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You a Chinese food restaurants. We're going off the menu. You can't find this boost right now. You're going to be able to find it on Friday. I'm going to Tweet it out as well Milwaukee to win the division with the Lakers. And where's to be playing teams? And we're going to try to get that 421 maybe even higher than four to one. So stay tuned. I will tweet it out and it will be on their app as well speaking of things that are coming tape Frazier.
A Carolina favorite coming home to do one shining podcast live from Durham the night before Duke UNC and right before everyone starts dying selection Sunday, Friday March 8th. He's at the Carolina Theater Durham tickets available at Carolina Theater dot-org theaters, but the fancy way with the re at the end Carolina Theater dot-org. Hey, you saw what happened at the Super Bowl Parade in Kansas City. It was horrible condolences to everybody that
I even known anyone that was involved with that just horrible.
I want to go check out when you have time gun violence archive.org because they have all the stats. They have all the stats for mass shootings for mass murders children killed 02:11 teens killed 12 to 17 willful malicious accidental deaths. It's just got everything there and just look at how different the numbers start to look from 2014 all the way through 2023. They have charts and Maps they have Congressional.
Reports they have explainers.
If you haven't looked at that stuff, I would encourage you to look at it.
And I don't have any answers for you, but the data is the data.
So there you go coming up on this podcast Derek Thompson who hosts plain English and writes for the Atlantic and pops on this pot every couple of a couple times a year to talk about the future things. We're going to talk about the future everything in 2024 and then re o hoani who owns the ringer i'mi'm a show for us with PT and check he's going to tell us about UFC 298 why they haven't announced the main event for UFC.
Yet why my son is now demanding to call him every three weeks, which is the thing that's actually happening and we're going to talk WWE as well as it's been a tumultuous fascinating WWE here on top of the fact that this WrestleMania main event is getting more Buzz than anything in the last at least in the last few years. So this is an interesting podcast. It's coming up next first our friends from Pearl Jam.
Derek Thompson is here from the plain English podcast. We're going to talk about the future of everything but you're like a secret sports fan not even secret, but you don't get to do it on the plain English podcast that much.
Don't get to write about a nail in it that much but you follow all this shit and you're kind of a secret, you know, you're no stranger to basketball reference baseball-reference and you know some of the steps so when you're following the Mahomes Brady stuff what your instant smart guy reaction to all of this. Whoo,
man, I don't know much. I don't know if I have an ability to improve on I think it take that you had maybe earlier this week Mahomes clearly has the best start to a career in the history of NFL quarterbacks.
He combines the physical talents of Aaron Rodgers with the regular season Siskel achievements of Peyton Manning with the postseason statistical achievements of Tom Brady. And we've never seen anyone do all of this the same time Rogers didn't have the Championships. Peyton didn't have the Championships. Brady didn't have the regular season stats. So
he's he is the
Triple Crown of Excellence for the first decade of quarterbacking but again, and I might just be ripping off your point, but I think it's the right Point. What makes Brady Brady what makes LeBron LeBron me either.
Even say what makes Jordan Jordan because you came back and won the three-peat again is longevity and
well, that's really I was Kobe more than anything Kobe the second part of his prime was what elevated him the what he did from 08 to 2012. Yeah, right when it's supposed to be going backwards and it went the opposite way which is what happened to Brady
and that's what we don't know. We don't know what the next decade and a half from homes career is going to look like we don't know if he's going to get as lucky as he has been and this is one place where you know, I was
I was a Peyton fan more than a Brady fan. And so I became Adept I guess you could say it making excuses for Peyton Manning and one of the excuses I would make for Peyton Manning is Tom Brady is absolutely fantastic. But lots of his Super Bowls were really won by the defense they were won by defensive coordination and to a certain extent. I think you could say, you know of Brady's career. He was both extraordinary because he had individual ability and extraordinary because he was inside of a context where if he didn't have it for a Super Bowl
Say it's the you know, the the early three Super Bowls made a man. He was fantastic and some of them but the game against the Rams for example where they actually shut down Jared Goff through a couple Super Bowls. He didn't put up 20 30 points and he still won and that's how I felt about Mahomes this year. We're even if he didn't have it for two and a half quarters, right? And he scored what these courts six points in the last two quarters of the AFC Championship game and the first two quarters the Super Bowl like they do this court at all for you know, four straight quarters, but the defense was extraordinary and it kept the minute and that's also a
Brady asked to be within a system that always gives you the opportunity to be the hero in the fourth quarter and it's an extraordinary early career. And what's going to determine whether he's the goat is whether he can keep it up because that's the difference between, you know, a Larry Bird style career and LeBron stuck here.
Yeah. I think the cool thing is that we have somebody who has a chance to be legitimately great versus when we try to talk ourselves in this somebody being great and to me it's like it's a little bit
You know it when you see it took a while for Brady, but it really wasn't until the 14 and kind of that middle 2010 stretch that he went up a level where he was having a great career, but he was going to lose statistical arguments to Manning and you know, Montana had the four Super Bowls the only two three and then it ascended the interesting thing with Mahomes is that the inevitability that we're talking about on some days pod is already there where you feel like. Oh man, they left the door open. This is a wrap, which is such a rare.
Air quality, I don't even really know if LeBron ever totally got there as an NBA player was like, oh man, they left the door open the bronze closing it now. It was never Jordan was the only guy in the last 30 years that you would really feel like. Oh man. They fucked up. There's too much time on the clock. It's such a rare quality in any sport that just to have somebody that has it again is pretty cool. Tiger had it forever. We're like, oh man you missed that putt that that like the other guy missed a putt tiger tigers taking them down now.
This is a wrap. You know,
I wonder if that's an idea the inevitability built, you know, if you went back 30 years and looked at who has the inevitability about right now right in the late 80s early 90s, even in the mid-90s you say Jordan clearly has it may be in the 80s you'd say it's Gretzky with the inevitability belt
or bird. I really felt like bird was in there probably mid 80s and then Gretzky to ya gut the thing is Gretzky's team was so loaded and I do Gretzky's I mean, I think he's the best ever.
But that team it was almost like the team had the inevitability belts like oh my God, you just gave the Oilers a power play. This is over there definitely scoring, you know, yeah, there's some boxers that probably had
it too.
Yeah, I remember eating in the fourth quarter and you know over time when in both cases, I walked out with my friend miserable and I was just responding because I was rooting for the manage the time and I was like, he's you know, he's going to do it, you know, he's going to do it and it was so interesting to see everyone use the same word inevitability inevitability, but that's when that's when you've reached a point the cultural Consciousness where everyone expects you to do the impossible and you do it like that is a very special moment. And I agree that that does feel more Jordan asked and
Brady asked that then it is, you know LeBron
ask, you know the sport that has the most of this as tennis because it almost seems like a prerequisite for being a great tennis player as you hit this point where he was like, oh man that guy double-faulted. He had a chance to take down that set Federer's taking them down now, but it seems like that there's been way probably as many tennis players combined who have had the inevitability as all the other sports. It's so hard and football Manning never had it in my opinion. There was a mutt there were stretches, but then he would have
Have like the Saints Super Bowl and Stage. She's he just never got over the up. I do feel like Montana had it when in the 80s to some degree, but the game was so much more violent back then, you know like that. I don't know if you watch that Jim Burt hit when he knocked Montana out in the championship game. It is like if this happened now, we would be like, oh my God, we have to ban ban football. One thing you did a podcast on recently was about Aid Switching gears anxiety.
How when something's in the air and people are talking about all the times does that effect?
How people start feeling about whether they have whatever people are talking about what it what did you learn to? Can you just summarize the podcast for my people that might not listen to it?
Absolutely. So I did a podcast with a USC clinical psychologist named Darby Saxby who introduced me to a term a few months ago that I've never shaken which is prevalence inflation. And her theory is we live in a world where anxiety and mental health issues have been D stigmatized. It used to be shameful to say that you had depression or anxiety.
T clearly people cover that up with substance abuse for decades. But today there's a way in which mental health issues anxiety and depression have become kind of like identities people talk about them openly and sometimes even proudly on social media and she said I wonder whether the pendulum has swung a little too far where we aren't just getting the benefits of d-segment ization, but actually the prevalence of these ideas that the normal problems of Life are actually disorders of
Citing depression
that might be making people
sick. It might be getting them to think of just the normal warp and weft of life is being a sign of anxiety disorder, which makes them think they have anxiety which makes them draw back from The Real World from the physical world, which means they ruminate over their thoughts which actually gives them anxiety. And in this way. She said you can see how the internet and the way the internet talks about mental health might be really bad for our mental health, and we need a better way.
Way of talking about anxiety and depression on the internet if we actually want to dispel this stuff rather than just marinate in it well and then the irony of social media is triggering some of this stuff to begin with because there's so many studies now about the more you're online the more in social media the worst that is for your health in general. So it's almost like a double whammy I was talking to my wife about this because we were just talking about, you know, we have son in high school and a daughter is a freshman in college and it's like
Alright, it just seems like this is way more of a conversation than it used to be. But in my wife said well, it's way harder to be a teenager. Now, he had so many things through way more aware of things don't like is it harder to be a teenager now like I I was a teenager in the 80s, it sucked like we didn't have the internet. We didn't have a lot of this stuff. It's sometimes it was super lonely. Like I was an only child. I didn't have any brothers sisters to play with, you know, if you're not dating somebody or you're not in a friend group.
Like that can even at least the the internet being online gives you like some sort of community to join back in the 80s had its own. I just feel like every error is going to have some sort of detriment right if you're grown up in the 1880s. I maybe you know, it's like hey, it was depressing bunch of people stole our horses today. I don't know. It's just like isn't every generation going to be depressing or anxiety filled in some way. I don't think this is a unique
Time this is a huge debate among psychologists and among people who follow mental health in America is how much of the Mental Health crisis is what you could call material conditions in the world. And how much of it is just basically phones and phone culture. And when I look at you know, the conditions of the world, you're absolutely right, you know, you go back to sure we go back to the 1880s when people were dying at bacterial infections all the time. That's certainly made it hard to be young certainly in the 1970s 1980s crime was much higher.
Around the country and so crime clearly impacts people's childhood
today in around in a weird way session. You think the Great Depression was like a barrel
laughs and you had a lot more depressions and a lot more panics and financial crises before the so-called moderation of the last 50 years. So to your point, I think there's a lot of Grist for the argument that the world has gotten better in a lot of ways and we can't simply lean on the problems of say climate change or fears of the upcoming election as being the explicit and exclusive drivers of Mental Health.
What I would say is the physical world has gotten a little bit safer. But the emotional experience of teenagers has gotten worse and I think it's basically gotten worse because of phones. I think it's gotten worse because I'm going to talk about this a little bit a little bit later in our in our teacher of everything. So I'm not going to I'm not gonna spoil everything about to say but a lot of young people have traded four to five sometimes even six hours of a day if they would typically spend in the so-called physical world hanging out with their friends reading a book.
