. I promise. Oh, boy. How different do you think the season would be if Juan Soto was still on the team? Because I will tell you that I think that they did make a legit effort to sign Soto. I think they did, too. But I think Steve Cohen was never going to be outbid. I agree. went to a billion. Steve Cohen was going to go to a billion and one dollar. And it's very clear when Soto was complaining about losing out on a hundred thousand dollar bonus for not making the world series that, I mean, for not making the all-star team that he was always going to go to the highest bidder, whatever team that was.

58:29So yeah, I do think they made a good faith effort to get him. And I would say like on paper, they getting Bellinger, Cody Bellinger, who's been good and getting max freed as like the backup plan were two good things. And, and I think Soto certainly had the capability of masking some of their offensive troubles because they, they haven't been able to get a clutch hit in about 10 years. And it's all like basically home run or nothing for the most part, although their offensive stats this year are good, but that's a little phony because it's from a couple of big games. They don't have any level of consistency and they don't believe in clutch.

59:04And they, the, the, I don't know what they teach in the minor leagues, but it's not defense or like any kind of competent hitting. I don't think they teach anything. I think Nick Swisher takes them out to dinner and tells you how to do a home run trot or something.

59:17Bill Simmons:Wow, Johnny's more down on the Yankees than I am on the Red Sox. I actually had a big comeback season with the Red Sox and I've watched a ton of the season. And you traded Devers and then you got better. It was the Ewing theory. It was the biggest Ewing theory of all time. It turns out when you trade your overweight superstar guy who won't help the team by playing first base and didn't seem like he was very happy and felt betrayed by everybody. Maybe it was a good thing to have him move on. Apparently. And he proved it right because he went to the Giants and Will Clark's like, hey, I'd love to meet with you and work on first base.

59:50And he was like, no, I'm good. No, thanks.

59:54Bill Simmons:I think he played there eventually last week. The problem is the Red Sox sold it to the fans as like, no, no, and then we're going to use the Devers money. We'll spend it on it. And we're still waiting. Yeah, exactly. But we have these young prospects that are actually pretty special. Like this Roman Anthony thing is, this is like appointment viewing. This is a rare case of the prospect that they might have actually, yeah, they might have actually not been full of shit. He's pretty great. Even wears my old, the Fred Lynn number 19, which brings joy to my heart. How's when did you know with Bryce Harper?

1:00:31Bill Simmons:I didn't wear it. Yeah, he's wearing Fred Lynn's number. What did you do with Bryce Harper when you were watching him? What about Bryce Harper? Like right away? When they had Bryce Harper, like right away, right? Yes, immediately. Amazing. Immediately. Yes. That's what this Roman Anthony thing's like. It's like he just clearly has it. We've had a wealth of those kinds of things come through Washington. Juan Soto, and now James Wood, who is an absolute goddamn stud. Six foot seven, runs the bases, so fleet of foot. But the organization is, speaking of abominations, in this holding pattern because the family that owns them can't figure out how to sell it for max price.

1:01:12So speaking of teams that won't spend any money, I mean, I'm not...

1:01:15Bill Simmons:How hard is it to sell a baseball team? It's really, it's very peculiar to me. Well, I have a question for both of you because you each hate this team for different reasons. But does it annoy you that the Mets kind of have their mojo back? Jacko, do you care about the Mets at all as a Yankee fan, or are you just American League only? I never really used to care. I never used to care about the Mets. It was like the Don Draper, I don't think about you at all thing. But then I kind of got my back up a couple years ago. There was like a Mets-Red Sox game on ESPN, and everybody was joyously chanting Yankees suck at the same time, and I got kind of mad about the Mets.

1:01:50You're like, what? I was like, what? I got my back. Mets, who the fuck are you, the Mets? Shut up, you know? So I got my back up a little bit. So yeah, I mean, there's always a thing about, you know, who's going to be the dominant team in New York to the extent anybody pays attention to that. Like who's the big kid on the block? And when they got Soto, you know, they talked a lot of trash and it was like, all right, the Yankees are in a rough patch, rough decade, but let's not go nuts about who the big boy in town is, you know? So the Mets are cute, you know, like let them have their cute little fun.

1:02:21Oh, you're giving them the cute.

1:02:22Bill Simmons:Oh, I love it. It's dismissive Jack. I was one of my favorite Jack. Cause if you had Steve Cohen as the Yankees owner, though, you'd be delighted. I would be in love. Yeah. You would love it too. I would. Of course I would. I mean, you're kidding me. I don't care about the Mets either. The Phil, I care much more about the Phillies and honestly the Cardinals. Cause the Cardinals beat the nationals a bunch of times in the playoffs. I, I, I like them less. Hmm. Well, I feel really good about not only the Red Sox, but baseball. I don't want to say I gave up on baseball, but I definitely took a pretty long hiatus, partly from Mookie Betts, partly for how long the games, we won the four titles.

1:03:01Bill Simmons:But I really did kind of deep down miss it. And getting back into it, especially when Tatum got hurt, and just kind of all of a sudden they kind of slid into a void in a lot of different ways. But I think the biggest thing that I've loved, and we've talked about it last year too, is just how much faster the games move and how much more enjoyable it is day to day to be like, oh, it's the sixth inning. And you just have it in your head. You're like, oh, this would be another 45 to 50 minutes. I can actually stay and watch the end of this versus wherever we were before where you just like time stopped.

1:03:37Bill Simmons:You had no idea how long anything was going to be. The pitch clock is the greatest thing they've done ever. Hey, are we going to watch that show? It'd be like, I don't, this game might be another three hours. I don't know. Their innovation with that, I think is one of the most important things anyone did this century. Like baseball to me is like pretty entertaining again. And I can't believe they fixed it, Jacko. Well, especially you and I, you know, veterans of the Yankee Red Sox wars where a game would start at seven o 'clock and go until 1230 in the morning because, you know, guys are stepping out of the box and they're adjusting their gloves and they're shaking dirt off their spikes and there's a million pitching changes in the whole nine yards.

1:04:17So it's like, you know, I got to go to work tomorrow. Can we please end this one way or another? You know, it was like a marathon. It was ridiculous. So the pitch count is fantastic. It's such a smart innovation and to speed things up, which was, I was always, you know, I'm an old school conservative guy. So I'm like, what are we making these changes for? But I'm like, oh, that was actually good. Good stuff. Good job, Manfred. I will tell you, my kid, my kid, this is where he turns 15 this upcoming week. We're going up to New York to kind of celebrate. And I said, here's all the stuff we can do.

1:04:49The Yankees, unfortunately, are not in town when we're going to be in town. But the Mets are in town. He's like, yes, I'll go to a Mets game. I definitely want to go because he knows that he's not going to be held hostage for hours and hours and hours. And he does get to see Juan Soto, who is his favorite player when he's in Washington. But yeah, we're going to go to, he's like, yeah, I want to go see him at the Mets game.

1:05:11Bill Simmons:Well, my son's the same way. He's been watching more this year, but a big piece of it for him was the MLB, the video game. The video game apparently is fantastic this year. And it's gotten him really into some of the players. And then, you know, they also, I can't believe they figured this out either, but they, the all-star game was pretty fun to watch this year. And I thought the, the home runoff with Schwarber was, was awesome. Like I, I watched the entire game. I can't, I don't remember the last time I've watched the all-star game start to finish basically. And I thought the home runoff was good.

1:05:45Bill Simmons:Baseball, make it a comeback, Jacko. And in every aspect, except for the Yankees who are the, basically the early nineties Yankees again. I wish I could enjoy it. Yeah, that's great. Good stuff. Are you nervous about the Red Sox at all? We're kind of breathing down your necks a little. Beat the Dodgers today? I saw that. Part of me is I really am at the point where I want them at this point to lose as much as possible. And I know nothing is going to change, but I just want them to wear the embarrassment. Like I know Boone will never leave. Cashman is never, ever going to leave. It's not going to make any difference to Steinbrenner because 40 ,000 people will go.

1:06:20It's just like a place to go and see and be seen and enjoy the experience. So nothing will change, but I would like them to have the embarrassment just attached to them like a scarlet red letter.