Children for online time hanging out in here in Terrence hanging out with their parents and the internet is not well made for protecting our mental health in many ways. It is a hellscape for our mental health. There's an idea in Psychology called cognitive behavioral therapy CBT. One of the lessons of CBT is don't catastrophize things. If something is only a little bad don't tell yourself. It's the worst thing in the world restructure your thoughts to say I can get through this but on the internet the best way to
Make any idea go viral is to catastrophize it. So we created a digital environment that totally obliterates the lessons of therapy. And so I absolutely think that it's not that the physical world has gotten so much worse in many ways, you know teens drink less they're having premarital sex less. There's all sorts of things about the physical world that are safer than they used to be. I think what's changed for the most part it's a complicated issue. Which changed for the most part is the emotional experience the emotional texture.
Of being a teen is a lot harder in a world where you're getting the Judgment of social media plus the architecture of social media, which is just not designed to make you feel good about good about yourself.
Yeah, there's more subtle ways to be super mean which we've talked about on previous podcasts, you know, the birthday party that there's pictures and there's seven people in the birthday party and you realize you weren't invited all that stuff is terrible comments, you know any sort of message board.
It does feel like stuffs a little better than it was a few years ago because there is a little bit of a code of
what you can and can't do people are definitely better at that than they were 10 15 years ago, even think about the early days of Twitter like some of the tweets from 07 a 2009 where was almost like treating it like it was an anonymous writer board, but it wasn't it was your name on it. It's like oh shit. I said that and so many people got into trouble once people went back and looked at Old tweets. So I do feel like people are getting more sophisticated. But at the same time the amount of time people are on their phones.
I think you know you could see it in the Facebook hearings and some of the stuff that was coming out and that right. I mean, I'm sure you followed that and you've done some podcast stuff on it, but like Facebook new they're like, yeah, we don't we don't care like we want to make as much money as we possibly can. There's same thing with Instagram so until there's full accountability on
You know detect the technology players. I don't know how much this changes
the only parties agree with and I think I disagree with the pretty strongly as it. I don't think it's gotten better. I think if you look at the official data from the CDC the youth Behavior risk survey teenage, xiety sadness hopelessness. It's just going up and up and up. Obviously. It's operated by the people
have a treat each other. I don't ya that. I know the numbers are worse.
Yeah, and so and so the numbers are just getting worse and you know, because I can't see how everyone is treating each other online. I'm just
To assume that it's actually not getting better. There's actually all sorts of subtle ways. I think in which the meert amount of time that we're spending with. Our phones is its own detriment to our mental health. So even if Facebook is a little bit more aware of misinformation and even if Instagram is a little bit more mindful about negative social comparison and even if Tick Tock is doing something at the margin to make sure that people, you know don't send certain kinds of you know, whatever anti-semitic messages to each other. Okay what you're putting out.
Here's in the middle of like a continent-wide conflagration. Yeah, you're not actually fixing the fundamental problem, which is that fundamentally human psychology is dis evolved improperly evolved for a world where we are getting our sense of self from a screen from a phone where we're open to the opinion of anonymous hordes. We're not built for that. And as a result that the results are are plain to see you right by rocketing rates of anxiety and depression and suicidality.
T were just not meant to live through
screens. Well, how much did the when they're trying to evaluate all this stuff how awful was the covid and the isolation from that for 18 to 20 months depending on how long wherever you were living? How damaging was that? Because to me that's that's the number one monkey wrench with all this in a bad way.
It seemed to make everything worse. I mean, you know pick any metric and it seemed to make it worse. It seems to make loneliness.
It seemed to make aloneness worse time spent alone. It seemed to increase anxiety. It seemed to increase depression, you know people again, I don't think are are built are naturally selected to spend that much time away from other people and as a result the pandemic was, you know, people make decisions In the Heat of the Moment and some of those decisions I think in retrospect were good and some of those decisions I think in retrospect were Overkill and I think a lot of people clearly see in the data that being away from other people is really really bad for human psychology.
I'd love to know the day the data for like people over 65 with that is that think it had this this really strange and bad effect on older people and I've seen it with some family members, especially people who were alone a lot who are older and just thinking about their own mortality. It's a not awesome was in town. It's been a hard thing. I think for a lot of people to snap out of it. Alright, we're going to take a break. We're going to come back and we're going to do the future of everything. I don't know.
Over the last time we did this but it was maybe like seven eight months ago somewhere in the summer before he disappeared. I think it was about a year I think was about a year ago before I Do Is Right by be ripe for you had to like, you know your date you had a whole dad you were but I think it was added before then. Yeah, risen. We did AI we did whole bunch of things. So we're gonna take a break and hit all of it.
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All right, come back future of everything. We're doing what do we say sports culture Tech and health.
That's exactly right. That's what I got.
Well, let's go. Let's leave sports for last will go in reverse order. Let's go. Why don't we go Health First what do you have for health the future of Health?
We got to talk about the Olympic Revolution. There's so much to say and plain English we get to podcasts about it, but fundamentally, I want to summarize those two podcast right here and say there are three things that I think most people are under rating about the O's epic class of drugs. And the first is right there in the name the has a revolution in so many ways those epic is old news was epic is what's called a glp-1 agonists it mimics a good hormone called glp-1 which glucagon-like peptide one, but that's just
Start there's another drug that a lot of people have heard of for diabetes and weight loss moon jarrow or zip sound from Eli Lilly which mimics to hormones glp-1 and Gip and that's not all Eli Lilly's testing another drug called Rosetta tide, which has three targets glp-1 and Gip glucagon and with each additional pathway and each additional Target. They're seeing more Effectiveness. So true zepa tied in Phase 2 trials is showing on average 25% average weight loss that is
Crazy, we have stumbled onto an absolutely revolutionary drug class, but at least number two, which is that most people think of these drugs is weight loss drugs and I am on the train of no, you should actually maybe think of them as psychiatric drugs that work through your gut like we don't know exactly. How is them pick works? It's one of those spooky stories of like we built the machine and then we learn the science but one of the most important things the way that makes me
nervous and that's what all this stuff like makes me super nervous because I know it's great.
Second is it
yeah, and I want to talk about that just a second because we did we did these two episodes in one of the interviews was with a guy who just talked about the downside. So I want to hold the downsides for a second. But this is really important on these psychiatric part these drugs seem to send a message to your brain that says I'm full but that's not the only message they send to your brain one trial found that people on his epic went on longer walks. There's a Morgan Stanley survey that found that patients on GOP ones eight sixty percent less candy.
And 40% more vegetables. It seems to reduce smoking for helping addicts gambling for gambling
gambling. I've heard of yeah,
and even for some compulsive nail-biting so it's kind of like this is a way I can see the say that's how you know, I'm not on
a exempt because the gambling and completely nail biting. Yeah. I'm still I'm still 100 out of 100 on both.
It's almost like you have these, you know the angel devil on your shoulder when you make me certain decisions about cake or gambling. Yeah what this seems to do is like it turns down the volume.
Of the compulsive voice and allows people to have more moderation over their behavior across categories not just food but nail-biting and gambling and that's where again you can call it amazing. You can call it spooky. You can call it surely effing terrifying but the way these drugs work is essentially like a psychiatric drug and I as a journalist find that completely fascinating
I would go as spooky. What was the third thing
the third thing is so there is concerns.
That and this is a real concern about these drugs. They definitely don't want to make it represent. Like I just think everyone should take them and the end it's a miracle drug. One of the big problems of these drugs is that with really fast weight loss people tend to lose both fat and muscle and for older people really for anyone must pretensions really important. Like there's no 90 year old grandmas out there that are like, I wish I had less muscle know like sarcopenia is bad. So what they're doing at Novo Nordisk the Danish company that makes those epic and Eli Lilly they're starting to
Think about pairing these glp-1 drugs with muscle retention or muscle growth drugs. And so the example Revolution is stimulating a revolution in muscle growth medicine. It is possible build that like the way the Olympic Revolution like cashes out for someone like you or your friends isn't weight loss drugs at all. It's that Downstream of the Olympic Revolution is we uncork some discoveries about muscle retention and muscle building and a lot of people end up taking a healthy FDA.
Approved, you know muscle retention muscle-building drug that happened because all these companies reporting all this money to counteract the effects of glp-1 drugs. So a lot of people going to hate that they're like, well you take one drug and it creates a problem you take another drug that creates another problem. I don't like the path leading down but as a journalist who's just interested in in this is a phenomenon It's Fashion to think about his epic as being the beginning of a revolution in a lot of different aspects of bodily health.
Yeah, it's I mean, you're basically saying stay safe steroid. Yeah, I don't I don't yet know how these I'm there's very little information yet about how these how these muscle drugs would work but the effect I suppose would be essentially that of a safe steroid potentially. So the muscle mass thing is the part that has been swept under the rug with this because I know a couple people that are that are using one of the drugs and one of the things that they're being told is you have to go to the gym more.
You have to work out you have to because you're going to lose muscle mass. So you got to like basically replace the muscle mass. If you're going to do this you're going to lose weight, but then you also have to put the muscle back that made me super suspicious of just all of this in general. It's like wait a second. So I'm losing weight. I'm gonna you know, some of the some of these urges I have are going to be tempered down, but I'm also going to lose muscle. I've never heard of anything really like you're going to lose muscle other than
Like being super sick or having cancer or something. So that's why I like I almost feel like with these drugs they came so fast. I know a bunch of people that are dabbling. It feels to me like when like the first iPhone happened or the first Vision Pro happened and then they perfected it by like the third or fourth or fifth time. I don't know if I want to dive in on the 1.0 version of all these drugs. It just might make me nervous, but I'm more of a hesitant person with stuff like that.
Well, I validate the fear. I definitely don't want to be a guinea pig either and the fears about muscle loss are absolutely legitimate. I would say though that because glp-1 drugs have been around for 10 or 15 years for diabetics. Yes, people taking them now are not the guinea pigs people them people who are taking them in say 2006-2008. They were the real guinea pigs. They were taking a drug that has never been tried before this point. We have 10 to 15 years worth of data for
bugs like those epic and it doesn't seem like there are significant long-term side effects or side effects that present in that medium term that said this goes to a second criticism of the drug, which is that if you stop taking it you tend to not still enjoy the benefits. It's like statins. It's a drug that you do seemingly have to take for the rest of your life. A lot of people are going to be really uncomfortable taking a drug like this for the rest of their life, especially when it changes the way they think
The world so dramatically so this is this this is serious stuff. I hope in the podcast I didn't and again here that I represent both like The Wonder of these drugs that obesity is a huge problem in America and there are all sorts of of cancers and diseases that are Downstream of the Obesity crisis in America and this seems to really combat it. But at the same time it's a serious drug the side effects for some people are very serious. You do have to stay on it for a long long period of time and it's true.
Ooh that you want you have to worry about and think about the muscle loss because muscle retention is so important for longevity and just living a healthy later life.
Well, I think about in the 80s and 90s these those fad diets that people would do and they lose the weight.
And then you stopped doing the diet and what happens, you know your and then in some ways it's even harder for your body to lose the weight the second time. There's been there's like some versions of this that are a little less owes empathy where that like people peptides have been around for a while, right? There's been you know, modified versions of peptides just like to maybe get it going a little bit but not exactly the same. I guess the the muscle mass part just in general is the part. That makes me sorry.
I lost all this weight now. I'm off as MPEG. All right. Now I'm putting the weight back on and I've lost 20 percent of my muscle that's never coming back. So I don't know how that's a wind. So it away they're trapping you to just take the stuff forever, which I don't that that makes me nervous too because it's like who benefits from that the people making these drugs?
I think you're right to see this is a cost benefit ratio. And that makes us focus on the benefit, you know, if you have 30 40 percent of Americans who are obese, and we don't have a an answer to obesity at the food system level. We don't have an answer to a Visa T at the behavioral level. There's no like, you know master class that we can like show people online that gets people to totally change their diets. This is one of the only things that works and if people who
are suffering from severe obesity and I should say it also seems to help people who are type 2 diabetic but if someone suffering from obesity and they haven't been able to lose weight and they take a drug that has a relatively safe side effect profile that caused them to lose weight. And also we're in the doctor encourages them to go to the gym a lot and live rates that all sounds positive. That's that's what that's what you're that's all together an obvious Improvement, but you're right to point out that all right for some people it's this is an obvious diagnosis.
Or prescription but there's but for a lot of people it's a marginal cost benefit and I think it's really important to be clear about both the extraordinary promise of these drugs and the very real fact of their side effects and downsides.
I'll tell you this very popular job drug in the Los Angeles area. Is that right? He had theirs
What do you what one do culture next let's do culture next and we'll do Tech then we'll finish with sports. Give us
shelter. Okay, so culture a few years ago. I played around with the idea for a book that I ultimately abandoned and the title of that book was going to be everything is a cult and everything is a call sort of yeah, you have to start by defining what is a cult right a cult is an intense and relatively novel.
Ain't that defines itself in opposition to a mainstream right? Fundamentally. It's about how the normies are bad at Foster's intimacy within the group through a blend of resentment and superiority over the mainstream and adopts ideas or rituals that bind people within the group but those same ideas and rituals seemed effing and saying to people outside of it and everywhere. I look in media. I'm like, I see more and more Cults the the first place I started to feel like everything is a called is in news media. Yeah our business.
News media to me is clearly becoming more caught like I don't know if you saw Tucker Carlson's little videos from Russia. I don't know how maybe it was you so's yeah, just give me
my radar.
Okay. So tell your Carlson takes his little, you know xvideo team to to Russia and it's not what he said or you know, he had this two hour long interview with Putin. It's the way he sold what was being said, which I'm starting to hear everywhere. The media is lying to you they and it's always that amorphous undefined day.
They they don't want you to know the truth about the war. They don't want to know the truth about reality. This is advertising by conspiracy. It's straight out of the cult Playbook, right? The mainstream is poison. It's designed to build this Allegiance around a cult and it's funny. But even like non Tucker news sites that are launching their thesis upon launching is always like they've got it wrong. No one in sports is covering sports, right? We'll get it. Right. No one in Tech is covering Tech right? We'll get it right. That's what you have to say to enter the mainstream.
As a result in order to be a new entrant you have to criticize the mainstream. So media is becoming called Lake celebrity fandom is becoming caught like I'm not just talking about the Taylor Swift fans. Love you guys. The fragmentation of media means you have like all of these incredibly powerful Affinity groups in YouTube and Tick-Tock forming around people that most Americans have never heard of right culture splintering off into Cults politics. Finally clearly is becoming more caught like it's not just polarization where Democrats don't understand Maga Republicans and Meg Republicans have no idea why
Anyone would vote for Joe Biden but also the big sort how people move around the country means that the two sides barely speak to each other because all the Liberals live together and all the conservatives of together. So culturally that my sort of future of everything in culture is that the erosion of the mainstream across categories news and politics and celebrity media has turned culture into a portfolio of Cults and that's made it really hard for people to talk to and understand each other. That's really good. It's like Colt
Sure, but mostly yeah, yeah exactly called. I was on I went on Dana Carvey and David Spade's podcast, but it hasn't run yet. So I don't want to spoil too much but it was really fun. But one of the things we're talking about was when they were on that show in the early 90s and they did this sketch. It was The Partridge Family versus The Brady Bunch and Susan Dey was the host right? So I was in college and literally that sketch everybody watching that sketch.
Understood the sketch because we had all Grown Up With The Brady Bunch in The Partridge Family. There's two generations. We only had a couple channels. So it's like this is yeah. This is like a 100 percent approval rating and we were talking about like SNL in 2024. I think one of the problems with it is there's no sort of mainstream backbone like that anymore. Like if you're 18, what's your backbone? It's like Taylor Swift. Maybe it's some some NFL stuff. I don't even know if the
the NBA's and there you might have an opinion on Olivia Rodrigo, but then everything else splinters and all these different directions. So what's the version of The Brady Bunch Partridge Family sketch 10 years from now for my daughter when she's like 28. What is it? What are her common culture experiences there buddy else. It's basically like Taylor Swift and a couple songs and something like those Netflix movies with Jacob a lordy, you know and net and did other piece of this is Netflix is a way.
Bigger piece of this now than I think people fully realize because this whole generation of 22 and under that's the first place they go to that is cable basically in general for them. So anything that's been on there in the last 10 years is some sort of reference touch points in them. And then it just turns in all these Tick Tock like the David dobrik all those they YouTube and all that mr. Be stalled and maybe that's what it is, but I don't know how you would have uniformity on what that
Partridge Family Brady Bunch sketches. I don't know if it
exists and I feel like I almost wish we could like bringing Klosterman here to talk about this. I know that he's obsessed with this subject. But I am so interested in the relative anonymity of enormous hits these days right? Like how a YouTube clip can be absolutely ubiquitous among 18 year olds, and I don't know who made the clip. I do understand what they're talking about. It might as well be an alien speaking in a foreign language and it's there are to a certain extent, you know.
The popularity of even big podcasts like Rogan where they'll be some crazy Viewpoint that's shared there for 25 million people. I won't even hear about it for six months and it's like one of the one of the biggest news Platforms in the world. You can do this for so many different hit one thing that I found. I think I was talking to Matt Bellamy about this when Netflix released its it's ours watched lists.
Oh my God, I was gonna buy that list. So goodnight engine.
It's the right. The night agent was listening to was
Something like, you know seven trillion hours. The mother was the most popular movie of or one of those popular movies of the first half of the year and in the six months of data that was shared by Netflix the mother I think was one of the most popular films and I did the math and according to the math. How do you fact check by this? The mother was watched the same number of hours on Netflix as Barbie was watched in movie theaters in 2023. Wow.
So I'm not saying the mother is bigger than Barbie. That's not my point. Barbie is going to be released or has been released on whatever it is Max and it's going to get it another trillion hours of viewing their but in the same period of time as much time was spent with humans watching the mother on Netflix or Netflix as people sitting in movie seats watching Barbie. I don't know what the mother is. I had to look it up and see this relative anonymity of hits seems to me to be absolutely Downstream of the phenomenon.
Of culture is now a bunch of Cults. Well it also
how do we measure audience because like the night agent which solid show it was like in the 24 phylum was like 24 for the 2020s. I watch the entire show.
I don't think I fully watched even five minutes of it. It was on and I was kind of looking up and doing work and looking up. I'm like out but if you like quiz me if you gave me a quiz right now and like what happened on the date agent. Can you name for characters? I'm not kidding. I watched every episode. Can you name for night agent characters? I cannot have the night agent end. I just remembered something was outdoors and people blew up. So I think it's almost like passive viewing is at an all-time high but like
like I don't know in the 80s like we watch it because that was it was like I'm gonna watch this what else am I going to do? And now it's like with people doing five things. So when I saw those Netflix numbers to me, it was like the passive, you know, passive watching like that show the Summer I Turned Pretty am is the my daughter likes to show an Amazon my wife watched it. But if I quizzed her on and I don't think she would be able to name two characters, but I know she watched the whole show there was some movie they had this week called players and my wife was watching it.
It was a rom-com and but she wasn't really watching it. She was texting with my daughter we FaceTime and I was just kind of going
And that just seems like where we are now
Ginny and Joe Joe be that for my wife. I've seen we had at least six total minutes of Jenny and Georgia walking in and out of my bedroom while my wife, you know, folded clothes or sat with our dog or did work in the bed. Jean-Georges West on you know, might as well have been like
Jean-Georges for the fight and you're like, oh what's going on here and watch for 2 minutes then go back to the laundry, right? Exactly. Yeah. These are it's weird. It's weird times for Content one of the things I don't know if I'll get in trouble for this.
But one of the you know Spotify and they do all the data on what people like podcast consumption and what they've really found with the data over the last year's and it's not rocket science, but like everybody has 2527 podcasts and that's it. It's really hard to crack that list. Once you have it people have their go twos right? They might love you. They're like, you know what Derek's on twice a week when I see that pop up. That's my guy. They don't have 30. It's five to seven.
I might be less than that of might be 3 and might be to maybe it's eight but it's somewhere in that range and that's that's real consumption. But we need think like how many podcasts are there now like three million two million.
Right actually build the hit to actually like get traction is harder than ever it because not only are you competing against the three million pods, but you're also competing against the circle that you've already decided on like 20 24, I guarantee maybe you were listening to a little more because you're a media consumer, but just in general you're going to have your hits like an NBA team. I can only play Five Guys I can play eight guys Max. That's it. That's all I can do any last thoughts.
Thoughts on this or should we go to the next
one this go the next one.
All right, let's take a break and then we'll go to the next one.
This episode is brought to you by Nissan SUV. It's good to stay up-to-date mean we've seen this in basketball and sit in football. I've seen in baseball. Once the stats started taking off in the 2000s. Everybody had to figure that out. Then I remember a basketball first. It was three pointers then it was Defensive stats. You just got to keep moving. You got to keep evolving got to keep going now. It's pace and threes. What's it going to be next big guys? That's why the 2024 Nissan Rogue has Google built right into its twelve point three inch touchscreen.
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All right future of everything. We have two left. I mean this is I am on the edge of my seat for this one with no want to know what your future of everything for Tech is Let's Hear It
All right. So last year feature everything for Tech. I did a I I still think this really compelling evidence called AI adoption. Yes. Yes
article solid W for you,
you know, I could I could keep talking about it. But the truth is I don't think there's a huge demand for me to keep talking about a I said everything I had to say.
Say about it last year. I want to talk about Vision Pro about Apple's new mixed reality headset and I want to talk about it in a way that might be a little bit unexpected. So the reviews are rapturous. The price is exorbitant. The price is in fact so high, you know $3500 and really more when you when you add all of the add-ons that I'm a little bit interested in how it acts how it works in the marketplace of attention like I could imagine rental markets. I could even imagine like
Movie
theaters that sell Vision Pro access like you can get a seat you can get an IMAX eat or you can get a Vision Pro Rental where we you know antiseptic wash the the division Pro we put it on your face. You're not watching, you know Oppenheimer on a screen you are immersed in Oppenheimer. I'm interested to see for example, I think Ben Thompson wore it on a plane our mutual friend. No relation ventas, honestly.
Yeah. I had the same thought I
was thinking what if United.