1:06:31Bill Simmons:House, can you believe what you're hearing, House? He's now spite-rooting against the Yankees for the sake of a greater purpose. I understand. It's a sacrifice, and I admire it as a sports fan. Well, House does it with the Wizards every year as he roots for a good draft pick. Let's take a break, and I want to talk about golf and true crime with you guys. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Ask 10 football fans what to do on 4th Down, you'll get 10 opinions. And somehow every fan watching from their couch is absolutely certain they would have made the right call. That's because every situation is different and State Farm believes insurance should be too.

1:07:08Bill Simmons:You get to know your needs and help you personalize coverage. Create a personal price plan to help fit your life and budget today. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by my old buddy, Paramount+. See you Sunday on Paramount+. You're streaming home for the NFL and CBS all season long. That's right, football fans. Stream your live local CBS games every NFL Sunday all the way through the AFC Championship game. Follow the league's biggest stars, can't miss matchups, and the season's biggest storylines. Catch additional coverage with NFL Today, NFL Today +, CBS Sports HQ, Fantasy Football Today, and more.

1:07:42Bill Simmons:So sign up and sign into Paramount+. And we'll see you Sunday for another thrilling season of the NFL and CBS streaming live on Paramount+. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming.

1:08:16Bill Simmons:PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 as a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association member, FDIC. All right, so I was gonna do this with House last week and I forgot, and now Jacko's here. And I know, even though I didn't prep Jacko at all for this, Scotty Scheffler, who crushed the British Open a week ago and is, I think, unequivocally now the best golfer since Tiger Woods. But he's boring, Jacko. He is, yes. It's not his fault. No. Yeah, I know you're the typical, you're a casual golf fan. You will come in for the majors.

1:08:58Yep.

1:08:59Bill Simmons:And it's fun to watch somebody be really good, but something's missing with Scottie Scheffler. And I want to dive into this because it's not his fault. I feel bad even talking about it. Sometimes you just don't have it. but do you use, I just wanted to make sure you agree with the premise. Like this is probably not fixable from a personality standpoint. A hundred percent. Maybe they could bring in Nick Swisher to coach him on swagger. Like, I don't know, maybe, maybe Nick Swisher could leave the Yankees alone and go join the Scotty Scheffler team and give him a little swagger. And he could like fist bump after like a swing his fists after a big pot or something.

1:09:34But no, it's true. And I've, I've read this. There was just something on the ringer. I'll give the ringer a shout out about it after he won. And you know, his press conferences are just, and he's sort of matter of fact about it. Like there doesn't seem to be like, even like a lot of joy is like an automaton when he wins and even like getting arrested, you know, during a tournament at the PGA didn't even really make him interesting. And normally that would be like, you know, the guy would be fired up or mad or whatever. And it's just not in his demeanor. He's just like this amazing golf robot, but yeah, that's true.

1:10:04He doesn't, I don't think you get clicks, certainly not like for tiger or even for like, DeChambeau or something, right? Or Kepka, like those guys, Rory, right? Those guys bring eyeballs. I don't think he does that at all, right?

1:10:18Bill Simmons:Well, what's weird is the golf audience has been pretty good, but House, I know you, poor House is stuck doing a golf podcast with Nathan where they have to talk about Scottie Sheffar after he beats everybody by six strokes. House, have you tried different methods to sound excited after these tournaments? Like, do you drink after? Do I even need to ask? Well, a couple of things. In the first place, he does not possess the outward charisma. He's not even in the same league. We, you know, Jacko just ran through the top guys. Jordan Spieth, when Jordan Spieth was at the top of the game, like magnetic, you know, all kinds of generations coming together because he was a phenom.

1:10:58He was young. He was the golden child. um scheffler just has has you know been a very quiet kind of uh executioner kind of style of of golfer now there is a personality and the story of the british open in advance of him going out and kicking everybody's ass was an interview that he gave at the press conference where he talked about getting life fulfillment from something other than than golf that he liked golf that he He liked to beat the pants off of everybody, but it wasn't the true thing that gave him, you know, joy in his heart. It didn't. And it was a, you know, there was a lot of reaction in the golf community about, you know, wow, he doesn't really have the fire.

1:11:39Like, you know, people were sort of wondering what, what, what, what he was trying to convey. There is, he's a very thoughtful guy. And when you can get stuff out of him, I will say, I mean, I hope you don't mind. He, he did at the British open, the Open Championship, let out a very long fart that Abu Mike picked up. I heard about this. He confessed the fart, and it was very funny. So there is something there. He just doesn't exude the charisma. And to the observation Jacko made, he was the number one player in the world at the PGA Championship trying to turn his car into the entrance of the major championship and the cop stopped him and had no idea who the hell he was and put him in the handcuffs and whisked him away.

1:12:31Bill Simmons:We've had some great athletes and it always feels like it's a diss to talk about it, but sometimes, like Tim Duncan, House and I revere Tim Duncan. I think he's the best power forward of all time. I'll fully admit, if people were going to say he's really boring when he played, I'm like, I don't really have much of a counter argument. I'm in like, because I love Tim Duncan and like, oh no, if you went to the game to watch the way he interacted with his teammates, it was so cool. It's still not exciting. It's not like Anthony Edwards. I think of... Anthony Edwards things. John Stockton was another one.

1:13:06Scheffler as Pete Sampras. I've heard that. Sampras is another one. And I think that's a good comp because Sampras really was excellent for the stretch when he was on top. And he had a nice foil with Agassi. And Sheffler has a kind of foil, which should be Rory, but Rory's a tiny bit inconsistent. It could be Bryson, but Bryson was a little up and down this season as well.

1:13:31Bill Simmons:Well, I wrote down top five signs when a superstar athlete is probably boring. Number one, they're boring. Number two, they play professional golf or professional tennis. is usually a red flag. Number three, you feel bad that you think they're boring, which I think we're in that stage here. It's like, I don't even like we're doing this segment. He seems like a great guy. It's not his fault. We know a bunch of, we have a bunch of friends who it's like, it's not their job to be the life of the party. He's just going and kicking everyone in his ass. Number four, and this happened during the British Open, the announcers were talking.

1:14:15Bill Simmons:They were trying to almost, almost promote that he's less boring than he used to be. But the way they were doing it was like, well, Scotty, he's made a lot of an effort recently to open up and to be more personable and to share more. And it's like, well, you're definitely boring if outsiders are like - That's what we're grasping at here, yeah. He's opening up. I remember they used to do that with Sampras. And then the fifth one, which hasn't happened yet, is the media narrative shifting to people worrying that you're so boring you might actually hurt the sport. which I don't house. We're not there yet.

1:14:49And I don't think golf isn't that way. Cause if he continues on the, the streak that he's on of, of like very high, he's, he's one, you know, he's finishing the top three of 10, the last 16 majors. He's won four of the last 16 majors. Like if those are, those are tiger style numbers. If he continues on that, that accomplishment all by itself is thrilling to the golf community. I don't know the answer as to whether or not you guys will, will make it appointment TV to catch the PGA Championship because he's up by six strokes going into a Sunday. Yeah, he's just out at that point. Maybe so. It's going to be great someday when you look at everybody's legacy and you're like Bobby Jones, the first great American golfer, and Ben Hogan came back from a year after a car crash and was a superstar, and Arnold Palmer, the people's champion, and Nicholas, the best ever, and Tiger revolutionized the game, and Scotty Scheffler.

1:15:47Remember that time he farted?

1:15:52The fart hurt around the world? Maybe that's the thing. He was just a cold-hearted killer, but he farted that one time.

1:15:58Bill Simmons:That was something, huh? Maybe farting could be his vice. Well, House, I was thinking two things with him. One, having a reliable rival where there's real dislike, I think would really help. He needs that. We're just going to have to just feed some sort of Bryson versus him or Rory versus him. We have the Ryder Cup coming up, so there could be somebody on the European side, either Jon Rahm or Rory McIlroy. Talking shit to Sheffield. Yes, trying to get it out of him. The other thing is, maybe he needs more of a character as a caddy. Like a fluff? Maybe like a Shane Gillis type. Maybe somebody who's a complete wild card.