For $150 rented sterilized Vision Pros to people and Coach to allow or In First Class to allow people to immerse themselves in Barbie or whatever. You won't even notice. If you're sitting in coach that they've you know Shrunk the distance between coach seats by 6 inches if you're strapped into your Vision Pro, so, you know, they get an extra upsell. They put a Vision Pro on your face they get to share more people into the into the airplanes, but the point I really wanted to make about Mission Pro is that if the extrapolation of a trend which is ever
Higher quality screens ever improving resolution ever more content and you just been talking delivered closer and closer to our faces and in the last 15 years.
You and I and everyone we know have participated in experiment. We've been enrolled in an experiment to see what happens to the human brain as we spend more and more time in front of screens and less time in the physical world and division Pro is the most spectacular screen that's ever been invented. I just wrote an article in the Atlantic about what I called the sudden decline of hanging out in America. It was good last 20 years bill average socializing time average face-to-face interactions between humans.
Declined 30 percent for men and women in America and 50% for teenagers and most that decline has happened in the last 10 years what happens when we make screens 10x better. I don't know that I want to know the answer to that question. It's not clear to me that even though I am a huge technology booster. I'm a huge fan of physical world invention. It's not clear to me that better and better screen technology is really the medicine.
That we need to fix our problems. And so I am both kind of excited about Vision Pro but also like fundamentally concerned about what it says about the future of human psychology. So
obviously I read bends review and was it was just classic been it was he was mad at certain things. But then when he started talking about what the experience was on the plane, that was the first time I was like, oh,
But I have to get one of these in your brain starts going. All right, what else would this look like? Could I watch a Celtics game for my dad's seat? Is that is that where we're heading is like I put these things on which we've been talking about really for a decade. But I put these things on what are the possibilities am I all of a sudden an IMAX theater. Am I all of a sudden courtside at a Celtics game because they put a camera on the basket support right under the basket and now I'm now I'm sitting Courtside with the best seats in the House watch.
These guys and I'm able to turn and go that this goes back to what we talked about with his impact. Like I want to know what the 3.0 version of this thing is as as the experience gets better as they figure out stuff. I still the part you said about how this will lead to less interaction less people being social less people wanted to be around other people.
Maybe that's just where Society is headed. But that's my biggest fears. Like it's not just like people are hanging out less are people going to want to hang out people going to still want to be with each other and 15 years. If we hit that point like the to me that's a fucking game Ender if we're not interacting with each other and instead I would just rather be home with my Vision Pro on and that's and I'm 40 years old and that's it. That's going to be my Friday and Saturday night.
That's not I don't see how that's normal for your brain.
I don't see was normal either and it's really hard to predict the future of technology. But one thing that kind of freaks me out a little bit is as you think about various, you know use cases for Vision Pro. One of them is that it allows any space you're in to be turned into your living room or your home office. Yes, you think about a coffee shop and you think about the culture of a coffee shop you think about the historical role the coffee shops have played in human history.
Straight they've been places where people come together and share ideas launch revolutions launch political parties. Sometimes just hang out, you know, get a little bit of work done and hang out with your friends coffee shops are really important third place, you know, not your home not your office but a third place that builds community and in any neighborhood what if a bunch of people realize that with Vision Pro 5.0 in 2027 or whatever you can go to a coffee shop and you can put your opaque glasses on.
And you can just turn that coffee shop into a virtual home office with 17 different screens that you can use to do your day trading your your Excel file in your group or just washing your from
five feet away. No bill. No one's
watching from five feet away because they're wearing their Vision Pros to and so the coffee shop ends up.
So he's like that's a it's a pro coffee shop.
It's so I'm saying if this technology becomes as ubiquitous as the iPhone, then it's not just everyone with naked faces any abilities.
Each other looking at their iPhone, it's everyone with these opaque goggles on sitting in a coffee shop doing their work training that coffee shop in their home office. I mean, there's a way in which I thatthat sounds may be weird and dystopic, but it's actually you could see how an on a one-to-one basis for every individual person. That's a benefits right there. Like, oh, it's fun to be able to like go to a third place and get my coffee and then turn in my home office, but collectively it ruins the culture of that coffee shop. It ruins the culture of third places.
So, why would I
Go to the coffee shop with my with my goggles on if I could just do that at home. What's the point of even being in the coffee shop? Oh
because you know your other people you want maybe want to get away from you want to get away from you know, your family you want to get out of the house for the first part. You need to be closer to the office. Maybe you just need maybe you line generator that
Coffee-Mate. Yeah it away from your roommate. Right
exactly your and you always have the ability of course just take off the goggles and then, you know walk around and you know, get your scone or whatever and bring it back to the table. So it's a way to be away from
Home while also, you know creating whatever kind of room you want to be
a those sounds depressing
it does it is and that's that's why you know, I think that I'm simultaneously interested in you know, what Vision Pro represents for Content what it represents for entertainment how for example it could allow you to enjoy just sort of like Co stream your father's experience of a Celtics game. That sounds kind of cool to me, right? Yeah and an amazing like 3D version of like mad
10:27 that seems kind of cool to me. So it's not as if I want to write off the metaverse entirely and say this is only going to be bad. I don't think that at all. I just think that we need to analyze the societal implications of a technology like Vision Pro as if it's the extension of all other screen to technology and with screen technology the history of screen technology, I think teaches us is making more content ever more available to us. Yes allows us to amuse ourselves, but
Choose to be alone. When were amusing ourselves in front of the screens and that kind of sucks because it means that socialization declines by 50% among teenagers and anxiety right Rises to all-time high levels. So I'm not trying to exclusively like should on the technology, but I do think that especially with the with like the rapturous reception that Vision Pro God we should sort of keep in Balance the explain the incredible achievement at the tech with it's possible - vacations for society.
So if we had
a tech czar
and this person was in charge of basically all behavior and things were allowed to do with all the tech like within reason and the techs are was like you can use these things but it can only be for three hours a day. We don't have enough studies yet to know whether how damaging this could be. If you're using this for 10 hours a day people by no way that's not constitutional. We can't do that but it really does seem like these things should have time limits. I think all this stuff, you know, should you be on your iPhone on FaceTime and and all the social?
Apps for more than like 4 hours a day probably not they're never going to the parents could put time limits on it for their kids.
But do we need like when I think about this Vision Pro thing?
What if somebody's just on their Vision Pro for 14 hours a day? What is that going to do to their brain after a while or they even going to be able to interact with other people after like six months I did with there's so much. We don't know
there's so much. We don't know and you know, the metaphor that I've used before is that social media in particular and I guess to a certain extent you could say screened content in general is a little bit like attention alcohol. I love whiskey and I love wine.
And I don't drink beer as much anymore. But like I love making Mezcal Cocktails. So I drink a lot of alcohol but there's also like an understanding with alcohol of how much is too much and we have a social infrastructure and social vocabulary around telling each other and telling ourselves. You've had too much to drink and you should also drink your drink this with water and you should drink with responsibility and you know, make sure that you eat food before you did. We
understand
how we live for thousands of years with this.
With
this technology, you know, we yeah, and we know how wonderful it can be and we also understand that we can use it to access to a certain extent. I see screens is being analogous because I think that I've that the iPhone is unbelievably useful to me. I think social media frankly even Twitter is incredibly useful to me. I'm very happy the Netflix exist. I've gotten a ton of joy out of it and the truth is I probably will use the Vision Pro at some point in my life and do something that's a lot of fun with it. So in that way all these Technologies are kind of like
An alcohol but we need a clearer understanding. So if I'm the texts are I'm like, let's study this we have so much research on the effect of alcohol on our livers and our minds and our metabolism and you know rates of you know substance abuse and you know how to wean people off of it and the effect of Alcoholics Anonymous. Why don't we have any of this for social media? How do we build this sort of research backbone for a similar understanding of what this is doing to our bodies? That's where I would start before, you know ramping down.
Like the like the CCP and essentially saying like you can't use this technology. No one no adult can use this technology for more than x hours a day.
We feels like we're in the same spot with gummies and micro dosing. We're all they got gummies. There's there's so much more trial and error in the gummy Community the micro Tessa Community. It's like, oh man. I took two gummies yesterday and I was under my bed for nine hours at that that just kind of popped out of nowhere we do.
Don't we know people here who like they just microdose every day. Now, that's a No-No so totally safe. It's like is it then this stuff just started a couple years ago. Does that how my moods much better now? It's great is it
we had a we had an episode on the show about ketamine and about Helens another one. Yeah about psychiatrist researching the effects of ketamine because as you know, I'm very interested in mental health ketamine seems to have incredible effects for reducing depression really quickly and
Roll months so it's different than you know, if you see a therapist which many people should that affect can take a long time to materialize with ketamine that's really fast. But what's interesting is even experts don't really know what's going on. They don't understand the mechanism is it the high that people are responding to is that the molecular experience behind the high and so yeah, we're allowing ourselves here to be to be guinea pigs for drugs that do seem to be doing something good, but the mechanisms of their success or pretty mysterious
last thing of the Vision Pro the
Like You by One your wife can't use it right it's tied to you. That's what Ben was saying like you can't buy like a Family Vision Pro and then just anyone could put it on its tailored specifically to you
II don't know enough about that to be sure but let's say that that is right on
that point.
That seems like something they could adjust for the 2.0 3.0 like the price is going to come down. Maybe it's tailored almost like IE of the Netflix account with the five people on it. I ate that just seems like that's probably where we're headed for future iterations. All right, last one sports. Are we doing micro dosing for the MBA? What are we
going you? Yeah, you stole it right out of my mouth its micro testing for the NBA. No, so I would here's I want to do for sports. I want to describe to you.
Bill my relationship with the NBA and then I want you to tell me if I'm crazy. So I listened to you and Ryan and the NBA show and mismatch. I probably listen to hundreds of hours of NBA podcasts every year. Do you know how much basketball I watch before may like probably 20 minutes like this year and my best friend's bachelor party. We watch the fourth quarter of a Knicks game at our ambient Florida. That's it. So I was doing the math on this and I was like my consumption of professional basketball. He is 100 hours of ringer podcast about basketball.
All to every 20 minutes of watching the actual NBA that's a 300 to 1 ratio of analysis to actual sporting event. And on reflection. I was like this is kind of psychotic behavior. It's totally counterintuitive. I can't really even explain it to myself in what interview I said. It's kind of like the NBA is a piece of audio gossip for me. It's like a reality show that lives in my ears for six months but transforms into a live sport Every Spring and if this is common and I get the sense that it is
Kind of common that a lot of people have this kind of relationship with sports. I wonder what it means for the economics of sports media from a consumer standpoint because there's a way in which I am not actually an NBA fan. I am a ringer podcast Network fan who becomes an NBA fan for the playoffs and I don't know how this cash is out for some sports wherein people become dependent on and reliant on analysis for their entertainment.
But they don't actually watch the underlying product like how if you're Adam Silver. Do you deal with the fact that attention to an enthusiasm for the NBA might be you know going up up up up but ratings are barely budging. It's a really bizarre phenomenon. And so this this mismatch no pun intended to chaos in brno, but like this mismatch I find like more common and Incredibly interesting where people are becoming sports fans without consuming the sport.
So basically what you just laid out, which was a great point is exactly what happened to the late night TV shows.
Hmm. Yeah.
So if I love let's say Kimmel, I'm experiencing him either on social or I'm watching like his YouTube thing, but I'm not necessarily going to ABC at 11:35 and you've seen the ratings like his ratings. His first year was like five six million people per show now. It's probably way lower but the effect of the show is bigger because it's Amplified.
These different platforms and I think that's what's happened to the NBA. They would argue that the last 10 years have been incredibly successful because look at our YouTube. Look at our Instagram. Look at our Facebook. Look at our Twitter like in the way people consume the clips. I think women Jama is the test case for this. I don't think people watch the Spurs. I don't watch the Spurs. I'll go back I cuz they get blown out like three out of every five games. So I'm not I'm not watching them in live time ever if there's
An awesome. When be game that's like oh that was actually a game. I'll just go in their app and watch the fourth quarter of him be like, okay now I watch that awesome wimba game. I'm not watching in real-time with the expectation. I'm going to see an awesome win be game. I think people can it's really like the cheat era you can cheat being a sports fan without consuming different sports. I think football is the only one that people still like actually watch in the moment because it's so perfect for visual and there's the gambling there's
Fantasy, there's the in the moments that if it's only you know, basically 17 Sunday's 15 Thursday's NBA is like all right my gonna which game am I watching there's ten going on at the same time. I have multiple TVs because of what I do for a living. Most people have one which one am I going to watch? Am I doing something else at the same time? I just think people cheat with it. I don't know if it necessarily means the MBA is less popular because I actually think
In a lot of ways, it's more popular but the rating speak for themselves. It's the only it's really one of the only content things were the Ray. I did this on Tuesday where the ratings are down. It doesn't make sense because they've changed all these ways ratings can go up and yet their ratings aren't going
up except it does make sense from the standpoint that when Adam wants to talk about how popular the league is. What does he point to everything but the ratings here's here's our Tick-Tock hashtag and here's are you
Views and here's everything that isn't the main dish right?
Here's everything. That isn't the quiz button there that brought icers look at our sweet
potatoes. Yeah, right exactly what we were the top yams maker in all of sports and it's like meanwhile like the steak is atrophying and so I think it's I think the comparison to late-night is is is perfect because you know, I don't I can't remember the last time I stayed up to watch late-night purposely, but I have caught so many just browsing whatever.
Graham or Twitter so many different clips of you know, Kimmo saying something or some joke on I don't watch SNL either but some joke and SNL there's a certain kind of media that lives to be sort of aggregated by delay the and late-night is that SNL is that and it's weird to think that basketball is becoming that because you would think that basketball is alive sport people have said for so long in place news and live sports
in playoffs. That's when it becomes kind of what the NBA is he had there in this
Is in first of all the seasons too long, we're not positive when people are playing it's hard to quantify. What's a really big game. Like there was a huge game Monday night bucks nuggets. Well, the Nuggets were losing by 20 in the second quarter. So anyways, even though I'm not going to watch that. You just go to the next thing so you can kind of jump off the big games really fast in the regular season. The I think the players are more in a lot of ways more famous than ever hmm, you know, and especially like people the concept of like form play.
Where's becoming as popular as they were to I think that would have been really hard to predict 30 years ago, but it's a weird time. I don't I don't really you could spin any other way. If you're the NBA you could say we're in trouble people aren't watching our games the same way or you could say no. Look at this. This is we wanted this to happen. This is why we wanted our stuff anywhere and in short bites and bigger bites and all these different ways. Look at all the people that are talking about our league.
So you could spin it as a success and fundamentally it comes down to what are people willing to pay for the rights. What are people willing to pay to lease the rights to broadcast live NBA content and I guess the optimistic read for NBA and silver would be that Aztec comes into the sports picture Amazon has so much more money than the old-fashioned TV broadcasters and Apple has so much more money than you old-fashioned TV broadcasters. So
Even though linear television seems like it's in structural and maybe just permanent decline. You're going to get something else to replace the dying Cable Bundle and that is where as before Sports was subsidized through the Cable Bundle by all the people who didn't watch sports because everyone who didn't, you know watch ESPN was still paying every single month in order to pay that affiliate fee to ESPN, maybe in the future just people who don't watch sports but still shop on Amazon or going to subsidize Sports. And so the NBA will benefit from that subsidy. Anyways is
Amazon comes in and apple comes in but I'm just really I'm interested both in the sports economic side of it. But I'm also just interested. It's kind of like like philosophy of entertainment like it's just bizarre to me to have like enormous numbers of people relationship with the sport move from I love watching the sport because it's so fun to watch too. I love hearing stories about the sport for 80% of the season and then only tuning in at the very end. That's it. That's a very odd relationship to have with a sport but it's absolutely mine and I just gathered that.
It's a lot of other people's to
it needs a name. Like I was thinking as you were talking to your like your Shadow and be a fan.
Yes shadowing like it's something like that where you're shadowing the league and you're ready to jump in at any time, but you're really not actually consuming it you're consuming the Shadows around it, but not the actual content itself. It's some name like that.
Yeah. Well, I mean the way that I described other people is the word that I've used his gossip that essentially what I'm listening to my relationships. The league isn't listening to gossip about the league. I'm listening to you talk about, you know, here's here's the gossip from various.
Teams, here's here's some the analysis. That's just gossip. It's just talk. I'm just listening to talk and
well, one of the most fun thing that happened this week. I did a little YouTube short on it right out because there's my first thought I was like, hey, I gotta get this one out. I'm fired up about this one, but when it got leaked that LeBron was getting traded or that the words asked the Lakers about a LeBron trade and
that the owners talked that Draymond was lobbying Rich Paul and then that the Lakers actually went to LeBron and we're like, hey, do you want to go to the Warriors or you want to stay here? And he's like no. No, I want to stay here which was but then all this stuff comes out and you start thinking well, why did this come out who had the most to gain? Well, obviously the Lakers because they have some play The Warriors in the playing game. Probably the workers are doing well. Their chemistry is good. It's like what's sabotage that
And then you also want to get the message out like we gave LeBron and out to leave and you want to leave so he can't say shit anymore. So that all comes out that was more interesting to me than any game that happened last night. So you're right. It's like there's this real housewives open of the NBA now or it's like holy shit. But and then guess what the words lost less than quite Thompson was terrible because you put that shit out and there's three people that could have been traded for LeBron and Draymond is trying to convince allegedly the quarterly report look,
Bronze Age and come to the Warriors now if I'm Klay Thompson, I'm like
Whoa, wait a second. Like I would probably have to be in that trade. Now. You're looking at dream on kind of sideways and you know, it's just like I think people are more fascinated in that shit there in the regular season than the Clippers worriers game last night where the Clippers came back and beat the Warriors was like, oh man. Look at Norman Powell like the LeBron story is way more interesting. So that's just kind of where we are.
Yeah. I'm a Bravo sports fan. Maybe that's what it
is. It's made of like that. It's better than Shadow. That's good. What else?
What I see working on coming up Podcast about
it. No. Yeah, Friday is we're talking to the CEO of a company that's developing drugs to extend the lives of dogs and the ways in which wow life extension drugs for dogs, which have gotten sort of not tentative FDA approval but the FDA has essentially checked off the process the progress that they've made and so this is the further away you standing
like what like, how are they doing
that?
So the way they're doing it Selena Li Hua is the CEO of loyal and they have a drug called ello y one boy one that essentially inhibits a growth hormone in large dog
breeds that Spurs can sense. This is amazing
that that once they become adults you can give it to his puppies because this is the growth hormone that's making them become large. So once they become fully grown you can theoretically if the drug fully works you would give dogs this this
Drug, and it would hopefully extend their lives by slowing down the production of of this particular hormone and they're working on a couple other drugs to increase dog longevity and a couple other ways because that one only works for the large breeds and they care about extending lives of small and medium breeds as well. So we talked about the future of dogs small dogs.
We're probably good with small
dogs.
Anyway,
so we're talking about life extension science for dogs and the implications for humans because
Certainly, we would love the discoveries from this science where we can test it on dogs. And because they've aged seven times faster. We get to learn seven times faster. What if we learn some things that really really worked in dogs and I found a way to get that in humans and increase all of our slow down our aging process as well. It's not about living forever just about slowing down the aging process. We'll just wait till we have dog has em pick
Derek Thompson. You can listen to plain English. You can read them on the Atlantic great, too. Great to see you as always great to see
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Well, this guy we're afraid to have for a couple weeks after the another tragic bills loss. He's here now. At least you lost the Super Bowl champion are a Hawaiian. I mean you got that at least
sort of I'm still not over it to be honest. I'm still very sad, but you know what? I'm actually happy that I wasn't on a few weeks ago and I'll tell you why I started to believe and there were others who were throwing out this Theory as well that saying
that that is that is jinxing you yes.
Yeah, come on, and and the truth is the people don't know this we did have a plan in place to do this little thing before the Chiefs game and I think the whole Belichick retiring something happen and you just didn't reach out. So I'm happy that didn't happen because then I would have blamed it on you had they lost. So now I know that it has nothing to do with any of this and I don't know I just I'm just not over it. I'm very sad. I'm very very sad. Sunday was depressing
for sure. What are the what are the rankings for you?
For Worse bills loss of your lifetime your will you old enough to remember Norwood or
no? Oh, yeah, actually somerwoods would is how I became a fan of the bills. I was eight years old. I was at my uncle's house. I'm watching and I'm like, this is not a proper way to lose. I feel bad for these guys and then so I immersed myself and then of course, you know, the two Cowboys losses were horrible. My brothers were Cowboys fans Washington horrible as well. So those were very tough. I would cry to my mom. It was tough. I would say of this.
Life that I'm living now 13 seconds. That's the one I'm with still it should be it's still the one because for two reasons a it was right there. I can't believe they let them score with 13 seconds left and I can't believe the defense and sayonara Leslie Frazier and no problem here and and then and I believe we would have beaten Cincinnati at home and I believe we wouldn't be in the Rams at home as well their home so far. I like it was right there. It was right freaking there. And by the way as I'm watching on Sunday, I believe we're better.
Than both those teams and I'm sorry if I'm delusional Bills fan were better than the Chiefs. I'll take Josh Allen over Patrick Mahomes any day if I'm starting a franchise, I'm not delusional bills rent any day. I'm taking Josh Alan. He's a better quarterback. Wow, and I'm taking this hot squat over them and and my
computer's Catching Fire. Jeez. No, I'm
so I'm so annoyed because it's right there bill. It's right freaking
there. It's tight right there. You don't want to end up in the early 90s Trailblazers real a man. That thing was so talented what happened?
Guess what? I'm a Knicks fan and
Experiencing the whole thing all over again.
We're right there and there's one guy in our way every damn time. Yeah
before we talk about 298 this feature, which you're covering and the ringer of am a show which is a fantastic show that must thank you. My son who followed you on YouTube. I had no idea you had a podcast much less than it was at the ringer. So that was a really fun moment over the holidays says he found out that you were actually gonna have two years later. He just doesn't listen to podcasts.