1:16:41Bill Simmons:And Sheffield is super loyal to him, but he keeps offending people with jokes. I don't know. Maybe there's something we could work on with the caddy thing. The only other thing is the thing that really works is for something bad to happen off the field, and then you have to rally back and come back. The comeback. We don't want that to happen with Scott. That's the third way this could play out. Other than this house, I think Ryder Cup is our best chance. Yeah, I like that. To have him be like the Rambo in the mid-80s defending America's honor. Then he becomes the patriot and the hero, Scottie Sheffler.

1:17:19Bill Simmons:And now I have some momentum or something. The challenge with the word, what if the USA is down on Sunday, right? And he's the guy that needs to come back. That's right. Like a miracle on ice deal or something. That would be good. And he leads the charge to win the Ryder Cup. That would be a good narrative for him. That sounds great. The challenge for him is the shadow that Bryson DeChambeau will cast at the Ryder Cup because he has become the Captain America. He's the people's champion. He's the people's champion. When he beat Rory McIlroy at the US Open down at Pinehurst, they were chanting USA as he was walking up the fairway with a chance to win the tournament.

1:17:59But Scotty, yeah, some kind of comeback thing at the Ryder Cup could help.

1:18:05Bill Simmons:Speaking of golf, happy Gilmore to Jacko. hasn't seen it yet. I watched it, Housewatch. We don't have to talk long about it. If you love the first movie, it's kind of a must-watch. I was very surprised by all the cameos. I'm going to hold off on a review. You don't have to. You can say it. It was terrible. It was terrible, but it was also good. I kind of enjoyed having all these people in my life again. That's it. House, the most fascinating thing to me is it was basically a two-hour critique of the Livetour. That seemed to be the actual purpose of the movie is to use this fake Livetour thing they had as a proxy to make them the villains and then to just bring in a bunch of actual golfer cameos.

1:18:55Bill Simmons:And let's just say probably John Daly, who doesn't golf anymore, was the best one. But some of the other ones, I don't expect them to maybe move into acting full-time. Probably not. It's just there's cameos. It's kind of like they didn't fully have a script, so they loaded as many cameos as they possibly could. I enjoyed that part. House, was there any interesting piece for you with all the PGA golfers that were in there? No, no, no. I like very much Adam Sandler sitting at a table with Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus. Yeah, I agree. That was like, you know. And those guys happened to do lines? Fred Couples was there.

1:19:31Bill Simmons:Fred Couples was there, yeah. They kept bringing Fred Couples' blueberry parfait, I think. That resonated. Another dessert, Mr. Couples? Oh, wow, yes, yes, please. That certainly struck a chord with me. So it was a little nostalgia ride. That's right. I agree with that. It was what it was, Jacko. I still think Jacko's going to... Jacko, you'll end up watching it. Oh, yeah. I'm sure I'll tune in at some point. See how much I can take. It's fine. All right. But what we really want to talk about on Netflix is the, you have me with Missing Girl and a cruise. Right. I think cruise is, this has been a huge summer for cruise documentaries because Poop Cruise was great.

1:20:15Bill Simmons:I'll never go on a cruise. Have either of you ever been on a cruise? No. I have. I went on one of the Disney cruises. We took my kid for his birthday. When was that? I think it was his ninth birthday or his 10th birthday. Or maybe somewhere in one of those. And he was in a transition year where he was too young to get access to the video game room that he really wanted to be in. And too old. The age-appropriate room, he's like, this is boring as F. I don't want no part of any of this. So we basically had to pay for Wi-Fi so he could play some of the video games that he wanted to play. And then placate him with chicken fingers.

1:20:56This sounds worse than the poop cruise. He wanted to get off as quickly as possible. As soon as it became apparent that he wasn't allowed into the video game room that he wanted to be in. We went to shows and stuff. We tried. But he's like, I want off.

1:21:08Bill Simmons:We made a mistake. I'm never doing it. One of the things I love about cruises, and they dive into this and this, it's called Amy Bradley is missing. But one of the things they dive into is like cruises. There's basically like no laws once you get in a cruise. Right. You see, like, that's it. You just don't know anything's possible. Did you know this? because I didn't fully know this. No, I didn't realize that to the extent to which the cruise is like its own entity unto itself, including laws or lack thereof. Yeah, I was unaware. But this documentary made it all too aware. I would never, and I have two daughters.

1:21:45My daughters will never get anywhere near the ocean, let alone not even on a cruise.

1:21:50Bill Simmons:That's how I felt. I'm discouraged all my immediate family from ever being on a cruise. One of the things when the girl, So this Amy Bradley goes missing in the wee hours, like 5.30 house. She's in the cabin next to her dad who sees her. She's on the little balcony. No, in the cabin with her dad. Oh, yeah. She's on the balcony. One cabin. It's her, her 21-year-old brother, and her parents. They had one cabin. Right. And he sees her sleeping on the balcony. Yeah. Right. 5.30. Maybe she's having a drink or a cigarette or something. And then a half hour later, doesn't see her at all. And nobody knows what happens.

1:22:24Bill Simmons:Never seen again. One of the great things. that yeah well yeah that's what i thought i'm like why is this three episodes i'm like she fell in the ocean she got up to throw up or she threw herself off the boat and that was ballgame but it turns out maybe not the case okay well they zag against that because well first of all the crews they don't like send the alarm that somebody's they let everybody off like three hours later in Carousel, whatever it's called. Carousel. And that's another, I'm on like six missteps and mispronunciations of this pod. I'm in rare summer form. But they let her off. They let everyone off, but they don't know where she is yet.

1:23:07Bill Simmons:And that actually makes it worse. So then the theories become, she's actually out there. She was kidnapped. She's part of sex trafficking and then a couple different people see her and house the whole doc is like these people being like i was in a bathroom and there was and i knew it was weird because somebody was monitoring her and then i realized two years later that's who it was it was amy and her family like basically just i don't know losing their minds like trying to figure out what happened to her now it's been 25 26 years jacko yeah since 1998 yeah cow and there's a there's like a there's a to hate who was the cruise director and he couldn't be like any more nonchalant about this and it was like did you ever think about like shutting the boat down and he's like well yeah she was missing but there was 2500 other people that wanted to go to curacao or whatever right yeah right so and i was like yeah she would she jumped off the boat unfortunately or fell off the boat but then there's a lot of conspiracies where people seem to see her after the fact and there's some weird internet things.

1:24:13And it's horrible for the family. It's horrific because they, you know, like they still have her car like washed and tuned up and like to come back to. They kept her Miata. Oh, it's just, I can't even imagine what they go through and it's just got to be horrific. But, and basically the behavior of everybody involved in this doesn't make like a lick of sense for the most part. Like the FBI, they're like, we can't do that. We can't investigate that. We can't do this. And I'm like, no, but I think you could like, like, what are we doing? What are we doing?

1:24:41Bill Simmons:here it seems like things to follow up on carousel seems like a lot of shady stuff might be going on there too like they're afraid to alert the police and uh yeah so there's like if you since we've already trashed cruises we might as well trash the entire caribbean too like everybody goes to the vacation in the caribbean and you think like oh it's all good at the resort or whatever but like curacao had like this underbelly of like mob mobsterism and prostitution and it was like areas you can't even go to and the police are like, eh. You know, I was like, Jesus, it's kind of troubling. House is going next week now.

1:25:16Bill Simmons:House just booked the front. You're checking a lot of my boxes, Johnny. You're checking a lot of my boxes. Not talking house out of this. Yeah, so the big thing was there was some picture and it was on like a prostitution site that looked like her seven years later. And it really did look like her, Jacko. That was the one where I was like, wow. That was the scary part. Yeah. And then there was a thought that maybe she got pregnant and that the traffickers were like, you'll lose your kid. She turned out she came out to her parents. And then the question was, is that why she jumped? Because she was hiding the secret.