I do enjoy the chats with your son very much.
Isn't
he great people listening? My son. My son makes me call you every once in a while with UFC questions because he's really into it.
And by the way, he's not just into it like he's asking like
yeah, he's kind of
high-level. Yeah, like rumor Twitter stuff like he's not surface-level fan. He's now he's a bit which I were so let's
talk before we do 298. Let's talk 300 first because this is a big obsession with my son. He doesn't understand.
Why this isn't the biggest card of his life time like this should be it. This should be like five Super Bowls in the one who'll be telling his grandkids about this you explained why to him but explain it to the audience.
Well all these youngsters out there who have convinced themselves of this as we say in the world of pro wrestling. They have worked themselves into a chute bill. They have convinced themselves that this is bigger than anything out there. The truth is you can make a strong case that 299 on the 9th of March has better.
300 and the the main card this weekend is fantastic as well. You can't have a Super Bowl end-all be-all card in April when you're doing a big pay-per-view every single month. There's just not enough Talent. They're not enough Superstars. There's not enough names and so yes, everyone's been fixated on 300 forgetting the fact that they have to deliver a pay-per-view in December and January and February and March and December February and March January was a little so so have I
Been spectacular and so when you have spectacular cards leading up to another day the cupboards going to be a little bear and so right now it's a little bear now. I will say this it's still a fantastic card if it was 307 people would be going Gaga for it. It's just because they've convinced themselves that 300 was going to be like Brock Lesnar vs. Andre the Giant vs. Conor McGregor vs. Hulk Hogan on top of the moon. Like they've just convinced himself that it was going to be some insane thing and they're left disappointed as we are recording.
This right now on Thursday afternoon. They don't have a main event just yet. And that is leading to some anxiety. I would say it's time to announce this Main Event. Dana says he's going to do it on Saturday and I just don't know if the fans are going to be okay with anything because they've convinced themselves of some insane fight. That just doesn't
exist. Well, can you explain why McGregor will not be on 300 because you have a an explanation.
Yeah. So McGregor is not going to be on 300 and you know, what's the crazy thing about this? He's ready to go. He's healthy. He wants to be on
300 all this could have been avoided had they just put them on 300 but there's multiple reasons why they don't want to put them on 300 number one. They think that 300 on its own UFC 300 with these fights is going to sell a million plus pay-per-views so that the main
event is the number over the fighter.
Yes, in this case. I mean just witnessed the fact that your son is thinking about it and debating it all this time for so long. I've been asked questions about 300 for like the last year and a half. What's going to Main Event?
- like this is April of 2023 a my God. I don't know. I don't even know what's going to made of it the next month pay-per-view. So anyway, so that's number one. And so they think okay if we save Connor for this summer now we get two bites at that Apple a million-plus Buys in the summer June 29th is the current working day and a million plus size with UFC 300. So we don't need Connor to elevate 300 also. It's
kind of like how I didn't need to write a 700 page book. I could have just written to 350 page.
Books that's a hunt that's
accurate. And also you probably should have had a Ghostwriter. I don't know if you did have one
but they did not wish I had the other thing
is Conor McGregor is instant million-plus buys, right? Yep, when you have other Champions who aren't as big as Conor McGregor is as far as superstardom and drawing power, they are owed per their contract being a champion pay-per-view points. Meaning they get a piece of the pie the fighters who are on the card who aren't Champions don't get
Peace they don't get to participate but if you're Zhang Wei Li the straw way champion of the UFC and you're on UFC 300. Now you put Conor McGregor on that card. You're now participating in a Conor McGregor pay-per-view, which is always Blockbuster. So that's why every time Conor McGregor fights. There aren't any other title fights on the card because they don't want to divvy up those pieces to other people who they deem not worthy of sharing in that pie. So when Connor fights on June 29th, there aren't going to be any other Champions on that car because it's going to be the Conor McGregor show there already.
Champions on this 300 card because they had to stack the deck. They don't want to put Connor on top of that and now start dividing that pie to people who didn't necessarily contribute to the baking of the pide. You get what I'm saying? You know, I'm grateful praise once said if they want you to cook the dinner the least you could do is buy the groceries remember
that yeah.
I'm not really sure how this fits but I just want to throw that out there for the Obelisk
one of the it's one of the great senior yearbook quotes for the high school students out there. So what is going to lead three?
Then what's the odds on favorite and what I'll get actually two questions, what's the odds on favorite and if Dana came to you, which probably I'm going to bet won't happen and was like, what should I do? What would you tell him? So what do you think's going to happen? And what would you tell him should happen?
Okay, and I'm going to put Connor to the side because that should have always been it
right but I get the financial piece of it like you want you want to make your own money out of a Connor pay-per-view I get it. But by the way day now, it's Conor
McGregor on
Ultimate Fighter last March right imagine imagine it would have been a year build. It would have been march to April. It would have been John Cena Rock s we would have had a year-long bill if they would have said and then he's gonna headline 300 all this anxiety all this this nervousness. All the would have been out the window, but unfortunately, they're not going that route. So that's off the table. Danny Way comes to me right now first thing I say
Dana long time no speak good to hear date after I didn't know we're talking and yeah, how are you? This is great.
Second thing I say is he DDP
is Radha Sonia trick is due to do trick is to play. See that's the fight those two guys hate each other. They have a deep rivalry that extends far beyond
a man some baggage into that one though that I don't get everyone comfortable. Okay, we're fine. It's going to
happen. It's Blockbuster. It doesn't feel thrown together. Like there's a fight on this car, which people are excited about Max Holloway versus just a gay chief for the BML,
but it's just thrown together.
Together that
fight isn't being made if 300 didn't need big fights and I don't like that. I like a backstory. I Like A build-up. There's a buildup last July they got in the cage together. They're going face-to-face. It's you know, it was there. Yeah. Oh, yeah you were there it
got on. Oh, yeah got another generally uncomfortable. Yes,
but it was it was it was theater and it was heat and it was legit. And now DDP is the champion not to be confused with Diamond Dallas Page trick is to pussy is the champion of 185. You just won the belt against Shawn Strickland in
They have is each other Charles Stratton
performance. Yeah, just yeah,
I had a feeling it was gonna go that
way. Yeah, that was rough. So that's the one put that on the
top of the bill. Everyone's happy. It doesn't feel cobbled together. They've tried to do humza and Leon comes that has Visa issues. They've reached out to everyone Under the Sun and again, like I said, like some of the big names, you know Volk is fighting this weekend Shawn O'Malley's fighting in March. He's guys just aren't available. So you have to you know make do with what you
got. I don't feel great about
about the DDP moniker was just makes me think a Diamond Dallas Page and it's like when LaDainian Tomlinson stole Lauren's Taylor's LT. It's like, I don't know if I'm ready to give up Diamond Dallas Page as the DDP yet.
Internet and it's so great about it
in fairness to him. We gave it to him he together even if I don't even know if he knows DDP the original DDP, but it just I don't know it's kind of fun to say I mean, I thought it was done and now we've got a
new DDP house. Okay, that's fine. How how how
often do you get someone with the initials DDP in
your life? I get it. I gotta run I get it. I just think of Diamond Dallas Page who I never was really a huge fan of but had a nice little run there in the 90s. It's tremendous. All right. So what's your backup plan? Well, actually what do you think they're
They are they going to do the fight. You just said or they can do something else.
So I'm not ruling anything out because I'd like to think if they've taken so long to book this fight. They've got a rabbit in their hat. But yeah, you think of rabbits you think George st. Pierre Habib nurmagomedov, Ronda Rousey brought cluster. Those people aren't available right now Connor obviously bigger than all of them. He's clearly not being, you know discussed available. So, you know, there's Leon Edwards who's out there. He had said back in December that he's in talks to fight at 300.
The number one contender's belong Muhammad. I'm that you don't
love that is that excited the
internet would just explode if that's the announcement. They lose their minds they would I'm just saying there's not a lot of options. There's just not it's just not there. I think the one that checks off all the boxes. Is he DP that's it make the fight happened. It's right there call them up. And by the way, you know, what's the problem bill? This is less than eight weeks away now.
I yeah, you
can't just call guys up and be like, okay, you ready like you got to make the call now?
Got to sell tickets, you got to get things going
and as of as of last
night when I checked in with a bunch of different people, they're still not telling anyone and you know what the problem is also they're afraid of it leaking and so they're not telling the fighters and I know the managers aren't lying to me and they're just kind of sitting around waiting for the call or the announcement and it's all just very weird in my opinion. There's no Lesnar potential right? I would be shocked. I mean again, you know if this that Erica
A strong 2024.
Yeah, so if this was a year ago, you could say oh, he's on the outs with WWE he go to U of C. But now it's the same company. So
true. What about allows the camera to be no. No way.
I would be I would be more shocked about Rousey coming back then brought coming back.
And there's no other added nowhere famous person that could lead 300 other than McGregor, you know, there's like the GSP is of the world know now, you know, you know Nate Diaz, no, no not available Jorge. Masvidal Nate Diaz people were trying to will that into existence not happening. They're going to box.
Jake Palmer's Logan Paul, probably not happening would be
said other against brother.
I mean that would be the ultimate wrestling thing. So I just want to say we're headed toward Izzy and DDP. It sounds like what that's where we're going
feels like it has to be it. But look, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. They pulled a rabbit out of their hat at UFC 200 Brock Lesnar. No one saw that coming and so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt that they've got something but right now no one's talking about it. And you know, I just don't know who that rabbit.
It is so Lindsay and the weird thing is he told the media on Tuesday that he's going to announce this at the post fight press conference on Saturday. Like that's that's the best you got like they famously got mad at me the worst
content day Brock
Lesnar coming back as they had a big promo and now we're announcing it at the post fight press conference at 2:00 a.m. On YouTube after a pay-per-view when half the country is asleep like it. I don't know something. I don't know if
I trust that information. I don't judge that dropping it on there like a today or
You remember you remember a few days ago when the MMA fans including perhaps your son convinced themselves that they were going to announce it during the Super Bowl. It's like they were just going to call up
CBS and say hey, I'm hard to convince my son of anything.
I was shocked by this not just the only times people ask me on seven million
dollars Super Bowl ad just to that's a fight. Why would they do
that? And also don't you have to like don't you have to buy those many months ago? Yeah. I have a fight they have nothing. What are they gonna what are they going to what are they going to air?
Its other than who you would have been?
Royal Rumble, yeah, just do
it. Listen right now the internet will explode and you know, maybe they do now and this is all our
say you're doing a Monday at 9:00 right in time for but you're only making a big announcement if you have something big to announce and even if the best possible B is Izzy and DDP, I don't know that sign. Is that going to be like breaking news on first take I don't know if that quite good.
No, no just 300 300 will get a lot of Pomp and
That's and I'm sure ESPN will be out there and all that stuff, but it's just kind of missing that junice equipped trust me.
It's got a lot. Like I love the card.
It's just not what everyone is convinced themselves. It was going to be
what's your favorite 298 fight? Oh my God, 298 is amazing. That's the crime in all of this
298 and 299 are fantastic cards, truly fantastic. Obviously. The main event is tremendous. I love all the stores like eight storylines going into this one very quickly. You've got
Alex Vulcan offski the featherweight champion in a rare spot. He's coming off a knockout loss because he needed up on 11 days notice to fight Islamic HEV back in October and it could have gone worse. He got knocked out first time in his you have seek.
My son's out he thinks
he's too old. Well, there's the two old thing that has popped up and now there's the damaged goods thing, you know, like you get knocked out all of a sudden, you know, you can't take a punch the same and you're fighting a guy who has all the makings of being a superstar Elliot's aporia the pride of, Georgia.
The state the country and Spain like talks the talk walks the walk looks the part has already updated his social media bio to state that he's the UFC featherweight champion and has already made his record 15 and 0 he's
kind of watching the NBA to do this like just when heading out to a series against the Lakers like first round 2024. I'll see you amazing. Yeah.
He's so cocky that he says I'm going to win this fight. He was walking around with the belt yesterday wearing the belt invokes.
Nominees, like all right. Yeah, that's the only time you're going to get with the ball but it's just practice
is not looking good though. Foreboding it's just as he
said he said he said Not only am I going to win in the first round? I'm not going to give any of the contenders at 45 a chance at the belt because it's my time my era. I'm going to fight Conor McGregor at the Bernabeu, which is where Real Madrid plays later on this year. Like he's calling all his shots a lot of that. You know, I doubt this is all gonna happen, but I love the Cockiness the brashness and so if he stumbles they're gonna come for
But if he calls this shot and this all comes to fruition, they've got a superstar on their
hands even odds on FanDuel red now. It's
a great fight. It's a great find ethical. I
actually thought he was going to be like - 150 something like that because of all time with you when it when the guy gets knocked out, especially in older guy. I just feel differently from that point on
that being said, I'm not disregarding
vote. Hey,
you can't do it one of the best smartest fighters in the game. Incredible fight. I
Q I think it's going to be a tough fight and I think he has a very good judge people forgot. He took that fight on 11 days notice. He was out of shape. He's kind of taken it he got paid great, but the beauty of this whole situation is we're going to finally be able to answer the question. Was that a huge mistake did that change the trajectory of his life as career or was he able to now have a full Camp regroup reset and he's back to his winning ways and and I love everything about it and the rest like Paulo cost of versus Robert Whittaker is an amazing fight and 185 pounds with a lot at stake.
Rubber would occur just lost the DDP in July. Kosta hasn't fought in two years almost big fight for him fan. Favorite Ian Machado Gary and some people's eyes the the next big Irish Superstar, very polarizing. Everyone wants to see him get his sort of Humble Pie undefeated walked around wearing a t-shirt of the guy. He's fighting Jeff Neal has a mug shot. He got he got he got arrested for a DUI walked around wearing the T-shirt with the mug.
Shot on the
T-shirt. I mean that fold aggressing it to him. And then that is Petey feel about him. He
it's a very interesting thing. Thank you for asking. He'll be happy that you asked he doesn't have the same connection with the Irish people that Connor did who are very passionate Bunch because he left Ireland and he now lives in
Brazil. Oh
and they don't feel like he's kind of
like
connecting with them. But you like Connor still lives in Dublin. He still train to Dublin same team. He came up with and
And the connection with Ian is a little bit different. So it's a very Hot Topic in Ireland right now PT has talked a lot about this and even yesterday at media day. He said maybe I'm too big to headline the Dublin show that has been rumored that doesn't go over well with the Irish. It's also another huge fight merab demolish feel he was 19 in a row going up against Henry cejudo the two Division champion Olympic gold medalist who says if he doesn't win on Saturday, he's retiring done merab if he wins could be next for the Sean O'Malley chiovera fight. It's a great car man. It's a really really good.
Good card, it's worth the pay-per-view hundred percent.
You guys going
not going why not doing it? Well, don't be rolled out. Yeah, it's like an hour and a half way. I don't know some socialist the Saturday the Saturday night pulling them, you know, he's up to stuff got only knows what
he's doing. I don't believe that he'd rather go
there then do anything with his
friends. So hardcore fan
and 299. Oh gosh, which is better than 298. Yes and probably better than
300 at the moment without a without a main event 100% I mean
The main event right now for for 299 Sean O'Malley vs. Cheetah Vera is I mean gentleman's hat. I'm sure your son love chunk like he is a fan favorite for the younger kids. He's just amazing. He's got the look.
He's just playing he came through in Boston. He won over the entire tired. We were there and I was not there, but okay, but yeah. No, I think there's like a list star power with him potentially, but he's got a win like two more I think.
Yeah, and he's fighting Marlon Vera who's very popular is from Ecuador who beat Sean O'Malley earlier in their UFC run, but it was a somewhat unceremonious when Shawn injured his foot and he kind of claims that it wasn't a loss in addition to that Dustin Poirier against Benoit saint-denis. Remember the name Ben was Saint Denis on our 2024 preview show PT actually said that he was going to be the breakout star of 2024. They're fighting in a five-round co-main event fight and
And he is there like he is the guy he could be the face of French MMA which is exploding right now. He beats Dustin Poirier who's a legend that's huge for him and also guy named Michael Venom page who's coming over from Bellator who dances in the cage who does all kinds of showboating hot-dogging. He's going up against Kevin Holland. That's a huge fight Gilbert Burns against Jack Della. Maddalena. I mean, it's just 299 is amazing
and that case I have French MMA is exploding the hell.
Hmm a is nuts when I gave her my words at the
The end of the year the crowd in Paris was my crowd of the year. They're
really does. Oh, yeah because they
took so long to legalize MMA it only got legalized a couple of years ago. And so they're just foaming at the mouth and they're producing an incredible amount of talent those like they're singing the National Anthem in the middle of the main event. The whole crowd is singing in unison. It's like a soccer
at me like that band of victory was Sly Stallone. Yeah, you probably don't remember that, you know, probably that onion radar French Mac.
And exploding well, my son's favorite country. What's that country that all the toughest guys are from?
Dagestan
yeah. Yes. He's like been to a doggy style. If Ben ever did a gambling Manifesto that would be one of his rules just bet on the guy from That's Country from that country. You're probably going to be okay.
There's a lot of people who believe that there's a certain spelling of last names they believe in also if you've got the beard but shouldn't shaved mustache priority my most that's awesome.
Well, I saw the beard protect. First of all, you should have seen some sort of protection on your head. Yes from hair, but the beard I
It really helps with the job because it's almost like this extra face
helmet. Also, you can't find it can't find the Target, right? You know, that's what people said about Kimbo Slice back in the day like can't find the Target. So I see someone with that beard and I just instead I don't care if I'm on the street if I'm watching a pay-per-view, whatever. I see that beard. I'm like that guy's a badass. I don't want to mess with that guy before we go. Can we talk?
2024 WWE this WrestleMania situation, which I can't tell if it's a work or whether they've planned this all along wob. I mean that the Vince McMahon thing I think was a level one catastrophe for them and a whole bunch of different ways. It just couldn't be a worse story. It couldn't be uglier. I don't think they really even fully know what to do with it. Other than hope it goes away. But it you know when this happened to him in the past, I was always like he's never you know, he'll be back. I don't
If he's retiring this time, he's gone. We will not see him again. And now there's a real fear that what else is coming. How bad was this? It's just gruesome. It's awful and as as all that's happening. Well Rumble is in motion. WrestleMania is coming like this is the playoff stretch of WWE and just watching from afar really feels like they're kind of thrusting Rock and to all this as a little bit of a red herring. Would you agree with that? You know, I don't know and by the way, I
thought you were going to
to bring up, you know, the eventual Knicks win over the Celtics in the Eastern Conference. Final is the final point, but I do that at the end. Yeah. I know you don't want to go there. It's totally cool. You guys are afraid it's all good. I think that the the plan was always the rock to come back. So
you subscribe to that one. I do
what I'm not sure about is was the plan always for him to be a heel was the plan always for you know, Cody to reassert himself back in the main event after it seemed like they were taking him away from the main event. And then the
The the audience just craps all over it. Was that always the plan? Oh also by the way CM Punk tears his tricep. We all figured it was going to be Punk against Seth Rollins night one now. He's not available and now Seth is involved in the story line as well. So they've had to maneuver things but I have to say like this is this is theater. Like I can't wait to see how this all plays out. Is it going to be a triple threat. Is it going to be has to be a triple threat, right? What if it's like
What if it's what if it's
Cody rock on night one, and then he has to get through the rock to get to Roman on night to I
don't know that's kind of core Roman both nights would be the other way to go
Roman versus who on the first night.
Why don't I do that if they're not going to have a triple threat. I think those are the only two options. I kind of
don't like the triple threat for Wrestlemania. I feel like WrestleMania Main Event needs to
be hotter take I don't like Triple Threat matches. Hmm.
And I'm still going to talk about wrestling though, Larry David disparaged it a couple weeks. Yeah. I know I heard that. Yeah, and I've been at this point. It's like we've all got we've all got through it. We're fine.
They're on fire though. They're on fire like obviously from a from a creative standpoint right now the other stuff I Echo everything that you said horrendous and you're almost like kind of just waiting to see what other shoes are going to drop if any horrific details uncomfortable and one of those things where you're like almost embarrassed to be a wrestling fan.
Because like parents of my kids are going like did you read this Vince McMahon thing you lay this stuff and I'm like no, I like the guys in the ring. I don't ya, you know, I'm a Brett by the way, I'm a Bret Hart Owen Hart fan. All right. I always had some weird feelings about Vince McMahon if I'm being honest if you get what I'm saying, so this is obviously a whole other level. Yeah, but the actual
product the actual product
with the Stars they have right now. I mean look at the difference between booking 300 and booking Wrestlemania 40 and what a week that's going to be for TKO right for the company.
Well, these menu 40 is 6th and 7th of April. And then 13th is 300. They're going to
domestic was the mistake was betting on CM Punk that he could both stay healthy and have good matches because I you know, he really hasn't been reliable as a man attraction for I would say 10 11 years at this point. So I even before he got hurt like I to me, it was all entrance and like he was 90% entrance and then 10% the other
Tough and it was kind of like the matches were the worst part of CM Punk which is bad for a WrestleMania just seems like the crowd would die but the entrances were great and and it maybe that's who he is. Sometimes this happens with wrestling. Sometimes you just become about the entrance but nobody wants to see Russell from where than like 7 to 10 minutes. That's not what he was the beginning of the 2010's. Oh Hunter but I mean, he was the best in the world. He would call himself that and and I think he was was justified. Yeah. He did had that super long layoff and I would say when
Came back to aw. He had some good matches like his Feud with mjf was pretty darn great
do is act as the mjf is, you know a time five guy now, I'm
Jeff is tremendous, but I think together they were magic and then he got hurt and then he came back that was like an old-time moment and then didn't really wrestle and I know he did some House shows and then obviously the Royal Rumble was I thought solid I mean obviously he's older, you know, he's in his Lane as hard as darn it. Yeah. Yeah
this thing probably the kind of wrestler that he is. It's really hard.