1:25:54Bill Simmons:Her parents didn't accept her. So they go through all the machinations of what might have happened. And then you think it's leading to some ending where it's like, we're going to find out what happened. Yeah. and then it's like that's it we never found out what happened no and then you just kind of go from there to to the internet and you go to like reddit and hope there's some amy bradley site which of course there is and it's like 2 30 in the morning and i'm reading the amy bradley reddit site trying to find out what the fuck happened i don't know right and i still don't know what happened it's well done and they and they it's like a big it's like a three episode unsolved mysteries essentially like because it doesn't get solved that unfortunately for her family and it's horrible.

1:26:34And my wife is currently in Ireland with her sister. I hope she may be at a Coldplay show. I'm not sure, but let's hope. So I was by myself and I'm like watching it down here in my finished basement and it like freaked me out. And I'm like, I'm like, they're going to come traffic me. Like what? You're not on a cruise ship. Come on. Be a man.

1:26:50Bill Simmons:I watched the, I watched the Idaho college murders one too on Amazon and that's four episodes and probably should have been too but that one you know they do i you guys got to watch that one because basically and it's a terrible story but the guy who ends up being the killer is somebody who is studying like criminology and yeah like clearly like lost his mind and was like now i want to see if i can commit one of these terrible murders and nobody will be able to catch me because i've gone to school for this and this fucking dumb ass leaves his cell phone on as he drives to and from where the murder sites were so all they had to do was ping his cell phone like no to all the future murders out there leave the cell phone in your house i don't know like you they didn't cover that in his criminology course apparently jacko i don't know that's like that's surprised by how poor his performance was it's day one serial killer stuff leave the cell phone in your house speaking of serial killers and netflix i just i'm five years late to the party but i just banged through two seasons of the only two seasons of Mindhunter, which was good.

1:27:54That was so, so good. Oh, that was a great show. And I'm so bummed out that it ended. And then I was like, there was rumors they were going to bring it back. And oh, so well done. It was so good. But yeah, between that and this Cruise one, I've been freaked out a lot. But I'd rather watch these depressing, horrible things than the Yankees. So that's what it's come to. So you're not true crime or you are? No, I enjoy it very much. What was the one about the guy in Wisconsin? that I was no railroaded the guy uh who uh his family that's like that's like early COVID stuff what the hell was that called making of a murder or something yes yes exactly that that that that yeah I I thought that was uh very riveting I enjoyed it very much and the and the uh murder the the the podcast that turned into um getting the conviction overturned here in in the in the up in near Baltimore.

1:28:53Bill Simmons:I think this true crime stuff is never going to end. No, people love that. It's one of the few things you can watch if you're a couple. It's kind of a something for everybody, which a lot of these shows don't. Johnny, there's a show on Netflix called Hunting Wives that I would recommend. Okay. Somebody else was just talking about that. It's a scripted, just a lot of nudity and a very horny show about in these Texas housewives. There's murder. You could see a dead body early, so you know what you're in for. and then it gets really horny and it's right in your wheelhouse. I've known you for a long time.

1:29:25My wife and I just watched Your Friends and Neighbors with Friend of the Pod, John Hamm. Your friend, that was a good one. That was a good one.

1:29:32Bill Simmons:All of these shows start with the murder in the first minute and then we go backwards. Yeah. That's the model. So if we ever do the Scotty Schaeffer story to make it more interesting, it'll start with his caddy being murdered in the first minute. And hopefully somebody left their cell phone behind. house can we get him a more exciting caddy like in wrestling when uh his caddy they would give the boring wrestler a good manager like a fun manager a lot of people would say that his caddy is the like the thing the secret sauce yes yes because the guy caddied for bubba watson before and won two masters with bubba watson and now has all these majors being on scotty's bag and they have a symbiosis uh they're both you know they have the same religious background religious belief.

1:30:18They pray together. There's a whole thing with the family, so it's probably not going to happen.

1:30:23Bill Simmons:All right. We've answered it all. Ryder Cup is the key. Jacko's turned his back on the Yankees and don't go on a cruise. House, great to see you as always. Jacko, a true pleasure. I'm glad you're well. Talk to you soon, my brother. All right, boys. Thanks for coming on. Anytime. Thanks. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. All right, parents, PayPal's on your team this back to school. I've been there myself. You're paying for sports gear, backpacks, sneakers, laptops. You've likely got multiple carts, your favorite online stores. Well, that's when PayPal comes in with the assist. Pay in four, no interest, no fees, truly game-changing, subject to approval.

1:31:03Bill Simmons:Learn more at paypal.com slash pay in four. PayPal Inc. NMLS 910457. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, NFL Sunday ticket kickoffs coming. And with NFL Sunday ticket and YouTube TV, you get every game, every Sunday, all in one place. New users can get NFL Sunday ticket for eight payments of just$30 a month. New users pay$240 or eight, eight non-cancelable payments of$30 a month. First charge of purchase availability varies with NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local national games, YouTube TV required terms, Forms restrictions and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded, no refunds.

1:31:45Bill Simmons:All right, we're taping this Sunday afternoon. He already wrote about Hulk Hogan for the ringer.com, a great website, talked about it on the Ringer Wrestling Show. David Shoemaker is here. We've been working together since 2011. There's been a lot of ups and downs with wrestling. We worked on the Mr. McMahon documentary series together. Knew the Hulk Hogan day was gonna come at some point. Age 71, very complicated death. It's interesting when somebody has this outsized importance on a sport, or in this case, a, what do we call it now? Professional and entertainment sport, sports entertainment, whatever we're using these days.

1:32:20I've gone full circle to just saying sport again. Yeah, let's go back. We'll go back.

1:32:26Bill Simmons:Somebody who was like, basically, he wasn't Babe Ruth for this sport, but more like Michael Jordan. And then the last 20 years becomes this huge part of the legacy. I want to skip all that and come back to it later and just go back to the 80s specifically and what happened. And you wrote about a lot of it. Does wrestling become wrestling without Hulk Hogan is the big question. And everyone has asked this. Dave Meltzer wrote about it in his newsletter this week about, could you argue that a lot of this stuff might have been in motion already? The greases were skidded. The skids were greased. Yeah.

1:33:07Bill Simmons:I still feel like it had to have him involved for it to happen. Yeah, I mean, listen, in everything in pro wrestling, there's a lot of what's accepted as truth or what's told as truth is just BS, right? Everything's sort of a work. Everything's trying to get the storyteller over, put forward some angle. So truth is really hard to come by. I do think that wrestling going national would have happened with or without Vince McMahon, with or without the WWF, with or without Hulk Hogan, for that matter. I think, you know, it was already on some cable TV networks. And as those things expanded, I think that, you know, Georgia Wrestling or if it was the Crockett's, whoever it was, the AWA, world class, somebody would have become a real big national promotion.

1:33:48But it's undeniable that Vince McMahon had a very specific eye for a certain style of this professional wrestling that really worked on a national level in and out of almost everybody's lives. and Hulk Hogan was undeniably a big part of that. Even if you just look at the Hogan part, I've tried to run this counterfactual in my head so many times. Like, what if it was Dusty Rhodes? What if it was Paul Orndorff? What if it was, you know, what if superstar Billy Graham had been at his peak right then? What if it had been Ric Flair for that matter? There's so many things. I think it could have worked.

1:34:23I still find it hard to believe. I mean, Dusty's really, you know, Vince dropped the bomb on us that he was considering Dusty when we were doing the documentary. He was considering Dusty for that Hogan spot. And, I mean, Dusty's the only guy with that level of sort of baby-faced star power.

1:34:41Bill Simmons:I don't think it works with him the same way. It's just not... I mean, I started watching wrestling as a kid because it was like real-life comic books. You know, it was the muscles. It was the screaming. It was the monologues. Hulk Hogan was just a real life toy, a real life superhero. And there is just, and he was just incredibly special as a performer, even though it's easy to look back now and say his matches were repetitive. His storylines were repetitive, you know, whatever you want to say. He was just an incredibly special performer. Repetitive is a compliment. It was the same formula every time.