Hard to hit like your mid late 40s and have didn't happen Ric Flair who's the greatest of those matches of all time, but even him by the time he had the you know, mid-90s he wasn't the same guy could have the same matches. He couldn't sell stuff the same way. I just wasn't his
believable.
You know, I love going to her
Gunther like skate has empathy Gunther has been I don't know what it what he's doing is skinnier. Oh man, you're in shape for athletic Gunther, but he's either guy from when he was on NXT five six years ago and my son and I would go he's just this big he's basically all about the chest slap. That's it. Now. He's like, I would say he's one of the three or four best wrestlers they have.
Oh my gosh. Yes, and he's got the look. He's got the vibe. I think I
Right now like we were saying about wrestling in the storylines, you know, they're doing amazingly as far as creative as concerned and I think it's only going to level up with raw going to Netflix next year because now all of a sudden you're sitting on your couch and maybe you're a lapsed fan. You're like, oh wow Monday Night Raw, I'll watch this. I was curious to get your take on all this because I think this is like a watershed Turning Point moment for the business.
It's I think the smartest business decision. They've made probably since they launched her own streaming service.
Really like three four five years before everybody else was thinking that way they really did see the future with that stuff. We were talking about it. We're a Grantland at the time and we play that really this is amazing. We like we can get libraries old matches we can get you know, the pay-per-views would be there like this is this seems really cool. Now it's kind of the standard of how things have gone. I think in this case, they're just betting on the biggest platform in the world, which is only getting bigger every month who's investing in live and if you're investing in life,
If your Netflix are you investing in the NBA? That's eight months a year. You're messing in WWE. That's every Monday night. Right the same type of thing. I was really smart for both sides. I have no idea how to it was so much money. I don't even know like what what is that worth? What's wrong worth? I don't know. But when you think like cable TV ratings going down every single month and they're going to the place where the ratings and the viewership in the eyeballs are going up every month. Like it's a no-brainer if anything you could argue.
Netflix should have said this should be a cheaper deal for us because this is so good for you guys. But WWE's able to get the money to that was my painting,
you know, I agree with everything you said and so Smackdown to USA. So they're getting more money there. It's not like they're getting them everything CW has NXT and then in 2026 the pay-per-view rights are up with peacock. And so who knows like if you bring that to Netflix
Now you're killing it even more like
and then he that epitome that is a must ESPN has to get that you think so. Yeah, they have to get they basically have to get all the stuff TKO is doing and especially a boxing is coming next ESPN's got to make a deal for everything. So we want all of it. Whatever pay-per-view you're doing. We want on ESPN. Plus they have to get it
that's fast because the the UFC rights are up at the end of next year
2025 ESPN has to get all that stuff because he's the reasons when they need it.
You know, if you're if you're one of the struggling streamers You could argue we have to get we have to overpay for this because this could Keep Us Alive like if you're like Paramount or peacock. He's like I want everything TKO is doing because at least now we'll have an identity will have this thing will be able to make money in the pay-per-views is pain plus is the bet they it helps them the most because the pay-per-view business is ultimately, you know, how they're going to make ESPN plus succeed.
I think
what do you think will be one of those things where they're charging people fifty bucks or 60 bucks? Because now you get peacock you get the W pay-per-views right and go to if you go to ESPN plus where they sell UFC Pay reviews for $70. Are you now going to go back to that model? If your WWE after the last how many years of
think you kind of have to wow, do you think that peacock deal was worth it for them?
I think so wasn't a billion or something, but they're selling the but if you're if I have peacock to get all the pay per views and there's what 14 pay-per-views a year give or take 12 to 14. Now. I'm only paying $20 for those pay per views a month versus 70. How is that a good deal for WWE?
I think they were starting to recognize that people weren't buying every single
pay-per-view that they're picking and choosing.
Yeah.
Hmm But I wouldn't be against some sort of plan where you go to ESPN and I was wondering why they don't do this with UFC. Maybe they don't have to where they offer it in a bundle like you get three for the price of
for cko package you get ya a hundred dollars a year you get everything or whatever it
is, but we are starting to see finally some Synergy between the two Brands. Actually. They just announced on Thursday that they did a deal with the Honda Center in Anaheim, which is hosting this pay-per-view 43 UFC and WWE shows a year to come.
For the next few years. So like we're starting to see package deals, which I think is going to be the way it should be the pain from here.
Yeah, I think when we talked about this last time one of the futures of this is the weekend where it's like you have seen on Saturday night big wrestling event TBD on Sunday and then they could say hey for $101 you get both events. Yeah, right or you could pay $80 for UFC separately and you could pay whatever.
Ever but for you can for the package it's a hundred bucks and it's like it's available for one week only you can step in now and I think they're going to start doing shit like that. The boxing is the piece that I'm the most interested with them because that's Nick's DNA. And as you know, the boxing is so disheveled right now. It's all over the top right maybe.
Or maybe there's some out of out of the u.s. Thing they can snap up but they're definitely that's the next piece. They're going to have all three in there that's going to be with the Destinies. Who do you thinks the best press are alive right now pro wrestler? Yeah. Who's number one in the world? Who's number one for you?
Well, I would say my favorite is actually mjf. I love MJ f
I don't know. If a lot of people would
agree with me right now.
MJ f is the one that it feels in WWE. I feel like he would be easily the biggest star in WWE and anything love I think he'd be bigger than Reigns
to me right now in terms of like who is must see and I feel like is just firing on all cylinders. It's it's Cody or Seth. I love what Seth is doing. I know he's a little banged up but he's just amazing. And you know, it's the most amazing thing about Seth Rollins. He reinvents himself if he's had so many different iterations of his of his Persona over the last
Five six seven eight years. It's really remarkable. And now we're seeing a different iteration because he's kind of turning baby face again to help out Cody's. So um, I would like to end there's two like Montes forward. I think it'd be a huge star. I think Ricochet is great. And by the way, what about Logan Paul this guy like,
he's must take these stunning. He's like, I legitimately good wrestler. I don't understand it. Insane. You would have no idea my background but like the moves he pulls off. I'm like
I don't quite understand has he been secretly training.
For ten years house possible. How could he do this stuff? It's
crazy. I don't get it. It gives me hope for my son when he just steps in the ring someday. All right, before we go Knicks quickly. How many rounds give me a give you the over-under on.
Two and a half rounds over the Knicks make you're going over.
Okay, so you think you're in the Eastern finals? Mmm. The question is Health if we're healthy. We're smoking you guys. I'm Not Afraid. Wow. I'm not just coming right at us. So we're thousand percent cure. The other
guy. I got a love
for VOC. I'm not going to I'm not going to go down that route but best point guard in the East maybe in the in the world. Is that allowed if we're if we're healthy
If we hit listen, if we hit Julius back if we could get Mitch back if we get 0 g and I won't lie. I'm a little nervous. They're so sneaky. Like I'm expecting any moment to get a tweet where you know, Julia's has surgery and he's out for the year like everything is so oh, oh geez outdated day and then all of a sudden what he had surgery on his elbow, how did this happen? But I'm I'm praying to the gods if those three guys come back we've got boy on we've got Alec Burks now the bench is deep.
I
mean boy on is a fantastic pick up and I really liked that guy. Um, yeah, I want to see I want to see when Randall looks like Randall again. He'll be fine you there was he's gonna be out for a month and then he's gonna come back and how long does it take from getting on a shooting arm with cedar you going to be is another thing.
This is the problem last four games have been tough. Maybe the worst call in the history of the NBA on Monday night on jail and
I was watching that game. I had it on the smaller TV, so I couldn't hear the sound and when they were
Doing it. I just assumed they were I didn't realize the next in have a challenge left and they were reviewing and I was like, oh, they're overturning that that's one of the worst cause it was I honestly like on pass interference on a Hail Mary or something this a you just don't call that the guy's not making the shot. No, so follow a 32 footer so it would be amazing at that. I'm against like the challenges where they have to replay the end of the game. That's I think the first one in a while I'm like, they should actually replay the game that was a heavy
duel was there not
Jewel to play each other how could they actually pull this off a
five-minute game wouldn't that be amazing?
I think a lot of people would buy tickets to that. Am I crazy?
I think it would be cool. I but if you can't challenge that result.
Then what's the point of having challenges
can I could kind of tell you my idea and be a makes a quick decision said all right, you guys want you got, you know, we screwed this up on us. You guys want to run this over time All-Star Saturday night you bring everyone shows up. Just come in 5 minutes, right? You gotta you gotta you gotta make the call now. Yeah do All-Star Saturday night overtime. Nick's Rockets. Let's go
or do a rep for the All-Star game
for the All-Star game on Sunday, whatever but dude this weekend make it
To a thing there's still time a couple
days. I am definitely 100% afraid of the next as I've said people are like, oh it's a bit. You're just doing that. It's like no, I'm afraid of any tough team that can execute down the stretch against my Celtics team. I just don't but I do think if if we have porzingis for Nick series. That's too much for you guys. And it look isn't this. It's just a and he's got a little extra when he plays the next to but it's just too much sighs. You don't have you really have to
I don't know what you do on that actually, and I think we would hunt Brunson because we could just put out a pretty big team with one of the guards and just go after him on defense better coach.
I don't believe you amass. Yeah, right. I take tips over him any day. I don't trust him down the stretch be taking him this year only. I think his contracts up after this year. It's like kind of the underrated MBA story right now. He doesn't contract next year. Yeah. You think he's on the hot seat. I don't know if he's on the hot seat, but wait if he's done really well. I like could he get hired by another team? No, he loves New York, and we love him. One of the most annoying Twitter things is like someone gets hurt tips. Play them too much. I come on. Relax. What do you like? What do you
Got to do he's playing his starts. Right like like jail Brunson twist his ankle against the Grizzlies. Yeah, they were up 30 points. And then the Grizzlies came back in there up 7, of course Jones going to go back in the game. What do you what do you want? You want Deuce McBride out there in the fourth quarter, like come
on. The only time it gets dicey if it's like a three and four nights and he doesn't I get is it up a little bit, but other than that, like there's so many stoppages and games now. I just feel like the difference between 36 and 40 minutes and a game is not that dramatic. There's 100 timeouts, right?
I had to survive Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas and Derek Fisher and fizzed a like come on giggy their official the coaching High School in l.a. Is that true? Yeah. He went from NBA WNBA to high school. He's coaching Crest Food. It's not even one of the best teams. Wow. So that's what happened to him. All right, ah, really? So we got a ringer MMA right after the weigh-in on Friday. I know after the event we did our preview show on. Oh, that's right. You did the previous error that yes. It's a time right after the event. You guys are up we're on.
And perhaps we'll talk about the event obviously, but maybe even the 300 Main Event because he says he's going to announce it on Saturday. So I have a lot of ugly. All right. Good to see you. Good to see you, too. Thank you.
Alright, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to era Hawaii and Derek Thompson. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve sorority as well. And don't forget you can find clips and videos from this podcast on youtube.com slash Bill Simmons as well as some walk-and-talk shorts as well. And I don't know when I'm going to see you again. It might be Sunday might take next week off. We'll play it by ear. So you will see me soon. Enjoy the weekend.
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