1:35:22Bill Simmons:So I think it was three things. I think it was Vince. I think it was Cable. and I think it was Hulk Hogan. But I think the cable piece was the most important because cable was pushed everything from local to national. When I was growing up on the East Coast, we got WWF and I didn't even really know there were other wrestling federations. I remember being in Boston after my parents got divorced and spending weekends with my dad and stuff in the mid 80s and they had Texas on. And being like, what's this? You only knew it from the wrestling magazine. never saw any of those guys. And then all of a sudden they were on.

1:35:59Bill Simmons:So stuff was popping up. But I think the cable pushing in national was a big piece. Vince having the vision to understand that this was happening in the moment and trying to mobilize, like I have to beat everybody else to this spot. But I don't think it happens without Hogan. And I think if he doesn't have Hogan, I think he tries to beat people, but I think the South has a much better chance maybe to go national because they had TBS already, right? And I think maybe TBS in the South and if Ric Flair had become the biggest star, maybe if Cary Von Erich doesn't get in a motorcycle accident, there's some what-ifs on that side that it plays out differently.

1:36:37Bill Simmons:And maybe they're the ones, not WWF. It needed to be Hogan. I think so. I mean, I just don't think you can overstate the degree to which Hulk Hogan just worked in mainstream pop culture in those days. For one thing, he was six, whatever he was. They said six, eight. He was a legit six, five, you know, back in those days. And he would go on the Tonight Show or whatever and just tower over everybody. And that in the days, you know, I mean, obviously wrestling's always walked this fine line between how real it is and how kind of wink wink they're being in public. But to its earliest days, the most important thing was to have wrestlers look like guys who could beat you up.

1:37:17Right. So Hogan looked like that guy, but he also was a sort of circus clown personality. He could go on these shows and laugh at himself and laugh at everybody else. And he fit on MTV. He fit on, like I said, late night shows. He was just sort of, I think people looked at him. We had the Dolly Parton bit in that documentary early on. I think people just looked at him and they immediately could process what they were looking at. And part of that was that it was a wrestling that was somewhat self-aware because he was so corny, you know, but also just so cool.

1:37:51Bill Simmons:Well, you can't overstate Rocky III. And when we were working on the Mr. McMahon doc, Rocky III was such a big part of it. Because Rocky III was, you know, Star Wars was the biggest multi-sequel franchise we had. But Rocky II, Rocky III was in the conversation. and his cameo, extended cameo in Rocky three, which it was funny. I was in a text this weekend with Sal and Gus and a couple other people. We were like, where does Thunder Lips just rank in the Rocky characters rankings? Like just for like, just characters who just hit a home run. And Thunder Lips is just in the top five. He comes in, it's an all time Dion Waiter's performance that we would talk about in the rewatchables and just crushes six minutes of it.

1:38:33Bill Simmons:And it was just so clear. he was this larger than life wrestling star. And after that happened, then I didn't, you know, he was at AWA, which I think they were running some stuff on ESPN, but I don't really remember seeing him that much. I was watching a ton of wrestling, but I do remember the whole storyline with Backlund, the chic beating Backlund, Hulk Hogan coming in as reinforcements for Backlund. Then I watched him win the title live on the MSG network. Yeah. Because at that point I was in Connecticut. My parents had been divorced. I was there and it was on and it was it was I can't tell you how exciting it was.

1:39:08I came along right after that. I was actually piecing that. I wrote about this in the piece. I was going back through the timeline saying I remember being I remember where I was and I watched that where I was and I watched that. And I almost said I remember being in my my TV room when when Hogan beat the Sheik. I was like, no, no, no, I wasn't watching it. I started watching because Hogan beat the Sheik because of this like tidal wave of like, you know, popularity that came after that.

1:39:30Bill Simmons:It just felt new because Backlund had gotten stale. And I think he'd had four and a half plus years and he was just this baby-faced All-American. And it just, it felt a little stale. There was other stuff going on, other battles, other villains. And Andre was looming over everything. But it just, it felt like we needed a hero, which was where we were in America because that's when Stallone has First Blood, that's in 82 or 83, but leads to Rambo First Blood 2 in 85. we have Schwarzenegger coming in we have ronald reagan taking on the russians and we did this when we did the documentary this little section about like you know testosterone superheroes defending america hulk leaned into that as as much as anybody like after they changed the eye of the tiger song and he does the real american like this was a real way to market yourself i am your patriotic superhero it wasn't going to happen with bob backland no i mean in bob backland in some ways and more traditional lens might fit that role a little bit better, but it was just a different casting call when it came to 80s pop culture, right?

1:40:35I mean, it's exactly like you said. The competition, you know, when pro wrestling is at its best, it's not competing against pro wrestling. It's competing against other things in the mainstream. And you're right. I mean, what is competition then was those action movies, you know? I mean, that was it. For me, like I said, Younger, I mean, it literally, wrestling literally came on after Saturday Morning Cartoons. So at some point you just got, you, you, you were watching, you know, these muscle bound dudes on cartoons and then you just sort of got old enough to watch the real thing. You've, you matured at six years old or whatever.

1:41:03Bill Simmons:Well, it was never cool either. And that, that's one of the things that shifted in the mid eighties was as it became more mainstream, there was this weird validation that came with that. Like, ah, maybe I'm not a fucking complete loser. Like it's, this is now an MTV, like shit's happening. Yeah. I mean, we've been through, I guess, three of those at least now in our lifetimes where wrestling got cool again. And and and everybody and every wrestling fan has that same feeling every time. I remember I talked to the guys who who were filmed the curtain call video in the in the Attitude Era days. And they were told their story about meeting each other.

1:41:39They were like, we were the only two guys wearing wrestling T-shirts at high school. And then everybody started wearing wrestling T-shirts. They were they were kind of despondent. You know, they're like, oh, we're not we're not we didn't want to be nerds. But now we're sad that we're not unique. But yeah, Hogan, it really did just change everything, man. I mean, like, you know, I think I was always the biggest wrestling fan amongst my friends, you know, when I was when I was a kid. But everybody was into wrestling, like every every boy that I grew up with, like could tell you what happened on Saturday night's main event, you know, and Hulk Hogan was such a big part of that.

1:42:12The other big part of every big wrestling movement moment is expansion. and they went from, you know, zero pay-per-views to, I think they were at three when Hogan left the first time, but those, you know, these huge pay, they went through closed circuit. They went, you know, do onto pay-per-view and then the Saturday night's main event phenomenon. And that's to say nothing of the MTV shows and all this. I mean, it was just enormous as a cultural influence at that point in time.

1:42:37Bill Simmons:Yeah, there was just little checkpoints. I think Thunderlips helped. Hogan coming over. Hogan winning the title on that, becoming like a huge thing. The Slaughter vs. Sheik kind of showdown. That really helped from just where we were in a Cold War standpoint. MTV, having Cyndi Lauper kind of be involved and make it seem like she thought wrestling was cool. It was like, okay. And then WrestleMania. But even after WrestleMania, it was on USA. Did the Tuesday Night Titan show. It was like a talk show. Vince McMahon did the Letterman anniversary thing. That was a big deal. And then Hogan just started selling out everywhere and the mainstream media started writing about it, talking about it, doing news segments about it.

1:43:20Bill Simmons:I still feel like after he won the title, that first year or so that he had, he was about as big as any athlete sports entertainment. Like this dude's just selling out NBA. He could have sold out NBA arenas and you name the city every night, night after night, it just didn't matter. Everyone went to go see him or wanted to see him. Yeah, I think it was, I don't know if it was Melchizedek. I think it was Alvarez, actually, who said that you put Hogan's name on the marquee and it sells an extra 4 ,000 tickets that day. You know, like it's just and that's, you know, it's just immediate name recognition.

1:43:52People buy tickets. And it was I mean, the business just blew up. It was it was absolutely crazy. And I know I mean, and there were times I have one memory I wrote about in the piece of seeing Hogan when I was pretty young and I was trying to find the date of the show and get it all specific. I look back and they had three house shows in one night on the night that I saw them. they were all in Kentucky. They were also working in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Like they were just going wall to wall with this product because of in large part, because of this celebrity that Hulk Hogan brought.

1:44:19Bill Simmons:And a lot of the stuff he was doing had been done in different forms before him. It wasn't like he was Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, but he elevated or perfected certain things. Like when Paul Orndorff turned on him, because everyone always points to Macho Man turning on him, which was the most famous one. And that was on the main event show at that point. But But Orndorff turning on him, which was basically the Zabisco San Martino. Wait, I thought you guys were buddies. Oh, my God. You turned on him. I mean, that's been Wrestling 101. But when that happened, and then Hogan just, we just had this steady stream of either he was buddies with them and the guy turned because they were jealous.

1:45:00Bill Simmons:They couldn't be Hogan, so they had to get him back. Or just like these weird villains that would come in out of nowhere. oh there's the bigger the better yeah big monsters that our patriotic superhero had to defeat and it's the same recipe they would beat the shit out of him they would beat the shit out of him he'd hulk up he'd come back and and the match would end the same way every time and yeah wag the finger punches the face clothesline leg drop it was uh it was a tried and true tried and true recipe and you're right they did i mean the orndorff thing was similar to the Zabisco, San Martino thing, except the same thing with Orndorff and Macho Man.

1:45:38If you look back, Hogan's kind of actually the asshole in all those situations. Like, that's sort of the low-key thing about Hogan through his career is he wrestled like a heel. He sort of was a heel to his friends, but he was still the babyface of record. He was still the one that they had to turn against. And talk about repetition. One of my least favorite Hogan moments, when he came back at WrestleMania 9 after Bret Hart lost to Yokozuna to just be, to take the title from Yokozuna. That was the same thing that happened with Backlund and the Sheik, basically. He came back, you know, he's like, I'm buddies with the champ, the now ex-champ, but I'm just going to take the belt while he's out of the picture.

1:46:17He's kind of a jerk at times in character, but people kind of love that. You know, they loved him no matter what he did. I think that's what made Hogan so irrepressible. But you're right to mention those moments. I mean, after WrestleMania III, when it was him and Andre, We don't have to skip over that entirely. I mean, you know, WrestleMania, I mean, the Macho Man match at WrestleMania was absolutely huge. The mega powers colliding. And then the Warrior match where he was supposed to pass the torch to the Ultimate Warrior, did pass the torch in a very good match at WrestleMania to the Ultimate Warrior.

1:46:50But that was sort of it.

1:46:51Bill Simmons:Those were massive matches. Well, I mean, going back to Andre, which I should have mentioned sooner, which has been written about and discussed ad nauseum, and we've been involved in multiple documentaries about that one. And heard multiple versions of the events from Hogan himself. Yeah, Hogan couldn't keep track of what he told us. But I can just say this. The Leonard versus Hagler fight was within two weekends of it. And it might have even been within one weekend of it. And Leonard coming out of retirement, Sugar Ray, to fight Hagler. And it was just one of the biggest boxing fights fights of all time.

1:47:30Bill Simmons:Everyone was so excited about it. And Hogan Andre was around there and I love both. And I was equally excited for both. Yeah. Like that's, that's, it felt like they were on par that this matchup was on par with the biggest possible boxing event that we could have. And that's just where it was. And it kept going. And the macho man, I think that's been underrated over the years, how big that was and how they use main event. You look back at some of the main event ratings. What did I send you that one time a couple of months ago, I texted you how it was like 26 million people watching, watching one of the main events.

1:48:02The, the Hogan Andre main event that would, that had the, the twin referees. Another famous moment. I think that, I think I just, I think it was, it was either, I think it was 33 million people, which is still the record. Yeah.

1:48:14Bill Simmons:That would be bigger than, than a Superbowl now. Yeah. That was the other thing with Hogan. You know, there was so many, so many things like that were going on, but there was some great unintentional comedy with him when he would try to act like when he would, when the pinnacle was him versus Macho Man over Miss Elizabeth in the hospital room and Macho Man telling him, you got jealous eyes. Yeah. You got jealous eyes. And Hogan's doing the, what do you mean? What do you mean, Macho? And it's just, so we're, we're kind of making fun of them as we're idolizing them in the eighties. This guy's a complete idiot, but we love them anyway.

1:48:52It's totally true. I mean, listen, he got in the Hogan-Andre feud in the Piper's Pit segment where that sets the whole thing up. When Andre grabs his shirt and tears it off, he unintentionally grabbed his necklace and tore it off, too. And it cut Hogan in the chest. And Hogan was holding the necklace and he's bleeding.

1:49:10Bill Simmons:Yeah. And that's one of those serendipitous things that makes wrestling so amazing. Because without the blood, he's doing the same shit you were just describing. He's like, why, Andre? Why? oh, you know, but the blood makes it feel like a real moment, and we're just all totally roped in. I mean, Andre was also, of all of those big menacing bad guys, I think the only one who was really bigger than him who looked like he could beat up Hulk Hogan. So that helped a lot too. And of course, Andre's history. I mean, he was just terrifying. Yeah, and meanwhile, he could barely move. So you have Hogan, much like Stallone, much like Schwarzenegger, much like some of our other favorites from that era where there's like unintentional comedy.

1:49:53Bill Simmons:They're a one-on-one. We love them. There's a question of how long can you keep this going? What's the shelf life of a gimmick like this? And we hit the 90s and he's had this phenomenal run, but then we have the steroid trial. He's still hulking up. It's just not working the same way. The crowd's starting to flip a tiny bit and it leads to him eventually starting to do TV shows is going to WCW, but then improbably ending up with this other incredible moment, you know, with WCW and NWO and him becoming the third man and him Hogan going heel, which is in the running for biggest wrestling moment of all time.

1:50:38Bill Simmons:I don't know if it's first, but it's in the top four, right? Oh, dude, I feel like I should have an answer prepared for this. Yeah, it's definitely up there. If you're in a top four, it has to be mentioned. It absolutely changed everything. Is it the biggest moment of Hulk Hogan's career? I mean, maybe you can make the case that everything he did led up to this moment. Like, it was the culmination of 30 years in the ring that made it so poignant. Well, to reinvent something that seemed like it had run its course, I think is one of the hardest things to do. We've seen athletes try to, like Tom Brady going to Tampa Bay.

1:51:17Bill Simmons:even that seems somewhat realistic hogan reinventing himself becoming the biggest heel in the business and basically flipping wwe versus wcw it was like the odds on that were like 101 no it was it was really i mean it was really improbable and you know just like in a wrestling match where you got if you have a big moment coming you kind of like they they lower the stakes a little bit for like the four minutes leading up to it you know they're not going to do anything too crazy they accidentally did that in wcw by making his first couple his first year and a half there, just the most boring thing possible.

1:51:49You know, he was there just replaying the hits. It was just like a fake. It was like what wrestling is in a movie, you know, just silly Hulk Hogan feuds against people you didn't care about. And then all, but, you know, the announcers are there. Tony Schiavone, God bless him, screaming his head off. Like, this is the most important thing in the world. When he came down to the ring to take, you know, to presumably take on the Outsiders and then he joined them. I mean, that was just an absolutely irreplaceable moment in pro wrestling history.

1:52:20Bill Simmons:He's the third man! No! So he gets like one more year out of that. And then it seems over again. WCW completely falls apart. There's some great stuff that I, in the couple days after he passed, some stuff I even forgot about, like the 2000 Bash on the Beach. Just when it's gone so bad. We're like almost Dirk Diggler jerking off in the church parking lot level, like Grizzly. That's how bad it goes. But then we have the merger. He comes back. And then he has another iconic all-time moment against The Rock in WrestleMania, which probably the best moment of the whole match was when they're just in the ring beforehand staring at each other and the crowd's going apeshit.

1:53:05Bill Simmons:And they just kind of do the facing different directions move, just kind of soaking it in and he ends up winning the title. I think I even wrote about this for ESPN the magazine about like Hogan's last comeback. So this was the last great thing for him. Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, the WCW-NWO run was, it was just a few years and it had some great moments. You know, everyone remembers the Sting feud. Everyone remembers, you know, Goldberg and the Georgia Dome. Everybody remembers, you know, Hogan versus losing the title, Alexa Luger, which was an incredibly transformative moment if you were just the right age to really love Lex Luger.

1:53:44It was, I mean, there's a lot of good moments, but by the end, he was just, you know, the internet had come to exist. And Hogan was sort of got, was one of the first guys that really got saddled with the baggage of being a guy who was like kind of hard to work with backstage or had too much creative control, let's just say. It wasn't really, yeah. He had both. I mean, listen, the moment that he passed on, I got like five texts in a row that were just like some version of the joke he said to St. Peter, that's not going to work for me, brother. You know, like that phrase is just everywhere, you know, when it comes to any joke about wrestlers being hard to work with backstage.

1:54:19But, you know, he had all this baggage and then not coming over immediately when WWF bought WCW was not his fault at all, but like it kind of saddled him with a little bit more. When he finally showed up, you know, we were excited to see the NWO again, but like, you know, no one quite knew. Hogan was not just like it wasn't not a triumphant return for him until that match. That match against The Rock was another just a moment can only exist in wrestling where the entire I mean, God bless Canada, the entire crowd just decided we will accept you back Hulk Hogan. And that's what happened in this match.

1:54:58He enters the heel. He walks out as the biggest babyface that business has ever seen once again. And, you know, I don't want to rewrite history but if he had hung up the boots that night he probably would have gone down as the greatest wrestler that ever lived like full stop you know i mean people would still be making the case for the guys who could work better from bell to bell you know like flair and macho whoever else but like but i mean hogan i mean that was that was the that to me i was the end i don't i don't care about the mcmahon feud you know it was just sort of another just they i mean they kind of they had to do it but whatever the mr america run was funny but whatever um him winning the title

1:55:34Bill Simmons:is probably the epilogue. And then anything after that, literally everything after that, you could probably toss in the garbage bag. So the cheat sheets were bad for him. Once that really started, the dirt sheets. What did I call them? The cheat sheets? No, I'm washed up like Hogan. The dirt sheets. That was bad because that was the first time people like us were like, wait, Hogan's a dick? Yeah. Wait, Hogan, everybody hates working with him? It wasn't even so much that he was a dick because it was just that he had the power and the influence to demand creative control in his contract. And they said, yes, you know, like he's like, I'm not going to I'm not going to stop doing Thunder in Paradise unless you give me creative control.

1:56:16You know, they're like, OK, we'll get. And the people that are paying this money don't I mean, this isn't the promoters. They don't. This is time. This is Turner. You know, I mean, like this is this is the whole the big parent company. They just think Hulk Hogan's famous. Whatever it takes will bring him in.

1:56:29Bill Simmons:but unfortunately every instinct he has was and then hulk will come in and hulk will pin so and so yeah exactly exactly here's my idea unfortunately that's what almost every wrestler thinks he also did help out a lot of people along the way you know i talked to kevin sullivan before he passed along and he was leading that dungeon of doom stable like the hogan was shooting with before the nwo and he was like oh yeah all those guys were just hogan's buddies and hogan and we just had to keep him employed so i just made this thing up for everybody to do something you know So that was just, Hogan had a lot of dudes, but Brutus the barber, you know, the nasty boys who kept jobs for a long time because they were associated with him.

1:57:07So I guess, you know, I'm sure they're going to miss him especially.

1:57:10Bill Simmons:Well, sometimes this happens. Sometimes you die at the perfect time for a career move, not obviously for yourself because dying's never a win. But from a career standpoint, sometimes people can die at the perfect time. People can last way too long. or in some cases, the post-career stuff can then overshadow whatever happened in their career, which I think is a big piece of what it, I mean, the scandal with him and Bubba, Bubba the Love Sponge and the sex tape and all the N-word stuff and the racist stuff, like it's just, it's really rough. And he was never really apologetic enough about it, you know, and then even when he went to talk to the roster, that apology didn't work.

1:57:53Bill Simmons:And that might've been the worst part of it. I mean, I went back through as I was writing my piece, and this is so morbid, but I was like, if he had died, like, what are the moments that he could have died and he would have been remembered purely positively? I mean, it's kind of any moment before that tape came out. But really, if he had, I mean, listen, he had all the success in Japan before his WWE run. If he had, if he had like, you know, just disappeared, I wouldn't say died, just disappeared after WrestleMania won, it would have been like, you know, Jim Morrison. Like, it would have been one of these like crazy, like, look at this run and then he's just gone and like whatever.

1:58:25Bill Simmons:I used to say that about the Smashing Pumpkins guy. Oh, yeah. If he had just disappeared in 1998 and nobody ever saw him again, we would be like, genius! Yes, absolutely. Cobain, Corgan, like, sometimes that's... And then sometimes all the stuff you do after ends up infecting how you think of the best stuff. It's true. But, like, yeah, it was basically the past, if anything, before the past 15 years. And he would have just been the greatest icon this business has ever seen. I mean, Hogan's Knows Best, the reality show, wasn't, like, deplorable. you know it was just like you understood why he did it and it kind of made him look like a goof and kind of weirdly obsessed with his daughter but like you get it like it was it was cool that there was a wrestler getting that kind of attention uh but yeah the raw was the shocking one did you go to that first netflix raw i can't remember no i was not there i was not there i was watching it at home but the booze were just as loud uh in my home theater oh my lord i went with ben you know and benzo is he's not reading up on what the legends how they're fucking up their lives post-career.

1:59:24Bill Simmons:He just knows Hogan from the wrestling stuff. And Hogan came out and it wasn't like, oh, some people are booing him. Some people are cheering him. This was like just passionate booze. And the most fascinating thing about it... You know, in the old days, he would have fed off the crowd and flipped. And he would have been like, oh, I'm getting a ton of heat right now. Let me actually play off that and be like, how dare you? You guys are so ungrateful. Everything I did for this country. And he just would have flipped it the way, honestly, Rock kind of flipped it a little bit during the lead up to WrestleMania last year.

2:00:04Bill Simmons:But he didn't. And he seemed like he was just going through his plan. He was confused. you see Jimmy Hart behind him waving a flag. And it was awful. It really was like, and I think it would have been a bigger story, but tragically the next day was when the fire started ripping through California. And there wasn't a lot of like dissection for three days of what happened at this Netflix Raw event. But I got to say, in the moment, Shoemaker, I was like, I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe like, it was like actual hatred it felt like. And I don't think it was just the Trump stuff. I think it was a variety of things.

2:00:39No, I mean, you mentioned it before when he gave the when he came back. And again, this is the dirt sheets getting the better of Hogan. When he came back to give the speech to the locker room after, you know, kind of being banned for a year and a half after the racist, the racist video came out. Yeah. He had apologized in the news. He apologized in ABC News and in People Magazine and apology. The fact desk when I was writing my piece said, are you sure we're going to use the word apology here? Because the words I'm sorry are never spoken. But it's I was like, yeah, it's kind of an whatever. But it was an acknowledgement.

2:01:08It was an acknowledgement that he was, that he, you know, regrets it or whatever. But then he came back into the locker room and instead of saying, I'm sorry for being a racist, I'm sorry for hurting you, I'm sorry for saying these things. He said, you guys better watch out for hidden cameras because they can really ruin your life. Then everybody there, I know guys are in that locker room, but they're just like, I'm done with them. I can't, I just can't, you know, after that. And fans all knew about it too. So that was a lot of what went into it. I mean, WWE does this thing now, and they have a very, very savvy, very, very savvy PR department.

2:01:41But they'll do this thing. You'll see them do this thing where they leak out a story like, WWE considering a relationship with Hulk Hogan's beer company. And then two days later, it happens. And it's almost like they're doing a trial balloon, but deliberately not waiting for the results. Just so after it happens, they can say, hey, we put out a trial balloon. You know, like, and they did it with Hogan. And they said, oh, he's going to come promote his beer. But now that just meant all the fans were ready for it. Right. So instead of it being a surprise that Hogan's there and like, you know, he just happens to be wearing a beer t-shirt and he's a beer t-shirt and he's there to hug everybody.

2:02:15They were all just like, he's coming back, but only to sell us some bad beer. Like what? And he's already had these issues with him and it seems so contrived and they were ready for it. And he came out and just got the biggest booze that you could possibly get, man. I mean, it's just, it's like fans really hate when they feel like the wrestlers don't care about wrestling, right? It's why, like, you know, when Brock Lesnar and Goldberg were at WrestleMania 20 or whatever, they were both leaving the company, the fans hated it. You guys don't even want to be here. Get the hell out of here. They got booed the whole match.

2:02:46I mean, if you come back just to sell beer, the fans are just like, get the hell out of here, dude. Like, come on. You can't even, like, apologize right. You want us to buy your beer? Like, let's see, that's so funny.

2:02:56Bill Simmons:I mean, it was a rare misread by the room. especially and by the WWE and TKO to think that that was a good idea. I mean, no, and to have no back and no way to back out of it. Oh, you're holding up a Hogan glass right now. I'm showing you the Hogan glass. I have all these old WWE glasses from the eighties, but this is like, this is where we were. This was like a cartoon superhero. I'm holding up. If you're watching the video pod, the Hulkamania on the glass with the, you know, this was, the guy was a merchandise machine. He was, I genuinely felt like on, par with Stallone and everybody else from that era from how famous he was.

2:03:32Bill Simmons:I would probably didn't make as much money as Stallone, but he definitely sold more t-shirts than those guys. Yeah. And you know, you think back and you think it was him and Vince growing this company, blowing it out. And then the steroid trial happened and it seems like both of them are done, but they're not. And it keeps going for another 30 years. And now one's gone and in, in, in a pretty, fairly disgraceful way, even in death. And then the other one is just gone, Vince. And we probably will never see him again, but he's out of it. He sold the company. To say it's been a rocky five years for him would be an understatement.

2:04:10Bill Simmons:And we'll see how it plays out legally. But it's just, this was the backbone of this entire business. And both of them just left in disgrace. Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe it shouldn't be too shocking. I remember when the tape came out, when the tape came out about Hogan, I was talking to, this might have been on one of those early Cheap Heat episodes, or something with Rosenberg, but I remember saying, this is super disappointing. Now, you know, if we could magically, you know, if we could, if we could, an angel came down and gave us a list of all the other wrestlers who said the N-word in, you know, private conversations, I think it would be a pretty long list, you know?

2:04:46So, you know, you look around the world, you don't, you know, maybe we shouldn't have been too shocked about that sort of disgrace, especially as we enter the modern world. Um, wrestling is a very, very odd space, but yeah, I mean, it's, when Vince put out that statement about, you know, like acknowledging Hogan's death, it was just like, I'm sure he wasn't super excited to do it, but it was like, do we really need this right now? I don't know. The last time I saw Hogan, I think was when he did the interview for the, for the, for the Vince doc. Yeah. Uh, we, we went down to Florida and, you know, I was there as the sort of bullshit detector on set and there, what can you do with Hulk Hogan?

2:05:23You know what I mean? it's just all bullshit but uh you know he looked okay at that point he was walking around with like a staff like a giant he'd be i guess you know he's he's not going to be carrying using a cane he's hulk hogan so he had like a giant walking stick that he that was like seven feet tall that got him from his like super tall truck in and out and and he was always very open about the physical pain he'd been in since he retired and even while he was wrestling you know he got hit multiple hip replacements i think four three or four hip replacements and had i remember at one point there was he was he couldn't sit in a folding chair to sign autographs for 15 minutes you know like he was in that kind of physical pain um but he was sort of getting around and then but you know he was very he was much more complimentary events in that interview than i expected him to be you know he was much more and and again the truth varies in hogan's mind from moment to moment you know like whatever but it did seem like there was some sort of it was time to just sort of make peace with everything and, and, and go out on a good note vibe coming from him.

2:06:26Bill Simmons:Well, I can't imagine what he put into his body over, over like a 40 year stretch. So to, to, to live to 71 and then die of heart failure, I can't say neither of us would have been shocked by that one. This was, you're talking about ground zero with steroids of the seventies and eighties before the steroids were even that good. You know, they just made you bulk bulky and watery and all these guys were doing it and you know it's we're not breaking any news here but there's uh there's just a slew of wrestlers who have died at ages younger than this so even getting the 71 seems surprising yeah you're right this is and this isn't even like you got a sports doctor this is like you bought them from another dude in the gym locker room in tampa or whatever you know steroids these are horse steroids this is like terrible shit to be putting in your body and yeah a lot of people it's just like hearts exploded you know when they were in their 30s and 40s and certainly in their 50s um yeah i mean it's crazy and it's crazy to see him i mean we've all seen video of him working out with the back brace on you know hogan had he was hogan until the day he died he always had the the the tad a little bit of stringy white hair and the mustache and the muscles and the tan and and um you know that was always part of the gimmick brother you know he lived it till the end i guess you know when we look back now that rumor about him dying a few weeks ago that Bubba the Love Sponge put out was probably closer to true.

2:07:46At the time, it was dismissed, but that seemed like the beginning of the, I mean, you could probably draw a straight line.

2:07:53Bill Simmons:Well, to put a bow on this, I still feel like Rock had the total package as a wrestler in the best possible way with the Mike skills combined with what an athlete he was growing up in the business. I still have him one for kind of overall talent. I think Hogan is the most popular I've ever seen. I didn't see Bruno and his peak or some of these guys from earlier in the mid-70s, but I can't imagine anyone got a louder pop than Hogan, especially in the 80s, walking into a 17 ,000-seat arena as people. And I feel like those crowds kind of pre-85 were wired a little differently anyway. They would just lose their fucking minds at every match.

2:08:37Yeah.

2:08:37Bill Simmons:um and then and then rick flair is probably you know he's he's like the lebron of all this right like the longest best career did the most things but if you're gonna start some sort of list i feel like those three have to be on it is that who's are there two other people you feel like have to be on it i'm not saying about rushmore i'm just saying like just the guys that i mean i would you know i would always put austin above the rock i mean just because he had a very long career with a bunch of different stuff you know a bunch of different angles and the heights of the attitude sudaro with i mean that was his it was the glass breaking you know the rock is you can make a case for the rock especially since all this you know he's made all these movies he's gotten so much more famous and he's come back now a number of times he was overqualified to be a wrestler he's the only one you could say like i actually i'm slumming at doing this i've got to go become a movie star yeah it's true um you know there's some people in the modern era that try to make the case for roman reigns or cm punk or john cena uh i think cena would get a lot of votes now that he's on his retirement tour yeah um you know i i find it really hard to separate rick flair and dusty roads i mean a lot of their careers were very separate but dusty was the one guy that had that sort of charisma you know that sort of magic um it's really hard but hogan i mean i think that you look back and it's pretty easy to say that hogan stands above everybody else you know i mean it's like you look back at the the first like eight years you know whatever of hogan's of the Hulkamania era.

2:10:00I mean, who is the second most important character? Like who is second on the call sheet? It's probably mean Gene Okerlund, you know, like it's like it's, it's Hogan. This was like a one man show for almost a decade, you know? And it was just the people that, that, that orbited around him. I mean, it's really, it's, I mean, it's, he is, he's pretty singular, you know? And again, not a great professional wrestler belt about, but he told the stories in the ring and maybe that's the most important part. Yeah.

2:10:26Bill Simmons:And there's only a couple of guys left now. So Ric Flair, still hanging on. Vince, still hanging on. But we're looking at pretty soon, I think everybody from the 70s and 80s is going to be gone. It's true. And everybody from the 90s is somehow still wrestling. So I don't know how we're going to reconcile this. Yeah, well, the medicine's better. David Shoemaker, great to see you as always. Thanks for popping up. Great to see you too, man. Thanks. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Shoemaker and Jacko and House. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau as well. Don't forget, you can watch all of the videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.

2:11:03Bill Simmons:We have new rewatchables coming too as well on Monday night. And I'm going to be back midweek with one more podcast on this feed. See you then.

2:11:25Bill Simmons:Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-88-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods, who has your back to school eats sorted. Wow, we're going back to school already. They've got your fast and easy breakfast covered with frozen waffles and pancakes.

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